Tyler
If run-on sentences had a spokesman, Jewitt would be him. That being said, for a story written over 200 years ago, I can't exactly fault him for that. It was very well written otherwise, and Stewart did a fantastic job illustrating and annotating his Narrative. I'm glad I gave this one a shot, as I typically don't bother much with oversized books such as this. It was a great story, and I have no regrets spending my time reading it. I would highly recommend to anyone even remotely interested in the Northwest Coast, Natives, or even adventure as a whole.
Very well written, and kept me engaged throughout the whole book. Short story compilations tend to be a hit-or-miss for me, with some stories being vastly more boring than the others. White's book was certainly not that style however, as each story was just as interesting as the one before it. As for the stories themselves, I can't complain. I feel like there was a healthy mix of narrative storytelling, descriptions of the environments, and an overall sense of adventure, especially in the last few stories. Highly recommend.
I managed to finish the book, but two things really bothered me throughout. The first thing that really jumped out at me is how pretentious the novel read. Instead of focusing solely on the story itself, Kundera felt a need to make it seem much more philosophical than it really is. Which leads me to my next issue: the main character is a cheating asshole. That's really all there is to it. Though to be fair, I was warned of this in the synopsis on the back cover, and the ending does make up for it slightly. That being said, the story arc was fairly average, if slightly hard to follow at times. Deserves no more than 3 stars in my opinion.
Arguing With Zombies, because he likes proving his very opinionated arguments whilst not allowing the other side the time of day. I could barely make it through the first chapter on social security before throwing in the towel with this one. I would argue that reading something you already agree with, while demonizing the other side is something you enjoy (let's face it, most of the public doors that on a daily basis), then this book is for you. But if you're an actual academic like myself who looks at both sides of an argument before coming to a conclusion, then this book is absolutely worthless, because Krugman does not do that.
It's a good book, and has a very important message, though it does seem to be rather repetitive. Perhaps that's intentional? It seems as though it could be summarized by saying, “trust in God and be close to Him”. This book is also very short, which is as it should be. Any longer, and I likely would have reduced it by more than just one star.
A very easy 5 stars for me. Perhaps i'm biased as a Maine resident myself, but I thought it was incredibly well written and narrated throughout. If I were to compare it to another work, I would say it was on par in tone and quality with Kristin Hannah, as I got significant The Four Winds vibes from this novel. Highly reccomend!
Gave this one a shot after being mildly dissapointed by Briggs' other novel, The Vanishing People. My biggest issue with this, is that it does it's job too well. Briggs delved way too deep for my personal tastes (which I honestly should have assumed based on the book's size) and included seemingly incredibly obscure creatures and individuals. I would've preferred a broader and more general overview rather than this rabbit-hole.
While I do disagree with some of what Borg writes, I do respect his opinion. It was very well written, and for the most part, I do agree with much of what was discussed. As a christian, this book was helpful to me in terms of learning more about my faith than what is commonly preached in church itself.
Alice Munro is a good writer, this is made very clear on the cover. And while that may be true, this collection of short stories did not exemplify this talent. That being said, there were some that were very well written and truly made an impact on me personally. Unfortunately this was not the case with all of them. Perhaps it was the first story, about a woman who decides to cheat on her husband with no clear explanation given as to why, that threw me off for the rest of the book. As a recently married man, I found absolutely no way I could relate to the character, and perhaps that's my own fault. It simply did not feel realistic. These criticisms, while significant, could not force me to lower my rating to anything less than three stars. That much is deserved. Worthy of a nobel prize in literature? Absolutely not, not based on this work alone. But it's not my call to make.
The basic premise of this book is well founded. Ehrenreich decided that she wanted to conduct hands-on research on what it is like to be a lower-class American making ends meet. There's only one issue with this, and it's incredibly significant. She's an upper-class “bleeding heart socialist” living in Key West, Florida. While that's not inherently a non-starter, her biases consistently affect her descision-making. She says herself that she was unwilling to sacrifice any comforts of her wealthy lifestyle. She constantly allows herself to “cheat, as she puts it, by giving herself allowances and simply going back home whenever she feels like it. In my opinion, if she was really willing to actually conduct a worthwhile study, she should have gone all-in. As it stands, this is useless to me as it is a half-baked attempt geared towards out-of-touch upper class individuals.
