Myah Reads

You know that satisfied feeling you get when you finally read a book that’s been on your TBR list forever and actually like it? That’s exactly how I felt when I finished Conversations with Friends. It’s the second novel I’ve read by Sally Rooney and I’m definitely a fan of her work. I enjoy the way she writes her characters and how her stories unfold.

Conversations with Friends is about best friends, Frances and Bobbi, and their budding friendship with a with a well-known photographer, Melissa, and her husband, Nick.  Frances is just your typical bisexual, communist, poetry-writing college student, who happens to be having an affair with Nick. Okay, so not typical—but makes for a great voice. I like the way that Frances thinks—even though it’s radically different from me. I think that’s part of why I loved relaxing and cracking open this book. It felt like an escape from my normal thought process. 

Bobbi is quite the character as well. She has a bossy, out-going personality. She serves as a foil to Frances’ calm and emotionally-detached demeanor. Bobbi and Frances dated in high school but stayed friends after their breakup. They are understandably very close and hang out all the time. One thing they like doing together is performing poetry that Frances writes. It’s at one of their performances that Melissa enters the picture. Then later Nick comes along.

I would describe their marriage as deeply unhappy. I honestly can’t understand why they’re still together, because they clearly don’t enjoy each other’s company. But then that brings us to the affair which is written in such a weird ambiguous way, because it feels like the characters cared about the affair but they didn’t care at the same time. Yes, Frances and Nick were guilty and secretive about it. But it kept on going.

In an interview I read in the back of the novel, Rooney says she didn’t think the characters “were any worse than protagonists in other novels” and she viewed them as foolish instead of evil. That was interesting to me, because so often people try to label fictional characters as a good guy or bad guy, when sometimes they just exist in a weird gray area.

Overall, I thought that book was thought-provoking and fascinating. It makes me look forward to the next novel Rooney writes whenever that happens. If you don’t mind a little moral ambiguity, lack of quotation marks, and enjoy witty banter, then you might need to add this novel to your own TBR list.

I think Supermarket is one of those books where it is obvious that it was written by a particular person. Bobby Hall (a.k.a. Logic) wrote the book and it comes off as something that Logic would write. I don’t know why I get this feeling. I think the music references and the voice give it away.  It feels like this rapper would write a book with references to alternative music and a character that thinks so openly about his creativity, all in such a conversational style.

Now let’s get to what this book is actually about: a 24 year old named Flynn, who works in a supermarket. But he is also a writer working on a book he is determined to finish. You see Flynn and I suffer from the same problem. You have all of these ideas in your head, but when you try to execute them, you have trouble following through.  Growing up I would start writing these stories, but never finish them. It’s like I would feel really inspired but lose steam. However, Flynn refused to lose steam on this project. He really commits to the book, by working in its setting, a supermarket.

I genuinely like Flynn as a character. He has such an interesting viewpoint. I really liked how Hall wrote him as an unreliable narrator, and I liked the stream of consciousness style he used sometimes. For example, when Flynn was narrating, he would go on these random tangents and then all of a sudden say something along the lines of “wait, what was I talking about?” Or he would start describing something that’s a little unbelievable that would make me wonder, did that really happen? But he would quickly say later “no I’m just kidding.”

The other characters were okay. Frank, another guy who works at the supermarket, was definitely obnoxious. But once you read the book, you understand why he is that way. Let’s just say Flynn has a little bit of Frank in him. I also loved his relationship with Maria, the girl who worked in the bakery that he started dating. They complemented each other really well.

There were a few plot twists—but I saw them coming. I think that’s because I skimmed the chapter titles in the table of contents and I saw one of them was called “Asylum,” and I just pieced it together as the story went along. I think Supermarket is a pretty quick and fun read. If you don’t want to slog through anything too difficult and enjoy books about a writer’s dedication to his craft—then go for it.

Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter has been on my TBR list for a while now. I saw it on one of those books to read in your twenties lists online. I’m definitely interested in books with characters navigating their twenties, because I’m trying to do the same for myself. I also liked that the main character, Tess, worked at a restaurant because I have also worked at restaurants. So I assumed I would enjoy the book because I thought I would be able to relate to the main character.

But Sweetbitter ended up being a lot different than what I expected.  I’m still on the fence as to whether or not I liked it. I definitely didn’t hate it, but I don’t know if I loved it either. For now, let’s just call it a pleasant read.

