What I Think About What I Read
4 stars. This books is a serious work of non-fiction dedicated to motivating the masses to lose marathons. I laughed out loud from time to time and relished in each time he mentioned his arch-nemesis: Oprah. The ending surprised me. I would recommend it as some light reading, its quick-flirty-bantery prose that actually does motivate you to go out and run a marathon, even if you might lose to Oprah.
4.3 stars. Have you ever wondered what happens when you die? Aside from decaying and being trapped in coffin/crypt for the rest of eternity? Join Mary Roach in a euphemistically exciting journey to learn what happens during organ transplants, dissections in anatomy labs, and criminal investigations on human decomposition behind some Tennessee University. Roach pulls back the curtain of mystery about death and lays out exactly what happens when you donate your body or if you don’t, but in a way that won’t completely give you the heebie-jeebies…or will. Most of the stuff is/may be outdated since it was written in 2003. But I was enthralled the whole time. It was nice to read about Roach’s fascinations with death like it was something normal and not at all something you want to get out of the room as soon as possible during while your daughter is trying to explain to you the premise of the book she’s reading. (Looking at you mom.) Side note: I really need to stop talking to my mom about true-crime–not that this book is true crime related, though you do learn about the history of burking. This book was pleasantly informative; not something, I assume, you would expect from a book about cadavers.
5 stars. What more can I say about this timeless classic?
Never before have I identified as much with the March sisters as I did during this reading. I was totally engaged. The nuances of each character resonated strongly with me. I found myself comparing the Little Women to myself and my three sisters. We had always matched ourselves up with the Marches by age. As the oldest, I was regrettably Meg. As I read, I rearranged us all until every last one fit. I eventually came out as Jo (hurrah), A was Amy, C was Meg, and E was Beth. I know everyone wants to be a Jo and I think I really came out on top, but when you consider the qualifications being that I have a raging temper sometimes towards my sisters it makes more sense. If you find yourself identifying with Beth, who is a literal perfect angel, that is nothing to be ashamed of.
This book is life changing and beautiful. Filled with sorrow and happiness and realistic pettiness between sisters. Writing what you know can have that effect. Thank you Alcott.
2.9 Stars. This book is a New York Times Best Seller for a reason, people just love a rant. That’s why we all pretend not to read the comment section on reddit or youtube, but in reality the voyeurism really gets us going. And to those people this must be insightfully, earth-shattering, even awesome–like I said it’s a NYT Best Seller for a reason– but it doesn’t mean it’s actually good. TSAoNGaF is basically what would have happened had I stumbled across a blog that was mildly entertaining and decided to binge read it for two weeks straight. And, honestly, this extended blog post was not worth 200 pages of conveying the same thing on repeat.
I wish he had footnotes, or at least an index, to direct you to his sources. The constant “as this one dude once said” followed by a quote with no indication of where it came from was not my favorite. I think it’s because I have read all this stuff in school in the form of scientific reports and journals (which unlike comment sections and blog rants, are unexciting unless you’re a nerd). But if I had happened to find a concept I liked, I wanna know to which of the hundreds of works that particular person published I should refer. I imagine this book changed the lives of thousands, perhaps even millions, but I don’t get the hype.
There were few grammatical mistakes, and I’d say it was well-written but there were terrible metaphors for dumbing things down and sometimes he would forget that his main premise was centered around the f-word and then all of a sudden remember. BOOM, closing paragraph of each section = f*ck x 30. It was exhausting, really.
5 Stars. I’m beginning to think that I like more than just memoirs. You gotta add a parent into the mix and then I’m heart-eyed from the beginning to the end.
Trevor Noah is one of my favorite comedians, and I’m so glad that I enjoyed his life story and that I can now deepen my para-social connection with him as a person. I am mostly happy because I wasn’t distracted by poor writing or “plot” development. Every story served a purpose, I loved the background on apartheid. Noah’s ability to hold back details in order to beautifully thread his life together in grand revelations toward the end was captivating.
Mel Reviews Books 
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