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Stephanie

@stephaniereads

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👩🏻 reader, friend, and mother
📚 reformed literary snob
📍Ohio

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I feel like I owe my husband an apology. For actual YEARS, he was trying to get me to read this book, and I didn't - but now I'm the nerd dragging him outside to show him Jupiter and sending him Pluto gifs, so there's that.

This book was AWESOME. I read it on audio, and the narrator was so engaging and conversational and punchy in all the right places. I thought it would be more science-y, and while it is of course heavy on the science, it's far far more of a memoir of Mike Brown's life as an astronomer, how he finds cool shit in deep space, how his love of data made him track every bit of his newborn daughter's life and then graph it. Along the way we hear about science's changing views of the solar system as scientists learned about the Kuiper Belt and all the comparably shaped orbiting things out there keeping Pluto company. And also the weird astronomical naming rules and random internet forums snatching discoveries out from under each other!! Riveting.

What it really felt like was sitting down with someone, passionate about their field of study, telling you all kinds of interesting stories. With that format, I could be fascinated by just about anything! What made this a true winner for me was that Mike Brown comes across as not just absurdly knowledgeable but also friendly and funny, an adoring husband and father and just all around pleasant human.

Be warned: you might get a little obsessed with space. I now have several stargazing apps on my phone and have already listened to Chasing New Horizons, all about the Pluto flyby in 2015. Can you believe that this teeny spacecraft launched 15 years ago and is still puttering along, still in communication with earth??

What's your favorite planet and why? Also would love to hear any titles like this that were surprising favorites! by @stephaniereads

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5 years ago

Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Take an Ohio housewife, someone nondescript. A mother of four children, a wife completely in love with her (second) husband. A shy, anxious person who has retreated into her home to spend her days baking for restaurants and watching old movies because that's where she feels safe. Explore everything that goes on inside this one person and find multitudes - she, who in many ways has been made small by the men around her and the terror of the news, is still full to the brim.
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As for the writing style, don't be intimidated. Sure it’s long, and I will confirm that most of the prose is one sentence (broken up with "the fact that" to indicate pauses), but I've read much more difficult writing. The language itself is simple but fragmented, like our own internal monologues. There's a rhythm to it that, after a few pages, drops from view. The effect is more like wading into a river and letting it carry you for a while. Sometimes I could read this in huge gulps, but sometimes I'd dip in a few pages and back out for air.
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This really straddles the line between "is this drivel? is this brilliant?" but I'm coming down on the side of brilliance. What was most striking for me was how she captured that feel of moving through your day, your mind consumed with the temperature of your coffee and what's playing on the radio, and then you get a flash of that one day a decade ago that nearly broke you and you have to catch your breath. But then you carry on. It's that feeling, the fact that each person walking around is so full and unknowable.
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And then there's how Ellmann chose to listen in on an ordinary woman for a thousand pages. And then there's the themes of what it means to give yourself over to motherhood. And then there's the mountain lion subplot (the mountain lion!) that gets at the primal nature of being a mother and underscores the noise that goes on in human beings. Not to mention the political commentary, thoughts on childhood and memory, and just the sheer ambition of this book.
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I mean - yes, some of this is nonsense. But much of this was brilliance. by @stephaniereads

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7 years ago

I finished my last (for now!) Maggie O'Farrell novel over a month ago but it's taken me some time to collect my thoughts.

I just loved this reading journey so, so much. There's something so special about diving deep into a favorite author's work. I decided I wanted to read all of O'Farrell's books after finishing Hamnet and being so blown away. Here was the writing, the characters, the sly craftsmanship - everything I love in literary fiction. Part of the fun of reading all of her books was discovering how she grew as a writer, both in skill and themes. Her first three are solid works, but with ESME LENNOX she truly kicks it up a gear and hones in on what she was trying to do in earlier books.

In almost all her work: shifting perspectives, examinations of family, fragmented narratives, themes of grief and secrets. Maybe my favorite thing about her work is that I'm never reading the book I think I'm reading. There's often this moment where suddenly the story is turned on its head in the most brilliant and beautiful way.

Really looking forward to her newest novel: O'Farrell seems to be turning a new leaf into historical fiction (like Hamnet), a departure from her kaleidoscope-like novels of family relationships set in a contemporary UK. (hi @aaknopf l can't wait!!)

Shout out to my pal @stef.reads.books for reading with me! We had way too much fun sending long videos back and forth about these books.

TOP TIER BRILLIANCE
Hamnet
I Am, I Am, I Am
This Must Be the Place
Instructions for a Heatwave
The Hand That First Held Mine

SUPER GOOD AND WORTH IT
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
After You'd Gone

GOOD BUT JUST FOR SUPERFANS
The Distance Between Us
My Lover's Lover by @stephaniereads

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5 years ago

Here's what I'll say for this book: it went down easy! I read almost all of it in one sitting and honestly I think that helped the reading experience. If I'd had to stay with it for days on end, it would have quickly overstayed its welcome. Tearing through it let me have some fun with it and not think too hard about the content.

