Sari's 2020 Book Challenge

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2020 movies:
Frozen 2? When did I watch this?
Once upon a time in Hollywood, w/ dad in wv
Joker, w/ Shane, oh
Onward, w/ mom in wv
Toy story 4?
It 2
Ad astra
Zombie land 2
Doctor sleep
Knives Out - W/ m&d
Dr Dolittle - “
G. Carlin, V1
2021-
Jan:
fearless vampire hunters -w/ dad
Mulan, live action, mom,dad &T
Soul, w/ t
Inside Out w/ t
Hamilton w/t 1/2
2021 books:
in 27 days, gervais, 1/18
we are the ants, hutchinson, 1/19
a tragic kind of wonderful, lindstrom, 1/20
between the lines, picoult1/22
off the page, picoult,1/24
Toll, shusterman, 1/29
Early Departures, reynolds, 1/30
/
I lost my previous reviews. didnt save. dont have it in me to write them again
/
2/12? Flowers in the attic
2/ 15! Get that job! The quick and complete guide to a winning interview
2/16 25 things to say to the interviewer to get the job you want
2/16 the secret of how to ace any job interview with confidence
2/20 nailing the job interview
2/20 cracking the code to a successful interview

4/3 - Picture Book: The Future of Food 4*
I feel like this book definitely had some vegetarian leanings, without being overtly so. Pics of chickens & cows in cages included. Enviro challenges mentioned. Meatless meat (impossible foods/ beyond meat), lab meat, bugs as cuisine, gmos, vertical farming, floating farms, selective breeding, 3-d printer food (speculative, other than decorative, right now). It was a nice overview of both why needed and possible solutions.

4/16 Juliet takes a breath, GN 3.5*
This was a nice coming of age story. Lots going on for the lead. Coming out. Moving. All the things. The "white lady" was a bit on the batsh*t crazy side, but it's nice that the overall is just be who you are, and take some risks to do that. Let go of bad/ subpar people and situations. Also, minority pride. I'm not really sure that's the proper phrase, but it's the words I have at the moment. And it's nice that really comes through. Not just being LGBT, but also minority LGBT. Letting people in, while less an issue, was also nice that so many people were there for her. Oh yes, fallen heroes. It's a thing. But I digress.

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9/17 homestead woods financial book

I feel like this is an entire book about an upper-middle class couple that decided to play poor. I get that she is constantly talking about how she has privilege to - whatever - and I really.. just.. don't.. care. On the one hand, good points are made about saving up for what you really want (in this case, financial independence) and sacrifices people of a certain income range can make and save to get to those goals. This isn't a book for people that are already struggling financially. This is a book for people that are already financially comfortable, and want to get a little out of their comfort zone -- be frugal for fun, and not out of necessity. 1.8-2?

9/19 flamer
I'm about the same age as this character, and this reminded me of the 90s. What it was like being anywhere on the LGBT+ spectrum in the 90s. Everyone knew someone that had been fired, ex-communicated from their family/ church, seriously/ physically bullied at school (vs. the usual verbal bullying, which is unfortunately par for the course per tween/teenage years in general), etc. I think this book really gets across what it was like to be surrounded by an entire community of people that just... reject you. *spoiler* and not everyone got such a happy ending*s* And this impossible feeling of what happens if you make a wrong move. Then everything goes wrong. (And the -very- few people I knew that were out when it was -this- hard to be out... I have retained my infinite amazement and respect for them. All these years. The only beacons in an otherwise dark sea of social rejection. But I digress.) 4.8*

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9/21 3*
This person definitely feels much differently about hugs than I do.
It’s a series of decluttering your household advice. Clearly a ver6 low production budget. Lot of stuff was repetitive, but not in a way I found annoying. Big emphasis on visualization & planning, which was different. A quick set just on papers. :-)
Fun acronyms, but didn’t really add anything to my knowledge base.

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9/24
Time management the chef way. Mensenplas. Whatever. Organization , anticipation, perfecting skills & set up. All for good time management, not what I was expecting, but an interesting read. 4*

9/24 1.8? Translated. How monks live. Clean with the soul or whatever. Barely interesting. Not useful.

