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While I enjoy a good psychological thriller, this book didn't quite work for me. It felt long, repetitive, and completely unsuspenseful--in fact, the big twist was evident to me well before the end of the lengthy text. Disappointing.

This memoir of a woman who worked at two Silicon Valley startups rang a lot of bells for me: tech bro culture and its impacts on both workplace and geographical culture; the loss of tangible experiences in exchange for a data-driven lifestyle; and the author's growing unease with our surveillance state, largely enabled by the tech companies for which data collection is their lifeblood. Most importantly, this book warns of the dangers of our addiction to "apps" and willingness to sell our most intimate selves for the sake of not missing out.

While I enjoyed the premise of this story, the writing was dry and I skimmed to get to the end. Maybe someone else would connect more with both Maxwell's and Saul's stories, but they just didn't hold my interest.

As a teenager, Eun Ji was left in California in her older brother's care while her parents returned to South Korea to enrich her father's career. This memoir tells the story of how she came to terms with the damage this caused her, particularly due to the toxic behavior of her mother, who wrote her letters from abroad while the two were separated. As she navigates early adulthood, Eun Ji struggles with depression and anxiety, eventually finding peace through language, poetry, and letting go.

Furo Wariboko awakes one morning to find that overnight he transformed into a white man. In a panic, he leaves his family home and sets off on his own for the first time, navigating the streets of Lagos in his new skin, learning the ways of the world while coming to terms with his new identity. With obvious references to [b:The Metamorphosis|485894|The Metamorphosis|Franz Kafka|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1359061917l/485894.SY75.jpg|2373750] (a cockroach even appears on the scene as he is first examining his lighter skin, in case the reader isn't sure!) and thematic similarities to Gogol's [b:The Nose|24874312|The Nose|Nikolai Gogol|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423750462l/24874312.SX50.jpg|86212430], Furo's predicament provides a unique perspective on race and identity in a setting about which I am admittedly ignorant. 3.5

In jail for a crime he did not commit, Roy's young marriage to Celestial is strained as he spends more time in jail than they had spent as a couple: as he pines for release and a return to the life he once had, Celestial's life moves forward in a diverging trajectory. The book is told from alternating points of view between Roy, Celestial, and family friend Andre who remains (and becomes increasingly) significant as time goes on. The havoc wrought on each of them and their family members is devastating, but it's just as devastating to consider how plausible this scenario is in today's American south. Would definitely recommend.

When Emira, a 25-year-old black woman, is accused of kidnapping her young, white babysitting charge by a grocery store rent-a-cop, her life is on an unknown course. Working two part time jobs to barely make ends meet and soon to be kicked off her parents' health insurance, everyone around her seems to have ideas of how her life should be better than it is--especially Alix, the woman who hired her to babysit for her, and Kelley, a 30-something white man who witnessed the grocery store incident and eventually became Emira's boyfriend. Meanwhile, while everyone else is figuring out what's best for Emira behind her back, she is practically raising Alix's daughter--a precocious young girl who is hurt by her mother's neglect. Definitely would recommend.

This is one of those books that I enjoyed while reading it, but as I have gained some distance from it, I am less sure how I feel about it overall. Dealing with issues of class inequality, abortion, and motherhood, the book primarily centers around the Richardsons--a wealthy family of six in a utopian Cleveland suburb--and their tenants, Mia and Pearl Warren, who become entrenched in the Richardson family's life. As the result of a rather far-fetched coincidence, Mrs. Richardson's black sheep daughter Izzy asks her to investigate into Mia Warren's life, leading Mrs. Richardson down a rabbit hole that uncovers something dark in Mia's past. The most disappointing thing about this book, to me, was Ng's treatment of Izzy. While it's not far fetched for her to run away, literally burning down the family house--not a spoiler, as this is how the book begins--does not succeed in granting her the moral superiority to the rest of her family that I think the author intended.

I read this book because I wanted to know the following: Am I having a midlife crisis that is common to my generation? Why do I feel the way I do? What can I do about it? In reading, I found some commonalities with my fellow Gen-Xers: we all suffered the same pressure to do and have it all, and some of us feel bewildered and hollowed out by the constant demands and pressures exerted by ubiquitous online social interactions. I've found that since I finished this book, my mindset has been improved, so I'm glad I read it, though everyone's mileage will vary with this one.

This book is barely discernible, best read without trying too hard to piece together plots, characters, points of views, or timelines. I impatiently read this as quickly as I could, but I was surprised at how much of an impression it made. The themes of human and animal suffering, the gasps of a dying planet, and harmful deeds of an ominous corporation coalesced in my mind, and I found I was haunted by the imagery when I put the book down. Not sure I'd recommend this one, but I got a lot more out of it than I expected and appreciated the challenge it presented.

Two families in present day LA are still grappling with an incident that impacted them in the early 1990s, when racial tensions between black and Korean communities surged in the wake of the L.A. Riots. I couldn't put this book down once I started it.