There is a reason why I can’t stand sci-fi novels and “Parable of the Sower” ended up being the perfect example to once again prove that point. What sounded like an interesting premise, a novel that was published in 1993, written about the future between the years of 2024 and 2027, ended up being a…
Tag: american authors
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store – James McBride
This book just wasn’t my cup of tea… To sum it up, below are the main reasons why I didn’t enjoy it. If these points sound like deal breakers to you and aspects due to which you can’t imagine having an enjoyable reading experience, you should probably skip this one: In my opinion, this book…
Mars Room – Rachel Kushner
This book was a struggle to get through from the beginning until the very end… It took me almost an entire month to finish reading it because I simply was never motivated to pick it up. To me, it had the worst of all worlds combined. I wasn’t interested or involved in the plot, I…
My Year of Rest and Relaxation – Ottessa Moshfegh
The harmlessly sounding title of the novel actually ended up being a story that isn’t for the faint of heart. As a disclaimer straight away, I’d only suggest this book to readers who feel to be in a stable state of mind. Reading up on trigger warnings would be a good idea as well since…
The Woman in Me – Britney Spears
The reason why I read celebrity memoirs is because every once in a while I stumble across some really good ones. I generally enjoy reading stories about people learning life lessons and if these are actually based on real life experiences, I manage to take away even more from them. I’ve had quite a lucky streak…
Talk to Strangers – Matt Dahlia
The reason why this book ended up in my home library was because I have been following the “Yes Theory“ YouTube channel for years. When I first heard that one of the original co-founders would be working on a project to tell their unique story, I instantly knew that I’d like to support them by…
The Yellow Wall-Paper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
I only came across this book because it was picked for the “difficult women book club” in Barcelona and I didn’t expect much going into it. Knowing that I was in for three short stories that were written in 1892, 1893 and 1911, I wouldn’t have guessed that I would actually enjoy them! Each of…
I Feel Bad About My Neck – Nora Ephron
Having picked this book to read more about the topic of aging, how women deal with it and how they experience it, I can’t say that I ended up being a fan of it… It started with an intro by Dolly Alderton that went on and on without adding any value and it went over…
The Dutch House – Ann Patchett
This book ended up being disappointing in the sense that it simply didn’t manage to live up to the hype around it for me. I’ve been seeing its cover pop up everywhere around its publication date in 2019 and 2020, whereas I finally only got to it about 3 years later myself. Having read it…
Quiet – Susan Cain
I first picked this book up in its audio version but after just a couple of minutes of listening to it, I knew that I needed to get its physical copy. I didn’t want to miss any valuable information since it sounded like there was so much to take away from it. My first impression…
The Shallows – Nicholas Carr
Even though “The Shallows” was initially published in 2010, I found it to still be relevant while reading it in 2023. Not much has changed in the updated edition from 2020 except for a new introduction and an afterword, surely a lot of insights are missing linked to the usage of smartphones, apps, etc. but…
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin
Here comes the review I have been dreading writing ever since I finished reading the book over 3 months ago. I don’t think that I would have read “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” if it wasn’t for the “20- and 30-Somethings Book Club” in Paris that chose it as their book of the month. My…
The Culture Map – Erin Meyer
First things first, I thought that this book is an absolute must-read for people working together with colleagues from a country and a culture different from one’s own! While it’s strongly business focused, I also think that you can take along some valuable insights for personal relations as well. “The Culture Map” had the perfect…
From Scratch – Tembi Locke
Having received “From Scratch” as a suggestion from a friend who watched and loved the Netflix series, I decided to go ahead with reading the book first. This was the best choice I could have made since I really enjoyed the book and wish I could unsee the series. It was made in a completely…
Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words – Jay Rubin
This book is the ultimate bible for the biggest Haruki Murakami fans! Written by one of Murakami’s translators, Jay Rubin, it gave a structured overview onto the years from where Haruki Murakami started and where he got to with time. It went as far as even recapping the content of every book written by Murakami…
Open Heart – Elie Wiesel
This was the first book I was able to read through ever since the start of the full scale war in Ukraine, on the 24th of February 2022. I was looking for something humane, something warm and touching, something that would be inspiring and Elie’s story about life after having survived Holocaust hit the right…
