Nota

I got this recommended by a book website called readgeeks based on other books I rated. This sounded both like something I could enjoy and something that I would hate, but I guess it ended up in the middle. This is like the popular version of the books I would like and I guess I don't like popular things! I was surprised to see this on feel good books lists when there were so many disturbing topics at the start, but yea I guess they sorta faded out in a weird way. It was a very readable book regardless.

I was also very curious about Swedish literature and this was quite a promising start, I have some hopes now for some reason that the classics from this country will be bangers. Not sure if I want to pick up another book from this author tho, I probably won't.

I have no idea how to feel about this book. At some points it got deep and interesting and I wanted it to go somewhere especially in the beginning, but I don't feel like they explored the topics I wanted that well. It felt like a disney film at times and I can see why it's popular. The main character was fascinating at times and at times worse than the worst of people I would interact with in real life, the shallowness of the car thing and how it's running so deep in the book. It is hard to believe that the wife really loved books or knew that much about them, some statements felt faulty about her and really why was she with Ove?

This book I guess is about altruistic people who are kinda annoying and normies. There are also a lot of parents. It is not my version of wholesome, but I am not so heartless as to dismiss it entirely.

A new reflection on april 6: Right now I feel like I gaslit myself into liking it a bit because there's just so many values there I don't want to be a part of. Like I want to live in an enviromentally friendly world, not the one where I get to hear people be oddly obsessed over ancient cars. These people are not vegan, not childfree and proud about it, that's already torture to me. That sounds a bit shallow, but honestly parenthood took up so much space in the book and I am personally not comfortable with it. These characters are not in search of the truth and values that I care about the most. Now that I am more comfortable with the stuff I enjoy, I am more comfortable in recognizing that this book, to me, personally was a waste of time.

Hm idk.

This is a fairy tale of the most wondrous, ambiguous prose! Here we have immortal beings, but the tale as much as it is about the lifespan is also about being different and an outcast. Meet whimsical characters, a plot that goes somewhere and it gets there. Tons of dialog which somehow encompasses way more than what it should.

I watched the movie first and knew I had to seek out stories just like it, luckily the movie was based on a book and the author has other tales too. This is such a massive improvement from any other fairytale-like story I have read so far. There are still horses and there's horse riding which I do not like for ethics, but I will excuse it here for being desperate for a story like this.

Whatever visuals were in the movie they were perfectly described here and way better. This needs a modern adaptation and also I want to read two hearts already, so I will probably do so right now. I've seen that there was an earlier draft of the story about following a devil? I wonder how that would play out, seems kinda relevant with all the devil media I keep collecting.

I wanna imagine and fill my head with animals and the forest so that when people look at me they wouldn't see themselves :) The unicorn is an icon of GRACE and I need to channel her. This is the archetypes we want to emulate and not some greek warrior weirdos cough, cough.

If anyone ever has recommendations of stories like these please let me know, I need this mysterious, ethereal, magical, avant garde high art.

Anger. Pure, unadulterated, undistilled anger. Rage. People getting unalived page after page with no stop. Swords at the bowels, gore and insults. Drama between Gods. Slavery.

To be fair I should have expected this of the oldest war epic, but there were no characters, no arcs I cared for. All the Gods were awful. The whole war seemed like it could end at some points, but then a character or a God got too salty for no reason. The whole war happens for no reason. It is not some trauma or whatever they are fighting for, but to get a woman. This contained so much toxicity I exercised 90 minutes, no problem, it is so full of bad energy.

Also I am very surprised how soon it ended? I thought it would go on for some more so I checked other 2 versions of the Iliad I had and no it ended without resolving the most intriguing parts.

This really made me think about how I handle my emotions and how it really affects me if I read something with a certain energy and how maybe not all classics are that worth reading and how I should really be looking for books that uplift me. Like I do not feel like I learned much from this, having those characters in my memory feels like baggage, but I suppose they have influenced our culture so much and you see them everywhere.

I hope the Odyssey and other Greek works are better and maybe focused less on war. I mean the work and days are about farming? Or so I heard, I hope.

I am trying to make a comment in my head about the characters, but really the real characters here were the armors and the swords. Like wow they really took all the care to forget them. Achilles is like...I hate him. He loves having slave women I guess and feels like they are his property... Wow, what a cool character? Ikr. He might be Bi, but like I don't care, we have a better book for that. Patroclus was just there I guess, I didn't really get good vibes from him and he was very okay with women slaves too.

The translation was a bit quirky using slurs and all that. I dunno, did Latin have them? Probably, I dunno. But it was very odd at times seeing those derogatory words.

What the author did well was the descriptions at the start, he would make these similes comparing troops to bees or something and really he was hacking everyone's brains with mnemonics way before they became a thing. He did it so everyone would remember this messy, gory story of pretty warrior angst.

I am kinda disappointed in Athene, I expected her to encompass wisdom, but what they meant by that is that she is a huge girlboss, gatekeeper, gaslighter.

It is funny how this whole war is so pointless with all the Gods just running around and ultimately randomly deciding who dies and not, but I guess humans can't see it. It's really disrespectful haha. They don't really seem much better than the Bible guy for worship and Zeus is pretty much the Bible guy— carbon copy. I know I am venting, but I read this whole thing so let's keep going.

When the novel goes into the petty drama, it is a bit more fun than the constant unaliving. It feels like they could almost do something with the characters, but then just let them be snakes to each other.

I have noticed a lot of “the sound and the fury” descriptions which I guess must be a popular phrase? Made me all the more curious about Faulkner.

Hector's family dynamic in particular seemed so traditional to me I chuckled for a while. Like they really be setting up their kid for a terrible life and they are so proud of themselves.

I love how many times instead of swords people actually just pick up humongous rocks that are just lying down everywhere and despite how heavy they are people succeed picking them up everytime.

I think my main problem is that you can take away some things in retrospect in our modern era, but it doesn't feel worth it and it definitely feels that we can write a better tale now. I suppose there must be technical poetic achievements here, but I am not the person to comment on that. I don't think a tale which recognizes the devastation of war should be so devoid in heart for the most of its duration because really it doesn't feel like the sorrow at the end is earned or resolved or anything. In this type of tale one should connect greatly to the characters as a raft, but again I did not connect to them at all so yea.

If anyone comes up to me and starts fanboying about the iliad (the song of achilles is fine) then I will run and try to save myself because I will have all sorts of unkind presumptions about them!! I am sorry in advance.

Am I not finishing this review yet because it's kinda like a toxic relationship? Yes. Bye.

I had this great feeling while reading the book and not sure how I got to reading it in the first place. I am pretty sure it's a self-help book, intensely spiritual and quite repetitive, but I guess there is some sort of positive energy to it and maybe it is showing me that I shouldn't be just logical all the time and make weird decisions and feel all the emotions as it adds and improves creativity. The author was really honest just putting ugly sides of herself in the book.

I got a bit sick because my family got sick for quite a long time and reading this was a blast for this period. I am happy with the last unicorn recommendation in the book and it gives me hope that there are people who appreciate science and feelings at the same time, who go out there to experience the unknown. But I am not exactly sure how to find those people exactly myself and I am afraid that the INFJ classification is too vague and wide and encomposes a large portion of the creatives, but even among those I don't feel particularly accepted. The online spaces I find don't feel promising to me, the irl spaces usually seem even more depressing.

A lot of artists I follow and my creative process is through feeling patterns and not following the conventional understanding of good. It feels very validating and an affirmation to read this. I like the way this type seems to appreaciate the duality and irrationality of life.

This made me and in general the infj content on youtube to want to put my experiences on a larger scale and contextualize them in a different way and actually put words to stuff. I am not sure if it is wacky, but it feels right for now and maybe in the future I will discover a more reliable system and as I continue learn about myself through various ways and learn about different approaches to psychology and self-empowerement I will write a future a little more full than I expected.

I don't know how to rate this, most of it is missing and it's very short to begin with. I wanna support the og greek lesbian queen, but I will just not rate this.

I listened to a dramatic audiobook version.

The start and the setup is very good. The world itself is interesting and a utopia from a certain angle. This is a world where you will be programmed to the most alpha (literally) have great appearance, pleasure, orgies available everywhere, work will be simple and optimal, there are no intellectual challenges, no marriage, commitment, fun events everywhere, constant travelling of the world available. But it still has a few flaws and one of the main characters for some reason is let to participate in this society despite not meeting any of the genetic requirements which are very carefully conditioned.

The main conflict is a bit weird, it's like the main characters want the suffering, the sadness, ageing, and terrible things that happen while living. I don't think we are deprived of these things currently so not sure how to apply the story to any of my thinking. I guess any societal extremes are detrimental to the individual and we should seek to balance both the society and individual needs.

The main male character idealises, but also devalues the person he loves at the same time, recognizes her as an object created by society, but also wants her. It's a bit odd, I dunno, I don't feel there was a satisfying conclusion to most things or how they progressed.

This book has good concepts and with better execution it would have rocked. There is a chapter at the start in particular which is so fragmented and shifts perspectives so rapidly, it was very jarring. Not sure how modern it is to call one of the characters from tribes a savage, did they have a name? I don't remember it. I expected this to be a little more interesting idk, the very start was very fun tho with all the genetic modification stuff, it's such a fascinating subject.

Inhales deeply What are other reviews on about? This is a densely packed book full of information, it teaches about antioxidants, inflammation, mentions probiotics (which aren't that important, but one review complains how it doesn't go in depth about probiotics)

This contains so much stuff which I wish I had grown up on, I wish people sought to be healthy both in mind and body. I have been vegan for 7 years, but I haven't been on a whole food plant based diet and now I am sad about it. I started it only recently, but my skin feels so much softer. I have generally more motivation to move my body on it, because it's easier now.

If you put bad, addictive and overwhelming stuff into your body it will cause disease is a controversial thought for a lot of people. Why. People invent diets and downplay the benefits of good physical activity just to appease the consumers. We live in a society in which people want us to consume bad content, put bad chemicals into our own bodies by our own will. Profit driven incentives to sell stuff that damages your body.

The book goes over all the angles of how plants have mostly only benefits and how meat is full of downsides and why wouldn't it be so? With the current science it is ridiculous to downplay the effects of meat. The fats, the cholesterol, it's lack of fibre contents. It is the plants that are packed with the vitamins and the nutrients and the most essential stuff, not the other way around.

I have so much information now to do well with my diet, I know so many little things which will help me navigate to the best options. It is the most flavorful, colorful, dark foods that are the best foods, but the big companies decided to trick our brains and make those kinds of foods with no nutrition content. Instead of the best options it now craves for the worst ones and cannot stop, we literally now need to detox our brains in order to eat healthy again. Candy makers take advantage of your good inner food radar to sell you the most garbage content.

Rant: Greens and berries and fruits are very important and I haven't been consuming any of them for like most years of my life!!@#!!! Hello? Hello. Hello?!?!!? I am a bit mad at myself atm. Since eating healthier I started to recognize how polluting it is to walk near car roads. I can literally feel pollution 24/7 rn and I am not even kidding. I wonder how much I am actually sad and how much it's just the pollution we are on. Antioxidants put some sort of shield from the pollution, but I mean wow is walking outside damaging and why did we make it so? Wth. Is it really so difficult to combine healthy tribal living with technological advances, can't we seek the best of the two worlds smh? I live in a dystopia and I hate it. I will love it tho to combat the existential dread which I want to bury deep inside. When I die I will be like “Ha! I did my funny little person check marks!” because that's the most that a person can really do tbh and I need my little check marks for real.

Gonna bother my relatives over this book and support them in ways I wasn't supported because I am just so cool. Damn who is this nonbinary demon? I wanna be just like them. Now they will be so much hotter with this new diet and knowledge. Damn... (This is me appealing to the americans and myself)

I listened to an audiobook version.

For some reason I imagined that this book would be more interesting, that it would contain some great tragedy, blazing fits of the extremes of toxic love, that it would be an intense and heavy experience.

A while back I tried to read it and the first chapters would contain a lot of description, as I listened to it now it contained a lot more narrative and wasn't like the start at all. I thought it would be more difficult, but I ended up thinking that the whole drama and conflict was too simple. Some accents were a pain, but that's as far as the difficulty went for me.

For the length of the book I wanted so much more. I wanted fuller, more mature characters, not children engaging in conflicts. The amount of disturbing stuff that happened is minimal and I thought that stuff would be at least a little paranormal with the dream at the start, with so many mentions of the devil, but it wasn't. A lot of conflict in this book is due to the fact that its characters are not smart.

I expected the narrative to be rich and deep with psychological insight, but this was no Flaubert, I found no such a thing, it was very simple which has happened. It was so boring and plain and I feel bad for having this opinion because I had such expectations. There were so many events yet no proper reflection on them, no proper comment on them from the author and the main narrator would sometimes give her christian insights which I could not care for.

A gloomy, dreadful, uncomfortable experience. Left me with questioning existence and traumas. There were shivers running down my spine.

Perhaps this great effect was produced because I listened to a dramatic reading of the book with sound effects and all. I never did that and also it was so much more immersive than I would think it would have been. For most of the time I was listening I was also drawing, I might have missed or excused some of the times the novel was repetitive or the characters a bit bland or how on the whole it felt like an essay and a big moral message rather than an experience. But no matter how better it could have been, it was an experience for me.

There were some spicy times and a couple of times there was pornography mentioned. I was playing the audio out loud, but for some reason I was more concerned about people around hearing me listen to some spicy scene than um whatever part 3 was.

I can't imagine how this could not be part of culture, how it could not be relevant which is sad because that means there are so many ways still that we might experience the world of 1984.

I need to listen to more dramatic readings and read more classics. This is the most frightening way to start the reading year. I did not intend to start it with this book, am I glad I did? Idfk.

I have been trying not to use electronics as much which maybe ties into the whole surveillance thing yike, but no the reason is that I want my eyes to rest. I find that physical books are easier on them.

This is a goldmine for understanding on how much copium and cognitive dissonance certain people who promote “the good values” and “family”, etc. are. This book uses very funny sounding words for their techniques.

Read this when you want to get scared or question your life choices, this is one of those reads that might change you.

This simple comic features accessible information about human trafficking and prostitution. It argues that this isn't a profession and people in it do not get liberated, it is a trade where only the pimps profit and women's bodies get commodified, the physical and sexual abuse is pretty much expected and not receiving it is an exception. Legalising prostitution doesn't help and doesn't protect the women at all, women do not legally label themselves as prostitutes in countries where it does get legalised anyways.

The comic artistically doesn't intrigue me, but it's short and has valuable information, way more than lots of other comics. This tackles a still unsolved problem which we do not put enough effort into eradicating, we get lots of laymen making jokes about this and a lot of insensitive people who make fun of poverty conditions which makes this happen in the first place.

The style really fits the subject matter when I think about it, it is a bit grotesque and you cannot call any persons in it conventionally pretty and as such it keeps up the spirit of valuing important information rather than selling something for profit. These experiences are so glum and terrible, somewhere in the shadow of most people's consciousness.

It's very exciting to follow the path of an artist even if it is filled with lots of misery and people with addiction problems and there are a ton of names mentioned in most of the pages. There were so many people here I did not know, maybe I will bother sometime to check them all. It was exciting to hear some of the names that I do know.

Was a vibe to read the ending as the new year ended ☠️☠️

I feel a bit ashamed that I did not know that such a non-conformist icon existed decades before I was born. The world did not get that much cooler, huh, or maybe I still am missing artists, names who would speak my language in the contemporary world, I have seen some, but I am always hungry for more. There are so many I am missing.

It is very inspiring to hear how much Patti gave up to do her art and to follow it. Living for art seems so reckless yet desirable and for a lot of us not a choice, but a way of life. I follow art, I am too unstable to settle and would get bored too easily any other way.

She is so iconic for elevating her favourite poets the way she did.

First story fine then gone virginal, vulgar and sexual.

I think the idea is that despite women being put in terrible situations of roles they can be liberated here by shamelessly getting the bad male roles, acting just as bad as them and this probably stems from the author's fascination with Sade (These are assumptions by me tho). I don't think that's the best of ideas (Not all of the stories explore this idea).

These stories are super descriptive and have little plot which I am not used to, a couple went over my head and had to go back a bit. Disgustingly beautiful, but there are parts which are just disgusting. The sentences were so long and some techniques I would expect in poetry were present that I thought this might be considered as verse, but it is not. This tells me I need to read poetry for real, I have read way too little and maybe find more of this descriptive prose.

I am actually not familiar with fairy tales at all which is odd, but yeah maybe I should read the originals sometime! Like I read/heard/watched them as a child, and I somewhat know the outlines, but I don't know them that well.

Disgusting normies go feral and then do disgusting things. Terrible affirmation.

Reminder to not read fiction which makes me want to speedread. A favourite of my friend.

This doesn't challenge me or bring me to new places. This uses a pandemic as a metaphor which makes it hard to judge. This is written in simple prose. This uses blindness and explores it in a boring way which wastes the very concept, it is treated as an infliction more serious than it is as there are no side effects. There are boring rape scenes that do not bring any value to the work. I feel like I learned nothing about human nature from this, it feels like humanities flaws were intensified here, I mean at least normies have more dignity typically or let me think so. Using blindness and correlating it with being blind to issues is not tasteful and something we should move away from when writing. Perhaps for the time it was written it wasn't that bad to do that, but I don't think it aged well.

I don't know why I read this shsjsgjdjd A bit worse than the show? Idk.

This is a book which decides on an ultimatum of rules about things we do not know like death or the functionality of life in the universe, the reason why we came to have a consiousness in the first place (Doubt any parents manifested that). It provides a lot of topics to think about and it does this on the pretext that it will reduce harm which is not a bad intention. The author supposes that they are correct and have the answer.

It is written in a redundant, repetitive way. The asymmetry provided even if true cannot account for things we haven't experienced, it cannot answer how life interacts with whatever is beyond life.

Possibly having a society which entertains this mindset could bring more tolerance, understanding of pessimism and bring people to want to reduce suffering more, put blame on people who cannot handle this experience less.

The oldest poems ever preserved and they were with homosexual undertones. The story is somewhat engaging and better than the bible, mentioning the bible because there are some similar things like the flood and procreation themes. It is very fascinating to see such an early work of philosophy/religion/folklore/fantasy. I just started to put the history of literature into a weak retrospective and I am very excited to know more and read more ancient works.

This was so perfect to read while sick in bed. Teared up at the implications of life. It's so interesting to hear the perspective of an older writer, to hear her describe the relationship between her and a relative who has not lived.

I started reading this book last year and then put it on hold for almost a year.

I'm not exactly sure how to feel about it, the language is beautiful and I am sure there are a ton of hidden secrets and meanings in it, but reading a novel from such a dull and horrible character is not exactly enjoyable. There is something that makes me not want to analyze it that much. The deliusions at the start and the weird explanations of the acts that were to follow were fun. The way that traveling the country wasn't all that exciting was cool. The way the main character disregards the person that is Dolores was well executed. I did not notice some weird details about the characters attraction and what places he visited. I get this weird unexplainable feeling when I think about it which I learned always leads me giving a book 3 stars later.

Found this in an existentialism book list

This is the most beautiful work I have read yet. This trust in the unknown is what I have been searching everywhere lately.

This lays out how to live for ethics are the guidelines and ambiguity is our condition till we die. Life is a negative, but we can aim for higher disclosure through error and effort. We must contribute a positive effort which cancels out the negative, but we also cannot be anything full or complete, we can only keep seeking traits, images, ideas of the whole. Traits aren't fixed and making an effort to disclose them to the highest capacity you are able to is what makes you truly possess the lack of them, the lack you turn into a positive, but not a whole.

Live for yourself and others for not serving others or taking their bs is not serving you.

Love this. Thank you. Reading this work felt the opposite of a chore, it felt like cleaning my mind and a rush of energy.

I got this in my to read list because this book had a vegetarian character (hoped for a vegan one, but whatever). I think I checked on of the author's other books before because I was searching for popular writers and what they have written, but I don't think I will ever read it.

I haven't read a book like this before. It reads like nostalgia for young love when you are old. The characters were bland and quite ordinary. The fact that the vegetarian's love interest fished and hunted is so wild. There's mentions of the Bible and how God is love. I thought I would have more to complain about, but now that I think about it nothing really stands out as in it's not that memorable. It describes a world I just wouldn't want to live in or escape to, nobody in it would accept me for the ways I am.

Manau gan jau senas leidinys kas blogai kai susįję su mitybą. Pastebėjau kad yra rekomendacija iš karto išgerti litrą vandens ryte, bet vandenį reikia gerti iš lėto, tu negali per daug prisigerti jeigu negeri jo viso iš karto. Žinios apie glukozė taip pat pasenusios, viskas suversta ant riebalų ir nežinau kiek informacijos pasitikėti.

Rodos kad galėčiau mažiau naudoti aliejaus ir druskos, turbūt neduoda jie naudos. Autorės saitas dingęs ir rodos ji aktivismu nebeužsiėma spendžiant iš jokių naujienų ieškant naršyklėje.

Šitoje knygoje yra labiau nagrinėjimas neviriamas maistas, aš ant tiek dėl sveikatos nepasiryžau, bet jau kurį laiką atsisakiau pridėtinio cukraus ir galvoju gal nebūtų ant taip sunku nevartoti ant tiek perdirbamų produktų. Gal per didelį santykį riebalų ir baltymų valgiau.

Verkiu kodėl maistas ant taip sunkiai suprantamas lol, lmao.

Noriu aukštai įvertinti dėl mažai veganizmo knygų lietuvoje, bet kai kuri informacija tikrai pasenusi.

The author has a nice view of nature, but I am not sure what he sees in it and where the love resides in it. Animals eat each other, they hunt, they can barely communicate and among them we are sort of the exception, except we have so many problems of our own.

The author uses concepts like sameness and differentiation, pitting them against each other, not realising that they are all the same, they contain the same problems. Not seeing the limitations of his own created archetypes he gets conclusions like viewing gay love as the lesser love, as if a man contains no femininity of his own. He writes at the end how we have to define love, but at the begining he had no problem setting up some rules. He has some unanalyzed problems concerning women, he sees it reasonable how their life is about giving birth and how man of course just gets to do everything else.

Even though he wants you to not label God as something he also sees no problem as you becoming a part of God.

A lot of what he borrows from psychoanalysis doesn't seem useful as he takes difficult processes and simplifies them to the point they lose their meaning.

I took one positive note:

“I enjoy his thoughts on selfishness. I feel like it's important to define selfishness as “the act which does not benefit you or others in the long term even though you might not realise its consequences shortly after the act.” That way we would all talk about something useful and have a good idea of what is a selfish act. When lay people discuss it they get all sorts of ideas of what it is and it becomes very unproductive and accusatory, confused. The author did not suggest doing this, but I think I am completing his intention here. “

Some parts were too idealistic. “If I love my child, I love all my children; no, beyond that, I love all children, all that are in need of my help.” That's a nice affirmation, but not really how that works. There are a ton of children in need of help and you won't get to them by helping your own child. I feel like in general the author relied on emotion a lot, but did not develop his logic as much.

Overall I think he was trying to do good and all, but good is a part of evil and when you examine yourself you realise that life is more complicated than just trying to do good. Gonna go back to my mothers evil womb like a vegan, homosexual, feminine, little gremlin that I am (insert more labels please).

I really liked this book for the most part, it is a very easy read, the language is beautiful at parts and some of the twisted Henry's thoughts make sense sometimes, but well even if he is evil he is a very interesting conversationalist.

I wanna give a four because I feel like execution was lacking especially at the end, I feel like the resolution wasn't enough to cement the themes. The characters were also a bit dummy thic which maybe brings some frustration to me.

I think it shows that the author did not like realism and I do like realism so dhdnsjsjs lol. I do like the aesthetics, but it would be even better to me if they were combined with a more satisfying conclusion.

These characters were so gay, I guess I read the censored version, but it's so hard to believe that they did not start kissing each other or smh while talking the way they did.