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Book Review: How to Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick

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First line: If you picked up this book, it's probably because you've had trouble narrowing down "what you want to be" to one thing.

I agreed to review this book purely on the title: I was unfamiliar with Wapnick and her TEDx talk on calling but have long struggled with what I "want to be when I grow up" (even now, in my mid-30s). While I love learning, I don't love it enough to want to attempt a Master's degree or expensive classes, and I've struggled with understanding if I'm happy or not in my vocation(s).

Still, I was apprehensive about this book when I started, fearing it'd be a long form essay on #YOLO (you only live once) or a passionate defense of the gig economy.

Instead, I found this a fascinating, empathetic, empowering read that acknowledges today's economic realities, the personal temperament of many people I know, and the ways current US culture is oriented toward a rigid, specialist-type career path (and how that need n…
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The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

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Title:The Orchardist
Author: Amanda Coplin

Genre: Fiction (Historical / early 20th Century / Pacific Northwest / Oregon / Horticulture / Teenage Pregnancy)
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Perennial (3/5/2013)
Source:TLC Book Tours

Rating: Liked, possibly loved. This one will grow on me, I suspect, as time goes on.
Did I finish?: Oh yes.
One-sentence summary: Set in early 20th century Oregon, a orchardist helps two pregnant girls on the run and the experience has explosive results for all.
Reading Challenges:Historical Fiction

Do I like the cover?: I'm of two minds: a little bit I like it for the colors, and the bucolic setting; but up close, the image is sort of rendered like one those paint programs that makes photos look like canvases. It's odd.

I'm reminded of...: Alice Hoffman, Doris Lessing

First line: His face was as pitted as the moon.

Buy, Borrow, or Avoid?: Ohemgee, borrow or buy, especially if you like narratives set in the American West.

Why did I get this book?: I re…
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Book Review: The Secret History of Jane Eyre by John Pfordresher

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First line: We begin with a mystery.

I grabbed this book because of the cover (gorgeous) and the fact that I'm not a huge Jane Eyre fan and I kind of want to be. (I mean, it seems like a book I should be all over.) I love books about books, stories that dive into the nitty-gritty and ineffable magic of writing a novel. And I'm always up to learn more about books and how, possibly, to read them.

But this one really disappointed me.

Pfordresher's argument -- his 'secret history' -- is that Brontë mined her own life for Jane Eyre. (No duh.) But he pushes a literal person-for-person sort of equivalency that really disappointed me; while arguing for Brontë's creative genius, I couldn't help but feel like he was minimizing it in this manner.

There are also some intense leaps that just seemed a stretch to me. For example, Rochester's agonizing sexual frustration reflects "...a sexual energy Charlotte Brontë knew, daily, at Haworth," (p82), from the a…
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