The novel follows 22-year-old Tess and her journey working at an upscale restaurant in New York City. I really enjoyed learning about how the restaurant works.  I’ve only worked at fast food restaurants, so I don’t really know much about what goes behind the scenes at these fancier establishments. I noticed the positions are a lot more specific. This restaurant has backwaiters, servers, and senior servers. These are roles that probably would have been combined at a more casual place. Don’t even get me started on the wine descriptions. I felt so uncultured reading them. They just went right over my head, because my knowledge of alcohol is almost non-existent.

I still don’t know what to make of Tess. She is the narrator, but for some reason she feels very detached. I don’t know much about her and I think that has to do with the lack of back story. I know she didn’t have a good relationship with her family. Her mother left and her dad wasn’t really there emotionally for her. But that’s about it. She says she came to New York to escape but she doesn’t know what from? I think she was just lonely.

I think it’s this loneliness that causes her to get so absorbed in work and hang out with her coworkers frequently, even though some of them could be very cold to her. At least in the beginning. Most of them came around the longer she worked at the restaurant.  But I also need to say I really did not like Jake or his relationship with Tess.  Jake is a bartender who Tess had a huge crush on and she later started sleeping with him. I just felt like he talked down to her too much.

But her time with Jake, like the work mistakes, the drugs, and the heavy drinking are all a part of her journey. I think she started to grow after going through all of these negative experiences, which I could see more toward the end of the book.  However, I need to say this book ended in a weird way and I don’t know what I was supposed to get out of it. It was so open-ended that I can’t even guess what would happen next.

This book wasn’t a major page-turner for me, but it definitely wasn’t the slowest book I’ve ever read. I think it was a nice medium pace if that makes sense. I think this novel is for people who like books that really focus on the characters and their growth and are foodies and/or wine enthusiasts.

I bought Mary H.K. Choi’s Permanent Record on a whim from the Books-A-Million website with an e-gift card. It sounded cute enough.  Boy meets girl in a grocery store. Girl turns out to be a pop star. She sweeps him off his feet and they have a whirlwind romance. But this definitely isn’t a Cinderella story. Let me explain.

This novel follows Pablo, a nineteen year old college dropout working in a health food store in New York. He doesn’t really know what he wants in life. He’s idling by while also stressing out about his massive amounts of debt. But then Leanna enters the picture.

She is basically the fictional version of all those child stars from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon who are still musicians and actors as adults. She’s trying to make that transition. But she seems pretty exhausted with her fame which is probably why she views Pablo as breath of fresh air.

However this novel is more about Pablo than Leanna. I will admit when I first started reading Permanent Record, I wanted it to alternate between Pablo and Leanna’s viewpoints like Choi’s first novel , Emergency Contact. But I came to appreciate Pablo as the sole narrator. I thought his voice could be a little cheesy, because he used “drip” and other slang throughout. But I accepted it because it adds to the character.

He definitely was not a perfect character, which really showed when he became so dependent on Leanna. Not so much financially but emotionally. He would practically disappear and not tell anyone while he jetted off to some faraway land with Leanna. I thought it was weird when she asked him to go to these places knowing he had a job and thinking he went to school (something Pablo lied to her about).

But I did like that this book took a very close look at money and how it controls our lives, especially when you’re in debt. Pablo is legally an adult, but when you’re nineteen, you sometimes still have the mindset of a kid, which Pablo does acknowledge. I think that’s how you see him grow up is when he decides to tackle his debt instead of running away from it.

Overall, Permanent Record is a nice summer read, but I might not remember it in two months. While this book did not make a lasting impact on me, it did take me on a bit of mental vacation, with a healthy dose of reality (the whole debt thing was slightly stressful because I have debt myself).  If you just want something to get through really quickly and not think too much, then you may want to give this book a shot.

It has been more than a year since I graduated college and I still often find myself reflecting on my experience. I think a lot about my regrets including spending too much time obsessing over grades and not allowing myself to open up to people and make friends. I didn’t make any new friends in college—just a string of acquaintances. So I was very excited when I picked up Again, but Better by Christine Riccio, which had a character going through a similar experience.

Shane is a pre-med college student who excels academically, but feels like her social life is extremely lacking. So she decides the best way to shake things up is to study abroad for a semester.  The novel starts with Shane on her way to London, and she makes a list of goals she wants to accomplish during her semester like make friends, do well in her internship, and have a romantic life.

Shane does achieve her goals to an extent. She meets a great group of people at her residence hall—including Pilot, a guy she has an instant connection with and develops a major crush on. She gets an internship at a travel magazine and travels to some really cool places like Italy and Paris.

However things do go south and her semester ends on a bad note. But that’s what magic is for. I didn’t mind this at all, because there were little foreshadowing tidbits throughout the book that pointed to some sort of magical event happening later on.