To Paradise – Hanya Yanagihara
For the fans of the author’s “A Little Life” (I sure was one of them 🙋🏻♀️) the waiting finally had an end on the 11th of January 2022, when a new long awaited book of hers was released – “To Paradise”. I instantly started reading it once I picked up a copy at my local…
My Body – Emily Ratajkowski
This book has taken me by surprise. I somehow ended up pre-ordering it without planning to, simply because I was curious about Emily’s writing after having read her article “Buying Myself Back” (Ratajkowski, 2020) on The Cut website. And luckily, I wasn’t disappointed! 239 pages long, comprised of 12 essays, this was quite a short…
Das Licht – T. C. Boyle
Es scheint so, als ob mir dieses Buch über den Weg gelaufen ist, um mir eine Lektion zu erteilen… Dass ich endlich aufhören sollte, in Airbnbs hinterlassene Bücher zu lesen, mit der Hoffnung dadurch über einen verborgenen 5/5 ★ Schatz zu stolpern. Es ist das zweite Buch, das ich von T. C. Boyle gelesen habe…
The One Thing Worth Doing – John Pope
Having come across John Pope’s novel thanks to the Paris Anglophone Book Club, it was an extremely interesting insight into the finished product of a self-published book. Even though there were little bits and pieces of the narrative that were a bit less appealing to me, in general it was a pleasant read. There was…
Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey
Reading Matthew McConaughey’s memoir is comparable with the experience of sitting down with a good friend and simply having a chat about life. Having a laugh with each other, shedding some tears and sharing some little life lessons. It’s especially ideal as an end of start of the year read, as it manages to round…
The Queen’s Gambit – Walter Tevis
Having decided to read this book before watching the Netflix series, I was more than positively surprised by it! I would even say that it ended up being one of the favourite discoveries of the year for me. My biggest hesitation (as I can imagine it being for a lot of other readers), was the…
Know My Name – Chanel Miller
Going into this book I wasn’t expecting too much besides that the personal story that the author would tell to be really impactful. A story that got a lot of media attention in the US about how a young girl got assaulted by a Stanford student on campus grounds. What I wasn’t prepared for, was…
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone – Lori Gottlieb
This book was everything I was hoping for and so much more! Just as its subtitle says – “A therapist, her therapist, and our lives revealed”, this book will give you an insight into the world of therapy while most importantly diving into the topic of therapists having their own therapists too. It’s extremely satisfying…
Future Crimes – Marc Goodman
Did you know that the technology to simply control gadgets (like your Google Glass) with your thoughts already exists? Did you hear about the 2013 story of electronic teakettles and irons manufactured in China that spread a virus to all your electronic devices through WiFi? 😀 Or that we’ll be able to literally “bring back…
Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed – Meghan Daum
This book was an incredibly impactful one for me and that’s surely because its topic is of immense interest at this certain time in my life. I’ve never liked kids and have never felt any longing to give birth to some of my own ones. There was a moment in my life when I felt…
The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
Diving into my first James Baldwin book, I was simply blown away by how elegant and impactful his writing was. I was glad to have an introduction to his works with “The Fire Next Time” since it’s such a personal account, allowing you to get to know the author better. The way he tackles the…
Small Fry – Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Picking up this memoir that I bought almost a year ago during an event with the author at the Shakespeare & Co shop in Paris, I’ve got to say that I was a bit disappointed… I have picked up the book on 8 different days to get through it, which was proof that it simply…
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Going into a novel identified within the sci-fi genre written in the 1970s, I didn’t have any expectations since it’s not my typical kind of read. The last sci-fi I had to struggle my way through was Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and I still feel traumatised by it to this…
Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
Celeste Ng’s novel “Little Fires Everywhere” was the book I rated the highest during the month of June 2020, so that’s why I was curious to tackle her debut novel. With “Everything I Never Told You”, I wasn’t disappointed either and settled on a 4/5 ★ rating, just like for the other book. The first…
Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
4 reasons why “Where the Crawdads Sing” isn’t as amazing as the huge hype around it is suggesting. Above the roar of the pounding waves, Kya called to the birds, The ocean sang bass, the gulls sang soprano. Shrieking and crying, they circled over the marsh and above the sand […]. p. 31 At late…
The Honeymoon Effect – Bruce Lipton
