false 25 207 153 true 5697166 read 4 true 287234 currently-reading 43 true 287233 to-read 7 true 651421 abandoned 8 false 7575807 wishlist 5 false 4603696 5-classics-in-12-months http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/61016768 The Witches of Eastwick (Paperback) by John Updike
bookshelves: to-read, wishlist
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77367525 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Hardcover) by Junot Díaz
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/32543225 Crossing California (Paperback) by Adam Langer
bookshelves: abandoned
I just wanted to add this to my "abandoned" shelf so I can advertise the fact that I own a copy of it which I would gladly get rid of. It's so bad. It makes me embarrassed to be a Chicagoan.
)
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75568187 to: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Paperback) by Alison Bechdel
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9282748 to: Middlesex (Paperback) by Jeffrey Eugenides
When writing about another book, I said that gender studies don't interest me. This does a better job of making gender studies interesting. There's enough of a story going on so that it's possible to read this whole book without ever considering gender theory. And that's a good thing.

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2378912 to: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Paperback) by Jonathan Safran Foer
If anyone would like to buy this book or swap it for another one, my copy is new and lightly used and I am in no way attached to it.

This book is a pretty breezy read. I really think more books could use pictures and visual representations.

I am personally of the opinion that I like the little kid character but the grandparents are assholes and I want them edited out. This was the exact opposite opinion of several other people in my reading group. Liz pointed out that all the things that annoyed me about the grandparents are their way of coping with tragedy (the Dresden bombing of 1945).

One person was of the opinion that the little kid narrator is autistic and I told him that's a really ishtty way to view the world: weirdness & individuality = mental disease. Aaron thought that the grandmother was secretly a lesbian. I don't personally accept the secret lesbian grandmother theory, but wouldn't want to deprive him of his interpretation. However the autistic child interpretation, I'm not having any of that.

(My reading group's April 2007 book pick.)
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2436441 to: Try (Paperback) by Dennis Cooper
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5542932 Into the Wild (Paperback) by Jon Krakauer
bookshelves: to-read, wishlist
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/26680040 The Abstinence Teacher (Hardcover) by Tom Perrotta
bookshelves: to-read, wishlist
]]>