Rated Letters to Forget: Poems 8/10
<div>Some amazing individual parts, and the story behind this collection is certainly made more poignant by its pairing with Cass Donish's <em>Your Dazzling Death</em>. I didn't always vibe with every poem, and that's fine, but there is an interesting portrait here of a woman trying to hang on.</div>
Rated Life on Mars: Poems 10/10
How do I even begin to tell you how wonderful <i>Life on Mars</i> is? Tracy K. Smith's poetry fills me with peace and such fullness, even when she writes about how inhuman we can be. Her poems are almost meditative — I really enjoyed slowing down and focusing on her words, their rhythm, and the overall picture of the poem before me. Part space opera, part elegy, part wartime commentary, <i>Life on Mars</i> exceedingly deserves the Pulitzer it received, won on Smith's birthday, no less.<br><br>(My full review appears at <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2012/08/life-on-mars-by-tracy-k-smith.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Wants to read Life Is Strange Vol. 1: Dust
Finished reading The Dragonfly Gambit
Finished reading The Oleander Sword
Rated Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 10/10
<div>Would you believe that I've never read this until now? When I was a kid, my mom made the "mistake" of recommending it to me, her weird baby-goth, Christopher Pike-reading, contrary child. You tried, Mom! Sorry!<br><br>But a few years ago, I picked up this movie cover version for free during one of the annual times the local school district gives away books they are pulling out of circulation (aka Magical Free Book Day). I imagine they decided that a 1994 movie adaptation was not enough to pull in 2010s teens. I remember watching this movie at some point, and I also very much liked the 2019 version directed by Greta Gerwig. So when our local library's reading challenge this year had the category "Classic You've Been Avoiding," I knew it was time.<br><br>And it's great! Books find you at the right stage in life. When I was younger, I would have absolutely bristled at the moralizing and deification of homemaking, but as someone over 40, I can now see that it's not so much a "be a good wife and mother" book as it is a "create the close community you would like to see in the world." The Marches and the Laurences are not as old-fashioned as one might think at first glance. Now I sincerely would like to read <em>Little Men and Jo's Boys.</em></div>
Wants to read In the Company of Men
Rated Look! Look! Feathers 6/10
Mike Young’s short stories live in the bizarre corners of our world, just past the surface of what we see in passing, but recognizable all the same. Suburban jocks idolize their washed-up, half-insane coach. Residents of shitty apartments and motel kitchenettes drink, fight and talk about all the great plans they have. Everyone is lonely in their own special way, and everyone likes to think that their voice is unlike anyone else’s. Problem is, several stories in, sometimes those voices bleed together. <br><br>And maybe that’s the point — we’re all so different in all the same ways.<br><br>It’s not that I flat out don’t like his style — no, sometimes fragmented thinking suits the story just fine — but the style sometimes came at the expense of clarity. At times, all those details smooshed into one and I had trouble discerning who said what, and where. Again, this could be because of the time frame in which I read the book. All I’m saying is, I didn’t fall in love.<br><br>But fair play to Mike Young for being different, for carrying that indie-kid literary bag. His characters don’t sit around and yammer about the intellectual merits of their problems, and they don’t whine. Their problems simply are. Here is the situation now, here is how they deal. Occasionally they may recognize that they’ve made some poor choices, but man, there’s still a glimmer of something new around the corner.<br><br>(Full review can be found at <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2010/10/look-look-feathers-by-mike-young.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Finished reading Womb City
Finished reading The Trans Space Octopus Congregation: Stories
Finished reading Welcome to Forever
Wants to read Look Down, This is Where it Must Have Happened
Rated Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive 8/10
There is a lot to like here, and it is very straightforward about the hoops poor people have to jump through to survive. If you've gone through it, reading it may give you some anxiety. I did not love the writing style sometimes, as it often read more "just the facts" than art, but that feels somewhat disloyal to say about a Montana writer. Still, this is an important story to share.
Finished reading Galápagos
Wants to read Love and Fatigue in America
Finished reading City of Last Chances
Finished reading House of Open Wounds
Finished reading Alien Clay
Finished reading Elder Race