trickybrit's reviews
350 reviews

This felt like a 5 star book with a 3.5ish star ending. If American Beauty was a book and everyone was Irish. Beauty is a blessing and a curse, everyone is battling their unique demons, and I'm still unsure of how I feel about that ending. This is my first Paul Murray book and I will definitely be reading his earlier work.

I enjoyed this book but found the ending a bit clunky and slightly unsatisfying. I appreciated the historical context of Georgia, a country I know little about. The sidekick characters are rich and endearing.

The audiobook is well done. Given there quite a few characters, it felt helpful for each to have a unique voice.

I love Dr. Devon Price so much. His voice is clear and informative without being too clinical or dense. As with his other books, I love that Price centers the voices of people often left out of the conversation: women and girls with Autism (and how the ways in which both are socialized may make their Autism either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed), as well as queer folks and people of color (who have to negotiate between the ways in which the world discriminates against them and how their presentation of Autism will be perceived).

I was formally diagnosed with Autism at the age of 41, four months after my 5 year old son was diagnosed. I truly value the depth of this book as I begin my own unmasking journey. I always recommend this as a great place to start for anyone seeking to learn more about Autism.

A thorough historical framework for Autism--how our understanding of Autism and Autistic people has evolved over time. At times oppressively grim, other times hopeful and fascinating. Given the book is centered around the history of Autism, it still mostly centers young white male boys. But it also feels like it knows that about itself?

Some parts are really difficult to stomach (huge trigger warning for ableism, child abuse, and all things unfathomable that come with discussing Nazism), I particularly appreciate the historical context, as well as the detailed history of why the term "Asperger's" is no longer used.

Fun, awkward, and well worth listening to the audiobook given the New Zealand accents feel important to this particularly style of humor.

This is an RF Kuang stan account. I feel like Babel, which is a completely different kind of read, is a book she wrote based on her area of study and expertise, while this book is about a brilliant author writing a book about her specific area of study and expertise only to be ripped off and exploited by someone envious of her skills. It feels very meta--even seeing some of the ways in which Kuang's works are picked apart on this website show up in parts of Yellowface.

This is the tale of racism, cultural appropriation and the ways in which whiteness will convince itself of what it feels entitled to: everything. Scathing, cringey, exceptional. Maybe not for everyone, but 5 stars for me.

A dystopian novel that centers around a group of women and they don't hate each other (!)

I really loved the concept of this book, and thought overall that it was well executed. This writer is talented, writing with wit and emotion. I struggled a bit with the constant shift of POV (I would really settle into the current day only to be jolted back to the great grandmother's story of the past, which I personally did not enjoy as much). I have seen a few other reviews saying the main character is too unlikeable, but I feel like her personality is contextualized by the stories we learn of the women that came before her. For me this book is between a 4 and a 4.5 and I'm excited to read the author's other work.