Here are three mini reviews for you today!
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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
My copy came from: Borrowed from my mother-in-law
This was a book club read, and I found this to be pretentious and lacking joy. I think I was the only person in my book club who didn’t enjoy this, and I really wanted to like it, but the main character (A.J.) was so snobby about the books he reads, that he just came across as unlikeable. And even though he does change throughout the book, as he experiences life and love, I just couldn’t ever connect with him and therefore couldn’t connect with the book. This is a very popular book, but it just wasn’t for me!
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
My copy came from: Purchased from my local bookstore, Copperfield’s
One of the most celebrated books of 2017, sadly this one did not do anything for me. I was completely bored by this, and I only continued reading the book because it was so short (231 pages). At one point in my notes I wrote: what does the author have against dialogue? Where is the dialogue? The characters didn’t seem to do much of anything except smoke marijuana and think about sex, and while the book did have some good, interesting points about immigration, it didn’t have enough to make this a book that I’d recommend. I found that it tried too hard to be literary and came across as bland. But the cover is absolutely gorgeous!
Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass #6)
My copy came from: Borrowed from my local library
I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to! Tower of Dawn focuses entirely on Chaol and Nesryn as they travel south to Antica in search of healing for Chaol and alliances for the war, and I was expecting to be totally bored while reading this. But, I read it very quickly and it kept my attention, and even more importantly, this side journey is full of essential information that affects all of our main characters and the main conflict for the series. Even though I’ve always liked Chaol, I was so hesitant to pick this title up, as I wasn’t sure if his character would be compelling enough for an entire book, but I did really enjoy the story and also the new characters that were added. I can’t wait for the final book in the series to be released this fall!
There you have it, three mini reviews! I disliked two of the books, but really enjoyed the other. I expected to love the two I disliked, and expected to dislike the book I ended up loving! Has that ever happened to you? Have you read any of these books? What did you think?
luvtoread 
I love Storied Life!!! It was quirky– and I grew to like Fikry in spite of (or maybe because of) his stubborn refusal to admire pop culture books. He got people reading, was devoted to his daughter and Amy– maybe I just liked the whole anti-stereotype protagonist character. The epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter revealed a depth to him that didn’t come out in his awkward mannerism.
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Those epigraphs were my favorite parts of the book! So many people really love this book, and I’m quite disappointed that I reacted so strongly against it, as it had everything in it that usually I love.
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I’m glad to see that you enjoyed Tower of Dawn. I’ve been putting it off because I don’t really like how awful Chaol has acted in the past couple of books. But it seems like this book has actually exceeded most people’s expectations which is really good to know. I plan on finally picking it up next month so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I’ll enjoy it!
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Oh I hope you enjoy it! I was so torn on reading this one, and actually checked it out from the library a couple times before I ended up reading it. But, it ended up being really good! It was fast-paced, and there was plenty of action and the new characters added I really enjoyed. There’s a bunch of stuff that happens that has repercussions for the last book. I was worried this was going to feel like a filler book, but it was really enjoyable and felt necessary. Enjoy!
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That sounds perfect! This really alleviates some of my reservations that I had. I was also worried about it being just a filler, so you’re making me excited about this one now! 😊
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Yay!! 🙂 Enjoy !
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I don’t know anything about the thrid one, but with the other two I’d decided on the basis of blurbs and reviews that they didn’t much appeal to me, so I’m kinda glad to have my feelings confirmed! Oops – sorry you didn’t enjoy them though… 😉
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They really were disappointing reads! And I thought they sounded so promising, but nope 😦
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The second book sounds horrible. I’m not sure when smoking weed and thinking about sex became enough of a topic for a whole book (or even story), but how tedious and tiresome. I’m especially confused by how juvenile the topic is compared to the ages of the people who write about it.
In my creative writing classes, we’ve talked about how dialogue is so hard that some authors avoid it completely! I wonder if James Joyce falls in that camp…
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It was so boring! I kept waiting for it to get better because it was such a well received book last year and on a lot of the literary best lists, but I just couldn’t get into it.
The lack of dialogue felt very off … like the author was doing exactly like you said, avoiding it entirely.
I’ve never read any Joyce! There’s so much I haven’t read. And if he doesn’t write a lot of dialogue I wonder if I really want to read him…. hmm.
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James Joyce is a pill.
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Uh oh. Guess I can wait awhile to read him then 🙂
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I enjoyed tower of dawn more than I expected to as well!!
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Yay! It really was quite good, wasn’t it!?
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Absolutely!!
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