What even is my reading taste?

this is a beautiful Memoir about the author's time spent raising an orphan's Magpie chick and at the time he was grappling with his very complex relationship with his father his relationship with his stepfather while also preparing to become a father himself I knew just from the description of this book the fact that it included a bird and I am such a bird nerd that I was going to love this book and love it I did

this book has some great characters it's got the whole restaurant World wine World thing going for it and it is highly intellectual and that's why a lot of readers have described this as pretentious I don't even necessarily disagree with that I would just say that's precisely what this book should be because that's what the world it's describing is

on paper I should have hated this but I loved it is intellectually challenging the characters go on these harrowing physical mental emotional Journeys and Mary Doria Russell can seriously write

I thought there was a really good chance I was going to love it when really it's just pure emotional manipulation between two covers and it actually has some pretty disturbing content toward the end that I've never heard anybody else call it out for

this is so smart and it is brilliantly written there's so much to chew on in here there's a finance element that had me bringing in my own Finance backgrounds when I reviewed this one for the Pittsburgh post-gazettes I am still so obsessed with this book even if it is just over 400 pages but I swear if someone had given me a red pen during the editing process I could have gotten it down to 375.