We're an Open Book
10 hours 15 minutes | Listening Library | 08/31/2021
The first half of this book felt like it was all aesthetic and no bite but wow did the last half of this book flip the script! This twisted story of two schoolgirls and a centuries-old murder becomes an absolute page-turner as the pair dive into a centuries-old tragedy.
…I read more thrillers!
The Dry by Jane Harper
Finance investigator Aaron Falk hasn’t visited the struggling farming community of Kiewarra in over 20 years—not since he was run out of town for his association with a dead girl. But when his childhood best friend commits a grisly murder-suicide Aaron is called to attend the funeral and gets roped into the investigation.
This was a solid crime novel, to quote one of the blurbs on the back; it has twists on every page. My favorite thing about Jane Haper’s books are her endings–she writes revelations right up to the last word on the last page.
I’ve been experimenting with crime thrillers this year and this is one of my favorites. I liked that it had a character-driven angle with Falk’s past.
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384 Pages | Roaring Brook Press | Science Fiction YA | 5/4/2021
This book was very much Black Mirror but make it Cli-Fi.
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7 Hours 3 Mins | Harper Audio | Non-Fiction | 1/11/2011
I was excited to read this book because I wanted to compare it to the documentary but, after I finished the book I didn’t feel the need to watch the documentary. I got everything I need from this small but mighty book as it details the history of African-Americans and how that history impacts the foods we eat.
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13 Hours 33 Mins | Simon & Schuster Audio | Literary ? | 6/1/2021
Editorial assistant Nella Rogers is used to being the only Black girl at Wagner Publishing. Then Hazel McCall is hired as a new editorial assistant. Nella is optimistic that the new Black girl–with her activist lineage and “Harlem cool”–will help her challenge the company’s diversity problem. Instead, Nella finds herself slowly pushed out of the comfortable place she secured for herself in the company.
I’m not the biggest fan of books where racial trauma is used like this but I came into this book thinking it was a thriller so I assumed I’d at least get enmeshed in a unique world and it would have compelling plotting. But this book toes the lines more of literary fiction with speculative elements. It has elements of modern Black horror like Get Out and social satire like The Sellout but at the end of the day doesn’t really say anything. I just thought this was kind of silly and found it extremely tedious.
I do not know how to review this book without spoilers so….
*Here be spoilers *
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11 hours 5 minutes | RandomHouse Audio | Historical | 6/1/2021
I guess this is my first ‘TikTok made me read it’ book.
I recently learned that is book is connected to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo so I’m not sure this was the best place to start with Reid but it came in first on my library holds. My experience with this book was like when you watch an amazing TV show you can’t stop talking about and then by the end you just get annoyed but still have to see how it ends.
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