Friday, July 23, 2021--San Antonio
Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor is a collection of stories that are sometimes tied together by having crossover characters in them. Sometimes the stories drop off and pick up later after other stories have been told. Each story is interesting, but I had trouble keeping track of the many characters and remembering what I had read about whom previously. I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.
Friday, July 17, 2021--San Antonio
Secreits of Happiness by Joan Silber consists of the stories of several characters who are occasionally connected to the characters within the other stories. She originally published each story separately, but put them together in book form here. It's a good book for readers who like to experience the way that other people live their lives, as a wide variety of types of characters are included. The stories are sometimes humorous, and each is easy to read. I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.
Friday, July 9, 2021--San Antonio
Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li is not your typical novel. There is no plot. Instead, there are a series of conversations that tend to involve philosophical reasoning. The conversations take place between a mother and her deceased 16-year-old son who committed suicide. The son was very intelligent with signs of being a prodigy based on his use of vocabulary and his form of reasons from a very young age. Early in the book, I considered quitting it. But then I went to the reviews and found that ratings were fairly evenly distributed among the "stars" in the 5-star system. As I continued reading, I found myself thinking both positively and negatively about the book. I've never been a big fan of philosophical reasoning, and there is a LOT of it. In fact, there is so much of it that I found myself wondering if some of the writer's purpose in writing the book was to insert a bunch of philosophical ideas that she had collected over the years. However, the author herself lost a 16-year old son. So I eventually chalked up the discussions to be based more on the types of discussions she had had with him before he died as well as the ones she imagined she could have had with him after his death. Anyway, the book is short (about 170 pages) and I stayed with it reading about 20 pages a day. By the end, I felt a bit more positive about it. I gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.
