booitsnathalie's reviews
99 reviews

This remains the defining coming of age story. Still the blueprint for movies like Lady Bird of Eight Grade, just a foundational text for people interested in grounded stories of adolescent ennui. Was shocked to see this came out in 1970, feels very daring for a children's book back then which tracks given people are still trying to get it banned today.

I am a sucker for religious uncertainty, struggling with femininity, and school drama so this ticks all the boxes. Margaret has a great voice that balances overly thoughtful narration with heaps of tween angst. Her titular reframe is initially a bit silly, but once the book begins to explore her anxieties around religion (stemming from pushy adults on all sides), it takes on a greater significance as it's clear her relationship with god means a lot to her despite having no name to put to it.

I do wish the emotional beats weren't reserved for the last 30 or so pages. Much of the book is straightforward scenes of children existing in fairly unremarkable ways (which is itself interesting), but a lot of the major threads go unresolved as there simply aren't enough pages to handle them once the ball starts moving. It has also aged quite severely in many places, which would be alienating enough if everyone wasn't also extremely rich.

Glad to have this as a reference text for similar media, and excited to check out the recent movie which seems to complete the circle of grounded coming of age stories that are maybe more popular than ever.

A charming and reserved collection of vignettes wherein very little happens but everyone comes out a bit wiser. I have been a huge fan of Jansson's Moomin series for years and didn't realize until the introduction that this was also written by her (was looking for summer books and, well...). Her voice is very similar to her comics and still a delight, though I feel like something is lost without her illustrations. She has a way of describing the world like a depressed and cerebral child, whichs works amazing when paired with the silly Moomin designs but here just creates a sense of absence. In a way it's fitting for the themes of death, growing old, bodies wearing down, but feels more an accident of form than an intentional tone.

Was not quite the carefree summer getaway I was looking for, but I'm beginning to notice that most media centered around summer is almost by necessity a meditation on the passage of time and the implacable sadness that follows.

Continuing to work my way through Ishiguro's bibliography in a completely arbitrary order. This touches on a lot of similar themes as Never Let Me Go - systemic caretaking, human costs of technology, being beholden to a world you barely understand - but with less clarity and emotional sophistication than made that book so exceptional.

It's quite interesting to see how in the 15 or so years, Ishiguro is now working through new concerns around AI and climate change as opposed to more allegorical technology. I think this one may end up aging better than I feel about it today, but I was left feeling like it never quite arrived at the ideas it was toying with. This is partially by design as it's told effectively from the perspective of a child, but even taken in perspective with the premise it's quite detached. In particular wish there was a bit more of an idea what this near future society is like. We hear about it in incongruous whispers but it ends up feeling like hypotheticals than anything coherent with the rest of the text.

An enjoyable read despite its frustrating inconclusions. Shockingly breezy for an Ishiguro book, I tore through this much faster than anticipated which may also speak to the reservations above.

Wasn't allowed to read these growing up so now doing my own belated book club. Blown away at how good this is right out of the gate. Has a great campy sentai-show setup but pulls no punches with how gruesome this intergalactic war actually is. All of the morph descriptions are straight body horror, and the violence only gets away with being this gory because of Halo rules (it's not blood, it's yellow goo).

Our first POV, Jake, is fully the likeable leader boy archetype, but the character voice is so strong it hardly matters. Particular highlight is dog brain, which is exactly what you'd expect but even more charming. Under the YA nonchalance is a surprisingly affecting tragedy, particularly Jake's distant relationship with his brother (I imagine we'll see even more devastating scenes from the other POVs whose family life seems even more complicated).

Great start to this series. I am sure it goes off the rails over the next 50 (!!) books, but I'm fully bought in right now.

What a weird nothing of an ending. Expected more from this series from how highly it's talked about, but while I can clearly see its influence (especially in The Matrix) there's so little of substance here. Each volume got progressively less interesting as it became clear all the scifi bullshit had no destination and themes were off the table.

This last volume is still one of the more enjoyable ones just due to having a higher sick art to dialogue ratio, but having it all wrap around to a birth allegory is...disappointing, to say the least. If you've been sitting on BLAME!, read the first master edition and pretend that's all there is. Can't wait to watch the Netflix adaptation, I can't begin to imagine how you adapt this.

Had high hopes this would finally make a Sonic Youth fan out of me but I'm honestly shocked how boring I found it. Kim Gordon has a pretty abstract, detached way of writing that makes all the events described feel very distant and almost like they were happening to someone else. Maybe it's just that I'm not very interested in middle class art gallery culture, or that I also read Michelle Zauner and Carrie Brownstein's memoirs recently and both were much more engaging.

I will continue to not have any real feelings about Sonic Youth I guess. Truly zero opinions on this band I spent 300 pages learning about.