This book is a prime example of the category of books “I would never have bought myself”. It has presented itself as a lesson of the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, throwing in an additional one on “Don’t judge a book by its title”. It looks cheesy, it sounds cheesy, which it…
Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng
Diving into my first Celeste Ng book, I luckily wasn’t disappointed! I devoured up “Little Fires Everywhere” in just about a day and a half and I now completely understand why Reese Witherspoon jumped on the opportunity of getting the rights to film a series based on this book. It’s all you could wish for…
Trick Mirror – Jia Tolentino
My first reaction upon finishing the book was – what the hell did I just read??!! The 9 chapters that make up the book felt so much all over the place that it felt like I’ve read 9 short different books. The topics ranged from the author’s personal stories about her disinterest towards marriage, her…
Three Women – Lisa Taddeo
After reading “Normal People“, I decided to move on to the next hyped book I constantly kept hearing about – “Three Women”. Unfortunately, in this case, it didn’t turn out that well… The lesson I have learned here is to mind the upvoted ratings about the book on goodreads. Even though this book doesn’t have…
Unorthodox – Deborah Feldman
Having been too impatient and having watched the Netflix series of “Unorthodox” first, I was definitely in for a positive surprise with this book. After overcoming the annoying fact that I wouldn’t be able to get a copy with a different cover than the one with the actress Shira Haas on it, I finally gave…
Educated – Tara Westover
The past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, & thus we don’t have to complete emotions about the present, only about the past. Virginia Woolf That’s the quote the book starts with and it’s definitely my favourite one out of the entire reading experience. I came across…
How To Do Nothing – Jenny Odell
Ever since reading “Talking to Strangers“ by Malcolm Gladwell, I have learned to not expect anything from a book by its title. This has proven to be helpful in the case of “How To Do Nothing” since the content of the book was not based on its literal meaning. It’s catchy, it sells, so I…
Vox – Christina Dalcher
This novel can unfortunately be shoved off to an imaginary list of disappointing bestsellers which apparently appeal to the masses. If you don’t want to fall into that trap, I’d suggest you to skip this book and rather read Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale”, if you’re looking for a dystopian feminist story. I accidentally bought the…
American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins
This book was selected for a book club I’ll be attending and I now completely understand all the polarising opinions about it. Even to simply support the critical voices, I would’ve liked to give it 1/5 stars, but it did have 2 positive points to it, so I decided to settle on the total of…
What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About – Michele Filgate
This is the perfect example of a book to prove why I love reading so much over watching series or movies. Just like one of the authors mentions, As a child I dipped into books, and everything around me, including my body, faded away. It was a very conscious act. I am very lucky that…
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
This book probably wasn’t as bad as some other 1/5 star rated ones that I have read, I still found zero enjoyment in it, so I couldn’t rate it any higher (another reasoning for the grade was that it surely didn’t measure up to Olga Tokarczuk’s “Flights”, which I read a couple of weeks ago,…
Talking as Fast as I Can – Lauren Graham
If you have picked this book up because you are or used to be a fan of the Gilmore Girls, I’ve got 2 suggestions for you: Jokes aside, this book is simply a joke… One of the biggest reasons why I picked it up, was because I saw that it won Goodreads’ 2017 Comedy Book…
Stoner – John Williams
This book left a really strong impression on me, even though it is once again one of those that I wouldn’t have picked up myself. I stayed awake until 2am finishing the last 100 pages and that’s a sure sign of a well written book for me. One of the most striking things to me…
The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
There was something very Woody Allen-like about the book. So if you enjoy his movies and the way the dialogues flow, you’ll surely like this story. It simply reads like the screenplay of the movie “Wonder Wheel”. Nevertheless, the main character is hardly able to build up relatability and there’s not much happening throughout the…
M Train – Patti Smith
Finishing up “M Train”, I still feel enveloped in a trance and dream-like state. The reading experience has been like taking a seat on Patti Smith’s train of thought, a comfortable window seat, watching passing by landscapes, cities, people. Like gently floating on waves from one image to the next, I felt transported to a…
Havana – Mark Kurlansky
I absolutely adored this book and couldn’t have wished to stumble upon a better intro to the country of Cuba before my upcoming trip! The biggest tip I could give, is to read it with Cuban music in the background and you’ll feel directly immersed into the story and the country. What others criticised, I…
