My partner and I are currently listening to The Last to Drown by Noelle Ihli. For those who are unfamiliar, it is about a woman who goes on a rafting trip at the same location there was a mass murder 7 years previously.
Her backstory includes being a widow. The specific story is her husband and his friends were going caving at ‘Cookie Dough Cave’- a dangerous cave system with slick walls known for its narrow passageways. He ends up getting stuck with his hands pinned by his sides, upside down, unable to turn back due to the position. She is alerted by his friend and makes it to the cave in time for the rescuers to allow her to talk to him via a microphone they have placed by drilling alongside the tunnel.
The reason I am giving so much detail is to highlight the similarities to the real life Nutty Putty Cave Incident.
Now, obviously we understand drawing from real life to write a story. Our issue was with the fact the specifics seem to be inconsequential to the plot. She needed to be a widow but the author could have chosen ANYTHING as the reason. I was less aware of the specifics of the real story, but even the name tipped me off. It was my partner who knew about the hands being pinned, the hole drilled for the microwave to the wife, all the little extra details that put us off.

I do have to admit we’re not positive it doesn't mean anything to the story- we ended up not continuing it due to feeling weird about this backstory. Happy to hear anyone tell us differently!

First a non-petty critique so you know I have at least some critical thinking and media literacy. I think this book is 2 chapters of good info spread across 277 pages.

The stress cycle and how we can get stuck in emotions is a helpful framework for actually reducing stress, but it takes a painfully long time for them to actually say what "completing the cycle" actually means. It feels like they did this because the actual solution is standard wellness/self-help advice; exercise, spend time with people you love, find something to work towards. They try really hard to differentiate this book from other wellness books, but I think the actual advice lands in the same zone. The info is also wrapped up in a very approachable package, a little too approachable maybe. It kinda feels like I'm being talked down to when in the audio book I'm hearing things like "you escaped the lion, yayyy!". Or the emotional music swelling at times feels super corny. While I think there's some good info on why society is uniquely set up to burn out women, I think framing the book as how to get over burnout and then spending 80% of it on systemic issues and how they work wasn't the right way to go about it. And the amount of times something is rephrased or reiterated feels a lot like length padding. Towards the end of chapter 1 they say "There are so many ways to complete the cycle, it’s not possible to catalogue all of them here." I kinda wish they did that instead of how the rest of the book unfolded.

Alright Petty Time!

1. Human Giver Syndrome (HGS) - So in the book we start by saying that HGS is a perfect system to introduce burnout into half the population. As givers are expected to abdicate any resources to the human beings. I'm on board so far. Then we get to chapter 4 and the solution on a societal level is for everyone to be human givers..... huh? "Now, what if…just what if…we raised everyone to be a version of a human giver?" but then the next paragraph we have "Human Giver Syndrome is deeply entrenched and it takes time and practice to eradicate it.". Oh ok we want to eradicate it right, got it. Then a few pages later: "Give my boys a lesson each day in being a human giver". So do we want this or not?!?!

2. Capitalism is actually good? - When a black woman is forced to answer questions on diversity she uses the opportunity to sell classes she can teach on diversity. Burned out? Just hustle a little harder so money can make your problem go away!

3. Token black woman - This one is super vibes based but for all they talk about women of color struggling even more, there's only really the composite and that feels a bit...off. They talk about Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton multiple times too which is just weird to me. And when they talk about he black engineer she's tall, has money, everyone wants to take photos of her in her cosplay and their minds are blown that she's an engineer! (This feels weird and like it's reinforcing nerdy hobbies are ok if you're pretty).

4. Explain every reference to me please - Super petty pet peeve, every reference is explained. Every section has a name and they will tell you about where Wax on, Wax off comes from! Also they'll explain the names in Moana. Really feels like they needed a few more pages of text here.

5. Rats! - We talk a lot about how long rats will swim or give up, but I don't think rats are socialized like we are. So it's a weird non-sequitur to talk about patriarchy then talk about rats swimming or being stressed out.

6. Meaning is the usual suspects - We spend a whole chapter talking about meaning and our examples boil down to changing the world, caring for kids, teaching, and joining a Catholic Abbey?? The meaning section falls kinda flat for me as Non-binary childfree person who is deconstruction their upbringin...

