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Read this on a recommendation from a friend. What a terrible book. No doubt the Chicken Soup for the Soul crowd found it profound (OMG thoughts about God and stuff, are like, craaazy!), but I thought the premise of the book was wasted by not asking any difficult questions. It was trite, over-cute, and a painful facial-tick-inducing slog for anyone who has ever had even a 101 level brush with physics, philosophy or theology.
The Polybius urban legend is such a rich topic for a fiction story. Unfortunately, this is not the one. I really had to slog through it instead of DNFing, and only becuase I'm a fan of the Polybius legend and was hoping for something that would make it worth finishing.
The book is handled very clumsily in every regard. Except for the cover art, which slaps. The story itself feels more like a low-effort YA title than a book for adults.
The plot is tired, the characters are shallow, and the writing is mediocre to amateurish. I found myself reading passages more than once in order to understand the action becuase the writing was so mechanically clunky in places. The author even seems aware of this, and not infrequently resorts to unsatisfying, heavy handed exposition, as if they just can't figure out how to show you what's happening instead of telling you.
The characters seem to have little to no emotion, they haplessly make non-sensical decisions, the dialogue is flat, the setting is two-dimensional, and there are pages and pages of random happenings that add little to the story or characters.
The comparisons to Stranger Things and Stephen King are marketing hyperbole. This book is trying to imitate such works, but falls far short of standing next to them.
This is a book about emotional, psychological and physical abuse in an intimate relationship, but it's NOT AT ALL trauma informed and demonstrates NO understanding of the underlying mechanics of abuse. Honestly, don't read this if you a survivor, as it's deeply problematic. In fact, just don't read it. If you want to understand a portrait of intimate abuse, especially in heterosexual relationships, read “Why Does He Do That?” by Lundy Bancroft. This book is so clueless that it's toxic.
I really want to stress that the implied messages in the book are incorrect and irresponsible to the point of being harmful.
No disrespect to the author, and writers can certainly write whatever they want as a work of fiction, but I'm shocked that Greer felt at all qualified to take on a topic with such deep and far-reaching cultural and societal implications while having no idea whatsoever what they were talking about.
Have you ever read a book that seemed engaging and interesting until a romance came along and totally derailed all the plot action with a bunch of cringy, inane, interpersonal drama? Yeah, this was that book for me.
Caveat: I don't like romance fiction. I have a pile of reasons, but at the end of the day it's just not to my taste. I think that when “romance” is centered in a story it bogs down everything else that's trying to happen in story. The viewpoint becomes very internal and overly focused on characters languishing in their own feelings and perspective to the exclusion of everything else. I also find that the typical way that authors create tension and conflict in a story that centers a romance is to make that relationship toxic and rife with pettiness and bad communication. In general, I think romance as a genre is a lazy way out of telling a more nuanced and mature story. Dysfunctional relationship angst makes a hell of a filler.
So while I'm a fan of fantasy, romance fantasy is very much not for me. I didn't realize this book was a romance when I picked it up as an Amazon First Reads title. That's on me.
That said, while I think Charlie Holmberg's storytelling has potential, I can't bring myself to read any more of her work, knowing now that all she writes is romance.
I kind of hate to give this book two stars because I wanted to like it, but what I liked about it didn't have room to develop because the book ended so abruptly. It almost seemed like I had somehow missed something, but no, it just wraps itself up suddenly with a few vague hand waves and that's it.
Shame, because the rest of the book seemed like a slow burn, building up an increasingly upsetting and unsatisfying world in which the main characters are quietly, desperately drowning. And just when you think the curtain is about to be pulled back on some sinister truth and we're really about to get cooking, it's like the book just kind of gives up on itself.
A hum shows up and essentially pats all the humans on the head and says “there, there” and the humans breathe a sigh of relief and then the book is over. I wish that were just an oversimplification I was making because I didn't like the book, but it's not. I did like the book, and that's a fairly accurate summary of the ending. I don't even know what to think.
I think the author intended this book to be edgy and provocative. What it is instead is repugnant.
Ugly, disgusting, and repulsive in every way, it's not a book that will cleverly make you uncomfortable in order to open a discourse on taboo topics. It just a book that wallows in its own filth. It feels like your hands should come away from the pages greasy and raw.
Let me explain. I'm not afraid of books that are dark and that examine the uglier sides of humanity. What I am opposed to is suffering, hatred, violence and self-loathing offered up as voyeuristic entertainment with no greater purpose and nothing to say.
This book is absolutely jammed with humiliation and denigration of women. It's drowning in violence toward and by women. Is it there to examine these topics, start a discussion, or raise awareness? Nope it's just sitting there like a buffet of human flesh for the reader to choke on, or maybe get off to, which is even more upsetting. The book feels like a fantasy piece written for serial killers who chop up women and do depraved things with the pieces.
For example, the main character is a self-mutilator and alcoholic consumed by trauma and self-loathing who numbly offers herself up for use and abuse by anyone and everyone. Is there a journey toward healing and an exploration of metal illness as a serious topic? No. She's just a victim, nothing more than a blow-up doll designed for violation. Seriously, she's actually confused as to whether or not the gang rape of an intoxicated, underaged girl even counts as violence. She is no less confused by the end of the book.
Then there are the other women in the book, all of whom are awful. They're petty, cruel, manipulative gossips who delight in abusing each other and aspire to be nothing more than catty, superficial mean girls or virtue signaling baby machines.
The men are also uncommonly awful. This book has the most superficially written men I've ever seen, which is something I never even thought I would say. The main male characters exist in a strange trinity of a father, a lover/abuser, and a lover/son.
There are two father figures, one well meaning, but powerless and physically distant, and the other cold, callous, powerless, and emotionally distant.
There are also two lovers, one powerful, but abusive, inappropriate, manipulative, and a classic gaslighter. Tho other is weak, juvenile, and emotionally needy, and seems to only exist for the female characters to humiliate and abuse, both emotionally and sexually.
As if all of that weren't enough, none of these repugnant and pitiful characters sees any development. No one grows, no one learns anything, no one heals, none of their problems are solved, and nothing is taken away for later reflection.
Now I've encountered some turds in my time. Books that were bad because they were poorly written, or the plot was clunky, or because the subject matter was trivial and shallow. This book is bad because it's about awful people doing abhorrent things, for no good reason, and to no literary end.
This a not a book about mental illness and humanity's darkness that leaves you with something thoughtfully provocative to chew on. This book is to those books as a snuff film is to a murder mystery.
Please don't read this book. It's ugly mind poison that swallows itself only to sick itself back up and repeat ad nauseum.
This review reveals the premise of the story, but no plot points or details. Save it until after if you want to discover the premise on your own.
What's scarier than zombies? Maybe demonic, hive-mind, thinking, speaking, fast zombies...or maybe something even worse than that...?
This story focuses on what seems like a zombie(?) outbreak at what I believe the best part of a zombie story is: the beginning. When our protagonists have just started to notice that something is off...when all the possibilities and all the questions about the nature of the unfolding terror are still on the table.
We take a whirlwind journey with the protagonist as he and those he meets along the way try to make sense of what's happening and how to escape and survive. The Changed or Infected run rampant, making the most of their murderous new reign. Meanwhile, the survivors attempt to stick to the familiarity of the circuitous, pre-determined paths of their normal lives, their minds floundering in the gap between routine and reality, sometimes with deadly consequences. All aboard! Stand clear of closing doors!
In a modern world where we have stopped asking the right questions about even the most bizarre, insane goings-on, while clinging blindly to familiar the ruts we've worn in our own lives, survival is a matter of breaking free and waking up. Maybe there is no zombie outbreak, after all. Maybe we were already the zombies...
A fun, short story that's creepy, horrifying, and very unsettling. A treat for fans of the zombie genre and a thought-provoking look at the undeadness of the rat race, the fragility of civilization, and what we take for granted.
I have two criticisms:
There a quite a few formatting errors in this book. It is self-published, and would benefit from tighter editing. I'd love to see the Kindle version updated with corrections.
I don't think it quite stuck the landing. It came abruptly to a perfunctory-seeming conclusion, and the action of the last few scenes felt jumbled. I think a more uncertain ending would actually have been more satisfying, maybe one in which we leave our protagonist standing on the edge between two choices. Or perhaps one where we get just a snippet of the immediate aftermath of his choice, but his fate is still unknown. I don't think the story needed a certain end. I would even have enjoyed it if it ended a few scenes before the conclusion.
If this short story were expanded into a novel, I would read it. Thanks to the author for this spooky addition to my Halloween season reading!
A decent book for those looking for an introduction to trauma and the brain. It does a good job of normalizing and depersonalizing trauma response as a part of the human condition. It presents the neuroscience of trauma in a simple and relatable way and gives readers actionable suggestions.
I liked the addition of a Buddhist perspective, but would have liked more direction to Buddhist resources. After all, sangha is part of healing, and a secular take on Buddhist psychology lacks much of the deeper wisdom and long-lasting change that Buddhist practice can provide.
Overall, it's a decent book for those who are fairly new to the concepts or those who have never sought professional mental health support. So, why only three stars?
First, while I have no issue with the book's casual tone, or even the profanity (although, if every other word is an F-bomb, it really loses all meaning and emphasis), it's with the lazy grammar and usage. Someone with a PhD writing a work of non-fiction should know how to use ‘literally' correctly and that it's ‘strength' not ‘strongness'. Seriously, where was the editor?
The other thing that bothered me applies only to the audiobook edition. Unfuck Your Brain is hands-down the worst audiobook I have ever heard. It sounds like it was recorded at max gain on a phone in a closet and then edited by the neighbor kid. The noise floor is ear-ringingly high, the sound quality is poor and the editing is a hot mess. You can hear doubled up words where the reading was spliced and even hear someone else speaking in the background and giving cues. At some points it sounds like a family member walks in and starts casually speaking. It's also read by the author and, well... let's just say that it makes a clear case for knowing when to diy and when to bring in a professional.
This book may be for you if you're looking for a simple intro to the brain science of trauma related in a very casual, irreverent way. If that's not you, you can safely skip this title and spend your time better elsewhere. Whatever you do though, don't listen to the audiobook.
Enjoyable content in a similar spirit to Radical Acceptance, but I found it a bit trite and long-winded in places. I listened to this in audiobook format and I didn't care for the reader much so that probably had something to do with it. Decent, but there are more useful, succinct titles along the same vein.
Meh. This book might have interested me if I had never once contemplated such a topic or wondered about my own actions or been exposed to philosophy.
I agree with another reviewer that the definition of ‘free will' as used here might be up for debate but the rest, while a decent argument, was pretty uninteresting to me.
These are ideas explored more fully and elegantly in Buddhism as karma (action and cause) and anatta (not-self), or even in recent secular writings from a scientific viewpoint such as in David Eagleman's “Incognito”. This is philosophy 101 type stuff and I guess I was just expecting meatier fare.
This book is interesting not so much for how it's written, or the information is contains, but for the ideas it offers and the questions it poses. Eagleman shows us how, in the same way cosmology dethroned the earth from the center of the universe to a tiny speck on the edge of an incomprehensibly large cosmos, neuroscience is shifting consciousness from the ringleader of the brain to an awestruck audience member, capable perhaps of contemplating everything from the thousands of hours of rehearsal to the shape of the tent stakes, but unable to control any of it.
This book is for anyone interested in the brain, the mind, behavior, society, art, religion, meditation, biology, philosophy, perception or any other topic relevant to reality or the human experience. Don't expect these pages to contain neat answers or a manifesto of the mind, rather come prepared for musings and questions, and be willing to bring your own as well.
I loved Ready Player One when it burst onto the scene. As an 80's baby and a huge nerd, I was hard-pressed not to like it.
Upon deciding to read the follow-up, now some 11-ish years later, I was warned away. I believe the warning was something like, “it takes everything from the first book and throws it away.” Well, then. Challenge accepted.
Okay, so this book is polarizing, and I get why. If you place it into an arc with Ready Player One, Ready Player Two is very much a second-act book, replete with second-act setbacks. This is a book for fans of the Empire Strikes Back, if you know what I mean. If watching a whiny, entitled moisture-farmer who thinks he's a shit-hot Jedi get knocked down several pegs is a good time to you, there's plenty to like in Ready Player Two.
The hope and youthful enthusiasm of Ready Player One is replaced with cynical impotence, apathy, and self-loathing. Having won the chocolate factory, our protagonist Wade is now living out what he thought was his dream, but we find that he's now less Charlie than he is Bezos. Less Luke than he is Musk. Wade is THE MAN now, and the Oasis, now his Oasis is more of in industry-gobbling monolith than ever. Be honest with yourself. You knew this was coming.
The world still sucks big time, but instead of being able to rage against the machine, our hero is now doing the denial tap-dance to avoid examining how he is very much part of the problem. Obscenely rich, paranoid, isolated, depressed, and mind-numbingly out of touch, Wade finds that he's not as happy as he thought he would be and that he's still a painfully insecure kid who is not great at relationships.
They say to never meet your heroes and if you encounter the Buddha kill him. This book kills the Buddhas and the heroes turn out to be disappointingly human irl. There will be humbling. There will be failure. There will be the dolorous peal of bells that cannot be un-rung.
If you're precious about your protagonists, this book is not for you. This a book for those who like to watch the knight get knocked off his white horse just to see how he gets back up and what he learns in the fall.
What's interesting about Hamlet is not the plot, full of requisite intrigue and betrayal. It's Hamlet himself. Hamlet wears his humanity on his sleeve in the form of doubt and anxiety. He spends his time in anguish. Second-guessing, re-hashing, whining, cursing his lot, weeping, brooding...Hamlet can do all of this before breakfast. He is the quintessential suffering schmuck. He cuts a swath of suffering through his life, all the while bemoaning cruel fate. He never questions whether he can get off the train, take a different path. Like forgive his uncle, tell his dad's ghost to eff-off, or just leave his crazy family to their own devices. None of this occurs to Hamlet. Neither does it dawn on him that he is not a victim, but a perpetrator. The thing is, we're all like Hamlet sometimes, running around with our hair on fire, knocking people over, screaming, “OMG! I'm suffering! What do I do?” Hamlet reminds us that when we do that, we all look like schmucks.
I read this book after watching the show and I have to say that the book suffers greatly for comparison to its on-screen counterpart.
There are some interesting ideas in Ruff's novel but they feel half finished and not fully formed. There are some interesting characters but they feel out of focus and distant. It feels more like a first draft than a finished novel. The storytelling is terribly dry and distant, almost disinterested in itself. Only parts of Hippolyta's arc have any color to them. The rest of the book feels like it's narrated in sepia tones.
The show takes the seeds in the book and brings them fully to life. The soft-focus characters are made vital and immediate, with fully developed inner lives and powerful emotions. The half-formed plot is galvanized into sharp relief with high stakes and gripping dramatic tension. The series makes many changes to the story, and I personally think all of them are for the better. The show is much more interesting, vibrant and well-conceived than the book, and not just because of the visual medium.
If I read the book on its own I would find it forgettable. Having read it after seeing the show is a real disappointment.
I wanted to like this book more. I was open to liking it when I started it. But I found it dragging on the further I got into it.
The writing style is heavily King-influenced, but wielded with less skill, nuance, and color. Great artists steal and all that, but best to do it one's own voice, I think.
The gender-stereotypes that constrict the plot are hackneyed and tired. I didn't care about the characters complaining about them because I found the characters hard to empathize with. A bunch of well-off, busybody white ladies who are oh-so bored with their suburban lives and listening to their idiotic husbands, but do it anyway with long-suffering sighs? Mind also, it's not just where these characters start out but where they stay in large part. Character growth is minimal and not very internalized.
Then there's a totally uneccessary years-long break in the action that only serves to bog the story down. It's supposed to be a second-act setback, but it seems like it sets the story all the way back to the first act, killing both the momentum and the main character's progress.
Finally, there's the way this book attempts to inject some awareness of race without actually facing toward racism and taking a look. These Southern white ladies are apparently far too polite for that. There is one Black character but she's not given anything more interesting to do than be a victim, a maid, and a quasi-magical Negro. In the final act of the story, she does all the hard work for the white women, literally cleans up after them, and then thanks them for their actions which are too little, too late. Woof.
All in all, I found this book disappointing and a bit tedious.