emmareadstoomuch's reviews
2051 reviews

This. Book. Is. Amazing.

I have two great loves in my life and they are constantly dueling for my time. Granted, I have an excess of free time due to laziness and not making plans with friends as often as I should, but still, EVERY MOMENT of it is a battle between my two major interests.

They are comedy and books.

For the first time, I was given an option that was TRULY BOTH. (That’s this book.)

I made this book last me for a month plus because I so enjoyed not fighting that battle. (Picture me, trapped between reading an article on John Mulaney and writing a review. Now apply that to my entire human existence.) (Am I hinting that I have another, non-human existence? Dunno. You decide.)

SNL was the show that got me into comedy. The marijuana to the eventual heroin. (Just kidding, guys. Marijuana’s not a gateway drug. Also, don’t do heroin.)

I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m talking about drugs. (Although this book talks about them, duh, and if that made you uncomfortable Janet you may just want to stay away from this and the early days of Saturday Night Live ALTOGETHER.)

Anyway. I have distinct memories of proudly setting SNL to record as a series on my thirteenth birthday. (Just because I was granted permission to watch TV-14 shows did NOT mean I was allowed to stay up until 1 a.m.) It was a momentous occasion.

I don’t have the same devotion to SNL now as I did then (Bill Hader and Andy Samberg are gone, duh) but I’m super grateful for it. Without SNL, I wouldn’t have discovered some of my favorite podcasts, movies, and TV shows, all through following the immense web that is the cast members’ careers.

Plus, it’s still the most fascinating thing ever. A weekly sketch show that’s been on the air for over forty years? Comedy’s greats practically living in 30 Rock, pulling all-nighters to write jokes, the best of which will become part of the cultural canon for decades to come? I mean, come on. Who wouldn’t want to read about that?

Thus, unsurprisingly, THIS BOOK IS SO, SO FASCINATING.

I keep describing it as gossiping with the greats of comedy. Dan Aykroyd confiding in you about Belushi; Bill Murray dishing on a fistfight with Chevy Chase minutes before air; countless, countless wonderful anecdotes about Gilda Radnor. (My favorite is that she used to search the drawers of Lorne Michaels’ desk, hoping to find a note that said, I really like Gilda.)

This book talks to Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher, Jane Curtin and Kristen Wiig, Paul Simon and Chris Martin. The only people missing are the infamously-disproportionate number of dead and Eddie Murphy, still smarting from a blow to the ego this book could never quite diagnose.

If you get the fortieth-anniversary edition - which, obviously, you should - this book clocks in at exactly 800 pages. And it’s worth every single one. There are dry spells, sure, but if this book was encyclopedic and came in volumes I’d still read every page.

Most importantly, this is a book unlike any other. I wish every show and movie I like was lucky enough to have its history encapsulated like this, but if it had to be just one show, I’m glad it’s this one.

Bottom line: A must-read for every SNL fan.

(Note: I’m super sorry this review was so earnest. It seems crazy weird to try to joke about a book with a hundred contributors when every single one of them is way funnier than me.)

In the Target book aisle, I picked up this book randomly to kill time while I waited for my sisters to be done shopping. (Because straight up every time I bring a book somewhere I have no time to read, but the second I'm caught without a book in hand I'm wishing I had one.)

I was grabbed by the first handful of pages. So much so that I had to go to checkout for a second time and buy this book - even though I'm sure it's much more affordable online.

Then I got home and later stayed up until the wee hours of the morning (which, granted, is hardly unusual) reading it.

Never did I feel particularly infatuated with or even appreciative of the story, but I do think a nonstop unputdownable experience is the best way to read a thriller.

was this sarah dessen's first book? this better have been sarah dessen's first book. there's no excuse otherwise.

this was like...the worst. but still sarah dessen. so not the worst?

who knows. the reread continues.

I was going to write a full review of this, but really everything I has to say boils down to the following list of directions.

One: Watch the movie “The Room.” (IMMEDIATELY.)

Two: Read this book.

Three: See “The Disaster Artist.”

Bonus points if you choose to listen to either of the How Did This Get Made? podcast episodes about it.

Double bonus points if you, like me, develop a crush on Jason Mantzoukas following the above.

That is all.

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review to come

I love Uncle Monty.

I love Uncle Monty. I love his coconut cake. I love the Incredibly Deadly Viper. I love the movie theater and the popcorn and Zombies in the Snow; I love Monty’s house and his shaped shrubs and his plans to voyage to Peru.

I love the Reptile Room (the place) and I love The Reptile Room (the book).

