The Maid: A Novel by Nita Prose 🔖🔖🔖

Cute story with a cozy mystery feel. Quick and easy read. I enjoyed the red herrings and the diverse characters. There were a few glaring inconsistencies in Molly's thought process, yet not bad enough to turn me away from the story. I enjoyed it, not sure I'll recommend it, no need to own it.

Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer 🔖🔖🔖🔖

I really liked this one. It kept my interest enough that I finished it quickly. Relatable due to going through a pandemic. She wrote like a teen would write and you could see clear character development.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls 🔖🔖

I didn't find this as interesting as others have. Hard for me to get invested, the only reason I pushed through was the high approvals of others who read it. Don't need it, wouldn't recommend.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman ✖️

Couldn't catch my interest by page 52. Aint nobody got time for that.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult 🔖🔖🔖

I enjoyed this one and the twist at the end surprised me. I couldn't rate it more than 3 as I'd not necessarily recommend it. There were some pretty dry parts and the end felt rushed. Jodi's writing style often feels surface, rudimentary, like she *can* go deeper but just doesn't.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I had to sit on this for a day before rating it. Because I hated it. Yet ... it kept me awake at night, I thought about it almost non-stop when I wasn't reading it, I was wholly invested in the main character, I felt things like anger and rage unlike most books make me feel. I was fascinated by Margaret Atwood's ability to write such a story in such a way as to match what I understand of human psychology, group think, needs to survive, and what exactly makes us act outside our value system. The "set up" was well done. Disturbing and important.

The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull ✖️

Stopped by chapter 4. I felt it was poorly written, the kids too easily swayed, and significant racial insensitivity. Giving white kids candy to change their race so they won't get caught? A girl realizing she changed to Chinese by feeling her eyes?

The Road by Cormac McCarthy 🔖🔖🔖🔖

Some major struggles with this one, all about grammar and punctuation. There were none. Almost no commas, no quote marks, and so many sentence fragments. Some parts were hard to follow because of this.

Yet ... it was a compelling story, hard to put down. I was invested. The awful sentence structure developed a flow, almost poetic. It wasn't a waste of time and I would actually recommend.

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty 🔖🔖

The mystery and secrets kept me interested. How things were going to turn out once we knew kept me interested. Yet ... it did not end in a way that makes me recommend this book. And what was the meaning of the Tess storyline? There was no way to get Connor into the book without that? I don't know ... didn't fit for me. And getting away with murder? Not my cup of tea. Yes, I know, it wasn't really, but even the tidying up with all the lame "what ifs" was a put off for me.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett 🔖

So slow. I wanted to like it as it's a classic. Yet I know the story and don't like it. Sara is too perfect as a child and what saves her in the end is money. I don't like the message.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens 🔖🔖

This one took me several months to read, nearly 1000 pages, and it was not necessarily interesting to me. Long, boring, too many characters, too much misogyny and patriarchy and Victorianism - I know, it's the time it was lived. One narrator was boring, the other was self absorbed. Would not recommend. I did not miss the symbolism of the long, arduous, tedious writing amounting to almost nothing which was commentary on the legal system. I just did not appreciate the book overall.