Disappoint Me is a book where after, you feel like the characters have become your friends. They are multifaceted, imperfect, refreshingly real. They are full of gray and spiky with color. The plot is just life--a year with Max as she begins a relationship with Vincent. What stands out are the many scenes of eating: sushi on their first date, a picnic in the park, White Rabbit candy, creamy Gochujang pasta, takeaway pad thai, fancy French rose. Each gives scent and texture to a memory. It's a privileged way to mark the passing of time.

Max lives in London. She's a lawyer; her parents are well off; she doesn't worry about money. Max is also a trans woman--no stranger to marginalization. She is powerful in some ways, vulnerable in others. As Max says herself, "No person is fewer than two things." The Girls quote is quite apt here: "I have work, and then I have a dinner thing. And then I am busy, trying to become who I am."

never has a book been more true to the first line of its marketing blurb

Not the Naomi Novik I know 😭 what happened to all her beautiful prose? I didn't expect her writing style to change so much with the shift to YA. Really interesting magic system & world building but just drowning in exposition. I felt like I was following the threads of a rambling teenager's diary...which perhaps was intentional?

I would not have made it through the first half if not for the audiobook. The second half is stronger once Galadriel started interacting with other people and the plot picked up. I'll be reading book 2 with the hopes that it keeps improving.

I love an Agatha Christie mystery, and it's normally a comfort read for me, so when I saw I hadn't read or heard of this book, I was surprised and delighted. Now I see why it's a lesser known work 🥲

The usual cleverness with which the crime & deduction is conducted was entirely missing. Instead, this felt like watching an Austin Powers movie, but without the satire...

The number of times Poirot mentioned the "little gray cells" really became grating and the orientalism was oppressive.