SoapZone Community Message Board

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan A-: The writer of “The Joy Luck Club” kept a journal of the birds that visited her feeders as she got into birding in the past few years. I related so much and it was fun to see that we have some of the same thoughts about what birds are thinking and doing when they stop by.

Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac A-: My first Balzac, but it won’t be my last. If I’ll make it to Spain to live, I’ll be reading them translated into Spanish instead of English though.

The B-List:

Fahrenheit-182 by Mark Hoppus with Dan Ozzi B+. As a blink-182 fan, I appreciated this memoir about how blink became so popular and somewhat about the drama with fellow bandmate Tom Delonge.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath B+. This is one of those books I’ve heard about and thought I had read, but I didn’t even know what it was about. Groundbreaking for the time period about mental illness.

Salem’s Lot (re-read) by Stephen King B+. I read this one around 2015 or so, and I didn’t remember it. I read The Dark Tower last year, and I didn’t remember anything Callahan said about his experiences in Jerusalem’s Lot…it’s Stephen King’s vampire story and second novel. I had to skip the dog part though :(

The Scions of Shannara and The Druid of Shannara by Terry Brooks B+. It’s 300 years after the events of The Wishsong, and Allanon’s shade (spirit or ghost) is still sending Ohmsford’s on quests! The first two books of The Heritage of Shannara were an improvement on the first trilogy as they’re all the same quest and characters. Fascism has arrived to the Four Lands, and the characters have been given orders by Allanon to once again find that missing Sword of Shannara, restore the Druids and magic, and find the Elves who have been disappeared (which I the third one goes into).

The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich B+: A gay teen finds out his father is the King of a fictional southern European country and falls for the gay prince of a northern European country in this cute YA novel.

They Tell Me Of A Home by Daniel Black B+ A Black professor returns to the small Arkansas rural town he grew up in to confront his past and deal with family secrets, including ones he had no idea about. I think Daniel Black is my best discovered writer so far in 2025, although this one didn’t quite live up to Isaac’s Song/Don’t Cry for Me.

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams B+. I knew Facebook/Meta and Zuckerberg were bad, but I just didn’t know how bad (go to jail for us please. Bad performance review because she nearly died giving childbirth. Sexual harassment from both men and women.) I’m glad I deleted both Facebook and Instagram earlier this year.

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman B. Not as enjoyable as Tan’s bird book, but Tan does reference this one. It got a bit too scientific at times about brain functions of birds, when I just wanted to read about cool things birds do, like hiding seeds for winter and stuff. This got into mechanics of how their vocal chords sing and stuff.

Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler B-. A family is destroyed by the death of one of their own, and the younger brother finds religion to learn forgiveness since he blamed himself. I think I had my hopes up too high for this one after The Accidental Tourist. It just didn’t grab me the same, maybe because I couldn’t keep track who was who. I still look forward to exploring her other work though.

The C-List:

I Got Abducted by Aliens And Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com by Kimberly Lemming C+. The title is better than the book, which is exactly what the title says.

DNF: Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake. This book sounded good on paper (three siblings, all former g&t students) fight over the inheritance, but there was…magic? But the writing was so bad that I couldn’t even figure out what was going on and was bored so I just gave up on it.