Does listening to audiobooks count as reading? Here it does. Let’s discuss your favorite reads — or listens.
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Lisa Lee writes about the Korean immigrant experience with genuine precision — the model minority myth, mobility as poison, cultural inheritance — but the present-day narrative is relentlessly toxic and the single POV leaves little room for connection.
This book may be a pioneer, but I don’t think it’s essential gay reading – not unless you’re interested in a very specific, very dated form of self-loathing filtered through ornate language.
The rotating POVs – Núria, Bong, Collin, Lily, Omar and, of course, Cat – should’ve added texture, but instead it reads like a roll call of “these are the people in your neighborhood,” each with a conveniently tidy arc and a few prepackaged quirks.
High-concept fiction always walks a fine line between bold and baffling, but “The Bees” topples into the latter. If you like your dystopias with a side of entomological fever dream, by all means. Otherwise, buzz past it.
Justin Torres’ “Blackouts” is a stylistic exercise that feels more concerned with its own cleverness than with engaging its readers. The novel's experimental structure, essentially a mixed media piece of art that blends past and present, is undeniably ambitious, but it frequently veers into pretentiousness masked as creativity.
Expectation: A unique journey into the mind of a Midwest housewife and baker.
Reality: A 1,000+ page run on sentence with no plot, or seemingly, purpose outside of threading random topics together.
Between the bloat, uneven pacing and self-absorption you’ll quickly find yourself tired of the lecture and wondering how a book that started promisingly can derail so quickly.
Expectation: A folksy tale of second chances.
Reality: A soap opera of confusing plots, overly sexualized characters and an insane amount of fart jokes.
There are multiple things I took umbrage with in this unfocused, pretentious, and boring historical memoir (is that a thing?) that I gave up at 34 percent read.
While I’m glad to have read a small portion of this very American collection, I wouldn’t recommend most readers start with this unabridged version of “Leaves” unless you’re prepared to seek out the must-read poems from the often confusing and repetitive filler.
The hype was lost on me, here’s six popular books I hated, plus five I couldn’t even finish.
I don’t shy away from epic reads, but in reviewing my 10 longest reads, only about half ended up being the time spent reading or listening. Is this your experience too?