 In this magical twist, Shane gets to relive her study abroad semester. I liked this part, because it gave me so much to think about. There are times where I wonder if did my college experience all over again, what would have been different? I would have definitely made different choices: in regards to a major, and the extracurricular activities I chose, and how I interacted with people. 

I also love this part of the book, because I think that’s where I see the most character growth for Shane. Sure she met some of the goals I mentioned earlier, but in this part you see her learn new things about people she thought she knew really well. She also discovers what is actually important to her and what her true goals are.

I would recommend this book if you want a bit of a realistic, somewhat relatable escape and like stories that focus on self-discovery.

I devoured Jessica Knoll’s debut novel, Luckiest Girl Alive. I liked the pacing of it and the theme of reconciling with your younger self. When I saw that Knoll had written another novel, The Favorite Sister, I knew I wanted to read it. While this one touched on some important topics, it did not live up to Knoll’s first novel.

The Favorite Sister follows a group of women on a reality TV show called Goal Diggers, which focuses on their lives as millennial female entrepreneurs. The story is told through three narrators: Brett, her sister Kelly, and Stephanie. Two other women, Lauren and Jen, are on the show, but are not narrators in the story.

The novel starts off on a dark note. Brett is dead and Kelly thinks she should take some of the blame. That particular plot point drew me in, because it made me expect this suspenseful story I couldn’t put down like Luckiest Girl Alive.

 But I didn’t find this book that suspenseful. There was enough happening to keep me reading to an extent, but I also didn’t have a problem putting it down. I think it took a long time to get to the events actually leading up to Brett’s death.

I usually like books with multiple narrators, but I don’t know if I liked the way these were executed. Brett’s chapters were okay. You get to learn about her struggle growing up plus-sized and that her mother was very hard on her for it. She owns a fitness studio company while also being a major advocate for body positivity, which is something that is emphasized at her studios.

Stephanie’s chapters were interesting, because she talked about growing up a black woman while being raised by her adoptive white mother. Being the oldest women on the show, she also talked about how society views aging women and how it feels like she’s being phased out of the show due to her age.

Kelly’s chapters just didn’t do it for me. She’s supposed to be in the present day retelling what happened to Brett in a TV interview. There weren’t enough of her chapters for me to really understand her. I think so much time is spent on Brett and Stephanie that Kelly’s point of view gets drowned out.

I really liked how this book made me think deeper about modern day feminism and the sentiment of women supporting other women. While that sentiment sounds good in theory, sometimes it just falls through in real life. Goal Diggers was supposed to be the feminist antithesis to Real Housewives and other reality TV shows that show a lot of drama and fighting between women.

But the producers of Goal Diggers ended up taking a page out of the classic reality TV formula and started stirring up drama and pitting the women against each other to boost the ratings. However the women could be really nasty to each other even without being provoked by the producers. For example, there were a lot of negative comments about Brett’s weight.  

This is all to say I didn’t think this book was a bad read. It was definitely thought-provoking at times, but it’s probably not going to be a favorite of mine and I don’t plan on returning to it. I think this book is better suited for those who love the drama of those modern reality shows like Real Housewives and are interested in what goes on behind the scenes.   

I’ve passed by Leah Konen’s The Romantics, a few times at the library, but I finally decided to buy it several weeks ago. The cover definitely caught my attention. It was cute and described the story as a rom-com about love told by Love. I think Love narrating a story is very unique and quite fitting for a rom-com.

But what I really liked about this book was how self-aware it was about rom-coms while still giving the readers the parts of genre we know and love like a meet-cute, an adorable setting, and quirky characters just to name a few.

The Romantics follows high school senior, Gael, who’s view of love is shattered after he catches his girlfriend kissing his best friend and while dealing with his parents’ divorce. But we don’t have to worry about Gael, because our trusty (and meddlesome) narrator Love is here to help guide him in the right direction to the right girl at the end.

One interesting part of having Love tell the story is the labels he places on the characters that describe how they view love and how they act in relationships. For example, Gael is a romantic, someone who is really into being in love and openly expresses their affection for someone.  The girl he starts seeing after the breakup, Cara, is a serial monogamist. She is someone who feels the need to always be in a relationship. It just made me wonder which label would be most fitting for me?

I also like that the characters are not all in high school and the story doesn’t just focus on high school relationships. Cara and Sammy, the babysitter for Gael’s little sister, are both in college. I just feel like you really have to hunt for YA books that have college characters in them. The story also goes into detail about Gael’s parents’ relationship and what led to their divorce.

So if you want to read something that veers off the path of the typical YA romance (but not too much—we need some hope in this world), then go ahead and give this one a try.