Read Strays of Ruined Springs

 East of Eden (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is my third time reading East of Eden , and it   is maybe the only classic I would universally recommend to anyone who has read a book in recent memory. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who never reads because it is long and intimidating. I would recommend it to basically anyone else, though, since the writing is accessible, the plot moves reasonably expeditiously, and it's one of my favorite books. The plot is difficult to summarize because it takes place over the course of more than 50 years. Essentially, it's a generational saga that follows two families—the Hamiltons and the Trasks, but mostly the Trasks—as their action form an allegory of the story of Cain and Abel. If you aren't familiar with the story of Cain and Abel, that's okay, because they read it in the middle of the book.  Something really neat about this book is that the Cain and Abel allegory occurs twice, once in each generation. Only in the older genera

 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨/5 I have read, at the time of writing, two books by Haruki Murakami: Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle . To me, the experience of reading Murakami is being extremely confused until 20 pages before the end, at which point you figure out about half the answers to your questions, and then the book ends without answering the other half, and you are, if possible, even more confused. It's fun.  I've decided to become a Murakami fan (which makes very little sense to me because I am  a) dense  b) incapable of dealing with symbolism c) not that pretentious d) a girl but, I don't know, maybe I'm just a masochist), so you (reader) and I can both look forward to a lot of me being confused.  For much of this book, my major gripe was that it was taking so long to get to the good part. I was on page 450 or something and I was still wondering when I was going to get to the good part. This cuts both for and against thi

 Pet (a review) rating: ⭐⭐✨/5 (that's 2.5) Pet is a fine book that would have been ten times better as a short story. If there exists a book where the phrase, "this could have been an email" is applicable, it is this book. It would have to be a long email. In any case, the concept of this book was super interesting, but the plot was sparse. Either more should have happened, or it should have been condensed. This book is about a girl named Jam living in a utopian city where monsters (bad people) used to exist but don't anymore. Then, she meets a hunter/monster/sentient painting named Pet who is there to seek out and deal with a monster whose existence no one will acknowledge.  If this all sounds interesting, it's because it is, at least, in theory. In practice, nothing happened in this book for at least 100 pages. Characters talk to each other and agonize. It is not action packed. There were maybe four plot points. I would recommend someone who is writing a book in

  Written in the Stars (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/ 5 I set out to read a romance novel and succeeded in reading a romance novel. In almost every respect, I got what I came for. I don't have a ton of opinions on this book, but I think Bella will kill (or at the very least seriously injure) me if I don't review enough books. I would not say that  Written in the Stars  has enough selling points for me to recommend it broadly speaking. I'm not going to, say, tell the scorer on the AP test that they should read  Written in the Stars . But if you are looking to read a romance novel specifically, and you just want it to be cute and fun, have I got a book for you. Written in the Stars  follows our intrepid protagonists, Elle (an astrologer) and Darcy (an actuary) as they begin fake dating to solve their personal problems. Elle's family thinks she is flighty and irresponsible, and she wants to show them that she's a responsible adult. Darcy has recently broken off an engagement