KJ's Book Reviews

  The Unhoneymooners Written by Christina Lauren Originally published in 2019 ~430 pages Rate: 3/5 After years of reading, I am starting to wonder if I actually don't like reading romance or if all the romance books I pick just aren't my type of romance. The last book I read that I would categorize as romance was The Song of Achilles (read 12/20/23-01/18/24) and I did enjoy that. There was a little bit of a marketing issue I noticed with this book. The book description claims the story as an enemies to lovers romance, but that was not at all what I read. There was only one seemingly rude circumstance that later got cleared up as a misunderstanding on Olives part. There was a little bit of bickering, but it felt incredibly tame and unproblematic. I would only consider this a fake dating trope. Spoilers ahead  The only enemy I saw in the story was Ethan's brother, but that was the plot twist. Dane being deceitful was the only element that saved the story for me. Dane and Oliv

  101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think Written by Brianna Wiest Originally published in 2016 ~450 pages Rate 2/5 I think this would be a very nice coffee table type of book, or a book where you would read one chapter every day. I just listened to this book.  From my understanding, this is a compilation of essays written by different people and then edited by Brianna Wiest so the essays concepts/ideas are numbered.  Of the 101 essays in the book, only a handful of them provided concepts and ideas that were new to me. The book doesn't go into too much depth with most of it's claims so if this is the first self-help book a person reads it would be magnificent. For those who have already dived into self-help/psychology related materials before, the book might be deemed as a waste of time.

  Cultish The language of Fanaticism Written by Amanda Montell Originally published in 2021 ~300 pages Rate 3/5 What are we willing to do in order to find a place in this world? In Cultish , Amanda writes about her personal experiences with cults. From her run in with Scientology to her interviews with ex-cult members (from different cults), she covers an array of cult-related material. She claims that we, as a society, have normalized the word cult to the point where it doesn't have a distinct meaning anymore. Hence her new world cultish,  when something has cult-like characteristics, but it might not be recognized as a cult.  Towards the beginning of Cultish , Amanda explains how it's easier to label certain cultish behavior rather than what is a cult and what is not. Later she goes on to say that most people might be able to notice a religious cult when they see one, but there are other groups that display cultish characteristic that go unnoticed, the groups she mentions are

   The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes Written by Suzanne Collins ~517 pages Originally published in 2020 Rate: 5/5 (Second reading) It's not often that I read the same book twice, but when I do, it's because it was GOOD.  In my previous blog post about The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes I essentially recapped the introduction of the story, mentioned my thoughts on Coriolanus as a main character, the hanging tree lore, who is Katniss' relative, and Taylor Swift. In this post I want to be more specific and instead focus on SPOILERS .  There have only been a handful of books I enjoyed and a fraction of those books I would consider rereading. I enjoyed reading this book the first time around, but I might not have considered rereading it if it hadn’t been for the announcement of Sunrise on the Reaping, also known as the second prequel to The Hunger Games. During my last blog post the movie reveal was just announced for The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes. To everyone

Under The Whispering Door Written by TJ Klune Originally published in 2021 ~370 pages Rate 4/5 Even after death, there is still hope. I heard many people recommend this book to fans of The Midnight Library  so that's why I chose this book for the MK book club. Comparing the two books together somewhat makes sense, but there aren't many similarities. I would recommend The Midnight Library over Under The Whispering Door, however this post isn't about The Midnight Library so I digress.  Wallace use to be a kind person until he got sucked into corporate America and then he became a super anxious businessman. Unfortunately he dies by the end of the first chapter so he doesn't have much time to redeem himself, or does he? He soon meets Mei, a reaper, who introduces him to Hugo, a gatekeeper of sorts, who explains what happens after you die, at least for the time being.  The story unfolds is a comedic and light way, which I found necessary given the life after death theme of t

Every Thing I Know About Love Written by Dolly Alderton Originally published in 2018 ~370 pages Rate 4/5 A 2000s party girl turned into an average modern-day twenty-something.  The memoir follows Dolly as a teenager up until she's in her thirties. I am currently in my early twenties and so I thought this would be great for me to read. However, since mine and her life experiences are not similar it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but it was still entertaining. Dolly use to be a party girl and now as a thirty-something she is experiencing life as an average twenty-something; the cost of living is hard to manage, romantic partners are hard to find, partying is uncommon, etc. I have never really been the type of person to ask anyone for money, party super late at night, and risk my life every day. This was seemingly Dolly's experience in her twenties, that lifestyle has never enticed me. Matter of fact, that lifestyle just makes me sad. I am not saying I am better tha