It is unusual for me to be so teeming with love. I’m not well adjusted to it. I may overdose, or my body might reject the chemical reaction in my brain, or something. BUT I LOVE THIS BOOK.

The Bad Beginning is so great, but it is only a fraction of the level of Varied, Full Detail this series will reach. This book kind of hints at it. AND YET IS STILL NOT QUITE AS GREAT AS THE SERIES BECOMES. Which is why my rating for this book is like, a 4.75, technically speaking, or something ridiculous like that. Because it’s all uphill from here, folks.

Well, generally. Not exactly. The Wide Window is not as good as this book. But whatever; you get what I mean.

Bottom line: I CANNOT WAIT to go home for break so I can continue my reread of this series. I am more excited to reunite with these books than I am to do so with most friends and family. #Priorities, people.

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oh my GOD i love this series so much.

so much so much so much so much so much so MUCH.

what a sequel, am i right? what a follow up. if you think about it this is one of the more important books of the series.

anyway. four to five stars. not my favorite of the series but far from the least. maybe in my top 5 of the books. (how ridiculous that this series is so immense that being in my top five is fairly elite.)

review to come!!!

This is perhaps the most anxiety-inducing book in the most anxiety-inducing series of all time.

There is something about the particular Count Olaf evil plan hijinks in this book that is SO MUCH WORSE to me than all the others?? It’s not so much “fun villainy” to me as it is “extremely stressful stuff of nightmares.”

So not necessarily the most consistently pleasant reading experience.

HOWEVER there is a really cool part of this book! The Baudelaire orphans, up to this point, have very narrow and consistent, like, specializations? What do you call the constant semi-adult-ish habits and passions of a child I do not know. Anyway: Violet invents, Klaus reads, Sunny bites.

In this book, Violet reads! And Klaus invents! It’s kind of a fun thing of, like, hey children of the world, you do not need to limit yourself. You can be good at a lot of things, even if someone is better at them than you. Woohoo!

Count Olaf’s role in this book is very limited, and therefore not as AMAZING as he normally is in the other books (villain-wise). But there are some great characters in this one! I love Phil. Also there is a gay partnership in this book and no one can tell me otherwise and so there.

Bottom line: Not the best book in this series. Maybe the worst? But still fabulouswonderfulamazingIlovethisworldsomuchohmygod.

Me: Okay, I’m not going to have ANY time to read for the next two weeks, and I’m close to falling behind on my reading goal, so I should be careful what I pick up.

Me to me: 870 pages sounds about right.



https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-review/

I don’t even know if I can write a cohesive review of this. I’ve been reading it for SO LONG. The notes I took at the beginning have long since disappeared and I just can’t remember vast swaths of this book. This might be a review of the last 200 pages.



Okay, the extreme Ravenclaw in me is coming out here - WHY DON’T HARRY AND RON EVER DO THEIR HOMEWORK? I swear to God the sub-plotline in the middle of every single book is them falling behind in their classes, and it stresses me out. Get on top of your work!



And then every once in awhile, the stakes will be way higher...and these boys still apply the same procrastination to it. It happened in Goblet of Fire, when Harry would put off working on the task hints - WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN DIVINATION DREAM CHARTS. And it happened in this book, when Harry just...didn’t try at Occlumency. I know you don’t like Snape, kid. Neither do I. In fact, my list of notes for my anti-Snape rant just kept growing through this book. BUT IT’S FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND THE SAFETY OF COUNTLESS OTHERS! PEOPLE YOU LOVE!



And poor Ron in this book, right? He finally gets good at Quidditch - good at something - and there’s no one there to see him. His brothers leave him at school. Harry just...freaks out at him sometimes. Things are always rough for poor unappreciated Ron, but this is particularly tragic. And don’t even get me STARTED on Neville in this book. The Gryffindor in him really comes out. His life is so hard, and he is still so brave and loving. Oh my God, I’m legitimately getting choked up.



Well, not actually. But as close as I get. And disclaimer, 25 percent of that sadness is because “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” just came up on my Spotify and LA LA LAND IS AN EMOTIONAL FILM.



Rating this book is going to be a struggle. I didn’t enjoy the first 600 pages, like, at all. And then I goddamn loved the last 200. Oh god. Now I have to both delineate why the first 600 pages - which I can barely remember - were bad, while the last 200 were good.



Alright, I’ll try to do this quickly because clearly I’m ramble-y tonight. The first 600 pages were a terrible combination of boring AND upsetting. I’m still surprised by how Grimmauld Place managed to be such a snoozefest. A secret rebel order of wizards inhabiting a hidden house filled with dangerous relics manages to make me doze off? Unreal. Then we have to watch as a world we all hold dear is torn apart by terrible leadership - Umbridge, yes, but I also think we don’t discuss Minister of Magic Fudge’s incompetency enough.



