Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

Set in a not-so-distant future where everyone is judged by their credit score and now scan instead of read, Lenny is just trying to find his way. It's a story about immortality, youth, and fickle relationships in a world where data is produced by the gig but no one really knows or understands one another. The characters were awful, insecure people with selfish motives and incomplete desires. I couldn't stand hearing about them, to be honest. But like in Hunger Games, all I cared about was the world building. The overt public sexuality, broadcasting live at bars with friends, the Federal Reserve going bankrupt, the largest corporations looking to cash in - felt like an apt exaggeration of modern society now as well as an unpalatable premonition for the future. I think any immaturity in the characters might reflect an immaturity in the author. Not a single character questioned their surroundings. So, to call it purposeful or say more mature characters would have been more enjoyable to read might be an unreasonable critique. He is a great writer though, and makes complex ideas sound simple. He fabricated a very real world with Media and Credit and Retail, a slightly exaggerated mirror image of ourselves.
I recommend this book to get some fresh eyes on things we think of as normal and to realize there are people more vapid and unintelligent than yourself.

5/5

Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Reading Now

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

4.5/5

The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold by Kate Bernheimer

 5/5

Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

5/5

Loteria by Mario Alberto Zambrono

With the expert skill that I have grown to expect from any Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate, Mario Alberto Zambrono deftly tells the story of an 11 year old girl recovering from trauma through journal entries to "You." The exact trauma is left unsaid until the very end and the story hinges perfectly on the subtle mystery that unfolds in an unexpected way. The writing in Loteria stands alone as engaging and rich without ever being trite or surface based on the narrator's youthful age. Short and sweet with a beautiful layout and full color loteria cards interspursed, I give it 8.5/10.

Fer De Lance by Rex Stout

4/10

Kabbalah for Health and Wellness

10/10

The Diviners

6/10 Didn't finish. Not engaging enough.

Maggot Moon

7/10

Love, Dishonor, Lie, Cherish, Perish by David Rakoff

7/10

Black hole

8/10

The Third book has been on my to-read shelf for a while. It is the second choice for the retirement community book club that I'm leading. The book is The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

The book was well written but it offered nothing fresh. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 so I expected it to be really good but it actually just felt really slopped together. More old-man-musings. Can we not appreciate anything else as literature? Come on people.
3/5

The second book I read is for the new bookclub I am leading. I'm getting paid $100 per session to lead it! Can you believe that? The book was Thomas Jefferson, Rachel, and Me. Quite a title, right?

The book was yet another musings-of-an-old-man who played the game I love to play- "Imagine someone from the past is transported into the present." That "someone" just happens to be Thomas Jefferson. While the book wasn't very good - it was well written but the plot was just tedious - I did learn a few things about Mr. Jefferson that I didn't previously know.
2/5

It's a new year and I promise to get back on the bandwagon. This year I have already read three books!

Trance:Formation of America by Cathy O'Brien and Mark Philips was incredibly entertaining. Riff with typos, about 80% rape, with questionable content, Cathy O'Brien recounts her alleged time spent as a mind-controlled slave in the MKUltra project. I learned a lot about mind control though and feel much more informed after reading this book - even if it is hogwash.