Jessica

The title is very misleading. You think it is going to be a book about a formative friendship. It is not. It is a book almost entirely about the friend.

This may well be a 5 star read. Need to think on it.

Interlocking short stories of a dystopian Black Mirror-like future. Lots to ponder. Off to see if anyone has deconstructed all the relationships.

Cat propaganda. ;) Cozy. Cute.

Not for me. Maybe such a heavily religious dystopia is uninteresting to me, but it just did not feel well formed. Part Annihilation, part The Road, part I Who Have Never Known Men, but just didn't work for me. Had such high expectations after Tender. This just felt.... um... unworthy...

Australia – where all the animals and plants can kill you. And apparently the storytellers can, too... Read [b:Wild Dark Shore 211004089 Wild Dark Shore Charlotte McConaghy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1715784093l/211004089.SY75.jpg 217233262] by [a:Charlotte McConaghy 2869149 Charlotte McConaghy https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573700805p2/2869149.jpg] recently — also just a profoundly beautiful book about family, isolation, and impossible choices on a remote island. 10/10 recommend. May come back with more thoughts later. Just a swirl rn.

Pleasure? 4
Purpose? 5
Plot? 5
Prose? 4
Personal? 4

Avg 4.4 → 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The beauty of Gabber's 5P system is that it really is 25 points that really helps you with those edge cases! This is very much on the cusp of a 5 star read, but ultimately I feel good with 4. Really rich storytelling. A very easy read. Highly recommend the audio book. Such rich history. Def recommend. May revise Personal up, but need to give it some time to marinate.

Mostly correct.

A 4 on the strength of the writing.

Pleasure? 4
Purpose? 3
Plot? 4 (minus the epilogue)
Prose? 4
Personal? 3

Avg 3.6 → 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not good with the nothing-matters-because-of-our-dire-circumstances, it-was-actually-first-love excuses for an adult-child sexual relationship. It just was not necessary, could have (should have) remained platonic or just some old-fashioned yearning on the part of the adolescent. Or make the child an actual adult for Christ's sake. And it did not help that it somehow seemed in service of making the weird How I Met Your Mother epilogue “a twist”... a twist which severely diminished the whole story anyway in my opinion. Epilogue was just not supported by the story before.

Really a single book with Writers & Lovers. Very very much a book about writers and writing and how writers process the world. And being young. And young love. And choices you can't take back. And finding peace.

Out of step with everything else of his I have read. Very cringe.

Some really good insights. But also some reductive or naive arguments. Especially around ‘intuition'.

The entire time I read this book I was asking myself, “why am I reading this??” Then when I finished, I thought, “whelp I will be thinking about that for a long time....”Literary dystopia is a special genre. [b:The Road 6288 The Road Cormac McCarthy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600241424l/6288.SY75.jpg 3355573], [b:Chain-Gang All-Stars 61190770 Chain-Gang All-Stars Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1682956296l/61190770.SY75.jpg 96464163], [b:Blindness 40495148 Blindness José Saramago https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1528481068l/40495148.SY75.jpg 3213039]... The intensity of the imagery borders precariously on gratuitiousness. As you read it–particularly when truly beautifully written–it can feel like ‘torture porn'. But when it is done well and with purpose, when it sticks the landing, it is a rare and beautiful thing.This is that.

These are just so fun. Really wish you could do half stars. I find these to be pretty solid 3.5 stars, but rounding up instead of down is clearly the only way to go. Love Herron's endlessly new ways to introduce us to Slough House and to the characters. Such respect for his readers.

Lovely.

Mash The Road, The Plague, and The Stranger together and you get Blindness.

A tough read. Both emotionally and physically.

The stylistic choices did not work for me. The endless paragaraphs and lack of punctuation. The ceaseless references to the characters by their FULL titles. I just found it got it the way.

That said, I think it accomplishes what it set out to accomplish. Not sure I will read the sequel, but I am interested in what the sequel would have to say.

Struggled a bit at first, but just got better and better. Was pre-warned that the experimental formatting / punctutation might be off-putting, but it really worked for me.

2.5 rounded up. Started out really strong. then took a left turn, then just meandered around like a lost snail. This book was not sure what it wanted to be. And the tone remained relentlessly casual and light often to its own detriment. It was as if it was trying really stubbornly to make a particular point, and by trying so hard, it ultimately failed to make the point.

Had to skim the last 5%. Just couldn't bring myself to care at all anymore.

This book in three words: AI is trash.

This book in more words: AI is trash, and the people promoting it are snake oil salesmen.

OMG. I guess I can get back to my life now!

Approx 11,000 pages in total. An epic for sure.

Not sure why this series is not widely understood to be YA.

Always a juvenile protagonist, fairly chaste (not always! but mostly), multiple, overlapping bildungsroman story arcs.

A lot (A LOT) of Christian allegory.

But ultimately, OMG what a world. How vividly painted.

Highly recommend.

The narrator for these last three books is intolerable. Just absolutely does not seem to understand the characters. Do not listen. Only read.

Getting absolutely nothing else done in my life because I am bingeing these fricking books.

These books are just so engaging. So easy to read, but just do not want to put them down. Love the way the sub-series connect and build on each other. No massive intrigue, no hugely complex themes, just a full world with characters that you are happy to spend 600 pages with as they go on a quest. Never seems to drag. Don't know how she does that...

If Dickens wrote fantasy, this is what you would get.

A quick estimation of what the full series commitment is is something like 450 hours of recorded audio.... So.... IDK that I will ever finish it, but it is nice to have a cool world to slip in and out of whenever I want. On to #2 for sure.

I forgot just how good a storyteller [a:John Irving 3075 John Irving https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1257375547p2/3075.jpg] really is. There was a time when I read his books as they came out. [b:The Hotel New Hampshire 11768 The Hotel New Hampshire John Irving https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1318013543l/11768.SY75.jpg 1786995], [b:A Prayer for Owen Meany 4473 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1260470010l/4473.SY75.jpg 1734019], and Cider House Rules. Then I just stopped. Excited for [b:Queen Esther 225642083 Queen Esther John Irving https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1738783700l/225642083.SY75.jpg 231200406], so I decided to pick up Cider House Rules again. Some books do not age well. Not so here. As timely now—maybe more so—as when it was written. It does not disappoint. “He was an obstetrician; he delivered babies into the world. His colleagues called this ‘the Lord's work.' And he was an abortionist; he delivered mothers, too. His colleagues called this ‘the Devil's work,' but it was all the Lord's work to Wilbur Larch.”Pleasure: 4 - easy to read, when you put it down, you want to come back soon and see where the characters are going.Plot: 4 - nothing has you hanging at the edge of your seat, but for its length, nothing drags, you are always interested in the journeyProse: 4 - vivid, accessible writing, nothing earth-shattering, but very good.Purpose: 5 - necessaryPersonal: 5