Colleen Hoover is something of a craze at my school--the junior English teacher went out and bought all her books because the girls were asking about them and she was so excited they were reading and talking about books. She said they were marginally better than Twilight but harmless. Typical new adult romantic schlock.
I had no intention of reading them but the senior theology teacher went on a weird diatribe about them in both the teacher's lounge AND his classes. One of the senior boys told a junior girl it was porn and she was going to hell for reading it. So now I am going to read them, and let my students see me reading them.
I read
It Ends with Us about a week ago. I didn't find it painful, but I won't be reading any more Colleen Hoover. I felt quite old and jaded while reading; it's definitely a young person's idea of romantic.
There is quite a bit of sex in the book, although I would say there is more frequency and less description and detail than some.
The book that everyone raved about that I was
about was The Plot. Unless you don't read often, HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW WHO IT WAS FROM THE SECOND THE CHARACTER WAS INTRODUCED. HOW. I kept thinking I would be wrong, there would be a twist...but nope.
I thought the same. I mean, who else was there?
Some other stuff I have read lately:
This is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says about You: Susan Rogers rose to fame as the sound engineer and producer for Prince and became one of the few very successful female producers in the 90s music business. She is now a psychologist who teaches about the psychology of music at
Berklee (not Berkley). The book will not really tell you what the music you like says about you; it is more of an analysis of music and the way it moves people in general.
She talks about a LOT of songs, some familiar, some not. While it's not exactly a scholarly textbook, this is not a light and gossipy read about music business. I found a lot of it interesting, but I don't think most people would.
Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything: I read this because I have had some Flat Earther students in the past couple of years and I have found it completely baffling. I still find it baffling after reading the book, but I did find the history of Flat Earthers interesting and I maybe understand the psychology of people who believe in such things a little better. Not much.
Give Me Your Hand: I had told myself that I would never read another Megan Abbot book after reading
the one about gymnasts, but I read a review of this one that suckered me in. That will not happen again and I will not read another Megan Abbott book. This time, the ambitious and gifted but damaged young women who are pursuing their dreams
but at what cost are scientists. The main impression I have after reading these books is that Abbott really hates women.
Slow Horses: I found this on a list of books that writers recommend. Apparently there
is a series on Apple TV? I had never heard of it before I found the list. In any case, Slow Horses are failed spies who have really screwed up at some point in their careers and been sent to work for a branch where careers go to die in hopes that they will resign. And of course, a case comes along that gives them a chance to redeem themselves. It took me some time to get into this book, as it is what I call Urban London--lots of modern British slang and names of people and places I don't know--but I really enjoyed it once I got past the first couple of chapters. This book is the first in a series and I am moving on to the next.
Alias Emma: Another British spy book, but one that is quite different. Emma is given her first big assignment--to get the son of some targeted Russian spies across London to safety without being caught in the world's most camera-heavy city. A fast, light, predictable read that will almost certainly be made into a movie if it hasn't been already.
—which are described aptly as “more complex and more morally ambiguous about the settling of the American West than I could have ever imagined”.)