As if that weren’t enough, all these fabulous characters we know and love are at their WORST in this book. I won’t go off on Snape yet, but I’ll explain for the others. Harry is a massive brat throughout. Hermione, my absolute fave, is a bad friend, pretentious and untrusting the whole time. Hagrid has his head particularly shoved up his ass. Dumbledore acts like an idiot, a self-admitted idiot. And Sirius ruins himself for me in this book. When he says, “You’re less like your father than I thought [...] The risk would’ve been what made it fun for James,” he is shaming a fifteen year old, guilting him into acting against his own interest and safety by bringing up his DEAD FATHER. Disgusting.



DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE JAMES FLASHBACK. Lupin and Sirius’s speech to Harry on it? Seriously. Lacking. James and Lily should never have ended up together, never. I get why Sirius and James were so close. THEY BOTH SUCK. But there were bright sides. Neville and Ginny are absolutely fantastic in this book, and did their best to rescue it from itself. But Luna is eh for me. I just don’t care about her. AND WE LOSE FRED AND GEORGE. I didn’t realize how much I loved their hijinks until they ruckus’d their way out of Hogwarts.



But if the first 600 pages were one, one and a half stars, the last 200 were four and a half or five. I love the setting of the Department of Mysteries, I loved that big Death Eaters battle scene. I sort of liked Dumbledore’s speech, but still was kind of like...okay buddy, you should know what the Right Thing is. Most importantly, I felt like Harry’s mourning at the end was really well captured. Which is, you know, not an impression I get often from these books. (The Harry Potter series isn’t renowned for, like, its capturing of the human experience.) And that last moment at the train station? Where all of Harry’s loved ones are defending him? Killed. Me.



Bottom line: I don’t know what to rate this, so I’ll give it that old placeholder, three stars. Not my favorite Harry Potter book, but featuring some of my favorite moments...alongside some of my least favorite.

Hm. Okay. So I didn’t love that one. I liked it, I did! But it didn’t have the same irresistible charm as Sorcerer’s Stone for me.

I’m being vague but I don’t know if I can specify. Let me try to.

https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2016/12/27/286/

For one thing, this didn’t have the same mastery of language as the first. It seemed in Sorcerer’s Stone that every word was a careful choice. Here, the phrase “after all” was used three times in one measly paragraph. It wasn’t poorly written by any stretch of the imagination...but it could be a bit sloppy.



Two: not as exciting. The second act plot-line may have been better than the first book’s, but it took forever to get to that point. The first two-thirds or three-quarters of this book dragged for me, really. And I needed some excitement to break up the endless studying and work of finals week!



Three: as I mentioned in my HPSS review, my favorite part of this series is the worldbuilding. Every aspect of this world drips with magic, and it’s so lovely. I’ll never tire of reading about Diagon Alley, or Hogwarts feasts, or Quidditch - and I cannot wait for Hogsmeade! There was a lot less discussion of the world here. God, how I wish there was. Is there more in the other books? It seems there’d have to be in Goblet of Fire, no?

Four: I missed Hermione! I didn’t realize how much of the appeal of this series for me was based on her. At least this book really confirmed my adoration of her. Absolutely one of the best YA characters ever, in my opinion. I missed Neville, too! At least Hermione had a reason for not being there, but where was the lovely Neville this whole time?



Five: In general, this book seemed a bit...stuck. Sorcerer’s Stone has a great variety of characters, and features different classes and aspects of Hogwarts life. This installment gave me cabin fever. The whole thing is limited almost entirely to Harry and Ron. They’re great, don’t get me wrong, but...I wanted there to be other people too. Hagrid wasn’t here much, nor Fred and George. Quidditch only happened, what, once? The only class truly described was Lockhart’s, which made me want to bang my head against the wall. In short, I missed everybody. All the new characters introduced here are just unbearable. (Colin, Lucius, Gilderoy...even Dobby at some points. Sorry.)

On the bright side, I don’t think this is anybody’s favorite Harry Potter book. I’m a bit deflated, but overall rather excited to get on with this reread. (Once a few of my finals are done with, though. Shiver.)



Bottom line: every series has its weak points. I’m still thrilled to be doing this reread, and am sure I’ll love the next one!

