#REVIEW: Girl Dinner, by Olivie Blake

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This week I’m going to try to catch up on book reviews I should have already written, so naturally I’m going to start with the book I just finished yesterday. I’m not completely sure what caused me to pick this up beyond amusement at the title and the lovely pink stained edges; I feel like there was something else but it was a while ago.

Girl Dinner is a flawed book in a lot of ways; the middle is kinda flabby, the end comes out of nowhere unless I seriously missed something, and a lot of the time the characters, either being academics or literal sophomores, have their heads firmly implanted in their asses. There is a lot of navel-gazing in this book, to mix metaphors, and it gets tedious sometimes.

But despite that, fundamentally the book works, and I need somebody else to read it and talk about it with me. The book is a satire– mostly, at least– and explores the intersection of academic feminism, modern femininity, social media and Greek (specifically sorority) culture, with just the tiniest little squirt of the supernatural over it all for, y’know, flavor. The two main characters are the aforementioned sophomore girl who is rushing one of the most exclusive sororities on campus, and an exhausted adjunct professor with an eighteen-month-old and a husband who isn’t worth much. The characters’ stories start off entirely separate other than that they share the same university, but by the end of the book everything knits itself together really nicely, at least up until the wait, what? that happens on the last page.

I handed this four stars; I wouldn’t be too pressed if you gave it three, and if the middle hadn’t been a little much I might have given it five, if only because I know enough academics to know (and I say this with love) that navel-gazing is kinda y’all’s thing. I need someone who thinks it sounds interesting to read it and then be my friend, because I want to talk about it with someone.

In which I am trained

On By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Because bitching about teacher training never gets old, and because I have three full days of online training and have to maintain my sanity somehow, I live-blogged my six hour summer school training today. Some of you do not yet follow me on Bluesky! Enjoy:

Monthly Reads: May 2026

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography, Reading2 Comments

What I’m learning, looking at this, is that I should have written more book reviews this month. Because Canticle, We Burned So Bright and Sailing to Sarantium could all be Book of the Month and I only reviewed one of them.

Unread Shelf: May 31, 2026

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, shelves, whatever. The good news is I’ve cleared out everything I bought in 2025! Let’s pretend that’s an achievement.

#REVIEW: From the Depths, by Emily Renk Hawthorne

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I don’t like writing this kind of review.

I was sent this book by Emily Renk Hawthorne’s publicist for a review– not only was I sent this book, but also the first book in the series, in a nice hardcover edition, and when I cracked this open to read it I discovered she’d actually sent me a copy with a signed bookplate in it, which genuinely makes me feel bad about how I’m going to review the book. I’m going to keep this brief: I liked Book One, Of Mountains and Seas, well enough, but it had some problems; my review was mixed but ultimately I liked the book enough to request and read the sequel.

Unfortunately, having completed From the Depths, I feel that it has all of the same problems as the first book, and introduces a few new ones besides, while simultaneously not showing some of the strengths of the first book. Mountains and Seas jumped back and forth among several different periods in time, for example, and rewarded paying attention. This may be the first time I’ve ever complained about a straightforward narrative, but it’s a much simpler text. Mountains and Seas had a clear villain. This book’s bad guy is a nonsentient puddle of silver goo. That’s not a joke.

The author’s habit of choosing the wrong word continues to be an issue as well, and starts off on the very first page, where the word “sinkhole” is repeatedly used to describe the first appearance of the goo. I’m not going to get into the details, but the phenomenon being described in that first chapter is simply not a sinkhole. Sinkholes do not happen indoors.

I gave this two stars on Goodreads and Storygraph; one less than Mountains and Seas. I cannot recommend that you read it. I’ll leave it at that.

From the Depths releases on June 9.

How does this happen

On By Luther M. SilerIn ParentingLeave a comment

That absurdly tall, gloriously-haired kid on the right there— who is the same kid as this kid— graduated from 8th grade today. Which means that he is somehow a high school student now. Sooner than you might think, as he’s taking summer school classes right away and they start in a bit over a week.

That fat bastard on the left is going to be fifty in a month. He is somehow still alive.

I am feeling my mortality a bit more than usual this week, if you haven’t figured that out.

And my god have I been writing on this site for a long time.

And another one gone

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reviews, TeachingLeave a comment

That’s twenty-two years, I think? Twenty-three? Who the hell knows.

One of the things that happened at the event we went to last night was recognition of three retiring faculty members, and in fact there was a reception immediately afterward for them that we did not attend. The three had been teaching for, respectively, 29 years, 36 years, and a staggering 42 years, all at the same school.

If I retire from teaching, rather than eventually just quitting, I’ll surely be at at least 29 years. 36 is quite a bit harder to imagine. But 42? Imagine having taught for 22 years and still having the equivalent of an entire career to go before retirement. She was where I am and was barely halfway through. The notion that I’ll still be alive in 2046 much less still teaching is genuinely too terrifying to take seriously.

It turns out I was being very optimistic by suggesting that I might be able to come home from the last day of school and still have the mental capacity necessary to write a book review. Further complicating the problem is that various parts of my personality are at war with various other parts of my personality over how to write it, and the whole thing still needs to cook a little bit longer. It’s already got the lowest rating I’ve ever given a book I was sent for review; the question remaining is how … I dunno, I wanna say honest, but I think I mean abusive, I should be in the actual text of the thing. I am trying to tamp down my inner barbarian here, is what I’m saying. The only question is whether that’s the right move.

Probably. But we’ll see. The review definitely won’t be tomorrow but I’ll try to have it up on Saturday.

Door number 3

On By Luther M. SilerIn BlogwankingLeave a comment

I had two different possible plans for tonight’s post, and I’m putting both of them away for the time being– one of them because, well, it’s a book review and because of a family event tonight I haven’t finished the book yet (and, to be honest, I may need to ruminate on this one for a minute before writing it anyway) and the second because there is another related family event in a couple of days that might be a more appropriate venue for it.

Unfortunately, that leaves me with “Damn, it was hot today! One more day of school! I’m weirdly anxious about summer school!” and I kinda wrote most of that three times this week. I told the kids I had a game planned for tomorrow, one where I was going to let them throw things at one another, and it didn’t hit me until late in the day that overseeing kids throwing things at one another was going to make getting all of the end-of-the-year shit that I have to do done a bit more complicated. So that will be interesting, and I’m expecting a late night tomorrow night.

I did get confirmation that they are definitely planning on me teaching two grades at once for summer school. So that’ll be interesting.

Anyway, I gotta go find a bunch of activity pages for the sub on Friday before I can sleep. So I’ll catch y’all tomorrow.