Even well-loved, super-popular, award-winning books have their serious haters! 😂 This is historical fiction. All guesses are encouraged (no googling, though!). This is meant to be fun. Don't be dismayed if you disagree with the review. Any spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are copied directly from the review. I’ll post the correct answer tomorrow (15th July 2026). ⭐ I agree with (the few) people who've written negative reviews before me. I made it to the dinosaurs thinking I was reading some sort of prologue. No joke. I flipped back to the table of contents, then flipped forward to the next section and the next and the next. Endless interminable descriptions of the development of the area over eons of time. Since some 35,000 reviews exist here on Goodreads with a total nearly 5 star cumulative rating, I guess this book must get fabulous at some point, but I'm so not into it. And I love history. Not finishing. No way. ⭐ What do you think? What's the book? (In this case, if you can think of only the title, but not the author, that's ok!)

Even well-loved, super-popular, award-winning books have their serious haters! 😂 This is historical fiction. All guesses are encouraged (no googling, though!). This is meant to be fun. Don't be dismayed if you disagree with the review. Any spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are copied directly from the review. I’ll post the correct answer tomorrow (9th July 2026). ⭐ Spoilers but geez what an insufferable main character. Like, I'm sorry [Character name] but you're right, it's pretty horrible parenting to not realize your ten year old has missed two months of school because you're too busy conducting an illicit 'empowered' affair with your new bff from the women's liberation club. And the fact that your husband has been working on his novel for like two years and is now a few months away from finishing it means that it's probably good teamwork to let him finish before you completely give up on helping at home and raising the kids in order to go to do your own thing. So you really do probably deserve your comeuppance. Except since this is meladrama the comeuppance is going to come from the complete left field and be so wildly ridiculous that in one evening...a) your husband finds out about your lesbian affair, b) he gets physically threatening apropos of zero red flags before, c) your son decides to burn his father's life work in the fire because you seemed mad, d) your son is revealed to be a mastermind book thief (he's 11), e) your son runs off onto the streets and joins an Oliver Twist style street gang...as one does, and f) your husband goes off and hangs himself. Seems reasonable. Oh did I not mention the 1993 part of the plot? That's because nothing there really mattered and I didn't care about it. I do want to go visit the New York Public Library again now though. That's my takeaway. Don't read this book it's too boring and insufferable for anyone to endure. ⭐ What do you think? What's the book? (In this case, if you can think of only the title, but not the author, that's ok!)

Even well-loved, super-popular, award-winning books have their serious haters! 😂 This is historical fiction. All guesses are encouraged (no googling, though!). This is meant to be fun. Don't be dismayed if you disagree with the review. Any spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are copied directly from the review. I’ll post the correct answer tomorrow (3rd July 2026). ⭐ Honestly, wtf? I mean, we all know the blind person trope (Daredevil, etc) and the lovable Nazi trope (Hiroshima Mon Amour) and the mystical object searched for by evil Nazis trope (Indiana Jones), so why throw all of these together? The book was readable but no more so than a pulp fiction thriller. Honestly, I don't see this as being Pulitzer quality. The characters were ok, the narration interesting, but a masterpiece? The best US fiction in 2015? Perhaps not. And please don't accuse me of being too harsh - All Quiet on the Western Front, The Winds of War, The Caine Mutiny and The Sympathizer are all better war stories than this one. Might as well give Bob Dylan a Nobel for Literature while you are at it...oh damn, they did! Still not happy with this one. Sorry, but I just cannot appreciate it. I think it was a terrible choice for the Pulitzer, every bit as bad as The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes was for the Booker Prize in 2011. In retrospect, [Author's] 2021 bestseller [Book title] was far, far better than this one, but still suffered from being predictable and having paperthin character development. As for the TV adaptation (1) the author got what he asked for because he was begging for it all through this miserable book and (2) 27% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Nuf said. ⭐ What do you think? What's the book? (In this case, if you can think of only the title, but not the author, that's ok!)

Our group read is On the Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. which is about a trio of singing sisters in 1950s San Francisco. (Our Zoom discussion is on 17th July. See the calendar for details.) Which of these historical novels about music have you read? Would you recommend any? https://www.womansworld.com/entertainment/books/historical-fiction-books-about-music-chart-topping-reads I haven't read any on this list, but one that I loved was Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

Just finished The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, published in 1963 under a pseudonym "Victoria Lucas." It wasn't written as historical fiction, but I guess it would qualify nowadays. The accurate portrayal of how depression was treated in the late fifties is important history, I believe. It was a very hard read; if you have experience with or knowledge of mental illness, you will understand. It's real. I've never read anything remotely like it, though Howard Moss of the New Yorker said, "there was something girlish in its manner (that) betrays the hand of the amateur novelist." Huh! In 2019 BBC News listed it as one of the 100 most inspiring novels. Gee, I don't know if I'd say "inspiring." I persisted, because the writing is so beautiful. Her metaphors are indeed inspiring. The fact that she died by suicide, believing her writing would never amount to anything, breaks my heart. In 1982 her book, The Collected Poems, won a Pulitzer Prize. If only she'd had better help, she might still be with us, having written even more incredible works. I'd recommend it, for her raw honesty and unique writing style. So sad, but very true.