Nathan
> For the whole series<
A quite surrealist work. Starts off in a groundhog dayesque situation. But moves past it for most of the story.
It is about accepting yourself and finding the little joys in life.
Fantastic art, the aesthetic is amazing. The use of spiral eyes is very interesting and cool.
“If painting are a way to express our wishes... Then to paint is to pray.” 8.7/10
>This was a reread<
This series makes me laugh out loud a lot as I read it. The characters a all lovable and hilarious.
The stronger drama in the second half is good, I like how the love triangle (quadrilateral? pentagon?) is handled. The twins development is very good. As is Haruhi's.
The art is wonderful, the standouts being the “welcome to the host club” cosplay double spreads. Which are filled with detail and are so fun. The fits are always cool though. With Haruhi being especially adorable.
An absolute classic.
kiss kiss fall in love! 9.6/10
An amazing book. Smith was a wonderful writer, which I was not expecting, but was pleasantly surprised by, I thought his prose was beautiful at times and very poignant. Made a very long book more pleasant then expected.
He is brilliant, starting a whole field of study with his insights. I realized that people in the 18th century could know more then I expected. Most of the books is still pertinent today he got impressively few things wrong (for example he did believe that public corporations weren't a viable model of enterprise).
I took Econ 110 recently. I am shocked that the majority of what was taught in my course, Smith also discussed in this book, many topics even if he doesn't explicitly address it I felt an understanding of it underlies his writing.
Smith is not a radical laissez-faire extremist. He believes in certain roles of government intervention. He is opposed to the collusion of businesses. He shows compassion for the working poor. Though he does believe in the benefit of free trade. The inefficiency of the government, and the power of the specialization of labor. He is overall more moderate then the common view of him would hold.
I would recommend an abridged version. I don't trust abridged version on principle, but you really only need so much discussion of corn and silver prices from the 18th century before you get the point.
“The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” 9.7/10
>reread<
One of my all time favorite pieces of media. Consistently makes me cry. Also nice that it can be read in an afternoon.
One of the most impressive aspects of the work is how Tsukumizu balances tone. Their situation is incredibly dire, but the content of most chapters is just funny slices of their adventure and how they find joy in the little things. The art style is unique and fantastic. It contrasts the Moe Blobesque character with the brutalist architectural backgrounds.
It is a very philosophical work, it contemplates the meaning of humanity and our efforts with their short duration in the scope of things. But it comes out not with an empty Nihilism but an appreciation of the beauty of Human effort and the joy of life.
Yuri: “We don't know that! Why the two of us are alone in this world, I don't know the answer... But ... living was the best wasn't it....”
Chito: “... Yeah.”
It's not over till it's over. More one night. More one night. More one night. More one night. Yes! Let's go journey! 9.8/10
> This is for books 1-9<
I quite enjoyed this series. I was thrown a bit because the first half of the first book is fairly intense, then they get to the magic university and it slows down a lot. It becomes more of a cozy fantasy, with them following lots of low stakes sub-plots. I didn't mind that though. Fun series that doesn't need you to think to hard.
A lot of pop culture references, which would usually throw me out of the immersion. But somehow it felt natural to me. I was impressed that the author managed that. Fun magic system, very dnd. I loved Baelin, he is basically a Machiavellian Dumbledore. But he actually is very involved and helpful.
The real fantasy of these books is being successful in college. 8.2/10
Pretty goodTakes a ton of inspiration from [b:The Eye of the World 228665 The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1) Robert Jordan https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1659905815l/228665.SY75.jpg 2008238].You see if people just took care to not loose their shadows much of this could have been avoided. 7.5/10
>This is a reread<
What a breeze for me on this reread; got through it in like 3 days. (I listened at 4x speed, I am more familiar with Michael Kramer and Kate Readings voices then my own parents' voices (≧∇≦)/ ) I find Sanderson so clever still.
The characters are all so compelling, that is why Sanderson is so great, it's not the “worldbuilding”, it's the character arcs. The point of the worldbuilding is to embody themes and to illustrate the characters. For example Kaladin uses magic to draw arrows to him, the point isn't that oh wow that a logical way to use the magic, it's to illustrate Kaladins self sacrificing nature. Okay just wanted to rant a little about this because I think people can lose the forest for the trees when it comes to this subject.
It's unfortunate that Shallan's story is so detatched from the main one, but alas that is the nature of epic fantasy.
Lirin's story is so sad a essentially good man, who is put in unfair situations. I've seen a lot of hate at him, but his teachings are the reason Kaladin makes some of his greatest moral decisions.
I'm still in love with Dallinar
Years of storm light research, and still no practical reason to have an archive. 9.5/10
“Life before Death, Strength before Weakness, Journey before Destination”
A wistful musing on life. A very laid-back series, things move slowly and often don't move at all. Alpha actually had more development then I expected which was good.
The characters fits are pretty cool. The art is pretty good. The physical release was well done.
“May the night of humankind be a time of utmost peace.” 8.5/10