9/25 4*
I like that this was a factual summary of her life with small tidbits, not an opinionated unauthorized autobiography. Dry, but informative. Looking forward to RBGs book. Weird reading this a) b/c it ends hopeful about the 2016/election being a woman & b) now that she’s dead. Which is a special kinda tragic. Very interesting woman. I don’t agree with all of her opinions regarding judicial stuff, but she’s quite an interesting person. (And what’s this about a play?)

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9/26 2.5*?
I don’t love religion in my books, but this one didn’t drown the reader in it.
Takeaway) 1) do you want it? (Not do you dislike it.)
Make your soce work
One hobby at a time.
Anything anti consumerism is nice. ‘‘This is one of those.
You don’t need to own it, (recommends sharing but also in general), if you have everything you can find nothing, fear-guilt-shame trifecta of nothing good
Read 2x

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9/28 4.2*
This was interesting. Story in a story in a story. As it were. The beginning really (REALLY) didn't grab me. I probably started this 3-4 times before I made myself listen/ read it. Which is pretty bad, because audio. How bad does an intro have to be to make passive listening miserable? But once you actually get into the story, it's pretty good. I could even see pairing it with some historic books on the dust bowl, were one doing a lesson in school. But the story lined out nicely. (Oh, Bob Ross doesn't use watercolor! He's an oil painter!!! He's probably done a few watercolor, but that's not what his Joy of Painting series is known for. Just saying.)

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10/1 2.3*
Disappointing. There have to be better books about this. Really overemphasized the gay-male experience (because author). Lots of “choose to be trans” comments. Who would choose this?!? You either are or aren’t on such a spectrum. Literally everything but gay male felt like it got glossed over. The whole thing was... really disappointing. The best thing about this book was the cover/ title. Serves me right choosing a book based on such things.

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10/12
This was an interesting take on you-be-you teen fiction. Many lgbt stories seem to be either coming out or general romance. This is about a boy changing who he is (interests, hobbies, style, physical appearance) in order to attract a particular boy. In this case, a bit why is super into theater, nail polish, & sparkles to sporty & ultra masculine. And it works, but at what cost? This book, I thought, approached some issues in the lgbt community that I was... aware of... but you don’t generally think of toxic masculinity within the lgbt crowd. I generally associate early it with cis-straight. So in encourages conversation about things going on within The lgbt community, not necessarily in direct opposition to it, which I found interesting. (Also, this is the guy that wrote jack of hearts, so -yes- expect a scene. Not too graphic, but enough.) I liked this quite a bit. Paired well with Flamer. (Both lgbt camp books about boys) 4.4/5?

10/27
Strange book about viruses & viral mutations, that quickly became a scathing criticism of poultry farming. Because rapid viral mutations, that can become increasingly more dangerous/ pathogenic?. Animal to animal jumps covered. Animal to human. This was a strange book to listen to while eating, sometimes, because it can get a bit descriptive with the details, but it’s all in good fun. Covid was commented on/ mentioned in various parts. It was an intEresting background info. I didn’t know much about virology, & this was a fun overview. The horror of h5n2 (bird flu) wasn’t previously realized by me. I am glad this book was Rereleased for covid. Truly. Good call by the author.
Maybe a bit biased, but that’s understandable. 4.2*


10/31
Did this in one marathon night of cleaning. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this narrator’s Strong southern accent, as I am from the south, but once it got going, I was fine. Very pro-bluegrass. And being from the mountains, this can be a very generational style of music, although I’d never really thought of it that way, I do recognize it as such. Bi character, so interesting love triangle: the boy or the girl? Choices. Ghosts, so nice Halloween read, that come up when instrument is played. This book created many questions for the reader, and spaced out the answers. The mystery part was rather predictable for me, but the family aspect wasn’t, and became surprisingly engaging. Grief. Anger. Trauma. Individual & on a family level. Satisfying read. More than I had anticipated. Could probably have been shorter, but still, not bad. 4.2*

