2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 1 book toward her goal of 285 books.
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2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 5 books toward her goal of 265 books.
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Book Review: Penny Pinching Tips for the Morally Bankrupt by Libby Marshall

This was a quirky, fun collection of short stories (some very short) that offered a great distraction from the day-to-day reality of the strange modern world – largely because they sent up much of what makes this modern world so strange…

As with nearly every short story collection I’ve ever read, I found some much more entertaining than others. Particular favorites, for those keeping score at home, include Witnesses of Historic Moments Who Missed the Point (a snarky collection of quips), A Lady’s Guide to Death (like those 1950s “How to Please Your Man” books, only snarkier), Please Continue this Conversation as Normal or I Will be Forced to Assume it was About Me (like reading a conversation in your own head or with your best friend), Choose Your Own Adventure: Seducing the Earl at Lady Worthingham’s Masquerade Ball (who doesn’t love a good CYOA?!), Action Hero (a clever blurring of entertainment and reality), and Six People See the Same Man and Derive Vastly Different Lessons from his Actions (a riff on perception vs. reality). They reminded me of the types of wit and humor found in newspaper columns (when syndicated columnists were actually relevant and entertaining and not shills for one ideology or another) or the final pages in The New Yorker.

Marshall does a great job writing the kind of snarky things that I often think, either situationally or when reading, and it makes for an enjoyable spot of entertainment. I couldn’t read too many at once – even I found the dry wit to bite a bit then – but the tales are short enough that you can get your fill with several and then pick back up another time after you’ve had a chance to digest them…

Thanks to the author for my obligation-free review copy.

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