Saturday, January 14, 2023

Book Review -- "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy


5 stars to "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy.


When my son was younger, he watched iCarly, and my favorite character was Sam, played by the author, Jennette McCurdy. When I saw this book at the book store, the title stopped me dead in my tracks. I have a complicated, ugly relationship with my mother, so I somewhat guiltily added this book to my to-read list.


Jenette's mother is a mess, and she had no trouble passing this messiness to her daughter. Child actors have a reputation for having a rough time of it, and being pushed to act to fulfill a mother's wish is a recipe for eventual disaster. Add to that a horrific relationship with food and the subsequent eating disorders, which I definitely resonated with, and good lord but I felt for this girl.


Jennette McCurdy is funny and wry and even though the subject matter is weighty and often complicated, I appreciated the strength of her relating her journey.

Saturday, January 7, 2023

Book Review -- "The Book Eaters" by Sunyi Dean

 


4.5 stars


Strange and creepy and so creative. There are people who live by eating books, and people who live by eating minds, and both methods allow the "eater" to absorb all the knowledge of the book or the person. You would think this would be a cool superpower, but there are of course complications. Book eaters can't write, like at all, not even their names, and if a mind eater eats a book eater (instead of a human, which is where the creepy comes in) they can go mad by the sheer amount of knowledge they've just taken in.


There were touches of Ransom Riggs' hollowgasts (those tongues!) and a lot like The Handmaid's Tale (women are a rare commodity, forced into marriages and pregnancies) and it was all in all a great weird read with some excellent food for thought (um..). 


4.5 stars because I was lost a little too long in the beginning of the book but was worth waiting it out.


What are you reading?


xo Lori 


Check out my instagrams, @thesumofsmallthings and @loriandersondesignsjewelry, and my shop at www.LoriAnderson.net


Sunday, January 1, 2023

New Year's Resolution - Book Edition

This new year I've made the resolution to not buy any more books. I have so many books on my Kindle and book holds at the library and stacks of real paper books in my house that it's getting out of hand. I plan to trade with friends and family, too, which will be a fun way of connecting. I did get a 6-month subscription to the Book of the Month Club for Christmas (thankyouthankyou) so that will help my shopping bug, and there's the library, too, which gets underutilized. 

At any rate, this is a doable resolution,  I think. Have you made any New Year's resolutions?






Friday, December 23, 2022

So I Read Some Books This Year....

Every January 1st I make a goal on GoodReads of how many books I want to read. For this year, 2022, I thought I'd be conservative because I knew I was going to be tackling about ten books that were nearly 1,000 pages each and chose a goal of 55 books. Well, I read 55 by the summer, and read a total of 136 books (and I am pretty sure I'll finish at least one more by December 31st). Here's the damage! What did you read this year?


  • A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

  • Such a Beautiful Family by T.R. Ragan
  • Gallant by V.E. Schwab
  • Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
  • The Quarry Girls by Jess Lourey
  • The Damage Done by Warren Fellows
  • Black Paradox by Junji Ito
  • A Feather on the Water by Lindsay Jayne Ashford
  • The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
  • Famous Men Who Never Lived by K. Chess
  • Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North
  • The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
  • The Patient by Jasper DeWitt
  • Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
  • Vengeful by V.E. Schwab
  • Vicious by V.E. Schwab
  • Swan Song by Robert McCammon
  • The It Girl by Ruth Ware
  • Another Omnibus by Yukito Ayatsuji
  • Shiver by Junji Ito
  • If You Tell by Gregg Olsen
  • The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
  • The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
  • The End of the Day by Claire North
  • The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
  • Orange by Ichigo Takano
  • The Break by Katie Sise
  • Well Behaved Wives by Amy Sue Nathan
  • Orange by Ichigo Takano
  • A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
  • Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
  • IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
  • Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
  • Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
  • Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard  Chizmar
  • The Long Walk by Richard Bachman
  • Throttle by Joe Hill
  • The Hike by Susi Holliday
  • The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
  • The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
  • Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
  • Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  • How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
  • The Welsh Fasting Girl by Varley O'Connor
  • Violeta by Isabel Allende
  • Fairy Tale by Stephen King
  • MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
  • The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
  • Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
  • The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Verity by Colleen Hoover
  • Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton
  • The Impudent Ones by Marguerite Duras
  • BZRK by Michael  Grant
  • The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
  • We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
  • The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
  • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • The North China Lover by Marguerite Duras
  • World Record Holders by Guy Delisle
  • The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
  • Young Mungo by Douglas   Stuart
  • Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
  • The Maid by Nita Prose
  • Dear Life by Alice Munro
  • Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth
  • The Lover by Marguerite Duras
  • Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult
  • Hide by Kiersten White
  • Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
  • Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
  • The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
  • The Drifters by James A. Michener
  • In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead
  • If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
  • Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

  • Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold by Umar Turaki
  • The Auctioneer by Joan Samson
  • The Lifestyle by Taylor Hahn
  • The Leavers by Lisa Ko
  • My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura
  • Last Summer Boys by Bill Rivers
  • Beneath a Pale Sky by Philip Fracassi
  • The Marvels by Brian Selznick
  • French Braid by Anne Tyler
  • The Cousins by Karen M. McManus
  • American Seoul by Helena Rho
  • Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek
  • Moms by Yeong-shin Ma
  • Gwendy's Final Task by Stephen King
  • Gwendy's Magic Feather by Richard  Chizmar
  • Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King
  • Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier
  • My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
  • Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
  • No-No Boy by John Okada
  • Under Her Care by Lucinda Berry
  • The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
  • Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards
  • Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
  • Gemina by Amie Kaufman
  • Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
  • Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon
  • Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon
  • An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
  • A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
  • The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon
  • Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan
  • Never by Ken Follett
  • There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura
  • And Now I Spill the Family Secrets by Margaret Kimball
  • Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
  • Surviving Schizophrenia by E. Fuller Torrey
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  • Regretting You by Colleen Hoover
  • The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
  • Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
  • Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu
  • Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon
  • Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
  • The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
  • The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty
  • Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
  • Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey
  • The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • Gwendy's Magic Feather by Richard  Chizmar
  • Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown
  • Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
  • Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King
  • Caraval by Stephanie Garber
  • The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
  • The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman
  • Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon