What I Just Read

A below-average novel, more notable for its various defects than for its story and characters. This novel feels off, it has a wide range of structural and technical flaws, it is poorly unified, the characters are not psychologically believable, and (as we'll see in the next paragraph) the author's own voice lacks credibility as he speaks on the book's core subject. The story does not feel organic, in fact it doesn't really feel much like a story at all. I'll start with the book's most blatant flaw: if you want to write a novel about a surfer, you simply cannot know next to nothing about surfing.  The author makes basic errors, making it painfully obvious that neither he nor his editors has ever surfed. [A quick  affiliate link to Amazon  for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site  Casual Kitchen , I will receive a small affiliate commission at no ext...

A third-wave feminist comes full circle and discovers that women have been had. She wants equality, but finds out to her dismay that "equality" turned out to mean being stuck in W-2 hell just like the men, trading all her time for consumerism and a long commute. And so she explores an entirely different solution, drops out of the rat race entirely, and comes to realize that "homemaking"--despite all the disparagement it got from second -wave feminists--can actually be an act of feminist identity. The author interviews a wide range of women and couples on similar paths, showing that we become healthier, wealthier and even happier the more we can master a wider and wider range of domestic skills. And we can still call ourselves feminists! Homemaking isn't making a comeback, it's been here for years. It's intriguing to follow along on this author's mental journey, as she and her interviewee subjects find they need substantial deprogramming. They learn t...