Goodreads Review: The Queen of the Night

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is very long. There were so many tangents and asides, and in my opinion the book would have been stronger if the author had been able to distill the narrative down to the most essential elements of the plot.


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Goodreads Review: Cosmopolis

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book wasn’t for me. While I am always here for a critique of capitalism, the main character was too despicable, particularly in his continued sexual objectification of women, for me to appreciate the novel. I would have given it 2.5 stars if that were an option, because while I did not like it, I do recognize there were some thematic and symbolic through-lines in the book. So, more than 2 stars for literary efforts.


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Goodreads Review: Red Clocks

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was amazing. Relevant to our current political climate and written with compelling and artistic prose, the novel is the story of five women who lead different lives and make different life, career, and relationship choices. The book is set in an America where Roe v. Wade has been overturned, abortion is illegal nationwide, IVF is banned, and single people aren’t eligible to adopt children. The author gives a stark sense of what happens when society fails to support a spectrum of womanhood—there is no one right way to be a woman. I could barely put this book down and highly recommend it.


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Goodreads Review: The Robber Bride

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yep, another Margaret Atwood book that is essentially literary perfection. She is an absolute wordsmith, and I especially enjoyed seeing themes in this work from the '90s that are echoed later in her MaddAddam series. The four main characters in this book seem to embody characteristics tied to interrelated themes of food and consumption, spirituality, history of civilization, and destruction. I am just completely enamored by Atwood's entire oeuvre, and found this to be a compelling, fast-paced book about women who are strong and feminist in very different ways.

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2018 Goodreads Reading Challenge

In 2017, I read 18 books. This doesn't seem like much to me, but then I think about all the proposals, manuscripts, journal articles, and monographs I read for work, and then I feel better.

In 2018, my goal is to read harder and finish 24 books.

Here are the first books I am looking forward to reading in 2018!

Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride

Paul Beatty's The Sellout

Alexander Chee's The Queen of the Night

Gayl Jones's Corregidora

Jaroslav Kalfar's The Spaceman of Bohemia

Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian

Nnedi Okorafor's The Binti Trilogy

And, ReadosaurusText is now on Goodreads!

my read shelf: