Kyle Erickson
Let's talk about this book that is blowing up the science fiction world right now. I usually “like” sci-fi. Most of the time, it doesn't get past “like” because a lot of sci-fi doesn't handle characters well (out of the sci-fi I've read) and I am primarily a character reader.
However, Project Hail Mary is fantastic. It's wonderful. It's heart warming. It's fist pumping. Maybe its too soon after finishing, but it may be my favorite sci-fi book I've read.
My initial plan was to alternate between audio and ebook for this one, since I had both. But after chapter three or so, I just stuck with audio and I consider it the DEFINITIVE edition of this book. Seriously, even if you don't normally like audiobooks, I strongly suggest giving this a try on audio. There is a character whose dialogue is enhanced tenfold by the audio. Ray Porter did a phenomenal job here. I can't really discuss what the book is about without spoilers, but trust me that you don't see where it's heading, and it packs an emotional punch when it gets there.
This is a case where the hype was very much real. I recently re-read The Martian and while I love that book, I think Project Hail Mary is Weir's best work yet.
In the words of my favorite character- “Amaze, amaze, amaze!”
This book was pretty boring honestly, and was just Maltin jumping around at various points in time and discussing various run ins and interviews with celebrities in very minute detail. He has had an interesting life, but he didn't format this book in an interesting way, and it just amounts to a person who tells you about every time they've ever met a celebrity. I run into these times a lot when I'm on set, and it's extremely grating, so maybe I'm a little biased from that. Regardless, I would skip this one unless you're really interested in Hollywood in the 70s-80s or you're a Maltin superfan.
As always, thanks to Netgalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.
Imagine you go out to a bakery and you buy yourself a large chocolate cake. This bakery has been recommended many times, particularly the chocolate cake. “It tastes so great!”, people tell you.
You bring the cake home. You eat the first piece. Delicious! People were right! You have another slice. Damn, that's some good cake. But you're sugared out now, and there's still a lot of cake left. You've wondered if maybe the cake should have been smaller. Maybe they should have had less chocolate on the cake. You're not sure. And then out of nowhere, the baker breaks into your house with a gun and forces you to finish eating the entire cake. You tearfully force yourself to finish the entire cake, being overwhelmed with how sugary and sweet it is. At the end of all of this, you no longer look back at those first two slices very fondly. In fact, you don't want any cake for a long, long time.
That's what reading this book felt like to me. There was a time in which I was sure it was a five star read for me. Then it spent awhile being a four star read. And then the last 50-75 pages had me rolling my eyes so hard they threatened to stay at the back of my skull, and I wanted to give it two stars. So three stars it is.
This book is so heavy on the sentiment that it ignores everything else. There were some good things in it, some stuff I really enjoyed, and some humor that I loved. I think it has good messages for everyone, but particularly for kids or teens. There are lot of things to enjoy about this light romp of a novel, and I understand why it has the rating it does.
...but Jesus Christ, it just really hammers every single point home over and over. It's the feel good book equivalent of an evangelist never stopping trying to convert you to their religion.
But all that said, I have one big problem with this book. Once the problem presented itself, it was so annoying that it exponentially made every page worse afterwards. The main character, Linus Baker, is a caseworker for magical youths at orphanages and visits them to assess whether or not they are safe for the children. He is assigned to a house near the ocean that is an extremely secretive assignment, and has to be there for a month.
In the beginning of the book, Linus is a strict, curmudgeony, fat, uninspired, boring, uninteresting person whose only selling point is that he is slightly more interested in the genuine welfare of children than his co-workers are. And I do mean slightly. And yet, after a week of staying at the Cerulean house, despite doing nothing that would warrant this behavior, everyone there starts treating him as if the sun shines out of his ass. He will do literally the BARE MINIMUM of a reasonable person and the characters will literally tell him there is nobody else on earth like him. Further into the novel, characters starting saying things like, “Linus, you marvelous man” or “You, you unbelievable creature, you” and then the end of the book cranks this behavior up to an unfathomable level. This is incredibly eye rolling because Linus is not shown to be incredible or marvelous or unique. He is shown to be passively interested in the welfare of children, and is just LESS of a bigot than everybody else in the novel. He does change from beginning to end, but not in a believable way. I simply do not believe that Linus was written well enough to be convincing in this type of plot, and I don't believe the relationships developed in this book would have been possible in a month. At least, not as shown here.
And for that reason, the last section of the book was not for me at all and greatly hampered my enjoyment. I'm glad a lot of other people weren't bothered by this; I was getting that sweet, feel good feeling that others were for awhile and I wish that continued.
People have been giving Dragon Mage rave reviews and I fully expected to love it. Unfortunately, the hype failed me a bit here. This was probably a 3.75 star for me, rounded up to a 4 star for a great protagonist that is representing those on the spectrum in a lead role, something that is very rare in a fantasy book (or really, at all). Spencer gets major props for that.
Unfortunately, there were other things that just didn't work for me. This review may come off a bit negative because I'm going to focus on those things (due to most reviews I've seen giving it a full five stars) but I do want to say off the hop- I enjoyed this book. It is a good book, written well, and you would never go wrong in my book by picking it up.
But it is very inspired by classic fantasy tales, and those just tend to bore me. This one is done very well, yes, but it still follows the same outline. The “twist” is mostly just that the protagonist has autism. Aram is a wonderful character that I enjoyed a lot, but a classic fantasy tale is still a classic fantasy tale. There aren't many surprises here. Markus, the second lead, is also a good character and reminds me a lot of Sam from LOTR, so instantly wins me over. However, we reach my first problem pretty early.
Aram and Markus become best friends VERY quickly. Like, almost immediately. After Aram spends the entire beginning (and most of the novel, really) lamenting how hard it is for him to make friends. And then almost immediately after they become friends, they both find out that they are a True Savant and True Impervious, respectively, the first two the world has seen in hundreds of years.
I'm sorry. I know fantasy has lots of coincidences. But this one drove me CRAZY for the whole book. I kept waiting for some kind of reveal about why. Like, they were both put in this small town to hide them away from the world as babies, or something. Nope. They just both happen to be living in this extremely small town, and Markus is the only person Aram is ever capable of becoming friends with, and he does so immediately, exactly a day before he finds out they're two of the most special people in all of existence. Ugh.
But that's just a contrivance to get the story going. Fine, okay. But my second problem is just how bland the plot was to me. Maybe it's because the magic system is very vague, and Aram was constantly “full of potential”, and then would just power up to get out of whatever situation was necessary just at the right time (which is my big problem with classic fantasy magics). Or maybe it's because everything is so black and white in this book. Characters are good or bad- and when our leads change perspectives, any of their friends who helped them are now on the “bad” side and that's that- no discussion necessary. It was incredibly surprising just how little time was spent on Aram and Markus having to deal with fighting people who had been kind to them or friends with them not that long ago. But they're on the other side now, so no time to explore that!
The dragons were well done in this book, but I don't think they were used as effectively as they could have been. Maybe because most of the combat scenes with them are just people on them shooting essence at each other, I dunno.
And this book is LONG. Listen, I love long books. Almost all my favorite books are long. If I can't kill a burglar with my hardcover, don't even bother me with it. But this is one of the only times that I felt that the story did not justify the length. I think this book could have been 150-200 pages shorter and the story would have been equally effective.
But overall, it's a worthwhile read. I am not at all upset I read it. I am glad it's done though, because it was a monster of a book. If you like dragons or that classic fantasy feel, you are going to really enjoy this one.
2.5/5 stars for me on this one.
Everything about this book was exceedingly average. Except the dialogue, which was cliche and eye-rolling. If I had been reading this normally, I probably wouldn't have finished it, but I got a free copy from Netgalley and like I said, it wasn't bad, it was just very average. The story starts off on a bad track with me to begin with, doing the whole “violence against women and children to give the man a reason to fight” blah blah blah. Plenty of things do this, but it never ceases to be uninspired, and if this is something that bothers you, skip this book. This book also felt too heavy on plot and not enough on connective tissue, like it just skipped to things happening, a report to the Emperor, things happening, report to the Emperor. The action was also uninspired, the characters were not memorable, and as I said before, the dialogue was wooden and something I felt you'd write in a first draft. I know this is Gough's first book, so maybe he improves in this aspect. But this book made me think a lot of the time that I'd be better off reading something else. However, it was passively entertaining. I love Roman fiction in general and this era (Severus's late reign) is not covered often enough, so I appreciated that.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy in exchange for an honest review!
Mike Duncan's a great disseminator of the most interesting parts of a historical story and how to put those parts together in a compelling way. His voice is also great for listening to, so after listening to his Rome stuff and the Revolutions podcast, listening to the audiobook for everyone's favorite fighting Frenchman (LAFAYETTE! I'mTakingThisHorseByTheReignsMakinRedCoatsRedderWithBloodStains!....sorry) was a no-brainer.
I didn't know much about Lafayette before this book, despite taking an entire course on the French Revolution and getting a B in it. Why, you ask? Because my professor and the textbooks I read were BORING, and so I've spent YEARS thinking the French revolution was a complete snoozefest. Duncan proves me wrong here, making every element of Lafayette's life very compelling. He was a complex man, involved in many important events on two continents, and Duncan paints a vivid picture of the man himself and the situations he found himself continously involved in.
Small note, the Netgalley copy of the audiobook I received (thanks, Netgalley + publisher!) cut off in the middle of the final chapter, which was very frustrating. So I have no idea how this book ends. But, that's not the fault of the book obviously, so it doesn't affect my rating or review.
This book was so damn good.
Let's talk about Eithan Aurelius for a second. For 7 books now, Eithan has been continuously the best part of this series. I daresay he's one of the most fascinating characters I've ever read about. Whenever you expect him to zig, he zags. Whenever youve caught on, and expect him to zig, he zigs, and challenges your expectations. Every scene with him is great, and he was used superbly in this book.
Yerin...goddamn Yerin. Just such a good character. I don't have much to say about her here because of spoilers, except that she reminds me of a grown up Toph from Avatar, and that is a supreme compliment.
But that's not all! Even LINDON was great in this book. Since Book 6 and onwards, I've started genuinely liking Lindon. And in this book, he completely won me over. He is just such a badass now and he has done some soul searching to figure out what is important to him.
The world building and stakes to this book were very well done. The book made shocking choices; the tournament does not go in the way I expected it to. The villains do not do what I expected them to. The results are not what I expected.
This series went from “eh, it's entertaining” to “Holy shit, I'm gonna put everything else on hold to catch up” very quickly.
Man, this book was excellent. The previous five books just built this one to a place where every single page seemed like it was brimming with excitement or anticipation. The fights were incredible and I was genuinely nervous of the results during a fair amount of them. The villains were well done. Every single side character had interesting scenes that elevated their role in the story. The plot was tight and focused less on training (although it was still there, because this is progression fantasy after all). The ending left the story in such an intriguing place that I can't wait to start book 7. I even FINALLY liked Lindon, who had to do some soul searching about himself in order to progress, and had to have difficult conversations with his companions or make hard choices that allowed him to grow beyond “yo I need to get strong, fam”.
Everything about this book worked for me, except one thing, which isn't a problem with this book. It's a problem with this series, or maybe, progression fantasy in general. The way that every SINGLE person Lindon comes into contact with in each book is always just so much ludacriously stronger than the previous book. I get it for main/supporting villains. Obviously, Lindon is not going to be doing “final battles” with Jades or Lowgolds when he is close to progressing to Underlord. But Jades and Lowgolds still EXIST. I feel like every character is constantly progressing at an insane rate, even minor characters pop back up and they've progressed off screen to be at Lindon's level or stronger. I get this is supposed to be the draw of progression fantasy, but I disagree. Part of what makes Lindon and Yerin's arc for progression satisfying is that they are progressing so much quicker than others due to a combination of skill, incredible luck, and hard work. It cheapens the story for every person they meet to always be at their level or above them. They couldn't have a friend who they genuinely enjoy being around, who has some sort of other skill, like being really great at cooking and strategy, but is only at a Jade level? They can't have a member of their forces in a battle be a Lowgold? It's just annoying when it's EVERY. SINGLE. CHARACTER. Maybe other people like this aspect. But I don't, because it would never happen. Powerful people are usually surrounded by less powerful people. Eithan, Lindon, Yerin, Mercy, and Orthos only bothering to talk to people if they're more powerful reeks of billionaires not consorting with peasants, and it cheapens their characters and the story in general. That's my two cents on this issue.
But this book isn't any worse than the rest with this; I mention it here finally because most of the series is constantly mentioning how rare it is to be Truegold and then suddenly in this book there's like 829272 Truegolds, haha.
But that's the end of my rant. This book is great. I look forward to book 7!
4.5 stars. This book is a slow burn and the memory tectonics is confusing at times but the pay off is great. A wonderful exploration of memory and identity and how it shapes us. You follow two perspectives, Sarilla and Falon. Sarilla is a Memoria, someone who can steal memories from people. She's on the run from her king who wants to use her powers to be tyrannical to his subjects. Sarilla runs into Falon and two of his friends, Cedral and Havric, while on the run. What Falon doesn't know is that Sarilla has previously stolen his memories.
I really enjoyed this book, and how it kept you guessing the entire time and the memory stuff in play made it hard to trust whatever was happening in the scene to be a totally accurate read of the situation- you were always aware that the person was missing information. I also enjoyed how whenever a memory was added or removed from someone, how that person would change. I think it was a tad overexaggerated (for instance, if someone removed the memories I had of my wife, and then told me she was my wife, I highly doubt I would act cold and distant and rude to her because I would have the knowledge that I did share a life with her so I therefore must care about her. The characters in this book tend to characterize anybody they don't remember as “nobody to me” and I don't find that realistic). But as a commentary on the human condition and how our memories define us, it worked.
The main thing that prevented this book from being a full five stars was a very lackluster villain. The king is just being evil because...reasons. And every time he has dialogue, he's just cartoonishly bad for....reasons. I never understood his motivations or character and considering his actions set the entire story in certain directions, I really felt that loss. But otherwise, this book was well done.
DNF'd at 60%. Every single page with this main character is suffering, I hated him. It's fine to hate the main character; I hate Walter White, after all. But there's nothing interesting going on, either. It's just the main character thinking gross or annoying or shitty things and freaking out about all the women he's had sex with potentially hating him.
I've been thinking about what to say about this for a day and I still don't know. Nothing about this book is enjoyable. I'm still upset I read it. It has, without a doubt, made my life a tad bit worse. I don't particularly recommend it.
And yet...
It is a harrowing, terrible, gripping, terrible, gross, terrible, awful, compelling, terrible story that deserves to be told. I feel like reading this book is being a witness to the sheer horror that these women had to go through, and recognizing their sacrifice. I spent most of this book being horrified at the radium company that employed these women and the sheer audacity of their attempts to dismiss and silence them. There are a few central women in the story that are utterly remarkable, who display more resilience and fortitude than I ever will, and it is absolutely worth learning about them.
The introduction gave me a brief hope that Diangelo had taken her critics to heart and strove to do better. Alas, halfway through, and all of the same problems that plagued White Fragility are evident here. I will give her credit for explaining how many white progressives are doing a lot of damage without realizing it, but I will immediately subtract those points for not including herself in that list and continously virtue signalling about how she is so much better. I also rolled my eyes at her break down of “discourse” and how things like debate are used to minimize issues that POC have. I think I understand her point here, but it is so broadly used as to mean nothing at all.
My chief complaint with DiAngelo is that she structures her books in a way where if you disagree with her, you are proving her point. That is not the way things work. And hand-waving anybody willing to debate an issue as perpetuating the status quo or minimizing suffering is infantiziling black people and removing agency from everybody in the world. We are allowed to debate and discuss issues. The problem arrives when white people start a debate about race without including POC voices or assuming their voices aren't as heavily weighted. That is definitely problematic behavior. But no distinction is made here.
In general, DiAngelo quotes from a whole bunch of books I've already read that are much better, and I would just suggest you read those instead. The rule of thumb here is, if DiAngelo quoted it, it's probably a better book/article, and you would gain more value from just reading that instead.
Not sure why this one has such a high rating. It was fine. Probably my least favorite since the first one. Too much Lindon and not enough of the actually compelling characters like Eithan and Yerin. The addition of Driss was welcome, though. As was a character finally pointing out to Lindon that power can't be the only thing that keeps him going.
Mostly, though, this was just the equivalent of a training montage in a movie. It should make the sixth more exciting, but I was utterly underwhelmed during this one.
I love Neil Gaiman, but this was definitely my least favorite of his books so far. The style and tone just didn't work for me, which is a shame because those are sometimes Gaiman's strengths. The prose was still really good, but I couldn't connect with any of the characters or story. Mostly I was just waiting for it to be over. But I listened to the audiobook, and Gaiman is a brilliant narrator, as always.
This is maybe a 3.5 star for me. I learned a fair amount and certain parts were very interesting, and I love learning about Whales. The parts about their vision and whalefalls and how whales are impacted and impact the environment and the parts about whale songs were fantastic. I wanted to give this book 5 stars just for that.
Alas.
Two major problems arise here, both relating to writing style. The first is just an extreme lack of focus. The author would take huge tangents away from the central subject. I would zone out on audio for just a second and suddenly she'd be discussing the history of plastic manufacturing or Japanese cuisine history. None of it was TOTALLY unrelated, but I'd be left wondering, “Is this long tangent necessary?”.
The second problem is that the author was determined to write this in the most pretenscious way possible. I am honestly baffled that she thought it was a good idea. Why would you overwrite a book about whales this much? Understand the general public. I consider myself well read with good reading comprehension and half the time she would say five nonsense sentences that sounded lyrical but didn't mean anything at all. It was severely off-putting. If I had read it physically, I probably would have DNF'd. It was a bit easier to bare as an audiobook; I could just float right past the unnecessary words.
A decent read overall, but I would only recommend if you really enjoy the subject matter.
For most of this book, it was firmly in the three star category. It had so many interesting things, but it was not fully clicking on a few levels. But the last 100 or so pages were really good, and left the series in a very interesting place. Now that the set-up and characters are ready to go, I'm excited for this series to really go places in the sequels. The book follows two women; Priya, a maid in the service of the Regent's wife and a mysterious past, and Malini, the sister of the crazy emperor (think Mad King Aerys from ASOIAF) who is imprisoned for going against him. The story follows their intertwining journeys.
But why did I struggle initially? The biggest issue for me is the pacing. Large sections of this book have nothing “happening”. Sometimes that's okay, but compounded with other issues, it made it hard to continue reading, despite also being fascinated. I got the book through a library loan on Libby, which are 3 week loans. I have never failed to finish a book in that time. I finished the Jasmine Throne with just five hours left on my loan. The middle was just that slow to me.
The second thing is that this book suffers from a villain problem. I would say this book has four villains. One is the “big bad” they are seeming to set up for the whole trilogy. One is the main villain of this book, and two are secondary antagonists. The big bad was mostly just referenced, so their lack of characterization is fair. But the other three I found very one note. It's fine to have a couple antagonists who are not well developed, but when all of them are zealots in one way or another, with absolutely no nuance, it does the book no favors.
My third thing to note is the character of Malini. By the end, I was really into her character, and found her a deeper, richer character. But Malini is manipulative, and I don't think the author pulls this off particularly well. We are TOLD she is charismatic and manipulative and persuasive and that people are compelled by her, but the actual instances of her doing any of these things usually consist of her saying, “you should do X” “but why” “cause” “I guess that makes sense”. Obviously I'm exaggerating, but the character traits that Suri gave Malini are hard to pull off, and I don't think the work was fully acceptable to make her believable. For me, atleast.
A very minor thing is that for a traditionally published book, I noticed way too many errors. Three times this book asks a question in dialogue with a comma, and it is disruptive. Things like “Are you okay,”. It just doesn't look right. The worst one was- “Are you sure,” he roared.” He's roaring, but you put a comma? Just a little thing, but I expect better from the publishing process.
Now onto the good, because I can imagine you reading all of this and thinking, “but you gave it four stars, so what gives?”.
The worldbuilding in this book is superb. I love the setting, I loved the political intrigue and different nations, the magic system was incredibly cool. The religions were great. Priya, Bhumika, Rao, and later on, Malini are all great characters. Despite my issues with Malini's character, she really shines when her and Priya are together and actually communicating. I think their initial romantic interest was sparked a bit too hastily, but once it was there, I thought it was well done and developed naturally. The plot, once it was less confined to mostly one very small location, was very engaging. There is a subplot about a character's name being a prophecy that they can only tell when it is time for the prophecy to be enacted was a surprisingly interesting one. I usually hate prophecies of all natures, so a huge kudos for finding a way for making it much more interesting to me personally.
Overall, this book was a mixed bag, but I am very happy I stuck with it. I will be reading the next book of this series for sure.
"For men, accepting directions was proof that the system was broken, which goes against the natural impulses of what being a man means: not to admit confusion or ask questions. It had me wondering...if men can't ask for directions to the closest gas station, then how the hell are they supposed to ask for directions about how to be a man?"
This book is really good, and starts a conversation that most men have either never have or just straight up never even considered. I consider myself a relatively “enlightened” man but there were so many aspects of men's socialization I hadn't ever considered in this book, and lots of data about how the way men are socialized is actually damaging for us and for society as a whole. I'm definitely going to be reading this book again at some point, and I'll be trying to get my friends and family, both men and women, to give it a try in the future.
“Although very little gets universal consensus from academics, they are effectively unanimous that systematically suppressing ones emotions is one of the most damaging experiences for a human being to endure. What the scientific community has labeled as ‘dangerous and unhealthy' is the current model for how we raise boys.”
Never has reading about something I love been so joyless. I almost gave this three stars, because it's exceedingly average. Then I almost gave it two stars, because it was annoying to slog through and finally reach the end. But as I reached the “sources”, and realized that, as I suspected, all the bigger names quoted in this book came from DVD commentaries and previous interviews, and that the most notable interview this author actually landed was the 5th billed star, I was filled with a soft boiled rage. The rage you feel when the rug has been pulled out from under you. The quiet intensity of feeling you get when you perform a task for hours and then realize that task was useless. Reading this book is useless.
Where to start? The first thing is that it tries to be an oral history. I love oral histories. My favorite ones so far for tv have been The Wire and The Office. The Wire's author got interviews with almost everybody in the cast and crew, an incredible achievement. The office's author didn't get interviews with the really big stars of The Office, but made up for it by getting really good, in depth interviews with lots of the secondary actors and the crew. The author of THIS book, in contrast, I'm sure tried to get the best interviews possible, but didn't really. And some of the people interviewed are just really bizarre choices, or the sheer AMOUNT of page time they get is strange. It feels like he sent an email out to everybody who ever appeared on the show, and anybody who agreed to the interview, he decided to focus on them. Matthew Broderick, Paul Reubens, the girl who plays Kathy Giess and an actor that I barely remember in the show make up a staggering amount of the “actor” interviews for this. If you added up all the screen time of those people, it would be a third of an episode. And they are constantly giving quotes! The episode Paul Reubens is in is given like 10 pages. 10 pages for a Paul Reubens guest spot! This is outrageous!!
Make due with what you have, I suppose. But the early portions of this book spend A LOT of time on something that barely relates to 30 Rock, which is Aaron Sorkin's tv series that aired at the same time. The stars of that show are interviewed for this book, talking about THEIR show! What?!
The other thing that is bad about this book is that it is just flat out written in the most boring style ever. Imagine someone actually writing out the plot for 24 episodes of 30 Rock, including explaining some of the funniest jokes. Over and over again. For 7 seasons. That's this book. Occasionally a writer is given a quote about working on the episode. But mostly, this is an episode guide.
The final thing I hated about this book is just how much social justice naval gazing it is doing. “Hey, that's an important thing to point out and discuss”, I hear you saying. You're not hearing me. It's ALOT. I would hazard a guess that 20% of this entire book is talking about jokes that didn't age well, or blackface, or jokes about gay people, or transgender people, and every single time, it just acts like everybody involved is the worst person ever, and then immediately backtracks to talk about how wonderful everyone is, as soon as the “incident” is done.
I absolutely think shows need to reckon with the way comedy evolves over time and how problematic aspects have been shoved aside for too long, and 30 Rock had multiple instances of blackface in the mid 2000s- this needs to be discussed. I don't fault the author for talking about it. I just think it should have maybe had an entire chapter dedicated to it as a whole, with some sort of focus, and actual commentary from the people affected (especially the black community, which the book hammers the show hard for, but as far as I know, has mostly white interviews). It felt like every 5 pages, the author was bringing up ANOTHER problematic joke and raking Fey over the coals for it. Then two pages later, more quotes about wonderful and hilarious and genius Fey is. Hell, when discussing Fey and Carlock's new show Mr. mayor, the author could not resist mentioning that while the show has a diverse cast, the two leads were white! THE GODDAMN HORROR!
Mostly, I'm upset that there are a finite number of books written about shows, and this was a total waste of a 30 Rock one. I hope somebody comes along that can do a better 30 Rock book, hopefully with some substantial interviews.
There are a lot of books that are classics that many people had to read in school, and usually, that results in them having a bad experience with the book, or being disinclined to enjoy reading at all. My school failed me in that regard, the only classics I ever had to read for school were Of Mice and Men and Catcher in the Rye.
This resulted in me being a fully grown adult reader with nearly a thousand books read, but hardly any of them being classics. I've been trying to rectify that. Some classics are incredible, even today. Some I respect, but didn't resonate with me. And some are so mind numbingly boring that I thank the lucky stars that no English teacher subjected me to them, lest I have been scared away from my love of reading forever.
I listened to this book on audio, narrated by the superb Kenneth Branagh, who you may know from many things but is best known for my generation from playing Professor Lockhart in Harry Potter. Branagh did a wonderful job; and I was still bored to tears. I can't tell you really anything that happened. There was darkness, and Africa, and Kurtz. But it was all a drudge. In a week, it might as well have been that I never read this.
I'm sure it has literary merit. Far be it from me, hundreds of years after its been hailed as great work, for me to dismiss it utterly. But on audio, dissecting prose and literary merit is much harder for me. If the book had engaged me AT ALL, I might have been inclined to read this physically, slower, and pondered whatever literary or philosophical accolades it supposedly has. But alas, I would rather read a dictionary or a soap ingredients list. And so Heart of Darkness finds its way into the cobwebs of my mind; another box to check off in the list of “classics”, utterly forgotten until someone at a party in a decade mentions it, and I respond with, “Ah yeah, I read that. Kurtz, huh?” and change the subject to a more interesting book.
I don't know how to review this book. I actually finished it a few days ago, and was determined to write a review for it, but procrastinated because I'm not really sure what to say about it. It's a journey, and the journey is best left discovered. It's part memoir, dealing with author Lulu Miller's ending of a bad relationship and her existential crisis that follows. It's part biography of Stanford founding President/champion of eugenics David Starr Jordan, who catalogs hundreds of species of fish. Miller becomes fascinated with Jordan and starts learning more about him in an attempt to learn who she wants to be. It's part zoology, examining the nature and etymology of “fish”. It's part sexual identity discovery, as Miller grapples with coming to terms with hers. But the real magic of this book is how it is more than the sum of its parts; each of these aspects come together to crescendo in a very thought-provoking and moving ending. I basically highlighted most of the last chapter, as poignant sentence after poignant sentence washed over me. Once you understand why fish don't exist, you learn why Miller sat down to write this in the first place. This book is short, and you should read it.
My oldest sister had no problem letting go of the fish. She let the whole category slide right out of her hand. When I asked her why it was so easy for her, she said, “Because it's a fact of life. Humans get things wrong.” She said people have been wrong about her, time and time again, for whole life. She's been misdiagnosed by doctors, misunderstood by classmates, by neighbors, by our parents, by me. “Growing up,” she told me, “is learning to stop believing people's words about you.”
And then I consider the fish. The fact that fish don't exist. I picture a silvery fish dissolving in my hand. If fish don't exist, what else don't we know about our world? What other truths are waiting behind the lines we draw over nature? Could clouds be animate? Who knows. On Neptune, it rains diamonds; it really does. Scientists figured that out just a few years ago. The longer we examine our world, the stranger it proves to be.
DNF'd at 45%.
This book started with a really good premise, but it was just super boring, and the prose was amateurish. I felt that the jump from Roman times to present day felt forced; why has be been pursuing this guy for 2,000 years, but “present day” is the time he just so happens to make progress? He couldn't have caught up with this guy in 1907 in Norway? 1743 in Indonesia? Nope. It felt forced.
I also felt that the chapters dealing with Roman times would then have a chapter set in present time where they mentioned an absurd amount of technology. I don't know if this was intentional, but it really felt like the author was hamfistedly being like, “look! The Roman guy knows about technology!”. I also found the dialogue and exposition to be pretty bad.
Maybe this book just didn't hit me at the right time, but I struggled way too much with it, which is a shame because I LOVE the idea. Ah well.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review!
I really enjoyed this book. I received a free audiobook copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Listening to this on audio as opposed to reading it physically had pros and cons. First, the narrator was fantastic. I'll be hoping to listen to more from him in the future. The prose of the book combined with the first-person narration also lent itself particularly well to the audiobook format. I also think that this book was extremely light on plot, and while I was entertained the entire time, I might have had a harder time finishing if it was a physical read. However, I am awful with remembering names in audiobook format, and the names in this book are particularly gruesome to try to remember, so it took me a long time to remember who anybody but the central 2-4 characters were. That's an issue for my brain, but it's to be considered when checking out the audiobook if you have similar problems.
Regarding the actual story, I really enjoyed the main character, Maia, and his struggle to deal with the court and palace intrigue that he never thought he'd have to learn. His general goodness juxtapositions himself with the traditions of the empire, and his desire to change these traditions and his gradual understanding of how he wants to lead, is well done. I would recommend this book, but I do have to emphasize again- it really does NOT have a plot. It wraps up nicely, and there were never any spots where I was bored, but it was mostly just random meetings happening and then eventually an event would take place, and then they'd deal with the fall-out of that event. Not particularly recommended for plot-focused readers. This is a character study through and through.