tiny book reviews.2025.n7 -- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

 

I honestly don't remember how this book got on my radar. I clearly read about it somewhere, in passing, and was interested enough to open Audible and download it. Up it comes in the queue, and in blind obedience to my past self, I read it.

Science fiction: The end of life on Earth is imminent (for none of the reasons you might expect), the world's governments come together (perhaps the most fictional part of the science fiction) to launch a deep-space vessel with a crew tasked to discover a solution to the problem that's killing Earth, adventure ensues. 

Like any good sci-fi, the book is about so much more than telling a fanciful story, and as science fiction goes, I'd say it's pretty good--not great, but pretty good.

And Hollywood apparently agrees, because I believe a movie adaptation of the book is expected in 2026. So, read it now, go see the movie with your friends, and enjoy the pleasure of being insufferably pompous by telling them all the ways the movie didn't live up to the book.

Oh, and, for what it's worth, I think this book might be particularly compelling to teenage boys. There's one of those that lives in my house, and I plan to make him listen this summer as we road trip from here to there and back.

3.5 of 5 stars.

tiny book reviews.2025.n6 -- To Kill a Mockingbird

 

Here's at least one argument for reading as much as possible when you're young: One of life's great pleasures is to re-read a book decades on and reflect on how it hits differently. Because it always does. Hit differently. You've remembered portions incorrectly. You've completely forgotten other parts, important parts, parts that you wouldn't have thought you'd forget. You understand the characters differently. You understand the context differently. And, ultimately, I think, you begin to understand yourself a little differently.

Before the semester started, I took a quick solo trip to Alabama to...idk, do something. I rode bikes, camped, explored a half dozen crappy little Alabama towns, and--critically--rejoiced in the sunshine and exposed bare knees in the wind. I also re-read To Kill a Mockingbird (which is, of course, set in Alabama).

I don't know what to say... Y'all already know this is such a great book. It still is. 

And Atticus Finch remains my personal paragon of manhood.

I guess I don't have much more to say, but want to remind you of this delightful description of how Scout felt in her dress when spiffied up by Calpurnia before taken to Black Church:

"...the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary."

:-)

5 of 5 stars.

tiny book reviews.2025.n5 -- Liars by Sarah Manguso

 

This one was kind of a hard read, but not in the sense that it was hard to work my way through, but that I...well, I guess I can say I struggled with it...emotionally.

It's about a woman, a woman telling her story, a story of falling in love, getting married, having a child, following her husband through numerous moves as he chases his personal big rock candy mountain, then his betrayal, departure, and (briefly) her life after marriage. During their time together, sometimes he is making a lot of money, mostly he is not. And our protagonist suffers through a kind of cold, anonymous existence as she does most of the bread-winning, the child-rearing, and, it would seem, the work to keep the couple's relationship alive, but gets no recognition or validation or even gratitude from her husband for doing it. 

And when I write that out it reads like a pretty real paradigm for many women. For some women, the novel may be cathartic. Or excruciating. 

For me, in reading this book I felt...indicted. But let me be clear: I am by no objective standard the failure of a partner the husband she's describing is and still I felt indicted. Just because. I guess. I'm a man. A husband. A father. And...I guess I feel like I never quite live up to the ideal or standard I've set for any of those identities. So when I read the part where she complains that her husband never cleaned the bathroom, I felt so guilty that I nearly raced home to the cleaning supplies and got after it. I cleaned and wiped and disinfected every surface of that bathroom.

Here's a passage I found poignant enough to copy out:

Even a decent marriage drains the life of a woman. And during our worst fights, I referred to a divorce as a sure thing and impending, yet I don't know anyone with a better marriage. It really is absolute shit being a man's wife. I swear up and down that if I outlive this marriage I will never be with a man again.

Well...

So, I read this book and sorta felt like garbage (the bathroom needed cleaning anyway, so that's a positive outcome), but then a day or two later, as I was just sort of thinking about it, I came to wonder if we're meant to fully trust the narrator. See, the book is told from the perspective of the woman who's story it is. She's been rebuffed. She's lost her husband. She's lost her youth. She's kind of just...lost. But that's the thing--it's her story, and, well, in the very beginning she calls herself a liar, which is, you know, kinda like the title of the book, too. And so I began to rethink it all.

For those that have read (or watched) Fight Club, you might remember getting to the end and realizing a thing and suddenly you have to reinterpret everything you've read to that point. That's sort of where I was. After a couple of days reflection, anyway.

I've read zero book reviews or author's interviews, so I have no idea if this is the author's intention or if other readers have had similar takes. I kinda don't want to know. Because this is the beauty and wonder of art, that we can all see the same thing, yet walk away with very different experiences. Or, in my case, two distinctly different experiences.

3.5 of 5 stars.

tiny book review.2025.n4 -- The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

 

The first I'd heard of Matt Haig was when a friend recommended The Humans last fall. Read it. Loved it. Then I read another--How to Stop Time--which was ok, but not my favorite. Then Valerie recommended The Life Impossible and it was, again, lovely. My favorite of the three.

What Matt Haig succeeds at is writing a fun, easy-reading novel that somehow packs a punch full of thought. I wanted to write a philosophical punch, because it is, but sometimes that big p-word sort of scares people off, or makes it seem weightier and more dense, and that's not the feel you get reading these novels. The undertones are of weighty stuff, but served with such fun stories that if feels light. All three of his books I've read do this, so I assume that's his thing. 

Beyond that goodness, The Life Impossible is set in Ibiza, which I love (I haven't been to Ibiza, but I'm a regular visitor to Mallorca, so, you know, kinda the same feels...) And the taste of oranges is a bit that is central to the theme, and, well...American oranges just plain suck compared to Mallorcan oranges, so I get it. (Seriously, I love them so much. The oranges and the olives. They're everything.)

Anyway... This book is a strong recommend. It's a fun story told in a lovely voice with undertones of profundity that made reading it feel like dinner and dessert all in one.

5 of 5 stars.