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Minneapple

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  1. I never post here but I’m pouring one out for all of us from the Beijing Olympics forum who screeched with anger when Kamila was allowed to skate. Justice for Team USA.
  2. The thing that got me about Babel was the language and dialogue. The book is set in the 19th century yet the characters all talk like they live in the 21st century. The discussions about gender and sexuality and race all sound way way way too contemporary. I did enjoy the world building, so maybe I'll still give Yellowface a try. FYI: Amazon has a three-month free Kindle Unlimited subscription if you're a Prime member. I just signed up.
  3. I have Yellowface on my list but I'm actually a bit hesitant as I wasn't too enamored of RF Kuang's other book, Babel. I just finished Happy Place by Emily Henry. Her Book Lovers is one of my favorite chick lit/romcom books of all time so I had high hopes but honestly I was a bit let down by Happy Place. I thought it was kind of boring. The characters felt flat. And the friends were annoying. I haven't read Beach Read yet but I'll probably still give it a try.
  4. Just finished Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. It's good, but I honestly have a feeling that this might be one of those rare cases where the movie is actually better than the book, which is written in a very straightforward style, almost like an extended newspaper article.
  5. Ava: I see you as a young me Courtney: I see you as an old me. Hah! Love it. I also loved Melissa having to appear in court for throwing a corncob at Ben Simmons, I could totally see her doing that. I had to look away at the mouse scene. Nope. Nope. ETA I forgot Ava’s last quote! “Kids happy, Janine quiet, Gregory fine.”
  6. We went to Back to School night at my son’s school the other night and I don’t envy the teachers at all, all the bullshit they have to put up with. But despite all of it, every single one told us how much they love teaching and how much they love the kids. That was going through my mind during this episode, with Barbara’s effort to find the desk and Jacob signing to the student and Janine getting Gritty to come to the school for the kids. Gritty is the stuff of nightmares yet somehow is still the best.
  7. I finished reading Babel by RF Kuang and it is a worthwhile read, though I wouldn’t mark it as good as the breathless Goodreads reviews have it. The research is top-notch and the information about languages and history is fascinating. However, the characters and their relationships suffer because of that. A lot of people have compared this to The Secret History, and it is like that with the dark academia setting. But I think the characters and relationships in The Secret History are better drawn and deeper. Also, the dialogue in Babel is bafflingly modern. Some of the discussions about race and gender sound like they are straight out of 2020, not 1840.
  8. So thrilled for "Barbara Howard, woman of God," and for Quinta's writing Emmy! What a thrill. Can't wait for the season premiere!
  9. I recently finished: Karen McManus' new one, Nothing More to Tell. I really enjoyed it, almost more than One of Us is Lying. It had a very Veronica Mars vibe to it, and even references VM. The Final Gambit, the conclusion of Jennifer Lynn Barnes' The Inheritance Games trilogy. From what I see online, a LOT of the discussion of these books revolves around (sigh) shipping. Sigh. At least it hasn't seemed to affect the ratings of the book much on sites like Goodreads and Amazon. I am currently reading: Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang. Promising start. Mysterious with a good atmosphere so far. I have on my list: As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfah Khatouh. I love how many Muslim authors we have now, particularly in YA. We hardly had any when I was growing up as a Muslim girl and devouring books as a tween/teen.
  10. Minneapple

    Book News

    I'm actually kind of curious to read Lightlark now, to see if it's really as bad as all the reviews say. I read quite a bit of YA and YA fantasy, to the point where a lot of the tropes make me roll my eyes (I'm so plain, she thought, as she brushed her long auburn locks away from her face, and then she went to put on the beautiful shimmering teal-colored gown that brought out the green flecks in her eyes). I had it on my Goodreads list because it was getting a ton of hype, I think I even got a Barnes and Noble email with the line about "August's most anticipated YA novel!" or something like that.
  11. Minneapple

    Book News

    Has anyone seen the drama involving the upcoming YA fantasy called Lightlark? This is a novel that is coming out of BookTok. The author has done a ton of TikToks to hype up the novel, talking about the tropes and whatnot in the book. The book has been optioned for a movie before publication and all of this. So there was a ton of hype around this book. Well, they sent out some ARCs and people read it and…apparently it sucks, plus it doesn’t include half of the stuff the author said it includes. The book is getting review bombed on Goodreads and the author is getting a lot of hate on social media. She’s talked about how she has struggled with rejection for “years,” but she’s only 27 and apparently her family is wealthy. I had the book marked on my Goodreads and the rating tanked from like a 4.5 to 2.4 almost overnight. I’ve never seen anything like that.
  12. This is how I've been feeling. I've been trying to get out of a reading rut lately and I just can't. Everything on the bestseller lists is trash or something I've read. I've tried a couple of cozy murder mysteries just for something easy to read and I haven't been able to get past like page 20 of each. I think I need to cull my Goodreads "want to read" list and find something that will get me reading again.
  13. One thing I really did like about Bruno, or Brian, was that he didn't shame Kamala on having feelings for the hot mysterious bad boy. He was still her friend through everything, he didn't pull the classic "nice guy" card like "you should be with me because I'm a nice guy and I know what's better for you than you do." I adored the entire Khan family and Kamala's friends and I would love to see them in future projects.
  14. Kamala and collecting cute boys, name a more iconic duo. I continue to love the slice of life stuff about this show, but the pacing of the superhero stuff is throwing me off. They’re bringing Kamala along slowly while the story itself and the villains move at warp speed. Also it’s a lot they’re trying to cram in with only two episodes left. And now they add time travel! Will Kamala provide the stars that led her grandmother to her father, which creates one of those time travel paradoxes that I can never wrap my brain around? The scenes between Muneeba and her mother, and the toffee scene with Kamala and Muneeba were wonderful. (No way would Kamala’s mom let her out of the house in jeans like that if she knew where they were going and who they were meeting. I speak for all desi girls who ever were told by their mother to change into something more appropriate.) I like that Muneeba and Yusuf didn’t just come to America for a better life. Shows that not all immigrants are poor people just looking for a bootstrap. Nani is super rich, I never would have left. Kamala’s cousin used the term “ABCD,” which means “American Born Confused Desi,” a term that annoys me because I reject the notion that you have to dress or act a certain way to be “Indian.” This was likely at least a partial reference to a movie about this concept entitled “American Desi,” filmed in New Jersey in fact, and starring Kal Penn. Waleed was played by Farhan Akhtar who is a successful Bollywood actor, so I’m surprised they killed him off so quickly.
  15. I love the family dynamic, the scenes with Muneeba/Kamala and Yusuf/Aamir, and how Muneeba and Yusuf have basically accepted Nakia and Bruno as part of their family. Another small detail was how they included Tyesha's family in the wedding dance as a surprise to Tyesha, what a lovely gesture.
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