beanie baby worm blog

I say this in the most respectful way possible, but why did I think Murakami had passed already? I found out he’s 75 years old after reading this, my first Murakami ever. Anyways, I guess all I’m trying to say is that his work seems so prolific in culture and the sphere of well-known books that I had kind of assumed his works are classics when they’re actually contemporary fiction, or I guess modern classics? Is that a compliment? Maybe. (Not sure where the line gets drawn for what’s considered a modern classic.) I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. My dad tells me that there are either good books or bad books, in the sense that they’re either enjoyable to read or not. And this is a truly enjoyable book to read and experience. Not a single moment dragged, not a page was wasted. This is the second short story collection I’ve read this month that I’ve really enjoyed, so I’m surprised because I never really enjoyed collections of stories or poems—I’m more of a novel person. ...

This novella immediately caught my eye at the secondhand bookstore in my college town. I’ve trained my eye to catch Penguin Classics spines, as they’re pretty distinct against a rainbow of colors, and I am almost always interested in reading the back or picking it up if it’s a classic I’ve heard of or meant to read. I looked it up on Goodreads, and for some reason, it was on my "Want to Read" list despite me completely forgetting how I heard of it. I must have seen it online at some point and added to my TBR, then promptly forgot about its existence. As I get older, this seems to be a recurring thing that happens. As you can tell, I did end up purchasing this extremely thin volume (I can never resist the siren's call of a short book) and reading it over the span of a few days. This is my first venture into Russian literature, if I’m not mistaken. I really enjoyed it. Although some of the cultural aspects went over my head, for example, the novel is based on a woman the na...

This novel has further cemented my perception that some people truly see the world differently than the rest of us. Some of the long, winding sentences and thought processes that Cusk takes the reader through are difficult to follow, but ultimately, it’s not the takeaway that was always the most relevant for me—it’s the feeling one gets when they read. Even if you don’t agree exactly with her characters or what they’re feeling, you feel for them. It makes you think about your own life, your mom, your family, your attitudes toward parenthood and romantic relationships. She frames discussions around these very complex and confusing topics through art, which is equally difficult to wrap one’s mind around, especially when it comes to the ethics of consuming art or the processes of creation, as many of her characters are artists, work in curating art, or are partners of those who create art. The book is split into four chapters, and the highlights were definitely the second and third for me...

This was everything I was expecting and hoping for. I read Three Women earlier this year, and knew immediately that Taddeo would continue to shock me, make me contemplate, sit in uncomfortable feelings. Her writing is unflinching, non-judging. She truly gives her narrators space to truly show who they are, baring themselves for the world to see, whether they like it or not. I knew I had to read Animal , which is fiction while Three Women was a narrative nonfiction book.  This gives everything that My Year of Rest and Relaxation thinks it gives. The narrator is what I imagine to be the final boss of female anguish, rage, pain. This novel even argues that female rage at its core is nothing more than pain gone unnoticed, frustration gone ignored, trauma gone sour. I wanted to read about female rage, and was presented with that and so much more. This novel’s plot is nonlinear, it jumps from memory to present and vice versa, from stating events to deep reflections, playing with these ...

I have a bit of history with this book. I first read it when I picked it up off the new release shelf at my library, I honestly just thought the cover was cute. I had never heard of the author and wasn’t online enough to know that this was a popular or to have any expectations going into it. So I read it and didn’t really understand it as a teen, but shrugged and moved on with my life. Now that I’m on this platform and seen everyone reading and discussing it, I decided to revisit this one and hope to garner more from it now that I’m older and could understand the themes Murata had been hoping to convey. I suppose this novel is a bit like Animal Farm . Yes, you can read it without understanding the historical context, the meaning and message Orwell was trying to convey. That’s how I read it the first time. But this time, I could understand and see that the protagonist is living in a sort of oppressive Japanese society. Her potential autism and the sexism she faces. The quirkiness, her s...

Reading In Watermelon Sugar felt akin to reading poetry for me. It made no sense. One of my English professors has told me that poetry isn’t about plot, characterization, storylines, or the like. It’s about how it makes you feel when you read it. So after reading this short novel, I mused about how that’s likely what the author was intending for the reader to take away: a feeling. Perhaps. This is just a hunch, as there is a plot, but one that didn't make much sense to me, and the characters are very flimsy as well. There aren't many themes or motifs. Descriptions of wacky characters and creatures, a sky that’s different colors depending on the day, strange happenings and history in a small community, a unclear line of thought, and not very linear story. I didn’t dislike the process of reading it though, so I suppose I can't say I hated it. I just felt so utterly ambivalent. The pacing was quick, and it was very fast to get through.  Unfortunately, similar to my relationsh...

I visited the location where the last scene of Catcher in the Rye takes place. I went during the summer, but I thought it’d be appropriate to share right before Christmas, like in the book. Does  Catcher in the Rye  count as a Christmas book then? That’s a stretch, maybe a holiday one at most. I never thought I’d say this, but I love this book so much. Much more so after rereading it for the first time this year. I caught so many more nuances that my tenth grade self didn’t. I’ve found that I don’t really take time to appreciate literature and allow it to resonate deeply within me when I’m being forced to overanalyze it for meaning and symbolism for academic purposes. I love the overarching theme of avoiding growing up. What else would you expect from me, a Little Prince enjoyer? The fear of losing childlike wonder, of growing up and becoming like the rest of the boring phony adults who go around pretending things are way more important than they are. Holden is a grade-A bra...

