miss_laura_smith's reviews
61 reviews

Atonement by Ian McEwan

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

desperately wish I hadn’t spoiled this for myself years ago by reading the movie plot summary on Wikipedia

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

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Did not finish book.

life is too short to read books that make you depressed and scared of motherhood

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

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medium-paced

4.0

I thought the least effective element was the titular mothers but overall it was a compelling and complex read

Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

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3.75

the stories were lovely but there were some editorial issues with spelling, punctuation, new line breaks for dialogue etc that sometimes made dialogue hard to catch and that bothered me

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

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3.75

A lot of good stuff in this one and I did enjoy, but I felt like the last third or so was not as strong as the opening. It can also be a bit on the nose and Dolly Alderton will just explicitly state the thematic point she wants to make, instead of leaving anything for the reader to chew on. Also, there was a conversation at the end that felt veryyyy fleabag adjacent.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

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emotional hopeful reflective sad

4.0

I thought the first story was kinda hard to get into, but the other three were perfect

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

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4.25

funny and gripping and sad, very realistic characters. when I saw Dolly Alderton in the acknowledgements several things made sense.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

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dark reflective sad