Chaotic Reading Reviews

In no particular order, my favorite fiction reads of 2019: Follow me on Instagram The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai “But when someone’s gone and you’re the primary keeper of his memory—letting go would be a kind of murder, wouldn’t it? I had so much love for him, even if it was a complicated love, and where is all that love supposed to go? He was gone, so it couldn’t change, it couldn’t turn to indifference. I was stuck with all that love.” Who wants to ugly cry? You will read over and over how this is a beautiful, poignant, heart-wrenching book. It is all true, but it is also bigger then that. Set in 1980's Chicago, focused on a group of Gay men in the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, this novel gives voice to the horrors, the frustration, and the love that was that time. This book makes you think about how badly this community was treated, it makes you realize that they had to pull together and overcome to take care of each other, because the president, the

Do you find that some years you just gravitate more to one topic?  I don't think I have ever read this many biographies in one year before.  Most were (a bit trashy) celebrity autobiographies, of comedians, actors, and TV personalities.  Some where outstanding, some where fine, and others were mediocre at best. Of the 19 I read here is a list of my favorites this year.  You can find my complete year wrap up here . This lists is only in chronological order of how I read the books this year, not which I loved the most. Photo Credit ALX Community Phoebe Robinson - Everything's Trash, But It's Okay  I was not overly familiar with Phoebe before I picked up this book.  I knew she was a comedian, that she had a pod with Jessica Williams from The Daily Show (2 Dope Queens) and that was about it.  This book had me manically laughing - on the train.  There were weird looks all around.  I listened to this on audio because I prefer to listen to people who read their own

Hello December  #Goals So here is the start, going to try again to get this blog up off the ground.  Fair warning, some posts maybe just be copies of my Goodread reviews and vice versa.   Going into December I am at 106 books read.  And hoping with the 8 above to finish out the year!     Before now that largest amount of books I have read in a year was 84.  So we are coming a long way along with that though is a lot of duds.  I am hoping to post some round up blog posts about the year throughout the month. Lets get to reading. Up first will be Mullumbimby  which is by one of Australia's leading Indigenous voices  Melissa Lucashenko .  And Shrill by Lindy West.  Super excited to dive in and tell you all about them. Happy Reading! 

I am a notorious book buyer. I try not to laugh when customers tell me they cannot buy more books, they have three(!) at home they have not read. I have had to split my home up into the room with books I have read, and books I have not. Most of the time they are classics I have always been meaning to read, mixed with non-fiction books on topics I want to learn more about, and the ones along the way that sound interesting, so I buy them and then get distracted. Occasionally I buy books that people I trust recommend to me. Last week I picked up a book that has been in my to read room, I remember carting this book around my last two moves at least. I cannot remember where it came from, but reading the back, this is completely nothing I would have picked up on my own, luckily for me, I picked it up as I headed out the door to work, so now I am stranded at work with only this book. And I say lucky because Galore by Micheal Crummey is a magical, fable-like story full of interesting entangl

David Leviathan's teen book Another Day comes out August 25th. I was "lucky" enough to get an advanced copy. Let me get the legalize outta the way- I cannot quote from an ARC, the copy I read might not be the finished product. Okay lets get to this. To prepare I read the first in this series,  Every Day . This book is a quick read, and has the premise that I have never encountered before: The main character "A" awakes in a new body every day. A can access the memories of the person who's body A is in, but does not have a body of their own. I think this book brings up important social issues of the day as A does not identify with being either woman or man. The body A wakes in is the person A uses (wow it is really hard to not write in genders). I applaud Leviathan for this work. It was not a book that I would overly recommend, the characters where a bit flat, and the main character falls in love with a girl (Rhiannon) who is a bit annoying (no personal

Armada is the next highly anticipated blockbuster from Ernest Cline. This book is everything a geek needs in a novel. With nods to everything from Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Name of the Wind, World of Warcraft, Firefly, Battlestar Gallactica, Power Rangers, Aliens and so many more that I must stop now, before your eyes glaze over. Ernest Cline is geek cultures dream author. To a point this really heightens the reading, and the fun, but at some point you start to think - enough. It gets too much which is the difference in the writing between Ready Player One and this new book.   Even with the over play, every  cultural mention engages you as the reader as you remember other stories in an intertwined culture. As his friends fighting over Wonder Woman's use of Sting (the sword, not the singer), Zachary Ulysses Lightman fights with himself for control of his emotions, and with reality when things start getting dodgy. Invading aliens? A government cover up that has lasted almost