I am honestly surprised that this book has such a high rating. While it is true that it is clearly labeled as an opinion piece; which is completely fine in and of itself, Hoffer did not provide much in the way of empirical evidence for his statements. They come across as simple observations from an armchair expert, and we are meant to believe the words of someone who has had no apparent formal education (Eric Hoffer was a simple dockworker in the 40's), and little in the way of personal experience aside from a status of being an American citizen. In my opinion, I disagree with many of his stances on mass movements, and many others are simply outdated. I find it rather humorous that I possess just as many expert qualifications as the author on these subjects, (that is to say, none at all) and yet I have not written myself a book proclaiming facts on subjects I have no authority in. Perhaps I should?
I'm very glad I recently found Sidney Sheldon as an author. He has an entire lifetime's worth of work to look forward to! I've been enjoying his novels very much, and this one is certainly no exception. The characters are believable, and the plot was plausible, though a bit over the top. I've come to expect his slow build-up of tension and plots throughout the story, with a fantastic “big surprise” at the end. Though I was expecting it, I had no idea what exactly it would be, and that's as much as I could ask for.
This is my second novel by Sidney Sheldon, and better than the first I must say. I'm quickly becoming a fan of his work. I thought I would be let down with the utter predictability of the storyline (and there were some that turned out true, to be fair), but Sheldon more than provided a suitable number of twists and turns towards the end that made it all worth the read. Overall, I can't think of any significant critiques and thus deserves a full 5 stars.
DNF. I decided to give this one a shot, and I could barely get past a few chapters. The characters are completely one-dimensional to a degree where I couldn't help but roll my eyes in the predictability of it all. The story is not complex and completely unbelievable. Definitely would not recommend unless you like shallow stories with shallow characters.
I've only ever read Crichton's Jurassic Park, and never really considered reading his other works until recently when I came across this in a used book store and bought it on a whim. I'm glad I did! I thought Congo was captivating throughout and was never slow through the entire read. He included details and historical facts in such a way as to interweave his story to real-life, which makes it that much more believable. I only ever give books 5 stars when I feel like it's truly deserving, and this is one of those instances, in my opinion. Highly reccomended.
DNF at page 122.
I will start off by saying that I love Irving's style of writing. This is my first novel I've read by him and from what I can tell, he certainly knows how to construct a narrative. That being said, the story itself appears rather scatterbrained. I honestly can't tell if this is supposed to be a murder mystery, a drama, or simply the internal monologue or some Indian (but not really Indian?) Doctor. The characters are fairly interesting, but I'm not even to page 200 and there's aleady a massive cast of names that need to be kept track of. That fact combined with the slow storyline and reading some other reviews saying this only gets worse as it goes on, I simply could not keep my attention any longer, and I decided to set it down.
This novel read like one of those classic old 80's young-adult horror movies. The characters are flawed (which is not a bad thing) but the main antagonists could have used a bit more depth. As for the plot itself, it kept me engaged throughout and felt rather nostalgic to me even though this was the first Christopher Pike book i've read. That by itself caught me pleasantly off gaurd enough that I was willing to increase my otherwise 3-star review to 4.
I thought Langan's novel was pleasantly genre-bending in a way that it stubbornly refuses to fit neatly into any one category. It was described to me as horror fiction, and while that is true, it wasn't quite as scary as I was hoping. That's okay though because the sheer oddness of the novel was done in a tasteful and effective manner which more than made up for it. I think the origin story halfway though was quite long, and likely could have been expanded into it's own prequel. That being said, If there was a way to rate it as 4.5 stars, I would because I feel it's just shy of perfect.
I decided to give this book a shot after a glowing reccomendation from my wife. I don't think it struck me as game-changing as much as it did for her but it's still more than worth a read. It was pretty weird for me and some things weren't fully explained as much as wish they were. Maybe that's the point?