When I wrote my review for it, I said that I was going to search out her other work, and now I have. I read Little and Lion by Brandy Colbert a couple of weeks ago and really loved it. I could tell that this is one of Reid’s early books, but that did not keep me from thoroughly enjoying the excellent themes, fully developed characters, and realistic but still romantic love story. Throughout the course of the novel, the characters question the role of romance in their lives and the main character Lauren gets the opportunity to focus on her familial and platonic relationships in a way she couldn’t-or in any case hadn’t-while married, and she gets to rediscover herself as an individual. Focusing on the part of a partnership after the initial spark has gone out and irritating habits make themselves known allows author Taylor Jenkins Reid to explore ideas of what it means to love someone. It’s a rare take on a love story, but one that I really want to see more often getting together is not the end of a love story, not even close. Choi has a new book out as of a month or so ago, and while I’m not going to rush out to read it, if I happen upon it at the library at some point in the future, I’ll probably read it. The characters are cute, there’s some handling of more serious issues (like anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and unplanned pregnancy) that deepen the story without bogging it down or making it less fun, and the texting is a nice way to present a modern relationship. Other than centering on a romantic relationship that probably would have been better had it stayed platonic, Emergency Contact is enjoyable. Gilead, the nightmarishly sexist and authoritarian landscape of the duology, feels even more alarmingly possible today than it did when Atwood first introduced it in 1985, making The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments both as scary as they are scarily good, and the former is an absolute must-read. Her writing is as deliberate and masterful as ever, and even though I don’t think The Testaments quite reaches the highs or the lows of its near-flawless predecessor, it’s still a great sequel even if it is arguably superfluous. Margaret Atwood’s long-awaited (34 years!) sequel to her terrifying and groundbreaking Handmaid’s Tale does not disappoint. He’s none of those things, so when he looks at the way the world used to be and thinks that it was better, it hits differently. He’s an unpleasant man who is presented as if he is kind, gentle, and clever. He’s dismissive of his underlings, seeming to respect only the one on whom he has a crush. He pretends to work so that he looks busy to his bosses so that his department isn’t reorganized in a way that wouldn’t suit him. He’s unrelentingly dismissive of Blomquist, the uniformed policeman with whom he occasionally works and who does about 90% of the work on any given case but is given approximately. Detective Varg, however, has a cruel edge even when at his most sympathetic. We’re supposed to be on Varg’s side, but in today’s world it’s hard to see the people who want to go back in time as the good guys, you know? In #1LDA, Mma Ramotswe misses the way things used to be, but her desire is for a kinder world her nostalgia reaches primarily back to her own father, who was a paragon of virtue and wisdom, and she does acknowledges that the world has made strides in tolerance that should not be walked back. I’m not entirely sure if this is due to McCall Smith’s writing changing or my own perceptions evolving, but I found Varg’s nostalgia the slightest bit sinister. #Number 1 ladies detective agency books in order series#But despite these similarities, I find Detective Varg and his series far less charming than Mma Ramotswe and hers. There’s the same gentle approach to crime-solving, the same laid-back attitude of the detectives, the same dialogue patterns, and the same sense of nostalgia. It actually has a similar feel to the No. The Detective Varg series-of which The Department of Sensitive Crimes is the first-is about a Swedish detective who tackles embarrassing and sensitive cases. Still, whenever he has a new series, I give it a shot. I’ve read lots of his works, some of which I’ve liked ( My Italian Bulldozer, Emma, Harriet Bean) and some of which have disappointed me ( 44 Scotland Street, the Isabel Dalhousie series). 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series, and every once in a while I mistakenly assume that means that I love everything that he writes.
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