just watched the show, didn't realize it was a book. i stopped waching immediately after they killed the love interest. i almost lost it when they showed a black man as a lifeguard IN THE 1950s. i was like, oh this is an alternate reality... we're in the multiverse obviously lol
Thanks for the book review. 🤔 Mr. Percival Everett is one of my favorite writers! I read Erasure when it was published 20 years ago. Very well written satirical novel about the racial stereotypes in the literary industry. Percival Everett is a brilliant writer and I look forward to reading all of his books. I suggest you read Erasure and see the movie, American Fiction. I am planning to read all of Percival Everett's book. I appreciate his satirical sense of humor and his social commentaries.
Just completed "James" by P. Everett. Takes Jim from Huck Finn and turns that character treatment on its head. Fantastic!. Started Trees and I have gone HUH? same author?, Very talented writer. I'll follow up after reading.
I was obsessed with American psycho. As messed up as it was I feel like it should be required reading for psychology students. The real world is very much very scary and I could not figure out if Patrick was hallucinating everything or if it really happened. I feel like the topics in that book are more relevant today than ever, but I did have a bit of a trauma response while reading it, I don’t think I breathed through an entire chapter once I started figuring out what was going to happen 😖
I’m like 5 pages in and reconsidering reading it. So far Elizabeth reminds me of the woman from Atlas Shrugged - a beautiful no-nonsense genius lady. I assume that’s just how it’s gonna be? Is she gonna have any flaws apart from being too smart for the peasants to like?
Currently reading Lapvona and I'm shocked by how much I hate this book. It checks off many boxes on my reading list but this one is brutal to get through. I'm 200 pages in and questioning how I even got this far.... I read My Year and enjoyed it for the most part--chuckling at its clever imagery. I like the world of Lapvona and its setting but I'm bored by the "humor" and painful banter (or lack there of because there's hardly any dialogue) between the questionable characters. Have you read Big Swiss by Jen Beagin? That's on my summer reading list. Apparently HBO is making it into a series.
Ok. A Finnish friend liked it. She is a mother of 2 adult unmarried working young women. Argh. I am 80. My mom was a WW2 war widow. All women in my family worked in professions: bookkeeping and medicine. This book seems to cheerfully fantasize the victimization of author's parental generation. WW2 did create a different America. This appears to be a cute unreal view for contemporary females. Arrgh. I have to buy it because of my Finn friend and a book group. Arrgh.
You perfectly summed up my feelings about this book. It felt like someone wrote their own fantasy of being a woman based on a very early 2000s concept of what being an "ideal woman" is: modest-not putting too much effort into her appearance, but wildly attractive, more intelligent than everyone else, etc. Also for a book that had an extremely feminist focus I don't think it said anything interesting or nuanced about feminism. All of the sexism she deals with is generally extremely overt and is conquered fairly easily. I'd be much more interested if it explored her internalized sexism, the difficulty of dealing with people who want to fit her into a specific role, which is almost inevitable in the 1960s. Instead it felt like the character "won" by being unbelievably smart and somehow fitting the impossible and conflicting standards society places on women.
Just found your channel, and wow! Finally a booktuber that doesn’t only read booktook popular books or just reads them for the hype. You analyze them in such a great yet chill vibe. If I had the courage to open a yt channel I would sooo want to have a channel like yours!
Best wishes with what you choose to read. I'm currently reading the Count of Monte Cristo. It is excellent but I might be some time. Good luck. I hope you get some great stories.
What an awesome list of books, sounds like a good winter. I'm getting overloaded with the amount of small book channels on youtube with such great quality. This was super enjoyable, thanks for doing it
I had the same exact feeling with Blood Meridian. Not necessarily an all time favourite book. 4/5 stars for me. Confusing at times because of the writing style. But such memorable characters, I think about the ending scenes and the Judge at least once a week. Even though I read it months ago now.
I thought Killers of the Flower Moon kind of fizzled in the end, like he didn’t know how to wrap it up….I agree with you about Wharton- sort of meh; I think Willa Cather is much better, strongly recommend. My favorite Maugham is a lesser known one called The Narrow Corner. Sutree is a great early Cormac which is actually funny. I’m an old Gen X’er who read that Kundera in high school and thought it was sublime and brilliant. Read it again recently and omg it has not aged well. Cringe sex scenes as you mentioned. Pseudo intellectual-yep. It might really be more like a racy YA for teenage boys who like Nietzsche😂 Really enjoy your videos, cheers from Madison, Wisconsin.
I think its fine to have fiction books but this book is very much grounded in reality. A 4 year old reading depressing Russian literature, a world where EVERY marriage is bad and in shambles, a book where the main character is always correct and everyone who works above her is wrong. I dont buy it.
I really enjoyed it. I’ve heard a lot of people say they think Elizabeth is on the spectrum, which would explain the taking things literally and very specific chemical names for things. I personally relate to her character in a lot of ways, and I’m a science nerd, so that’s probably why!
