Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated My Life As A Rat in Books
Dec 6, 2022
Book
My life as a Rat
By Joyce Carol Oates
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Which should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for one’s family ever justified? Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it?
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
This was one of those books that just had you shocked to the core from the start. It’s raw and hard to read in parts. It’s well written and up until the last quarter I was enjoying it but it just got a bit tedious. This does have a few triggers for abuse and racism! Overall it’s a good read.
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated The Yards (2000) in Movies
Jan 8, 2021
The plot: After serving time in prison for taking the fall for a group of his friends, Leo just wants to get his life back on track. So he goes to the one place he thinks will be safe -- home. There he takes a new job with his highly connected and influential uncle. But in the yards, where his uncle now pulls the strings, safe is not how they do business. Unwittingly, he's drawn into a world of sabotage, high stakes payoffs and even murder.
Its okay.
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Tom Brady recommended The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom in Books (curated)
Feng Shui: Create Health, Wealth and Happiness Through the Power of Your Home
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LilyLovesIndie (123 KP) rated Farmer Boy (Little House, #3) in Books
Nov 5, 2018
Despite finding it difficult to get into initially, mostly due to the sudden change in family situations and characters which disrupts flow, the book is actually my favourite one so far and I can fully understand what a young Laura Ingalls would have seen in the charming and clever Almanzo Wilder! He's a character that is a lovable rouge, you feel his trepidation at having blacked the wall in the parlour and his joy at getting his own colt to break.
The book doesn't progress the story of Laura, who is the heroine of the series, however it does give us a snippet into the life of her future family in law in the same loving, simplistic style of writing which truly endears the characters to the reader in a most natural fashion.
A good read, full of an accurate snippet into the life of a big farm and it's family at work. The focus on boys life is a pleasant change and the village life we see is most enjoyable to read and wonderful to learn about. A definite recommend to young and old alike.
ClareR (5681 KP) rated Notes on a Nervous Planet in Books
Jan 16, 2019
I really liked the short chapters in this book, and the use of very short chapters which were like a little pep talk or an 'almost' meditation. I'm notoriously bad at reading non-fiction, so this was a really well planned book for people like me, purely because of the short chapters.
If you have concerns about modern life and it's stresses and strains, I would say that this is a good book to make you think about changes you could make.