Published in 1949
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The story revolves around two seemingly homeless men simply waiting for someone—or something—named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree, inhabiting a drama spun of their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as mankind’s inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett’s language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existential post-World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time.

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VLADIMIR: I don't understand.
ESTRAGON: Use your intelligence, can't you?
Vladimir uses his intelligence.
VLADIMIR: [finally] I remain in the dark.

Waiting for Godot is a sentimental read from high school. I recently gave it a reread because I realised I didn't remember much from it and felt like a fake fan, so I needed to redeem myself.

I think I enjoyed it even more on this reread than I did in high school. Maybe it was the nostalgia or maybe it was because I finally wasn't reading for class haha.

I admit that I don't think I would have liked this play so much in high school if it weren't for the fact that my friends seemed to enjoy it. Despite my doubts, I had fun quoting the play with them in our everyday life (nerds, I know). But personally, the play was a bit nonsensical and repetitive for me. And maybe that isn't a personal opinion. Some may argue that it is even the point--the point that life is meaningless.

But on this reread, without having to do any analysis for my high school English class, I found humour in the nonsense and great fun in Vladimir and Estragon's dynamic. That quote, case in point.

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Published by Wednesday Books on 16 Jul 2019
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In this hilarious follow-up novel to the New York Times bestseller I Hate Everyone But You, long distance best friends Ava and Gen have finally made it to the same time zone (although they’re still over a thousand miles apart).

Through their hilarious, sometimes emotional, but always relatable conversations, Ava and Gen are each other’s support systems through internships, relationship troubles, questionable roommates, undercover reporting, and whether or not it’s a good idea to take in a feral cat. Please Send Help perfectly captures the voice of young adults looking to find their place in the world and how no matter how desperate things seem, you always have your best friend to tell it like it is and pick you back up.

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I didn't read I Hate Everyone But You but hoped I'd be able to follow along anyway. The series follows Ava and Gen via correspondences over text and email. In the first book, they help each other survive the first semester of college, and in this second book, they help each other survive life post-grad. As someone who has no idea what's been going on in her life since graduation, I was especially interested in the second novel and dived straight into it instead of starting with the first book.

At first, I was entertained by the office drama and other updates Ava and Gen shared with each other, but after awhile, I couldn't help but feel that there was something disingenuous about the banter between these supposed best friends. Maybe this is where reading the first book would have come into play--to help me get a better sense of these characters--but that's not something I'm planning on going back to do.

The main reason for their banter feeling disingenuous to me was that there were so many explanatory asides throughout their correspondence, which cheapened their relationship to me. The explanatory asides felt like a crude attempt at giving Ava and Gen distinctive personalities. Gen's only personality was being gay; it was as if she just discovered her sexuality and couldn't stop talking about how she was gay. All the 2019 references you could think of were thrown in, and they cracked jokes that I would have missed if not for, again, the explanatory asides.

I suppose this is the challenge that comes with writing in epistolary format (or this kind of modern epistolary format). There's not much context to draw from, so these explanations must be made.

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The Crowns of Croswald published by Stories Untold Press on 21 Jul 2017
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For sixteen years Ivy Lovely has been hidden behind an enchanted boundary that separates the mundane from the magical. When Ivy crosses the border, her powers awaken. Curiosity leads her crashing through a series of adventures at the Halls of Ivy, a school where students learn to master their magical blood and the power of Croswald’s mysterious gems. When Ivy’s magic––and her life––is threatened by the Dark Queen, she scrambles to unearth her history and save Croswald before the truth is swept away forever.

The Girl with the Whispering Shadow published by Stories Untold Press on 23 Jan 2019
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Ivy Lovely is whisked away from her beloved school to Belzebuthe, a secret town for only those with magical blood. She sets out on a mission to uncover the second facet of the Kindred Stone while eluding the Dark Queen’s wrath. But even when she’s supposed to be safe, something is shadowing Ivy. She will need all her natural-born magic and more as she battles to find the rest of the Kindred Stone and return to the Halls of Ivy. Before it’s too late...

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More strangeness, she mused. She was getting used to everything being odd, all the time.

I know we're all tired of comparing every fantasy to Harry Potter, but you can think of the Halls of Ivy in The Crowns of Croswald as Hogwarts and Belzebuthe in The Girl with the Whispering Shadow as Hogsmeade. If you're looking for another fantasy series with a magical boarding school and a magical town, this could be one for you.

The most wondrous things, the most impossible of things, are often just ordinary things doing what they are best at.

Croswald is pretty much the middle grade parallel to Harry Potter. There's great world-building in Croswald--a world complete with its own magical terminology too, like "scrivenist," "slurry," "scaldron," and more!--but the concepts are nothing new. Instead of wizards, they have scrivenists. Instead of wands, they use quills. The orphaned protagonist is actually the chosen one (spoiler, but you saw it coming. I mean, the school is named after her).

I personally always look for something different in my next read, especially with fantasy, but if you're looking for something similar to Harry Potter, I would recommend this. It's well-written and fast-paced. It's a middle grade series, so the plot is a bit simplistic, but it's still great fun to immerse yourself in a new magical world.

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Published by Chatto & Windus in 1932
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Largely set in a futuristic World State of genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that are combined to make a utopian society that goes challenged only by a single outsider.

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This is a book that I like more in retrospect. I'm a bit rusty with classics, so the physical act of reading this book wasn't the easiest or most enjoyable experience for me. I ended up getting through the book by alternating between reading a chapter summary from SparkNotes and reading a chapter from the actual book itself--SparkNotes first! This helped me get through the book quickly and pick up on important themes. After all, I didn't enjoy the reading experience per say, but I thought the ideas brought up were very interesting. Upon finishing the book (finally!), my immediate rating was a 3, but now that time has passed, my rating is inching toward a 4, so perhaps I'll settle my final rating at a 3.5.

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.

At first, the World State was shocking to me. Society is optimised by capitalism. The population is cloned. Thus, families don't exist and parents are taboo. Kids are brainwashed in their sleep to prefer the castes they are assigned.

And yet, in the end, reflecting upon myself, I feel that I would prefer dull happiness over the grand struggle for it (at least at this moment in my life), which is very World State of me. But how could a sane person possibly prefer this shocking World State way of life?

I don't think anyone would find it too strange to hear that some people prefer dull happiness over the grand struggle for it. But this book shows the possible implications of that way of life--of course, in a much more extreme way than would ever be realistic, probably, but still, the hyperbole reveals truths--and those implications are very concerning indeed.

I can stay comfortable and learn to be happy with settling for less. Or I can strive for more, struggle and fail, maybe succeed one day and maybe not.

Reading buddy: Emily's review

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Published by Knopf Publishing Group on 21 May 2018
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The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers.

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionise the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn't work.

For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.

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How did Elizabeth Holmes fool everyone--her board, investors, employees, and the public?

I've been fascinated by Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes ever since listening to The Dropout podcast miniseries. I immediately requested this book from the library, and whilst waiting for it to come in, I watched The Inventor documentary on HBO. So I must give the disclaimer that it's quite possible that my 5 star rating is due more to my fascination with the case in general than about this book specifically, but nonetheless, I was absolutely gripped reading this account from the man himself who first broke the story to the public in The Wall Street Journal.

I would highly recommend the podcast if you're intrigued by the story and seek easily-digestible entertainment, but if you really want to get into it, I highly recommend the book too! Carreyrou is extremely thorough, and it's crazy to see how many players were involved. Because of Theranos' company culture of fear and secrecy, even many of the employees didn't know the full picture of what was going on in the company. Major props to Carreyrou for piecing it together, and to the brave sources who stepped forward to help Carreyrou break the story, exposing Theranos and saving lives of potential Theranos customers, all in spite of Theranos' intimidation tactics in their effort to keep up their ruse.

This really made me think about how far talking a good talk and having a powerful network can take you. It's astounding what a beautiful young woman surrounded by rich old men can do with a tempting vision and great marketing.

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Published by Celadon Books on 20 Aug 2019
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After the sudden death of his wife, Tom Kennedy believes a fresh start will help him and his young son Jake heal. A new beginning, a new house, a new town. Featherbank.

But the town has a dark past. Twenty years ago, a serial killer abducted and murdered five residents. Until Frank Carter was finally caught, he was nicknamed "The Whisper Man," for he would lure his victims out by whispering at their windows at night.

Just as Tom and Jake settle into their new home, a young boy vanishes. His disappearance bears an unnerving resemblance to Frank Carter's crimes, reigniting old rumors that he preyed with an accomplice. Now, detectives Amanda Beck and Pete Willis must find the boy before it is too late, even if that means Pete has to revisit his great foe in prison: The Whisper Man.

And then Jake begins acting strangely. He hears a whispering at his window...

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I gotta give a shout out to my reading buddies Sadia and Tegan for recommending this book to me! Both received ARCs of this book and recommended me to request one as well, so I did, and now The Whisper Man is my favourite thriller of 2019!

I was especially intrigued by the blurb because I had read I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara, a true crime account of the Golden State Killer, just the month prior. The Golden State Killer was known for casing his victims' homes months in advance and peeping under their windows at night. Before he was caught, he was even sighted under a window and described as a ghostly figure in the bushes... So with that knowledge tucked under my belt, the Whisper Man really came to life for me, for better or for worse!

Small triumphs on terrible days. You had to cling to them.

This story is far from your formulaic thriller that relies on the account of a high functioning alcoholic woman. We've had enough of those. This thriller is the first one that has properly creeped me out. (Most thrillers I read simply keep me in suspense with my curiosity. Maybe I'm choosing the wrong ones haha.) The creepy sensory descriptions were so vivid--not just visual imagery, but oral imagery too, hence Whisper Man. Creepy men. Creepy voices. Creepy kids. Creepy kids are the worst, man. Lots of suspense. (How are these disappearances still happening if Frank Carter is already incarcerated?)

It was past midnight by the time I reached the last 20% of the book, and at that point, I had to stay up and finish the rest, because it was too creepy for me to fall asleep until it was resolved. The end was really satisfying. And still creepy. Haunting.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves thrillers!

Note: I've recommended this book to a few friends already and it seems that I may have overhyped it for them. I mean, they still rated it 4 stars, so they liked it, but perhaps didn't find it as creepy or original as I did!

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Published by St. Martin's Press on 13 Aug 2019
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Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she's seen her fair share of them, and she's excellent at dealing with other people's tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it's an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie's old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn't seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can't think about that. Because she doesn't fall in love. And because of the advice her old captain gave her: don't date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping... but will she jeopardise her place in a career where she's worked so hard to be taken seriously?

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Who doesn't love a strong female lead? Plus, I interned at the Austin Fire Department one winter, so that's fun. However, I felt that the idea of a strong woman in this book was a bit superficial and nothing that I hadn't seen in a superhero movie already. That said, I keep watching superhero movies and am still entertained. This book was no exception.

Choosing to love--despite all the ways that people let you down, and disappear, and break your heart. Knowing everything we know about how hard life is and choosing to love anyway... That's not weakness. That's courage.

At the beginning of the book, Cassie and her superiors list off everything she, as a woman, can't do, in order to maintain her credibility at the station. You already know that the rest of the book involves breaking every single one of those rules. The most obvious of which? To not get involved with another firefighter. No matter how hot, how good natured, how perfectly dreamy he is. So waddyaknow??

Yes, the world is full of unspeakable cruelty. But the answer wasn't to never feel hope, or bliss, or love--but to savor every fleeting, precious second of those feelings when they came.
The answer wasn't to never love anyone.
It was to love like crazy whenever you could.

It was super predictable and reads like a YA novel except for a traumatic experience in Cassie's life that is alluded to throughout the book and revealed at the end. I loved her mother Diana and Diana's best friend Josie, and loved seeing how Cassie and Diana's relationship developed throughout the book.

What I think would be interesting to explore is this whole "I'm not a girl"/"I'm not like most girls" thing.

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