Category: book review
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Read This: Somewhere in Between by Katie Li
Somewhere In Between by Katie LiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars Katie Li’s Somewhere in Between is a Murakamiesque roller coaster ride through love, friendship, and time itself. (Not sure this “roller coaster” metaphor is working, but stick with me.) Magnolia, collector of lost things, and Rom, a shy gamer guy, form an unlikely connection…
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Book review: Shari Goldhagen’s In Some Other World, Maybe
In Some Other World, Maybe by Shari Goldhagen My rating: 5 of 5 stars At first I wasn’t sure I should give In Some Other World, Maybe five whole stars. It had pulled me in so completely that when it was over, I wasn’t sure if the tingling feeling it left me with was the…
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Shirley is Fascinating and Engrossing
Shirley by Susan Scarf Merrell My rating: 4 of 5 stars When I first started Shirley, I thought this book is going to be amazing. Much of it was–especially if you’ve read a handful of Shirley Jackson’s novels and are familiar with her short stories. Shirley reads like a Jackson novel in both style and…
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Portland: A Food Biography Will Make You Fall in Love with Portland
Portland: A Food Biography by Heather Arndt Anderson My rating: 5 of 5 stars Tourists and Portlandia fans may have certain ideas about Portland’s food scene. Visions of food carts, hippie vegan restaurants, grilled cheese buses, blue cheese ice cream shops, and mile-long brunch lines dance in their heads. Yes, those are all a part…
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Book review: Office Girl
Office Girl by Joe Meno My rating: 4 of 5 stars At first I thought I was reading about millennial hipsters, riding their bikes around snowy Chicago, defacing public property with paint pens. (I like this book’s alternate title: “Young People on Bicycles Doing Troubling Things.” It suits the story much better, as only a…
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Book review: The Woman Upstairs
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud My rating: 3 of 5 stars I read the now-famous interview with Claire Messud before I ever picked up The Woman Upstairs. The interviewer asks Messud about her character Nora: “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you?” Messud responds: “For heaven’s sake, what kind of question…
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Book review: Eleanor & Park
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell My rating: 5 of 5 stars The best book I’ve read all summer! Okay, I know this isn’t saying much. I think I’ve read only twelve books so far. But still. I loved it. I cried at least five times, six if you include this morning when I retold…
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Book Review: Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed My rating: 4 of 5 stars I grew up in the foothills of the Sierras and now live in Portland, where Cheryl Strayed ends her 1100-mile trek along the Pacific Crest Trail. My familiarity with the landscape added to my experience as…
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Book Review: Jonathan Dee’s A Thousand Pardons
A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee My rating: 3 of 5 stars Two years ago I heard Jonathan Dee read the beginning of this novel, and I was captivated. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book. Finally that day arrived. The beginning (and by beginning I mean the first seven pages) was…
Rebecca Kelley 