I watch a lot of murder-y shows, but I don’t read a lot of murder-y books. Ruth Rendell was unknown to me before I read The St. Zita Society. Apparently, she’s a beloved novelist of almost a hundred murder-y books, so it appears to be bad luck that introduced me…
Category: The Q Review
Books
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Go Ask Alice | “Anon”
This book is a complete and utter piece of shit. I only finished it because it was so short and because I occasionally indulge in a hate-read. For those who are unfamiliar with the lore, Go Ask Alice is purported to be the posthumous diary of a teenage girl whose…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Next to Heaven | James Frey
(And no, I don’t think these two statements are contradictory.) The result is a fast-paced, surface level story about a bunch of terrible, gorgeous, insanely wealthy and super horny white couples who live in the rarified air of New Bethlehem, Connecticut and whose relationships begin to unravel immediately after a…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Twilight | Stephanie Meyer
It is the year 2025 AD, and I, a fifty-one-year-old woman, have read Twilight by Stephanie Meyer for the very first time. It should also be noted that I have never seen any of the films based on this series. Any prior knowledge I had of this book and its…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Algorithms of Betrayal | Anat Deracine
I found Algorithms of Betrayal by Anat Decine on NetGalley. This book took a while to grow on me, but once I got into it, I was hooked. I’m chalking my initial reticence up to my baggage working in and around technology for 20+ years. Initially, it felt like this…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Yours, Eventually | Nura Maznavi
Nura Maznavi’s Yours, Eventually is a combination of a Pakistani television drama and a Jane Austen novel. Neither of these things on their own is particularly compelling to me, but put them together and set the action in the Bay Area, and I’m in. Like, really in. I am so glad I got the…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | The Grand Scheme of Things | Warona Jay
A couple of months ago, I read Yellowface by R.H. Kuang. While I enjoyed it for all the juicy drama (and gave it four stars), part of my critique was that the characters felt two-dimensional, making the book seem less about people and more about the issues on which the…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Outlive | Peter Attia, MD
Last November, as I lay in my bed recovering from foot surgery, my husband came home from a doctor’s appointment and told me that he needed surgery, too. A quadruple bypass. He’s 52. Needless to say, this experience has lit a fire under our asses to re-examine our diet and…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Yellowface | Rebecca F. Kuang
I like fiction about terrible people (see also: The White Lotus), so Yellowface by R.F. Kuang was fun for me. The book is about two friends – one Asian (Athena Liu), the other white (June Hayward) – who come up together through university, both pursuing authorship. When Athena dies unexpectedly…
Blog
Continue Reading
The Q Review | Negroland | Margo Jefferson
“White people wanted to be white just as much as we did. They worked just as hard at it. They failed just as often. They failed more often. But they could pass, so no one objected.” I love reading about subcultures and sects. It fascinates me to learn when and…