I’ve been feeling very conflicted about Backman lately. And to clarify, I’ve read A Man Called Ove, Britt-Marie Was Here , and Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer . Besides perhaps the latter (I suspect it’s because of its short and punchy length), I haven’t been very impressed. They have become a bit of an NPC-type book on my shelf—a sort of easy read that’s predictable. I just feel that they won’t have a lasting influence or impact on me. This was further proven by my venture into reading Anxious People for the first time and DNF’ing it a hundred or so pages in. As you can tell by the triple digit page at which I halted, officially, I had strong intentions of finishing what I started, once and for all. But I am not the strongest solider. It was truly unenjoyable in every way for me. I didn't like any of the characters or plot or even the storytelling. I truly and honestly gave up on Backman at that point. (Update: I've also tried to read My Grandmother Asked Me ...

As 2023 comes to a close, I've decided to be upfront with those who know me or follow my reviews or reading journey. I read Welcome to the Monkey House  and Breakfast of Champions , written by Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors after reading Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle in 2022. But I realized after manically reading these two as well as A Man Without Country  that I am not a huge fan of the former two, much to my chagrin and deep disappointment.  Anyone who knows me knows that I love Vonnegut so I was shocked and horrified to find that I didn’t really “get”  Breakfast of Champions . I thought I could get behind any level of zany and eccentric and weird that Kurt could throw at me. I’ve been strapped in since Ice-Nine and Bokononism in Cat's Cradle , since porn stars on planets and plunger shaped aliens in  Slaughterhouse-Five . Throw it at me! But even I draw the line sometimes. What was going on in this book? Even after reading it, I had no idea...

Stoner  is one of those books that I have not heard a single bad thing about online. I only ever hear people giving anecdotes about it putting them onto NYRBs, it being one of those books they wish they could read for the first time, it being one of their favorite books or modern classics, that it's so powerful. I've never read anything from the perspective of someone in academia (I'm firm in my belief that The Love Hypothesis  does not count) so when I found this at my local used bookstore, I picked it up, even with the higher than usual price tag than I'm used to. I was hoping to gain some insight on the world of being a professor or academic, and I will admit, I wanted to know what the hype is about and to own my first NYRB. I fantasize about becoming an English professor one day. It’s a far off idea, and nice to think about, but I'm not sure if it’ll ever come to fruition. But then again, most of my dreams are easily romanticized because they seem so unattainabl...

The length of this short book was perfect because if it stretched any longer I probably would have gotten tired of it. Each entry in this book is simply a description of a different variation of what time is in a certain world, captured in just a couple pages. The concept was dreamy and at times quite poetic, but the execution felt like something was missing and didn't feel quite as precise or meaningful as I had hoped when I saw that this book is quite acclaimed.  I still remember the day my dad gifted this to me. I was laying in bed after a long morning of sitting in my online summer calculus lectures and I was feeling pretty burnt out. I hate math and it brings up a lot of bad memories and negative feelings. This is a result of my childhood and the years of attempting to beat the intuition and knowledge required to maneuver through mathematical problems and calculations into myself, but to no avail. I had to take the course to complete my calculus requirements for my degree, a B...

At this point in my career in reading, I feel comfortable saying that I’ve read my fair share of classics, the oldish ones are usually more confusing than delighting. The Beautiful and Damned had me lost, the writing in Lolita gave me an aneurysm, Death of a Salesman had me googling the entire plot while I read. I saw Of Human Bondage  on the dollar rack at my local secondhand bookstore and passed it up, but regretted it immediately after reading about it a bit online. So when I found another copy in another store a month or two after, it had to be fate. I decided to challenge myself, despite expecting to be bombarded with out of date scenarios, stuffy characters, a meandering plot and ostentatious vocabulary.  But instead, I found  Of Human Bondage  to be extremely approachable in terms of readability and the characters and plot were surprisingly modern. The book aged well considering it’s set in the late 1800s to early 1900s. There were serious moments, beau...

I was excited to find Herland because I loved The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman when I read it two years ago, and the synopsis was too good to be true, a female only society and three idiotic men coming in and getting absolutely ridiculed? Sign me up. It started off strong, I laughed at the caricature-esque men and their assumptions regarding the female society they planned to broach with their imperialist style (of course), and the beauty and neatness of the society they observe when they come upon it. I found it interesting how the majority of the women were not young, conventionally beautiful women, but caring, maternal figures, which came as even a surprise to me, I liked that the idealized worship of the youth of women was gently let down. I also enjoyed the discussion of the intrinsically criminal nature of sexual assault, the approach towards the horror and their “this is completely and utterly unacceptable” approach is refreshing in our current society that sort...

