Reading Update (She Gets The Girl | The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter | Law 101)

She Gets The Girl by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick

Oh look, an f/f romance novel I enjoyed this year. It has a classic tropey setup: girl needs to prove to her girlfriend that woah, wait, I totally can be a good person, so she sets her eyes on a fellow freshman who is desperately shy and desperately crushing on a girl, and decides she will help her figure out how to get the girl.

You can predict what happens instead. The prose is breezy and our mains endearing — they each have a thing holding them back from fully engaging with the world, from imagining more of themselves, and as with any good romance, neither thing is fully resolved by them getting together but it is a little better by virtue of the other’s presence.

And by the presence of some others. I was fond of the supporting cast, and of the setting. I am trying not to keep comparing this book with the f/f romance novel I read earlier this year that I Did Not Care For, but I did end up thinking that Pitt (and Pittsburgh in general) here felt more alive than New York in that other one.

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Can you believe I read this because I knew it would make some appearances in Season 2 of Pretty Little Liars? I can, because I have no shame about the paths I take to the media I consume.

Set in 1930s Georgia, the book covers the life of John Singer, a deaf man who has lost his only friend to an asylum, and the four new acquaintances he makes.

I tore through this novel in a single day, beginning on a train ride and finishing it on my couch after dark. A terrible sense of dread permeated my approach of the end. Found myself with a post-book hangover for the next few days, which hadn’t happened for a while. It’s funny. I have my predispositions towards the sort of endings I like, yet all of that flew out of the window here — I really really liked everything about this book.

( Read more... )

Law 101 by Jay M. Feinman

An eminently readable introduction to the American legal system. From the constitution to torts to criminal law, it maps out all the big areas of law you’re always hearing about, with deft explanations and illustrative examples.

Very much recommend it to anyone curious about the law.