All the books I read in November and what I thought of them

I wonder how it is that I stay up so late and I still don't get anything done. I think if I could eat time I would get more out of it than I currently do. It's just a thought. I read three books in November; I liked all of them. On a lot of levels it was a good month. 

✨✨✨

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (reread)

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I reread this book mostly because I liked Linus and Arthur's relationship, and then I realized that their relationship is a much smaller part of the book than I remembered, and for most of the book, it's building up to them getting together (which I don't think is a spoiler because it's very clearly the kind of book where the protagonist and the love interest get together) and I really don't care. But it is a really cute relationship, and it makes me happy that they clearly love each other a lot, even before they get together in a romantic sense.

There are too many characters for me to believe that Linus had a real connection with all of them, and I would have taken out at least three of them. The writing was a little too cutesy and quirky, and it bothered me a little, but I still liked most things about this book, and it was cute, and it is genuinely really funny.

🏝️🏝️🏝️

Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto 

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Banana Yoshimoto is the most reliable author in the world. You know exactly what you are going to get. She writes one thing over and over and she does it really well. I sort of think I'm always going to like Kitchen better than all of her other books because it's the one I read first, so everything else just feels like the same thing but without the emotional attachment I already have to Kitchen.

In terms of the plot, Goodbye Tsugumi was pretty new and exciting. The supporting characters were cool and interesting, and I think she did a good job showing why Maria loves her cousin Tsugumi even though Tsugumi kind of sucks. All of the descriptions of the ways people feel and the things they realize are really on the nose, but they're very pretty, so it's fine. Honestly, this book just made me want to reread Kitchen.

🐕🐕🐕

Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar by Amy Kass and Leon Kass

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

My professor kindly let me borrow this book which he had been putting off reading for 23 years. I don't think he realized that the point of the book is to convince the reader to get married which, first of all, didn't work (nice try Kasses!!). And, second of all, I'm 18, so that's not really relevant to me. There is a very strong air throughout of "the kids these days are making different choices than us, and that's necessarily a bad thing," which I thought was silly because there isn't a right way to have love in your life or a right type of love to prioritize. But it was an anthology, and a lot of the essays were interesting (and I agreed with some of them) and also it made me want to read The Four Loves (which I have read at the time of writing, actually, but in December), and Love in the Western World, and the letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, and also The Romance Reader, but then I had that book spoiled for me when I read a review of it in the New York Times. I learned a valuable lesson.