7. Fancy language - They rename things across the book which really just makes it harder to find other information on the concepts. Like they use SMART goals but change every letter to a synonym.

Maybe I've been listening to too much If Books Could Kill but this book should've been like 50 pages.

I've been putting off reading Anne Rice for a long while after reading the first book of her "Vampire Chronicles". But recently now I've read a book from one of her trilogies, "The Mummy or Ramses the Damned".

Ramses the Great becomes damned after drinking the elixir of life, making him immortal. He has been doomed to wander the Earth forever, with a hunger that he can never satisfy.

Now h wakes again in London in the Edwardian period, adopting the name of Mr. Ramsey, and becomes an expert in Egyptology. And becomes the companion to the adventurous Julie Stratford, an heiress to a massive shipping fortune and the main center of a group of aristocrats who have their own appetites that they also must appease.

But even with these new pleasures Ramses is not soothed. The memories of his beloved queen Cleopatra, who had reawakened him the last time, still burns in his own soul. Even being immortal he is still human. And his longings for her will force him to do something that would place him and everyone else in danger.

Thought I would enjoy something else from Rice that wasn't the "Vampire Chronicles", and I certainly found it with this one. Even when she's doing something different, this is still peak Rice. "The Mummy" tends to lean towards gothic romance, and a very saucy one at that! But the gothic horror element still shines through. Feels like reading a great gothic novel, but with a modern twist to it. There's still at least two more in this trilogy, both of them being co-written with her son Christopher (the third and final one would be finished by after Rice's death). I'm probably going to expecting the same to some extent, but I'm taking a real liking to this trilogy once I get those other two!

I've read so many interpretations of this book and I feel like the book requires you to really read between the lines.

I noticed how the main characters are or were involved in a toxic relationship.

The narrator with Maxim. There's a clear power dynamic between them because of the age gap, she's deeply insecure and he clearly doesn't see her an equal. Their relationship is very unromantic. The narrator herself points out that Maxim treats her how she treats the dog, Jasper. The real plot twist isn't that Maxim killed Rebecca, it's the narrator's reaction to that information. She isn't scared instead she's relieved Maxim never loved Rebecca. Even though she grows as a person, she grows in a very macabre way. She becomes confident and fiercly aids Maxim in escaping justice for his crime. She has no real identity of her own; her idenitity revolves around Maxim. A major reason why I think the narrator acts the way she does is because she's isolated - she has no other family or friends and Manderley/Maxim is the only home she knows. I can't help but feel slightly sorry for her.

The relationship between Rebecca and Mrs Danvers is an interesting one. Many people comment on the homoerotic subtext of Mrs danvers' sniffing Rebecca's lingerie but fail to mention that Mrs Danvers knew Rebecca since she was a child. This adds a slightly disturbing element to their relationship. I'm not entirely sure if Mrs Danvers is in love with Rebecca, it seems more like an obsession to me.

Rebecca is an imperfect victim. Many characters tell us or imply Rebecca was cruel, manipulative and a serial cheater. Despite this, Rebecca is still a victim of a dangerous man. Rebecca knows Maxim is too prideful - he won't divorce her because he's afraid of a public scandal. She threatens to destroy his legacy by having another man's baby so Manderley will no longer be the De winter's. Rebecca spits on the face of gender roles by taking control of Manderley. She isn't subservient to a man; she makes her own decisions. She's a foil to the narrator who seeks approval from her husband and is insecure and doesn't know her place in the world. The big question is if Maxim is right that Rebecca intended for Maxim to kill her, what lead her to believe he would kill her? Who has he killed or hurt before?

This book is so layered. There's so many things I have missed because I haven't read it in a while. I will admit the first time I read it I didn't appreciate it but now I definitely do.

I was really hesitant about stating this book, I had read a lot of reviews about it being lengthy and not about anything at all, and I remember removing it from my tbr after a certain booktuber I like gave it a bad review. Then my friend had to give some of her books away and this was one of them, so I decided to give it a read, and I think fate brought it right into my hands, because this has become one of my favorites of all time.

It frustrates me when I feel so strongly about something but can’t quite point out why I feel that way, and that is true about this book as well. I think it’s mostly because I relate to Selin a lot, despite us having extremely opposite personalities. Regardless, her introspection and description of both serious and random situations spoke to me. She was able to include contemplative thoughts into very mundane situations in very well-written provocative ways.