Elizabeth Zott was not vain. She did dress plainly, as you stated. I pictured her to look like (my impression of) Maris Crane, so Elizabeth Zott did not wear stilettos. Also, her parents were charlatans, religious phonies, not serious religious folk. They milked innocents for their money. The father was serving time in jail for these crimes. I recommend to you the book, "Elmer Gantry." Elizabeth, a scientist, studied the physics of rowing, to connect with her partner who loved the sport. A lot of this book doesn't make sense to me, but it is fiction.
When she was saying that Zott wore stilettos and that she was vain ... I was like "WHERE and WHO???" nowhere is that to be found in this book lol so out of pocket / just preconceived ideas. did she think she was the smartest person in the room..? probably because usually it was true lol I also agree where you talk about her connecting to her partner in his love of rowing. The Reviewer also says Elizabeth cooking show was called Lessons in Chemistry like the book title, again she isn't correct here either. Same with what she said about Elizabeth's parents, they were religious crooks in it for the money and not good people, the father like you said was later thrown in jail (for murdering 3 people). Like listening to this WHOLE review made me wonder if she even read the book or not. It just feels like she very poorly skimmed the chapters, missed all the nuance within the story (Elizabeth struggling in her whole academic career as a scientist and as a woman back then) and decided to give a hate review of this book. TBH I saw another reviewer who uploaded a similar video earlier than this one that said the same thing (almost all the same stupid points) but at least it was worded slightly better. It kind of made me wonder if thats where she got her idea for a review... hmmmm. for now Ill give the benefit of the doubt.
I'm currenlty reading it, I think it's cringe. I wanted to know where the book goes from there, to know if the first 100 pages are setting up to something worth tolerating the book. this was very helpful. thanks
I love all of Moshfegh, even Lapvona! And I love this video! Thoroughly enjoyed your takes on her books, especially your struggles with Lapvona. I too hope your grandmother doesn't pick it up looking for a light read😅!
Thank you! I also absolutely hated it! It has absolute no depth in the various themes (or hashtags) it tries to kind of click bait you in. It tries poorly to talk about every theme out there in a very irresponsible way. Zott is blunt and unreal as a character with no development ark at all, she starts and ends at the same place and every single male character is depicted as bad or stupid or not interesting. Let me sum it up for yall: Beautiful_gorgeous_sexy_super_intelligent_woman_mother_self_taught_rowing yay, men boooo. Dog knows a thousand words, churches evil. That´s it. Cheers from Brazil <3
Sounds like you just wanted to dislike it. All the things you disliked didn’t see weird in a book. What I find interesting is your confuse talking about religion and why it’s unimportant with attacking religion by not allowing their religion to some extent. All of the negatives seemed personal. It’s odd. Some men like myself might say you just sound jealous of the main character and is why you demand all main female roles to be negative stereotypes that men find disgusting.
I totally agree. This book was so smug, and so merciless in its hammering on feminism and relentless abuse of both the protagonist and we readers. It was the most unkind and unrealistic diatribe I have ever read. The story was, as the reviewer says, just totally stupid silly unrealistic. And deeply depressing. Skip it, by all means.
read "The woman's story" from Annie Ernaux! Loved it it's so amazing i bought it for my mom right away! I read it in a caffe and cried shamelessly lmao. Simple passion is also good she didn't die yet lmao
I didn’t like I have some questions for you either. I felt like she tried to inject as many political points in as possible. It felt false and shallow. I was so disappointed
Great review. After having read all of Bret’s work, including White, I was so pumped for this book and yeah I totally agree… was not let down. This book has so many levels. Maybe it’s fiction, maybe it’s metaphor or maybe it’s like most of BEEs work therapy. Will subscribe just to see what you think of his other books especially Lunar Park.
I also read the wolff book purely for its incredible cover…and did not get it at all. I kept wondering how this got past any semblance of an editing team. A headscratcher for me for sure! Haha I vaguely recall tom cruise in the firm film adaptation - good to know the book holds up!
Thank you for this review, i gave up on fiction books a while ago but thought i would give it a try but im not for fake feminisim or wokeness. I thought it was about a real woman who did real things so im sad to know its not.
Hi Sophia. I’m so happy I found your channel! We have very similar reading tastes and I’m super excited to explore all your videos. Cassandra at the Wedding is one of my favorite books and I’ve never heard anyone talk about it before. Looking forward to following you!
I didn't love this book but i also didn't hate it. I'd comprise and say i liked it. And I came here to see if the reason i felt it lurking are the reason you hated it. One thing was clear, you didn't read the book, you either skimmed it, got snippets from other people or the internet then proceeded to make a review. This is very disappointing. I mean, you didn't even know the name of her cooking show yet you claimed you made notes because of how much the book annoyed you. Tsk tsk tsk if you're going to make a review of something commit all the way and actually READ the book and WRITE notes so that people who haven't read the book don't just blindly believe you when they come to videos like this for a review
Definitely choosing The Shards as my next read. It made sense to begin with American Psycho, but something about the Shards just drew me in. Gonna get it from the library.