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11/17 2.7*?
I mean, yay for a book about the difficult process of transitioning. This book began with a brief intro to the main character, then a whole lot about her mom. So much about her mom. I felt like I was reading a book about her mom, not her. Then some about her, and a fair portion about jazz j. And the major influence she had on her. Not quite idol worship, but enough to make me uncomfortable for her. Props to her having a supportive mom who was very proactive about the way she faced, and taught her to face, bullying. Gave her a bit of a platform, there. But I think the part of the book that was actually meaningful to me was the blowback. That it was temporarily great to be out, and then the rain comes. The severe bullying/ physical, the social media storm, the haters, all the things. Because that’s a part of life that people don’t always talk about. Bring string and doing the right thing, and it’s great... and then it isn’t. It really isn’t. And you have to get through it. She did. And others will too. And that was what made reading this valuable to me. Some quick info “take 5” q&a by a dr. Was also a nice touch/ useful. Perspective for readers.

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11/23 3.7*
Audiobook
I almost dnfd this book. Twice. Not infrequently, I was wondering wth I was listening to. The chronology is weird, it seemed. A fair bit if it is repetitive. I was expecting something similar to notorious RBG. Which was a good primer for this book, btw. The strength of this book is all the audio clips of RBG delivering her dissents/ arguments/ speeches, although the best is by husband. Near beginning of book. And there’s a fair amount of legal philosophy in here. Good. Like top 10 pct of hs grad class auto admit to state coll equals people moving to lower performing schools in subpar neighborhoods to do that. My fax ex of that. But I really liked that. Unintended consequences. And writing dissent for future time. Prior cases knowing at least one person got it right sometimes. International cases to see how other courts, or systems of thought, handle similar issues to our own. Good stuff. If I was young and interested in such things, this book could inspire me to do law. I’m not and it won’t, but still. Good stuff. Damn shame she’s dead. Worse with who she’s replaced with.

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price of salt
Most boring lgbt book in the history of ever.
A dozen hours of my life I’ll never get back//
I almost dnfd this several times. If I was reading instead of listening, I prob would’ve.
If you survive to the last third/ quarter of the book, then I get it. It’s... still not good, but at least relatively ok. I really don’t see a healthy Ltr between these characters, though. And the choice... I wouldn’t blame her either way. 11/25 2.7

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11/27 3.6*?
It was a nice memoir. Occasionally quotable. Really gave some good information about the history of the flag, & some really important early activism — that we arguably have to thank for much of what we have today (gay rights/visibility). Worth listening to if you enjoy lgbt memoirs. Familiar names if you follow such things around a certain time period, which I do,

11/29 3.4\6?
I liked the first half of the book, mostly.
The Beginning felt overly dramatic and not well researched, I guess. Because reasons. That point to the mid was nice. The second half was the usual stuff Picoult readers are Used to, controversial topic in humane way or whatever. From human perspective. I just found this so... Horribly... predictable. I mean a few things here and there, sure. But I kinda always knew what the end would be. And that was disappointing. But there were a fair number of topics in this book I could identify with, For better or worse, which made it both good and bad for me. Because some things I felt the author did ok on. And some not so much. But whatever. I like the variety of perspectives. Although I HATE the music in the audiobook version. It was something to... endure. Until the next chapter.

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12/12 2.4
Interesting premise. There is truth in some of the patriarchy-slamming commentary. I couldn’t identify with all of the people-pleasing desires, but it was interesting Enough to hear the narrator talk about. Spoiler: the end Concept felt like a cop-out, but the end-end was satisfying enough. But the regular end was so disappointing that I think it almost ruined the rest of the book for me.

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2022 (until able to post elsewhere):
Stuffology 101 3/1
Good beginning decluttering book - gentle/ soft-handed. Basics, but helps get the midnframe/ motivation going. Product push didn't come until the end. Yay! 3.4*

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love people use things 3/5?
discusses minimalism, financial and relationship advice, primarily. Good vocabulary. I maybe didn't agree with everything, and it was more heavy-handed than most books, but it wasn't without merit. There's probably at least one thinking point in here for everyone. About people and their stuff. 4*