en-US Mon, 19 May 2025 00:42:01 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review6298381114 Mon, 19 May 2025 00:42:01 -0700 /review/show/6298381114 Tal gave 3 stars to Whenever You're Ready (Paperback) by Rachel Runya Katz

Usually, I'm not one to complain that a book has too many plots or themes, but unfortunatley, I think it's the main reason why I didn't love this book as much as I wished to. Overall, the author has come into the story with a lot of heart and purpose. I personally felt at some point that it was getting difficult to keep track and what happened with who, who did what to who and when, what's the exact backstory of every relationships. This book contains quite a lot--grief, friendship, siblings, identity, history--but for me, the flashbacks + history + light scenes + romance were a lot of different things, and sometimes moving between them felt too abrupt.

I will add that I really appreciate the author for writing about the history of less known Jewish communities, and I'll be keeping out for her future books in hopes of finding one that I will absolutley love. ]]> Review7266984124 Sun, 18 May 2025 23:43:50 -0700 /review/show/7266984124 Tal gave 5 stars to Transcendent Kingdom (Paperback) by Yaa Gyasi
bookshelves: adult-contemporary
4.5 stars.

I picked this book up twice. The first time, I couldn't get into it and the jumps in the timeline felt confusing. Then, I picked it back up after about two months and suddenly something clicked so well.

Despite the story not being told in chronological order, the way each chapter was weaved together with different scenes worked for me, and I liked that Yaa Gyasi chose what to tell us and when, so you keep picking up pieces of the different parts of Gifty's life as you go. I would often forget she's so young when her brother was at his worst, and so every time it was brought up on page, it just made my heart ache for her even more.

One of my favorite reads of the year for sure.

I really appreciate the way this book touched faith, the way Gifty moves between religion and science, between being a little girl who believes in God to an adult who might not but sometimes wants to. There are other books I've read that probably deal with not having all the answers, but here it felt different for me and one of the things that I related to the most was her not having all the answers. Maybe it's just the content that I come across, but I feel a lot of time faith is tackled by either absolutely not believing in God, or having a strong sense of it and a somewhat religious life, and this book made me wish we'd see more characters who don't know, who feel different in different moment because that's very much my case.

Another thing that I very much appreciate about the book is the family relationships. It showed addiction and mental health in a way that felt real, though I'm not one to be the judge of that. As someone with an older brother, Nana and Gifty's relationship touched me and made my heart twist, and my heart went out to Gifty.

The mother-daughter relationship also touched me so much. It's so different from my own relationships with my family or relationships I have around me, but at the same time it reminded me of certain aspects that have to do with my family. The way it was brought up several times that we only see certain sides of family members as never them as a whole were moments that reached deep and felt like a true reminder.

One of my favorite reads of the year, for sure. ]]> ReadStatus9415595508 Mon, 12 May 2025 05:28:36 -0700 /review/show/2694534967 Tal started reading The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib
]]> ReadStatus9414847560 Sun, 11 May 2025 22:10:33 -0700 /review/show/7562111822 Tal wants to read My Documents by Kevin Nguyen
]]> Review5804219865 Sun, 11 May 2025 13:38:53 -0700 /review/show/5804219865 Tal gave 3 stars to Hex (Kindle Edition) by Jenni Fagan
"Take the only thing she owns - her voice, her mind. Take it. Grind it into something pestilent. Line her up as dust and imbible. What a way to get high! Absorb her. Destroy what brought you here."

I have such mixed feelings about this book.

On one hand, the point in history that it tackles is so tragic and infuriating and simply horrible. I had a course in college about the "other" in art and it also covered witches, so I went into this book with a bit of background, but I don't think I've ever consumed media before about this matter. And at some points this book really is good and heartbreaking and enraging and horrible when you read about what Geillis Duncan, who was a real person, has suffered.

On the other hand, Iris, a woman from the current day, visiting Geillis felt like such a missed opportunity. I didn't connect at all to the way their dialogue was written in terms of it lacking any descriptions of the conversation itself, or them going on these long rants, the theatrical feeling of it all. I really wished that would have been done better, or that we didn't have Iris in the story at all and instead perhaps we would have learned more about other women around Geillis. I feel like there is so much that could be done with this era and these stories, and I really wish I would have absolutely loved it. ]]> ReadStatus9409360760 Sat, 10 May 2025 12:34:47 -0700 /review/show/7558348145 Tal wants to read The Fantasies of Future Things by Doug Jones
]]> Review5824498426 Fri, 09 May 2025 07:28:08 -0700 /review/show/5824498426 Tal gave 3 stars to The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (Paperback) by Sangu Mandanna
bookshelves: fantasy-tbr
I truly understand why people like this book. It's cozy, it has found family, romance, very heart-warming messages and all. But, to be honest, I was sooo frustrated by it.

The core of it is good, the writing is overall good, it has the tropes and the right words and right moments. However, the pacing was completely off, and maybe because of that, I felt absolutely nothing for this book. The girls were sweet, I guess I can give it that, though.

The romance was ruined for me by the constant time jumps and flying through scenes instead of lingering in them, their feelings for each other felt handed to us instead of it being shown to us how their feelings grow and become stronger as well as why they liked each other. It's as if all the right ingredients were right there, but everything was so undercooked.

Oh, and that thing that the girls did at the end with Lillian? WTAF. ]]> ReadStatus9398560828 Wed, 07 May 2025 12:21:17 -0700 /review/show/7550955639 Tal wants to read A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
]]> ReadStatus9398556725 Wed, 07 May 2025 12:20:01 -0700 /review/show/7550952835 Tal wants to read Frankenstein: The 1818 Text by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
]]> ReadStatus9390941554 Mon, 05 May 2025 13:08:31 -0700 /review/show/7545652183 Tal wants to read The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
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