Mer Barr
- I'm not a fan of short books. I like the middle of the road sized, where there's some room to build out a storyline and characters.
- It's about stories of the region and as I'm not a native I'm confused as to whether the stories' characters are based on reality or made up [for some reason this is important to me, don't yet know why] and lost track of who was who and who was with who. I prefer not to get lost in the telling of a story.
- I had a hard time becoming attached to the stories or the characters both the book's and the stories'. See 2.
Downright gruesome, don't eat while listening! As usual for Michael Crichton's books, this is chock full of science facts weaved in with something sinister.
Due to the number of scientists involved, the story gets bogged down at the start, when each is being introduced along with their area of expertise. The storyline bogs down every now and again for the authors to dive into something going on at that moment. Thankfully it's usually short-lived and movement picks back up again.
The plot moves along, not any side tracking or focusing on subjects that don't contribute to the story or bog the movement down.
It has characters that seem interesting, including some of the spirits that share the world with humans.
And the author does a great job of providing information to show the perspective has changed from one character to another; either by calling out the new character's name or starting a new chapter.
Sadly I'm not finding the author's books funny anymore. :(
As I've found with the other books I've read recently, the switching back and forth without any visual or audible notice is really making it difficult to figure out which storyline I'm in at any given moment, which creates more frustration and no joy in the humor.
Growing up I knew just the name of 3 cultures from Central and/or South America, and that was it. Where they had lived and when, and details about them either didn't exist or I've forgotten them. This book does a great job of drilling into 1 of them, especially focusing on native sources.
It can get a bit overwhelming and drawn out but hang in there to the Epilogue and Appendix where the author goes into detail on the discovery of the sources of her information and how they relate to her story.
Her opening paragraph is up there with [book:The Gunslinger|43615]'s opening sentence on imagination- and attention- capture.
I'm not sure what the subject of this book is. If the issue was with President Trump's failure to do a proper handoff from President Obama, the author did a great job expressing this several time with alot of exposition. Was this lack of understanding of how to run a country supposed to have had some recommendations? Or other examples than just the start of his presidency? It lacks all of that.
If this was to give folks a sample of the Sammies, the author did an excellent job of picking some great examples and providing plenty of detail.
And I have no idea what the connection between the lack of handoff and the title of the book is.
This is a HUGE book so big I did a renewal of my library loan and still didn't finish it.
What I was able to learn about was how his childhood was a major impact on how he approached his personal and professional life. And to see how he was almost 2 separate men, with different outlooks on life for each of these.
It's amazing to learn just how much of what he created is and isn't still around.
The author [and narrator] does a great job of keeping this beast of a book lively and interesting. The story is pretty much linear but there are some overlaps due to the subject and number of others involved in Rockefeller's life.
Interesting perspective on the beginnings of World War 2 and then I ran out of time before I had to return the book. In the first couple chapters there are disconnects in the storyline. For example, at one point the author is talking about something going on when she was a small child and then immediately jumps to her father's youth. I didn't see the connection, or I missed it, if there was one.
Insightful, sometimes the writing is a bit unusual and I'm not sure why. If it was directly quoted from a journal it would make sense but the entire book is more of a look-back to his experiences at the time. I was listening to the audio so maybe there is a visual clue in visual text form that would explain this.The author's view of this war reminds me alot of Mick Herron and John le Carré's portrayals of the ‘Cold' war. More realistic and not so glamorous as ‘Cubby' Broccoli's interpretation of Ian Fleming's stories. I've not read the latter recently so not sure if Mr. Broccoli's movies are true to the portrayal of the war as the author's books or not.And I think this book is a great companion to The Ten Thousand Day War, Michael Maclear's macro view, and a similar micro / personal viewpoint to Vietnam Voices: Perspectives On the War Years, 1941-1982, John Clark Pratt.
I think this is the earliest confident, intelligent female who's comfortable with her body that I've come across.
Images are easy to understand due to simple coloring and the text is pretty tiny [thank goodness for 2-finger zoom]. Although there's not a visual clue that you're looking at the next issue in the series, the fact that people come and go, do.
I wonder if the artists for the movie Heavy Metal got their female body shape from Barbarella? Maybe the creators of Barbie, the doll, did too?
I spent a good part of this book scratching my head. First I'm not sure where the story is going, then when I think I'm following it all goes wonky and stays that way for quite some time before making any sense again. But well worth the read.
I found several common themes; 1 to a recent movie and several to The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke. The audio had a male and female narrator as the perspective switched, which helped reduce confusion due to the change, the story did move along [even when confusing], and many kickstarts to a new twist just when you thought the book was about to end, which was nice.
It's been awhile since I read a good hard-science sci-fi.
This one is only really fun if you're already familiar with the author and his prior lifestyle, know a fair amount of British slang, and can handle cursing.
I will say his responses are well thought out and he uses personal antidotes and research to back up his replies. He does a nice job of breaking themes into chapters and intersperses various types of factoids through-out so it's not just 1 ask-reply after another.
This makes me want to read Sharon Osbourne's memoir. How did she get through his wild days?
Didn't get moving really until mid-way thru and I'm seriously confused about which characters are which? There are several I have no memory of even those I've read all the previous books. It'd be nice if she had a prologue giving a summary of people and goings-on from the prior chapters/novellas in every novella.
Rather than reading all prior books multiple times, I'm going to way for the next 2-3 novellas to come out, which is years down the road.
This might have been one of the first books I was introduced to, when I was introduced to science-fiction and fantasy in junior high school. I read both the first and second Chronicles and remember mentally throw yellow and later red cards [rugby and soccer penalties] at the main character.
Had Goodreads been around at the time I would have rated all the books 1-star, which is why it's taken me decades to circle back to this. The weird thing is I still have both sets in my physical library collection and have been dragging them from home-to-home this entire time.
As an adult with more setbacks and dark days under my belt, I now understand the majority of the characters' motivations and reasons and therefore found this book much more enjoyable; no card displaying, let alone throwing them, at a character. I'm confident I'll read at least the next in the series, just not sure when.