Bamy
This is the first and only book I've read on writing, so that should be taken into context of my rating and review.
5 stars since it's helped me get a firm understanding on how I would tackle writing a novel and that's what I wanted to get out of it. It's very short and is packed with useful information for someone who hasn't had writing experience since high school. One of the most useful things for me was the basic framework to use when writing to avoid making costly mistakes. I found every part of this book really interesting and there was always something to take away.
Contains a sea of interesting information. Each chapter is written by a different person. The chapter concludes with Barb Cook summarising or expanding on what was said. I really like this format. It allows for a wealth of knowledge in different areas.
There was a very misinformed statement about consensual non-consent at one point.
The authors have a solid command of the English language and show it throughout the entire book.
This type of heavily abstract and poetry like writing made it difficult for me to get into at first; I may have spent 10 minutes on a single page at some point. By the end I felt like my mind was was being weaved through time, place, space and emotion.
Weirdest review/rating I've had a for a book before.
This book was amazing for me, it helped me understand parts of my experience which has reshaped the way I see things and behave.
Having said that this book is definitely not for everyone and there were some chapters I didn't care for and trudged through.
So while I disagreed with and found portions of the book boring, it has still affected me significantly, so 5 stars.
I liked it!
I found it difficult to follow the first 15% of the book and only really got into it at about 25% which is pretty far compared to what I'm used to. I'm sure it was intentional but I was doubting my understanding and comprehension initially. This made it feel like I was forcefully trudging through until a point I would hopefully understand.
Once I got into it the book kept on getting more interesting and exciting as it progressed.
I enjoyed the way the book played with concept of self, culture and gender concepts.
While reading this it felt like the author had decided on an ending to the series after the second book and then tried to make everything that previously happened work in the context of the new direction.
The story felt forced and the character development of Lyra felt like it come from an unintentionally sexist place. The story was going from point to point and the reasoning for the story progressing that way wasn't strong enough for me.
2.5 stars.
I feel it's written in a boring way, I didn't care about any of the characters and I didn't learn anything about them aside from them being generic archetypes. While it could be argued that the blatant racism in the book was a way to subvert the ideas of British racial superiority that was prevalent when the book was published, there are still many undertones of racism.
Perhaps the concept of the book was original in the 50s? The book got slightly more interesting near the end.
Exactly what I was looking for from this book; A lot of focus on determinism, quantum mechanics and the way poetic naturalism views everything. I've always had some kind of cognitive dissonance based on how we should morally behave in a deterministic world, this book helped clear up that mental conflict.
Some scientific aspects of the book went slightly over my head. If I didn't understand something I just continued and tried my best. I did do research into concepts outside the book to help me understand things properly, I was genuinely interested in them though, so it didn't feel like work.
I'm sure I can get as much value out of it the second time I read it.
