Ugh, this week ended with a broken phone and a trip to my least favorite place on earth, the genius bar. Oh how bad could the genius bar have been? Well the guy asked me if I had grandchildren, that’s how bad. This was after I told him my daughter was 11, so mostly that was him just being clueless I guess, BUT STILL. Let’s never speak of this again.
I’m glad I read What You Don’t Know About Charlie Outlaw. It was kind of an off the radar, quirky book. The two storylines were both highly readable, though I cared more about Josie’s story than Charlie’s. It loses points for me because of the “oh a surprise pregnancy, how did that happen, no idea but I am definitely not considering any options because shmushmortion doesn’t exist in literature” angle, which I always hate. Didn’t ruin it though, this was a good book and would be a fun summer read.
Now we take those shmushmortion points that I took from Charlie Outlaw and we give them to Asymmetry. This one was all over the place for me, but it does handle abortion in a very matter of fact way, and I do appreciate that. The first section of this book is about a 20something woman having a relationship with an esteemed author in his 70s, and we can beat around the bush and speculate about whether he’s purely fictitious or an amalgam or we can just cut to the chase and acknowledge that it’s Philip Roth. I personally am not into reading about Philip Roth being super condescending and pretentious and then asking if she wants to “fucky fuck,” but if that’s your thing, cool. The second section was much less loaded for me and thus more enjoyable; the downside was you’re meant to wonder how the two sections connect, and I guessed early on but was hoping I was wrong. Unfortunately I was right, and I feel it was the least interesting way they could have been connected. The last section was just kind of irritating. I was very on the fence with this one but I think she’s a promising writer.
Tangerine was that very rare thing for me: a thriller that didn’t disappoint. This was very cinematic and cool. The plot isn’t anything all that original; it borrows very heavily from The Talented Mr Ripley. Like, very heavily. But you know, when you bring it down to the basics, there aren’t that many different plots. This was a well written page turner with great setting and characters. Bonus for me that the main characters were named Lucy and Alice. (52 million bonus points.)
I’m not sure what brought me to This Could Hurt, because it’s a workplace novel and I didn’t love the other book I read by this author. But I’m so glad that I did pick it up because I’m more than halfway through and loving it. This has great character development and the plot takes unexpected but not overly dramatic turns. I’m dying to get back to it and I have a 24 lb cat on my lap, so I’m signing off!