Act 4 of 7, gents! And I’m stuck somewhere betwixt 4 and 5 stars for this one, so I’ll just write this review, pop on back to the beginning and smack a rating on this bad boy. (Disclaimer: I am on Hour 26 post-wisdom teeth surgery, on some painkillers no one should turn their nose up at, and desperate for solid food and human interaction. So in other words, bear with me, because this may be...somethin’.)



https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/harry-potter-and-the-goblet-of-fire/

Okay, let’s start with our characters. I always gotta discuss the same collection of several. Both Harry and Ron are pretty consistently eh characters for me (except in the first book, in which I really enjoyed Harry). Here, instead of being eh, I found them...annoying? It drove me absolutely insane that Harry kept procrastinating his clues - like no yeah, do your Divination homework the night it’s assigned, but please put the life-or-death clue off to the side for now. And don’t even get me started on their constant, needless bickering. Ugh. HOW ARE YOU BOTH SOMEHOW EQUALLY ANNOYING HERE?



Neville, on the other hand? Cemented his status as a fave o’ mine. His backstory is great. He really deserves to be in Gryffindor, the brave li’l guy, and I just want to give him a big hug. Snape, meanwhile....Well, somehow he outdoes himself here. I just don’t know how I’m going to hold onto this rant until book 7. God, you guys, get ready for a tsunami of anger, I guess.



And let’s discuss that feminist message, shall we? I, first off, love that my perhaps-all-time-favorite character Hermione gets political as hell in this one. Mad respect, girl. And for a cause that she’s laughed at for, even one that would make her life far, far easier in every means if she just backed off it! (I’m seeing some parallels to feminism here….) Plus, her defeat of Rita Skeeter, who taunted her for her appearance and reduced her meaning as a person to the boys she spent time with, is just amazing.



And don’t even get me started on the representation of women in professional sports in this book! Fabulous enough that almost half of the Gryffindor quidditch team is female, but the fact that there are women competitors in the Quidditch World Cup? Amazing! There’s no underestimating the empowerment that representation lent to young, female readers who dreamed of being athletes.



If only this wonderful treatment of women - and we know that Rowling is a tried-and-true feminist - extended to the Triwizard Tournament. But alas, all we get is...Fleur. Fleur’s only trait is her beauty (cough cough, reminds me of someone we know, cough cough, CHO F*CKING CHANG), she (like Rita Skeeter to Hermione) is reduced to the boys she spends time with/thereby must be flirting with (Cedric, the Ravenclaw quidditch captain), and, worst of all, she’s not a good competitor. She gives an eh performance in the first task, receives pity-points in the second, and is ignored and eliminated in the third. Ms. Rowling, my love, couldn’t she at least use her looks cunningly to distract her opponent? If you were only going to give us one girl competitor out of four, couldn’t she at least be, well, good?



There were fewer stupid mistakes in this one, but there were still some. One being that somehow magic-less mermaids painted pictures of themselves on a rock...underwater. Unless they’re sourcing that fancy schmancy under-da-sea paint, they should not be able to do that. Also, the search for Sirius is never mentioned by the many (many, many, many, MANY) members of the Ministry of Magic we are CONSTANTLY seeing in this book. Or by Rita Skeeter. Which doesn’t make sense, because that search was a big f*cking deal. (And don’t you think ol’ Skeeter would want to bring up that failing when she’s writing inflammatory articles about Hogwarts and/or the Ministry?)



But this comes down to the same thing all these reviews come down to: the world. Goblet of Fire gives us the biggest look into the Wizarding World since Sorcerer’s Stone (Quidditch World Cup! Triwizard Tournament! The operations of the Ministry of Magic!), and because I love looking at this world so flippin’ much (plus fewer teeny errors) I have to give this a high rating.



Bottom line: definitely better than the second and third, and maybe (MAYBE!) an almost-tie for favorite-so-far with the first one. The feminism contains some mixed messages, there are a couple things that don’t make sense, and I still haven’t found a way to kill a fictional character (but when I do, watch your back, Severus). But the world, Hermione, Neville’s story, and a couple other great things overcome all that. This book rocks! Hurray!

who knew i'd find a nonfiction account of the epidemiological history of cholera more interesting than most YA fantasy??

this book was disgusting. it was also SO FUN. well, the first hundred or so pages were the funnest ever (five star level for real). then the next one hundred were like...eh. and the last fifty were "uhhh i think i'm just going to skip this i'm here for plagues and infectious disease not self-indulgent waxing romantic on the future of the city as a concept?????"

but still.

lot of question marks today, huh. even more than usual.

this is an impressive book and you should, at the very least, read the first hundred pages of this and then john snow's wikipedia page or something.

bottom line: i guess i like historical nonfiction sometimes?? who knew!!!!!