It's fine, it's buzzy, its plot is a house of cards that will fall over in a gentle breeze.

Can't wait to hear what my book club thought!!

2.5⭐ by @stephaniereads

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a month ago

I don't typically like a time loop book but this felt refreshing. Usually the time loop exists for the narrator to figure something out—fix a mistake, have an epiphany, fall in love with the right person—but at least so far (in this first volume of seven), the time loop just exists. Just for existence's sake. And so Tara Selter repeats November 18th over and over again, with no clues as to why.

And if nothing can be done, what do you do? It was fascinating watching Tara move through all the stages of grief, essentially: desperation, confusion, alternating between telling her partner everything and retreating from the world. There's also some commentary on the nature of the sameness of our days, the way we consume the world slowly but surely, who we are when external purpose is removed.

All in 160 pages! 3.5⭐ by @stephaniereads

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a month ago

I always enjoy Rainbow Rowell. Even though Cherry Baby didn't rocket to the top of my favorites (Slow Dance forever), her writing is just delicious. The sentence structure, the economy of language, the humor, the tenderness! The way she frames her scenes is just so snappy.

My issues here were
1) Cherry gets herself into kind of a love triangle here and I just wanted her to keep going to concerts by herself and make some friends
2) One of the strongest themes of the book is Cherry's weight - how she experiences the world in her body, other people's perceptions and how their own relationship with their bodies inform how they see Cherry, and while I see the point, it ended up being repetitive

3.5⭐ by @stephaniereads

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a month ago

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a month ago

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a month ago

In an attempt to try to go to more author talks when they pop up around town, I went with my book club to see Ocean Vuong in conversation with (local literary celebrity) Maggie Smith. I'd never read much from either but they were lovely and interesting and we had a great time. My biggest take away was that Ocean wants to write only 8 books in his life and then retire? Fascinating.

With our ticket we also each got a signed copy of The Emperor of Gladness, which made it easy to pick the next book club pick!

There's a lot going on in this book. Our main character is Hai, son of Vietnamese immigrants, whose life is essential saved by Grazina, an elderly widow who ends up in the US after fleeing Lithuania in WWII. Their unlikely bond carries the story through Hai's grief, disconnect from his mother, and eventual employment.

His job at the restaurant Homemarket and the bonds he forms with his coworkers is the other tentpole of the story. Vuong is clearly trying to delve into the workplace here, especially minimum wage hourly work. Being caught up in the machine of a chain restaurant, thrown together with all kinds of folks - what emerges?

Lots going on, but the emotional heft just never landed for me. There are these moments of levity that took me out of the story, rather than endearing me to the characters. I think this could have been edited down significantly, and so many themes muddied the waters. Maybe a tighter plot would have worked better with the poetic prose?

3⭐ by @stephaniereads

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2 months ago

If you love genre fiction like I do, you'll have a great time with this one. Evelyn Clarke is the penname of author duo VE Schwab and Cat Clarke - I picked this up because of their conversation on VE Schwab's podcast! Ugh the whole podcast is just so smart and so good and if you care about the craft of writing at all I urge you to try it out!

In the tradition of mystery novels, six authors from all different writing backgrounds are summoned to a private island and given 72 hours to complete the last novel of the late greatest bestselling novelist. Of course, things are not as they seem.

So fun! So many tongue in cheek genre moments, satirical thoughts on the publishing industry, ways that genre stereotyping is created and reinforced, all couched in a locked room mystery. Great fun. 4⭐ by @stephaniereads

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2 months ago

I think the moral of the story here is to always talk to strangers on the internet because you never know which one of them is your best friend by @stephaniereads

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2 months ago

[beware potential spoilers below]

I picked this up because my friend said, "Hey I just finished this, I have THOUGHTS but my book club was no help. It's weird and under 200 pages."

Okay well now I have thoughts!! This is a puzzle of a book, two parts that contain the same characters but very different circumstances. As you read, you're left wondering what's real and how to make sense of the disparate parts.

I think there are a few ways to think about it. It could be an alternate timeline, two realities that get to the heart of motherhood and what it means to play a part. What's the difference between family and strangers, and how is being a family "a shared delusion, a mutual construction"?

It could also be read literally, more like a mystery to be solved by following the clues. In the story, our main character is a stage actor who is starring in a play where one scene acts as the bridge between two distinct parts of a play. The bridge has to work for the play as a whole to make sense It's fun to think of this book in the same way, as a thought experiment: what if the bridge scene was gone? How did we get from A to B?

Maybe this is my current tolerance for experimental lit, but option two was more fun. As soon as I finished the book, I had to flip through and skim through basically the whole thing again, looking for clues and reading with more context.

I don't know, I was fascinated and annoyed in equal parts by this one! Maybe 3⭐? by @stephaniereads

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2 months ago