jean
I gave up on this one but came back to it. All the things that annoyed me enough to give up the first time made it a little painful to get through, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I think I've just had my fill of this kind of book though... the insecure protagonist, MPDG love interest, and stylistic choices grated on me. The 'Millennial Brooklyn' element was especially noisome.
just okay i thought, after finishing it. but i'll credit it for helping me along while i cleaned.
i will say that i thought the partial frame tale device(recounting to a detective) was handled poorly; just put the detective's dialogue into the text, rather than having the narrator repeat it all back before answering in a completely insane, unnatural way.
Didn't enjoy the romance-ish part, or the way that all the woman characters seemed to compulsively drool over one other character. I also think it took too long to get going, but I made it through the audiobook without quitting, so it wasn't too bad in that respect. One other thing I disliked was the constant interruption of kid-dialogue.
The books is centered on differences between intention and reality(especially things no one can control, like happenstance), and includes a ton of remarks on subtle interactions and vocalizes a lot of thoughts that people would never actually admit to, usually. That's a large part of why it was entertaining enough to read(listen to) for me.
Kind of feels like a ‘book club book' if that makes sense. Lots of things to talk about with people that might spur discussion or sharing of similar stories, but beyond subtle racism and class, it also feels like the rest of it just isn't that deep. The rest of the main character's life feels like it didn't really matter at all, and I suspect the toddler may very well have been thrown in as a plot device that could add to the novel's word count.
Probably worth the read, but I do have reservations with presenting just being less comfortable/doing ‘hard things' as a sort of cure-all. Near the end of the book Easter says that after coming back from his trip he implicitly understood that his modern “problems” weren't really problems, but not all problems that people in developed countries go away with a little hiking or hunting. I feel like a little appreciation for this would have helped the book seem less annoying in this respect, definitely would have given more credence to all the perspective Easter couldn't stop mentioning he was gaining. An obvious example of what I mean is an example of a Special Forces soldier that does tons of hard things and exercises and is insanely fit, yet suffers from PTSD that more hiking isn't going to wash away.
I am kind of nitpicking though, because I think it introduces a lot of worthwhile ideas that almost everyone in rich countries could use today.
Quite light on content, but it does contain a decent amount of helpful information and exercises, especially if you are new to this sort of thing. I suggest following along physically when you hit the exercise explanations.
To be honest, mainly purchased (new) to support Low, as I've read a lot of his advice over years and haven't bought Overcoming Gravity yet. The other reason I went for it is that I got a standing desk and have been interested in maintaining/improving my posture.
Picked up after reading [b:Overcoming Poor Posture: A Systematic Approach to Refining Your Posture for Health and Performance 37487315 Overcoming Poor Posture A Systematic Approach to Refining Your Posture for Health and Performance Steven Low https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1513155186l/37487315.SY75.jpg 59098644], since I heard it was more thorough. I'd say either is a good read if you're interested.This book starts from the ground up and gives reasoning, tips, and pretty thorough explanations of how the Starretts think the optimal workstation should be, and their ideas of mobility standards plus some info on how to get there. Way more content here than in OPP, but i didn't find most of it necessary personally, and I think I generally like what OPP offers in terms of movement ‘prescriptions' a little better, though it obviously doesn't target how to change your workstation like this book does.Something I wish the book discussed: balance/wobble boards and ‘active' standing versus static standing or leaning. I'm personally buying a board to let me move around while standing, rather than just staying static, as well as an active stool for sitting/leaning better.I appreciated the guidelines, and the way that they give some info on ways of sitting that are better (though I don't believe they discuss ‘active sitting' either).
Probably worth a listen, but I definitely struggled through it and just finished it for the sake of finishing. I wish it had continued the way it had started with the immersion in the real experience of going through climate crises. There were some interesting concepts here and there, but mostly not much i felt i could grab on to through what started to feel like overly optimistic day dreaming.
Certainly not a bad book to read if you're interested in learning the basics of the field. If you want a perspective of how a SE should act, you'll get a lot of that. I think I realized maybe 1/3 of the way through that this wasn't really what I was looking for (I guess I just want a compendium of amazing stories), but I finished it nonetheless because a) there was an audiobook and b) I still found it interesting enough. It did feel a little formulaic to me and even repetitive at some points (and a lot of Hadnagy's illustrations felt lame for lack of a better word), but I still felt that if you were trying to break into this field it had good info.
Surprisingly engaging listen for the most part, though the story is probably quite transparent from the getgo. Also surprisingly gay on Carmilla's part, though you shouldn't be expecting any sort of romance; the narrator is absolutely naïve and pure (which of course, means she can't reciprocate–she's only ever confused by Carmilla's affection/devotion.).
I know tons of people are very into the queer horror category (it's pretty interesting); definitely give it a read/listen if that's your thing.
overall, i respect robert for writing this and putting up the whole thing + audiobook + illustrations for free. i'd recommend it if you really like the podcast BTB and robert's sense of humor. i listened to it because i was kind of tired of the other content i was listening to, and this was a welcome break. to be honest, i probbably wouldn't have read the whole thing if i'd tried to read it as it's not the sort of thing that i usually read. i give him a lot of points for making a story that had me listening straight through despite the flaws that i think are present in it.
probably the biggest detractor for me: the incredibly frequent mention and description of hyperbolic drug use was really tiresome.
the second biggest was that i felt like a lot of what was happening was on the nose/over-explained by the book itself.
on the other hand, a big positive was that (ignoring the couple of clichés and repetitions) a lot of the descriptive prose was creative and fresh to me.
not sure if this exists, but if this is really a vision of the US/NA that Robert sees happening, i'd love to hear more detail re: how he thinks it could come about exactly.
i'll probably end up checking out the sequel to know what happens to certain characters, so props there too.
i wasn't sure what i expected when i went into this, but i have to say i'm pretty disappointed.
the part of the book that centered on Elio's dad was honestly agonizing. if that were the whole thing, I might not have finished it. it was only after it became clear that we'd switched to Elio that i felt like i could go on.
there's a hell of a lot of...romantic and familial entanglement, i'll call it. tons of parallels and connections made (explicit and implicit) between Samuel and Miranda's dad, between other father-son relationships and Elio's relationships, and there's even the inexplicable fact that Samuel and Miranda's son is named for Oliver–Aciman states the obvious later through Elio (‘the child felt like ours'). i think the most frustrating aspect of these relationships that runs through the book is the ‘instant deep connection' thing.
i don't understand how this is...the sequel, and that it's serious...so much of it is cliché and amazingly overwrought and borderline nonsensical. there are parts of Aciman's prose that i still like, but there were probably even more parts that had me rolling my eyes or pausing in disgust. definitely feels like the kind of book only a previously-massively-successful author can get someone to publish.
anyway, if you adored CMBYN, you might just want to skip this one. if you want to read about manic pixie dream girls and wealthy middle-aged men that are dead inside, pick up one of the few Murakami books that fits the bill.
I mostly lost interest about halfway through, as that's around where Linux is released. There's some explanation of the way Linux really came into the market after that, but if you're just in it for the story of Linux development (and not so much Torvalds's biography) and tech-industry happenings, it might be better to look up some articles on the subjects.