Finished reading 地縛少年 花子くん 2
Edited 45d ago
book
Rated People We Meet on Vacation 8/10
An enjoyable romance easy-to-read book. I picked this up as part of a local book club's June read and once I had it and reading over the summary I thought: this sounds very familiar... I mean, romance books often have very common plots, but that wasn't the case here. Turns out only a month or 2 earlier I'd watched the film adaptation! It even had the same title and somehow I'd not connected the 2 until I was reading that summary. Usually if I know a movie is a book adaptation I try to read the book first, but in this case I didn't know.<br/><br/>I really enjoyed the book and appreciated how much the film was fairly faithful to it. Some things got moved around and some locations were, let's say, more glamorous with that Netflix cash. All enjoyable either way. The core of it was the relationship and the places were just the backdrop against which everything happened. I will say that with the book and the internal thoughts of Poppy I found her more irritating than I did in the movie, but not overly so. I did come away thinking, before the ending, more negatively of the character from the book than I had from the movie.<br/><br/>I also appreciated the back and forth time changes leading up to what caused all the problems that are slowly revealed as past and present come to a head. It's good the movie stuck to that too.<br/><br/>All in all, an easy romance book that even if you're not that into the genre doesn't go into too many tropes nor gets too soapy or, not an issue with me but, too lurid as some people object to that.
Reviewed The Heiress: A Novel
I read this for a local book club. I like the occasional foray into whodunits and murders. This one really was full of murders everywhere. The interspersed confessional kept things going in between what to me was less interesting bits of the present with the repetitively angry adoptive son and his out-of-his-league wife.<br/><br/>Really, it turned out everyone was terrible here, even the golden boy prodigal adoptive son. The pile up of twists in the back quarter of the book went maybe 1 or 2 too many. On the other hand, I appreciated that the adoptive son wasn't so dumb. Although in thinking about it just now it is kind of a betrayal to his portrayal throughout the entire book up until that moment.<br/><br/>The final-final twist was really what I was expecting, just not how exactly we got there with her. That part made me roll my eyes at the implausibility. What can you do, it's fiction. And entertaining enough at that. Recommended if you want a light and fast read of soapy murder full of rich sociopaths.
Finished reading 地縛少年 花子くん 0 [Jibaku Shōnen Hanako-kun 0]
Edited 45d ago
Finished reading Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, Vol. 1
Edited 45d ago
Finished reading 地縛少年 花子くん 3
Edited 45d ago
Wants to read Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam
Edited 31d ago
Wants to read الحب والصمت
Edited 31d ago
Wants to read Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption
Edited 31d ago
Wants to read Elizabeth Finch
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Wants to read Where Memories Go
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Rated The Annual Migration of Clouds 10/10
Very good but I certainly hope there's a sequel. Interesting slowpocalypse and main character -- feels mostly YA.
Rated Fruits Basket 10/10
Edited 45d ago
Finished reading Otherside Picnic, Vol. 1
Edited 45d ago
Wants to read News from Nowhere and Other Writings
Finished reading Otherside Picnic, Vol. 2
Edited 45d ago