I am a big fan of LGBTQ+ romance; I enjoy the layers and complexities to the stories unfolding on the pages, they usually offer many insights and retrospections that are not as commonly found in run of the mill genre romances that tickle the readers' ears with lovey stories where everything works itself out, a happily ever after is basically a guarantee. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both genres and categories of stories immensely, I find both to be beautiful in their own respective rights. But when I picked this up at the secondhand store, the back cover's description drew me in with its grittiness and I knew this would not fall into the category of a rosy romance; I'm not even sure if I am able to describe it as LGBTQ+ romance, although it paints an illustration of a man deeply obsessed with another man.  What Belongs To You  fell into the category of books that I'm sure are objectively enthralling and artful in its execution and delivery. However, I found that I di...

The reviews that herald O'Farrall as a genius for this novel were not exaggerating, the writing and prose in Hamnet  was exquisite and haunting. Although I initially had difficulty getting into the flow of the book and story, it is easy to hang onto O'Farrall's every word by the time I reached a fourth of the way in. Every word feels carefully chosen and constructed, building a story that feels very fleshed out and well-thought out. Although I can see how Agnes can feel like a manic pixie dream girl and her husband is obviously kind of annoying at times, they feel distinctly human and the children are similarly so. My favorite character may be Eliza, who felt like a parallel of Judith at times. I enjoyed how O'Farrall easily elaborated on each family member's experiences and individual grief, for whoever they were grieving, for Eliza it was Anne, for Agnes it was her husband's presence, and for Judith, her twin. I loved how imaginative this story was, obviously ...

I was very confused while and after reading the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five , it seemed to be written from Vonnegut’s perspective, but it was not a preface or introduction. I wondered, will the whole story be from his point of view? I thought this was a novel, not an autobiography. Although I understood that the first chapter is written from Vonnegut’s real life perspective after doing a quick Google Search for background of the story’s setting and context, the confused feeling did not change much after the first chapter. He decides to write this anti-war book about the little known Bombing of Dresen, and the latter chapters are where the story of Billy Pilgrim actually begins. Slaughterhouse-Five is eyebrow raising, strange, and vaguely dream-like throughout as a result of the famous time-traveling aspect, integration of aliens, and so many various timelines. It is peppered with shockingly morbid and weighty commentary on war intermixed with supposedly comical situations, sc...

Everything about the experience of reading and consuming  The Housekeeper and the Professor  was beautiful, the writing style, the plot, the relationships and the pacing were all masterful, and has to be one of my top reads of the year. Every time I reflect on my time reading this book, which felt like a work of art, I am struck by how beautiful everything about it was, and am reminded of how I read it slowly, with breaks in between, to extend the longevity of my enjoyment.  I will be thinking about this book long after I have finished it and for good reason, I have no complaints. I loved how this touches on platonic love, although the housekeeper and her son, Root, are self proclaimed friends of the professor, their relationship feels more familial with how close they are, and the extent of their shared experiences and care for each other. The housekeeper is drawn to the professor and gets sucked into his world of mathematics and it is described as feeling like an awaken...

I found Normal People  to be very unique and interesting, I thought it was well done for I interpreted as what Rooney was trying to convey, but isn’t personally my favorite book or piece of literary fiction I’ve ever read. The writing style many have heralded as the next big thing, and account for their love for her works was very sparse, so much so that I caught myself accidentally skimming at times. The most minute of details of their days and relationships are displayed, as the teenage to twenty something year old characters move through their life throughout the span of the book. Being struck by random nuggets of deeply impactful lines and moments between Marianne and Connell throughout was a pleasant surprise, I love when a book has moments that really make me stop in my tracks mid-read Despite the widespread success of Normal People  as Rooney's most popular work, I can see why people criticize this one, the characters fell a little flat at times and I was left for ...

I read this culturally relevant piece out of curiosity and personal fulfillment, as I heard many things about how it is instrumental in defining the Beat Generation in America. I liked many of the lines and quotes; some of the descriptions Sal provided regarding the road he traveled on his journeys traipsing around America was truly breathtaking and I could feel his passion for life contrasted by his low moments of disillusionment and frustration with life, something every generation struggles with, it seems like. I found that the quote, “In God’s name and under the stars, what for?” describes my state of being at times very aptly.  However, despite some highlights, On the Road  was definitely too stream of consciousness for me to thoroughly enjoy it, it could have been cut in half and I would have been content, if not still a little tired of the prose, repetitive back and forth between the characters, and continuous drifting of Sal by the end of it. I read in the Penguin Clas...

I have had enough of Sally Rooney. Many people I respect recommend her very passionately, but after reading Normal People and now Conversations with Friends , I’ve made the executive decision to stop my search for a modicum of relating to the widespread love for her writing and work. I love character driven stories as much as the next literary fiction fan. But Rooney’s works champion morally horrible, self indulgent, out of touch characters (and not in an interestingly morally gray way) with more than three hundred pages of zero character development, just words for the sake of words. I understand that characters don’t need to be likable for a story to be good. but I need a reason to feel invested in people I spend my countless hours reading about. Rooney’s characters all enable and indulge each others toxic traits and self righteousness, excusing their flaws as being different. but difference for the sake of difference tired me extremely quickly. Perhaps I do not fit into the target...