One Word Reviews of the Last Ten Books I Read

One Word Reviews

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Top Ten Tuesday

Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share our bookish wish lists this week. I’m perfectly happy checking books out from the library so I went digging through past prompts for a different topic. I missed “one word reviews of the last ten books I read” (suggested by Susan at Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books) so I’ll attempt that instead. I’m wordy so wish me luck! A couple of these may get me in trouble with some of you. 😕 Just keep in mind these are my personal opinions and I know I’m in the minority in some of them.

One Word Reviews

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Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison–Confusing

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys, read by a cast–Fantastic

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World (Aristotle & Dante #2) by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, read by Lin-Manuel Miranda–Philosophical

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger–Introspective

Thorn (Dauntless Path #1) by Intisar Khanani, read by Shiromi Arserio–Slow

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott–Moralistic

The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time #1) by Robert Jordan–Overwritten

The Last Child (Johnny Merrimon #1) by John Hart, read by Scott Sowers–Intense

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah–Sentimental

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus, read by Ray Porter–Inspiring

That’s my list! Have you read any of these? What word would you use to review them? Link up every Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl!


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32 Comments

  1. Love these one-word reviews! I agree with you on The Nightingale, but I was the only one in my book group who would! I wonder if the moralizing is why I never loved Little Women, although I wanted to be the Jo character, for sure. I haven’t read any of the others on your list except for The Last Child, and I would agree with intense, too.

    1. I’m glad you agree with the ones you read! I can’t tell you how many times I tried to read Little Women and gave up. I finally finished it for the first time last month. It’s a pretty good story (except that I have always hated sad parts, starting in childhood) but the explicit moral lessons got old for me.

  2. I have Salt to the Sea in my stacks and can’t wait to get to it later this year! I read The Nightingale and would say, “heartbreaking.” This is a challenging meme!

  3. All good word choices! I like the words for the novels I’ve read. Choosing just one word is not easy.

  4. Ha! Moralistic is perfect for Little Women. Moralistic is precisely the reason I was disappointed in it too. Stupid Jo! Lol.

    I really want to read Salt to the Sea and Thorn. I’m sad to hear that Thorn is slow. Hopefully, I’ll like it more. I’m sure I’ll love Salt to the Sea. I really love Ruta Sepetys.

    1. I’ve started and stopped Little Women countless times but decided that I was going to finish it this year no matter what. I was surprised by all the moral lessons scattered throughout; I’d forgotten them. I would have liked it more without all of that.

      I listened to Thorn so that may be why it felt slow to me. I liked the narrator but there’s no skipping ahead to the next good part in an audiobook. At least not for me.

      If you already love Ruta Sepetys like I do, you’ll definitely love Salt to the Sea.

    1. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a fabulous narrator!

      I’ve tried to read Little Women countless times over the year. I decided this was the year to finish it. It was better than I recalled but the sermonizing got a little old.

      1. Thanks for the tip on that! This book was on my TBR, but I’ll have to put a note to get the audio version.

        Little Women is loved by so many people that I routinely think I should try re-reading it. However, I never find myself interested in picking it up… I think I’ll continue to avoid it.

    1. I’ve read two of these books and agree totally with your one word reviews for Little Women and The Nightingale. I loved Little Women when I read it as a child but it was only re-reading it a few years ago that I realised just how moralistic it is – I hadn’t noticed that as a child!

  5. This is a fun topic for sure. I think one word reviews can be quite illuminating, actually, distilling a book down to just one word. I should do these more. 🙂

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