Lisa Eckstein > Recent Status Updates

So suspenseful!

This is a "keeping me up past my bedtime" kind of story!

I love all the focus on realistic details that add up to a situation where everything went wrong. (Now that I think of it, that was also one of the great things about Miracle Creek!)

The second section is very different from the first, more meandering, but I enjoyed it. I like how we're getting inside different characters' heads. I had forgotten there was some of that in the first book as well.

Taking an interesting turn at the end, and while I have some half-formed theories, I still can't predict where it's going.

Remains both fun and mysterious!

"She had an hourglass figure, not in its shape but in the melancholy reminder that time is running short and there are things on this Earth you'll never experience." So many great lines!

This is fun, a mystery presented as transcripts of audio recordings. No idea where it might be going!

That was a tense night! I remember the first book being slower to get to the action, but this one is not!

It's neat watching the story rush toward the present.

"Bunny was now at an age that she knew put her squarely, alarmingly, into the realm of adulthood. She had noticed that among the friends from high school and college with whom she haphazardly kept in contact, many of them seemed to have become things, or were in the process of doing so, and she wanted to be some kind of thing too."

Once again I'm impressed by how gripping a story Kiesling can tell despite not developing an obvious plot. I am happy to keep reading about Bunny moving from event to event without having any idea what it's all building to.

"Everything was a source of mortification; her body was aflame with it every moment of the day." Bunny is a great character, coming of age as an American diplomat's daughter in the unfamiliar setting of Azerbaijan.

"To me, a thirteen-year-old Black girl... [San Francisco] was a state of beauty and a state of freedom. The fog wasn't simply the steamy vapors off the bay caught and penned in by hills, but a soft breath of anonymity that shrouded and cushioned the bashful traveler. I became dauntless and free of fears, intoxicated by the physical fact of San Francisco... I was certain that no one loved her as impartially as I."

Emotionally wrenching!

The story continues becoming more intriguing as more perspectives appear.

Beautifully written, and Angelou captures her own childhood perspective well: "People were those who lived on my side of town. I didn't like them all, or, in fact, any of them very much, but they were people. These others, the strange pale creatures that lived in their alien unlife, weren't considered folks. They were whitefolks."

Getting more interesting layer by layer as new characters reveal their perspectives.

I like how this promises to uncover secrets and reveal how things aren't what's expected.

Excited about reading a novel that starts on the Brown campus!

Eh. I've continued reading because I was curious to get to the pandemic section, but this is not the book for me.

I'm enjoying reading about the workings of the SNL-like comedy show, but I wish I was finding it funnier.

Enjoying watching the pieces come together.

I do enjoy when a story introduces a new perspective in Part 2.

Since I so loved Mandel's most recent 3 novels, I've been meaning to read her first 3. This one doesn't involve anything as momentous as Station Eleven (most stories don't), but is deeply concerned with characters and their relationships as all Mandel's stories ultimately are.

Interesting combination of plotlines and ideas. A lot going on in this novel!

Engrossed by all the timelines of this family's story!

Intriguing mix of family and history and mysteries not yet explained!

"'Humans are very different from people,' whistled the ambassador. 'But they are like people.'" As ever with Leckie's novels, the interactions with aliens are great and often amusing.

This story is just so original and idiosyncratic in ways that I love!