Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

A Re-Read Review: Malagash

August 16, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 0

Title: Malagash
Author: Joey Comeau
Source: Bought
Links: Indiebound |Goodreads
Rating:

Summary: The perfect blend of heartwarming and poignant, beautifully crafted.

I don’t typically re-read books, but it’s something I’ve been considering doing in an attempt to engage more deeply with the books I read. Malagash, which is one of my favorite books ever, was a great choice to start with. It’s short, so it was easy to commit the time to a re-read. It was also easy to go back over sections multiple times during my re-read. It packs a real emotional punch too. It’s the story of a young girl, Sunday, whose father is dying. It’s about grief and family and how her family in particular is coping with grief. Sunday is currently recording as much of her dying father as she can, with plans to encode his words into a computer virus so he can live forever. So, despite being short, there’s a lot here! There were universal themes to think about and delightful particulars that made me laugh and cry. If anything, I loved this book even more a second time around. Read more »

Review: Tell The Machine Good Night

August 14, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 1

Title: Tell the Machine Goodnight
Author: Katie Williams
Source: Library
Links: Indiebound |Goodreads
Rating:

Summary: Interesting world building, but without a cohesive plot and with an undercurrent of potential violence that made it a stressful read.

Pearl works for a company that needs only a sample of your DNA to tell you what will make you happy. Unfortunately, her son isn’t interested in learning what will make him happy. Pearl fears he isn’t interested in being happy at all. Soon she’ll learn how far she’s willing to go in her attempts to make him be happy. In the meantime, she must deal with mysterious clients and her ex-husband, while her son tries to help a friend learn who was behind something terrible that happened to her. Read more »

True Crime Review: To the Bridge

August 12, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 1

Title: To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder
Author: Nancy Rommelmann
Source: Library
Links: Indiebound |Goodreads
Rating: three-stars

This is the story of a woman who dropped two of her children off a bridge in the middle of the night. It is an attempt to explain a crime of the sort often written off as inexplicable. The author focuses on her experience interviewing the people most involved; attending court dates; and chasing leads over 7 years. Read more »

Nonfiction Friday

August 10, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 0

Nonfiction Friday is a link-up where you can find all of the awesome nonfiction happenings of the week. As a reminder, if you’re participating in the Nonfiction Reading Challenge, you’ll get a giveaway entry for each nonfiction review you link-up below!
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A Memoir in Review: Can’t Help Myself

August 8, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 3

Title: Can't Help Myself: Lessons & Confessions from a Modern Advice Columnist
Author: Meredith Goldstein
Source: Library
Links: Indiebound |Goodreads
Rating:

Summary: Light, heartwarming mix of memoir and advice column, well blended.

I’ve recently started to enjoy reading advice columns (specifically Dear Prudence at Slate), so I was excited to see this memoir by advice columnist Meredith Goldstein. It seemed like a great chance to see behind the curtain of an advice column. It turned out to be a delightful mix of stories about her own life; her philosophy for answering questions; and some excerpts from her column, grouped by theme. I enjoyed all three components. When discussing her own life, she moves chronologically, which gives the book a good flow. She then uses issues in her own life, of the sort one might write to an advice columnist about, to discuss her column. She ends each chapter with some example letters. It all stuck together well. Read more »

Review: The Coincidence Makers

August 6, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 4

Title: The Coincidence Makers
Author: Yoav Blum
Source: Library
Links: Indiebound |Goodreads
Rating:

Summary: This was a delightfully fun and clever story!

The Coincidence Makers is set in a world where coincidences don’t really happen by chance. Instead, some people have the exacting job of arranging ‘coincidences’ to achieve specific goals. One day the may inspire an artist or scientist, another day they may help a couple fall in love. This is the story of three coincidence makers – Guy, Emily, and Eric – and the ways that a high level assignment Guy receives will change their friendship and alter the course of their lives. Read more »

Nonfiction Friday

August 3, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 3

A Nonfiction Classic: And The Band Played On

August 2, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 11

Title: And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
Author: Randy Shilts, William Greider
Source: Library
|Goodreads
Rating:

Summary: This was an epic, impressively researched, engaging look at an important moment in history.

I’ve done a number of LGBT+ reading challenges and when deciding what to read, I always come up with this book as the definitive story of the AIDs epidemic. The author is one of the few journalists who did much reporting on the crises as it occurred and his command of the topic is impressive. Although the book is intimidatingly long (I definitely prefer short books since I started blogging!), I knew I wanted to read it eventually, so finally decided to just go for it. I’m definitely glad I did! It maybe dragged a little for me around page 500, but it mostly flew by. Despite being information dense, it was compulsively readable. Read more »

Alternate History Review: The Hunger

July 30, 2018 DoingDewey Uncategorized 4

Title: The Hunger
Author: Alma Katsu
Source: Library
Links: Indiebound |Goodreads
Rating:

Summary: Fantastic premise, great story telling, but the big reveal didn’t scare me as much as I wanted it to.

This is one of those books with a premise that bumped it right to the top of my to-read pile. It’s a horror retelling of the Donner party story and while I’m not someone who reads much horror, I do love a dark retelling, whether fairy tale or alternate history. I think I’m more comfortable tackling a dark topic when I have some idea of how the story will play out. In the case of fairy tales, it also makes the story feel more adult. In the case of the Donner party story, it’s obviously pretty dark already and the horror element is perhaps actually a nicer explanation than the truth. Read more »