Read Strays of Ruined Springs

 The Love Hypothesis (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐ I read The Love Hypothesis because I saw Sam reading The Love Hypothesis . I did not love this book, although a lot of that is because I don't like certain tropes in romance novels. If you really enjoy cheesy romance books or like tropes I don't, you might well like it more than I did.  If you have been living under a rock, you may not be familiar with the premise of The Love Hypothesis , in which case I'm here to tell you that this book is about a fake relationship between Olive, a science grad student (I don't know what kind of science, but she does cancer research, so whatever field of science that is) and Adam, a professor of... some kind of science. It's crazy how I've read this entire book and I still don't know what kind of science Olive and Adam do. Anyway, Olive and Adam start fake dating because Olive wants to convince her friend Anh that it is okay for Anh to date Olive's ex because Olive is romantic...

 God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ For a while, I loved this book, although I wasn't sure why. It doesn't have much of a plot—a man gives people money and listens to them talk about their personal problems—so I wasn't sure what the concrete appeal was. It was during this reread I realized that I love God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater  because it's an argument for the importance of altruism and the value of humanity. I like people and altruism, so I am a fan. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater relays the epic adventures of a middle-aged millionaire volunteer firefighter enthusiast who moves back to his hometown and sets up a foundation to "love people who have no use." I don't think that's a spoiler, but since there's no plot, it's hard to tell. Anyway, his whole family thinks he's gone crazy because he cares about other people, and a lawyer tries to get him declared insane by a court so the Rhode Island Rosewaters will get his mone...

 My Sister, the Serial Killer (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ My Sister, the Serial Killer is an exceedingly fun book about crime sisters who do crime together. The crime is serial murder. It's not quite as fun of a relationship as one would think, but the girlboss energy is immense, and at least one sister is living her best life. Korede's sister Ayoola has an interesting habit of killing her boyfriends, possibly in self defense, but maybe not. It's sketchy, to say the least. Korede acts as Ayoola's accomplice, helping her dispose of the bodies and whatnot, until Ayoola becomes romantically involved with Korede's love interest, Tade (a doctor and her colleague). Korede becomes both jealous and concerned for Tade's safety because, you know, love interest, and is unsure how much she will do to protect her sister.  My Sister, the Serial Killer , is satire, although I didn't get it. Then I looked it up on the internet, and the joke is that men are bad listeners and do ...

 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (a review) rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I'm sorry, Bella. I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness (for reading another book by Haruki Murakami) because I don't deserve it.  It's an interesting experience to read a novel by Haruki Murakami and not be desperately confused and waiting for an epiphany that never comes, or, more accurately, is about half as enlightening as you were expecting. While I was reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World , which is, by the way, an excellent title, I was rather disappointed by how much I understood what was going on. I thought to myself, if I have predicted the plot twist from 250 pages away, I'm quitting, and I'm suing the author. Fortuitously, the thing I was understanding was not the plot twist, and you are supposed to figure out what I figured out at the point in the book I figured it out. At least, I sure hope so. Then the ending baffled me, so it comes out to the same thin...

All the Books I Read in May and What I Thought of Them This month I read 12 books and started a book blog, clearly. I mean, it isn't clear that I read 12 books, but I clearly started a blog. What else has occurred this month? Irrelevant. This paragraph is too short and not aesthetically pleasing. And my wifi isn't working. Why isn't my wifi working? This is nonsense.  Anyway , this is a list of every book I read in May and what I thought of each of them. Snapdragon by Kat Leyh rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I stole this book from Chaney. By stole I mean borrowed. It was very cute! And very wholesome! The drawings were nice. That's all I have to say. The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ My wifi is working again. That's lovely. I ran a troubleshooter and it just,,, fixed it. God, I love modern technology. You know what else I have a very positive opinion of? The song The Very First Night by Taylor Swift, which I am currently attempting to listen to on loop, but spotify does...

 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 aga...