Read with Jenna: Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Read with Jenna has picked a lot of bangers lately! From 1999 to 2021 to 2030 looking back to 1960. THIS is how you do a generational tale!
A direct family line gives us perspective on generational trauma and the mistakes we can’t help but make along the way.
As parents we’re going to make mistakes, it’s inevitable, but will we make our parents mistakes, or will we overcorrect and make brand new mistakes?
It’s an interesting topic, parenthood, genes and wanted the best for our children. Nature and nurture. Would you change your genes if you could? If you could spare your child one of your “defect” genes, would you do it? Who draws the line on what constitutes a “defect”?

The story is divided into three parts, a love story, a coming of age story and a hindsight looking back on your history.
I loved the first two parts, and while I think the third part was necessary and good, it was the weakest for me.
I would much rather the matriarch of this genetic line look back on her history relevant to the story we already know. In my opinion it goes too far back in time – suddenly in Mao’s China we’re so removed from where we started and the people we’ve been following.

All in all, I loved it, but the first two parts were my favorite! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Reese Witherspoon: How to end a love story by Yulin Kuang

I was compelled to read this book marketed as a screenwriter and director, adapting Emily Henry’s book. But I’ve read books by screenwriters and director before and should know it doesn’t automatically mean the book will be fire, and this was not to my taste.

Maybe I missed the humor here (is it supposed to be funny? Romcom? Or black humor?) But going from hating the guy who (self proclaimed) “slaughtered your sister” to smutting him all over the place, the road was paved with too many plot holes and very little chemistry to be a smooth ride.
I don’t have a sibling, but I doubt I would laugh at my siblings death, if anyone brought it up it would be (should be?) more sobering than funny.

One other thing that I found a bit weird were the descriptions of her relationship to her culture. She’s Chinese, but born in America but seems oddly removed from it. Like, she doesn’t know the name of the food from the Chinese culture, so she made up her own. “The thin clear spaghetti with the stripey green vegetables and minced pork.” But she name drops “hongbao” with no problem. I am biracial and removed from my cultures as well, but this feels weirdly childish to me. Is she five? An adult who’s been fed this food throughout her life would know the name of a dish right?

I’m not gonna harp on it, it just wasn’t for me, I like my romance more romantic and swoony. But if you’re looking for something different in the romance genre, this sure is different! ⭐⭐

GMA: The ministry of time by Kaliane Bradley

DNF at 20%
I quickly noticed that this was not going to be a book for me because of the little description of the actual project and timetraveling and the over description of mundane things that I know what are.

I personally take no pleasure in reading explanations of what an airplane is, or any of the other changes that has happened in the world since the 1800’s. A woman living alone? *gasp* – no.

888 Love and the divine burden of numbers by Abraham Chang

DNF 20%
Written in first person perspective but with second person pronoun “you” , is a different type of challenge.
(Not unlike Buddhas in the attic using the collective “we” all the time.)
It distances the main character from his own story, almost as if he’s afraid to own up to it.
Jumping back and forth in time and playing in numbers. I loved the numerology and cultural representation here, but I struggled with the writing.
I’m so unbelievably sad, because I was very much looking forward to this one. The premise sounds so good! The writing just didn’t work for me.

Mindy’s book studio: Almost surely dead by Amina Akhtar

DNF at 25%.
I hoped the format and storytelling here would pull me out of my book slump, but it persisted.
It started out great and fast paced,but then it kept circling back to the same event over and over and the podcast was unbelievably insensitive and parodically stupid.
I just can’t finish this, after reading books like “Listen for the lie” and “Sadie” that has absolutely perfected this format, (not to mention, listening to podcasts!) this was a let down and felt very fake.

Britt-Marie was here by Fredrik Backman

I’ll preface this by saying that the Beartown series is one of my absolute favorites – but a man called Ove was a chore to read, even if the story was very sweet (I gave it four stars!). Unfortunately, “Britt-Marie was here”,  fell into the Ove category – sweet but dull. A hundred pages in I felt like we were still just arriving and getting to know her, and she wasn’t particularly interesting, or likeable. A boomer that’s not in touch with reality at all, but expects life to live up to her rules of conduct. And she looks down on anyone and everyone that does not live up to her standards. 

Now, I get that this is the journey, she’s going to warm up and adapt to her new reality and find a place within the community. But the road to Borg is paved with boring prose. There was not a single person I was drawn to here and it made reading it such a chore. ⭐⭐

Lies and weddings by Kevin Kwan

Kevin Kwan is back with his crazy and fun footnotes!

I got into it and then i did the mistake of switching to the audiobook and the narration was absolutely horrendous! So now I’m hoping to save this story with going back to reading it. I didn’t manage to finish it yet – so a review is still pending