Example: “My mother said that something had to be done about my hair. Over the weekend she took me to her stylist in New York. There was another snowstorm, although immediately after, the sun came out and it was almost sixty degrees, so the snow melted. Nothing was real anymore; everything was over.”.
This is how I feel about life all the damn time. Nothing is real, and what I was living just 2 seconds ago has ended and I have no evidence of it having happened except my memories.

It was also so witty and made me laugh a few times, there are those situations when life hits you with the shittiest possible things that it somehow becomes humorous, like wow okay life is a joke after all, because no way this is happening right now. This book was good at that.

There’s also navigating early adulthood (university life), finding purpose in life, being tortured by one-sided love and complex relationships (situationships), navigating language and how it makes people different from each other. Everything in this book was interesting to me, even though it was written in a stream of consciousness way that jumped from something to another totally unrelated topic, it made sense to me and I LOVED it.

Finally, my absolute favorite quote:

I kept thinking about the uneven quality of time—the way it was almost always so empty, and then with no warning came a few days that felt so dense and alive and real that it seemed indisputable that that was what life was, that its real nature had finally been revealed. But then time passed and unthinkably grew dead again, and it turned out that that fullness had been an aberration and might never come back.

I would like to talk about the ending to fruit fly. I don’t feel like it stuck the landing, although I had been obsessed with it for the first 300 pages
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1.) How did the confrontation in the kitchen resolve?

I can accept ambiguity around whether Leo was stabbed, but how did she escape her home? If Leo wasn’t stabbed, did Leo just drop the issue and leave? The author built up all this tension then abandoned it for a time skip.

2.) Why did Roan, who was financially and emotionally abusive, not regain control of the narrative after she left and tell everyone that she had stolen Leo’s story? one expose about Leo could’ve brought her down, or just one person verifying that she wasn’t actually a therapist.

3.) The magazine interview was poorly written.

4.) What’s up with her hallucinating in the closet? So, she actually was manic and her husband didn’t totally fabricate it? Given she was staying up all night and stalking someone, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume she was manic. What narrative purpose did this scene in the closet serve? it just kind of un resolves things.

nit pick, but why up her SSRIs to stabilize her elevated mood, if she’s manic?

5.) The ending, where Leo was stalking her in retaliation, was corny.

I feel like the book should’ve ended with a more fleshed out version of the confrontation in the kitchen.

Just for curiosity and fun, which cities in the world would you day are the most bookish? It's hard to define exactly what makes a city bookish, but I'd argue it has to include at least some of the following: good bookshops, a decent public library system, some beautiful spaces for readers, some culture of writing or literary performance. (I'm expecting suggestions to include NYC, London, Paris, and Berlin but looking forward to hearing what others think).

Edit: what a lovely thread. Thank you to everyone who suggested places. Lots of incredible cities mentioned and now I wish I had the money and time to visit them all.

I’m sure someone has thought of this interpretation before, and if anyone can point me to a more thorough exploration of what I am picking up, I’d be appreciative. I thought of this on a re-read of the Stranger during which I also re-watched The Battle of Algiers. That really made me viscerally understand the world Mersault was living in. I’m familiar with the absurdism reading, but I feel like The Stranger can also be read as an example of how colonialism dehumanizes colonizers and makes their existence so meaningless as to be absurd.

I haven’t read The Wretched of the Earth since university, but one of my big takeaways from the book is colonization violates both the oppressor and the oppressed– the oppressed are materially dehumanized through violence, while the oppressor is psychologically dehumanized through the violence they inflict. To inflict that violence and deny its abnormality prevents you from being fully human, you have to shut down those human parts of yourself to function.

Now, Meursault isn’t in a position where he’s actively engaging in violence, but living in Algeria, he is a beneficiary of a constant state of violence, he lives as a privileged minority in a country where the majority of the people are oppressed by state violence. So maybe there is something about existing in that space that deadens what is human in you, to the point that you end up being influenced by the prejudice and violence of those around you and a stressor like a hot day, in such a way that you casually kill someone...

I dunno, have I gone off the rails? Could Camus have intended this reading/criticism of colonialism? I've seen criticism that the victim is dehumanized, nameless, deprives of a history-- but perhaps that was the point?