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Having read this book during a beach vacation, “Slaughterhouse Five” has been a perfectly short, yet impactful read. The writing style was one of a kind, which left you perplexed in the beginning and wondering what kind of a book you have stumbled across and whether it’s worth getting through it or not… As the…
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
As much as I’ve always heard about “To Kill a Mockingbird” as an absolute must-read, I haven’t been convinced into loving it. Writing the review 2 months after having finished the book, I can’t go into as many details anymore, but I do know that I’ve waited a while, hoping that I might find some…
The Giver – Lois Lowry
I have stumbled across this book through a list of “highly rated books” on the website Goodreads.com, but I’ve got to say that its target audience is and stays young adults (if not even mainly kids). The story had an interesting idea, though it lacked in execution. It reminded me a bit of “Brave New…
Speed Reading with the Right Brain – David Butler
I’d give the book 3 out of 5 stars for its idea, whereas purely based on the content of it, it would barely measure up to 1-2 stars. What the author managed, was to give you a proper understanding of what “speed reading” is supposed to be about, with a focus on comprehension rather than…
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
Having had this book suggested by a friend, I had high expectations for it, which unfortunately haven’t been met. My biggest issue with the book was the fact that it only picked up pace and became more or less captivating 150-170 pages into the story. Compared with the total length of the book, being about…
Who Moved My Cheese? – Spencer Johnson
You can’t even call this a book, it was rather a simple story bound in a soft cover. It was short, foolproof, understandable to each and everybody. Was there any literary effort given to it? Wouldn’t say so. Yes, it was a brief and fun story to read through in probably less than 2 hours.Might…
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
“The Help” was an incredibly touching, deep kind of story, for which I found that it was a pity that it ended up being one of those books that you’d need to read in as close to one sitting as possible. The way it was written is bustling with character, each chapter written by a…
S – J. J. Abrams
Even a couple of weeks after having finished this book, I’m still at a loss for words to describe it… And not in a positive sense…I wish I could have given it a higher rating, but it’s absolutely impossible, after having struggled through this “thing” for almost two months, dragging its weight along everywhere that…
A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara
This is one of the best books I’ve read in the last couple of years and it has definitely made it onto my favourites list!!! Yanagihara’s style was absolutely effortless, the story flowed so easily from chapter to chapter that you didn’t even notice yourself flipping the pages. To sum it up, I guess the…
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Even weeks after I’ve finished this book, I haven’t gotten around to the review, since I couldn’t really manage to phrase what I thought about it. What I can definitely confirm now – after getting the book suggested, I was warned that it would be “an experience” rather than a simple read and I can…
Wonder – R. J. Palacio
There are few words that can describe the impression “Wonder” left after reading it and I think you would see best by making your own opinion of it. It was sweet, enchanting, heart warming, extremely emotionally touching (leaving you laughing out loud or even getting teary-eyed at times) and besides all that, so so well…
Read Bottom Up – Neel Shah, Skye Chatham
A super quick read (just about one and a half hours) which I have become suspicious about while skimming through a couple of reviews on Goodreads.com before starting the book. It just seemed to have potential to be in the style of one of those cheesy rom-coms – a typical and predictable boy-meets-girl story. Was…
Confessions of a Sociopath – M. E. Thomas
I would have given the book a 4 out of 5 rating, but unfortunately it was too noticeable that the author absolutely isn’t a professional writer. I just started reading “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer and the difference couldn’t have been bigger, the 2 books seem like 2 absolutely different worlds judging by the…
Influence – Mary-Kate Olsen, Ashley Olsen
As far as the format of this book – it was much better than what I’ve expected it to be. What I thought would have just be a narrative about the lives of the Olsen twins, led on by their portraits embellishing the cover, turned out to be something completely different. A gorgeous book full…
Sharp Objects – Gillian Flynn
After reading Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” I couldn’t wait to get my hands on another book of hers. Unfortunately the expectations couldn’t measure up for “Sharp Objects”. Though you did finally feel a bit entertained and enveloped in the events of the book upon arriving somewhere towards the middle of the story, there were too…
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