Happy “Show Us Your Books” link-up day! Okay, it was actually yesterday but I’ve been running behind on all he things. Better late than never?

Here’s what I’ve read lately!

 

Talking as Fast as I Can  – Lauren Graham

Goodreads * Amazon

I joined my library’s hold list for both the audiobook and regular book and was excited that the audio version became available first, since for some reason celeb memoirs always seem better that way. This was a fun listen. I had no idea about LG’s whole theater background (or really anything else non-Gilmore), and somehow hearing about how long someone struggled to make it is usually reassuring.

The latter part of the book includes her notes as she re-watches the show for the first time in pretty much forever. There’s nothing groundbreaking there, mostly like “Wow, my hair was weird”, but it’s fun. There’s a part of that where she discusses how much things have changed since those days (like when Lorelai insists to Emily that they do NOT need DSL because dial-up is just fine, thank you.) that kinda points out how much of a LA bubble she lives in, which was surprising. For instance, she talks about things like business cards and DVDs as if they’re relics from centuries ago, not things still commonly in use in most parts of the country/world. Still, she’s so likeable that it’s hard to fault her for it. Hearing how serendipitous the whole experience of making the new Netflix…thing? sequel series? What are we calling it? was got me right in the feels, too. Lorelai forever.

Sensation – Isabel Losada (Coming out in Sept 2017)

Amazon * Goodreads

Gotta be honest here – I’m pretty sure I requested this book based on the cover. I like sex and love and laughter and non-fiction! It didn’t end up being a good fit for me, though. There were so many close-minded comments, unintentionally offensive remarks, and inaccurate info in the first few chapters that I almost quit immediately, but I wanted to give the book a real chance. I assumed from the writing style that it was the author’s first book, but then she references previous works and the Netgalley description describes her as a bestselling author. My copy was clearly not through final edits yet, so I’d be curious to see how much more polished the final version is.

This is a tough one for me to review, and I’d probably skip writing one except that I’m like 98475 Netgalley reviews behind so I need to get better about reviewing everything I read to save my poor tanking percentage. There are parts where the author talks about workshops and conferences she attends and her experiences with them that are compelling and enjoyable to read, but then she’ll go off on multi-page musings or conversations with her friends about sex that feel more like what you’d find in a teenager’s diary than coming from a middle-aged woman. Amazon tells me this book is 276 pages… I feel like if you just edited most of that stuff out and brought it down to like 200 pages, it would have been significantly better.

The lengthy yet basic tangents would be way more tolerable if I wasn’t already frustrated by the super normative and kinda judgey outlook that keeps popping up. I don’t even think the author realizes she’s being totally inappropriate a lot of the time, but it’s glaringly obvious if you’re used to a more inclusive way of speaking. One example that I highlighted – after writing about a friend’s experience talking to her son about internet porn, the author says, “So if you have a son – you may want to have this conversation and not assume that, ‘my son wouldn’t watch stuff like that’. Yes – he would.” You know, because girls never watch porn. Zero need to have that kind of conversation with a daughter.   ([sic] on the grammar in that quote, btw. That was painful to type. Ah, the fun of unedited ARCs.)

TL;DR – Didn’t hate it, but wouldn’t really recommend it, even though I appreciate the author’s vulnerability discussing what’s clearly a really uncomfortable subject for her. Like… really uncomfortable. As in she writes her boyfriend a letter asking him to try a very mundane thing because she’s too afraid to just ask. Yeah. And I do applaud her for exploring her sexuality and becoming more knowledgeable rather than just continuing down an unfulfilling and narrow path in that area of her life.

 

Get Your Shit Together

Amazon * Goodreads

I actually got this from NetGalley several months ago, read 75%, and then got distracted by library books that my holds finally came through on. But then last month I was at the mall (those still exist!) and stopped in a cute store and saw this display:

 

Thanks for the reminder that I needed to finish the book and review it, universe! Of course, by that point I’d read like 4 other books and had totally forgotten most of what I’d read, so I started over.

A lot of the advice is obvious (“Break things up into manageable chunks!”) but I think that we often pick up this kind of book more for the motivation it provides than for brand new ideas. The only real implementable takeaway I picked up was timing how long tasks *actually* take so that you can be way more accurate planning out your schedule.  I was pretty on point with my estimations for how long some items on my to-do list would take, and SO FAR OFF on others.

 

Currently reading: I just started “This Fight is Our Fight“, which is Elizabeth Warren’s new book. I’m on the #Warren2020 train so hard. I do wish that my library would’ve had the audiobook available because I really liked her reading of her last book, but texty Warren is still excellent.

 

Head over to Life According to Steph and Jana Says to check out the link-up and see what like a bazillion other bloggers have been reading! (Or almost 50. Close enough, math is hard.)