beaneater

I chose the book very randomly, not knowing what to expect, and it was a pleasant surprise. The story is told to us from different points of view and the further the reader gets into the story, the more they start to realise the connections.
“Isn't that why we're here? To leave a mark on wilderness?”

Gaspery searched for the anomaly until time itself led him to it. Even though he knew where his path led, he still followed the trail of events. Events that he knew were inevitable anyway.
“The traveler's presence itself is a distruption.”

The reader wonders at one point, if we were in his shoes, would we have done anything differently? But by the time we see that the anomaly is already repeating itself, we would have to realize that it's too late to do anything differently anyway.
“I'd do it again, I wouldn't even hesitate”

“So we's the same. Just a different color.”

Geez, I had trouble finish this book. I think it's a brave move to write about racism from a priviliged side of story. Judging from the experiences that the author has first hand, I'd say that the story is pretty even accurate one even though this is supposed to be a fiction. Being POC myself I could relate to the hate you get because of the different color of your skin. It makes my blood boil just to read about it.

As a non-native english speaker I had quite hard time reading Aibeleen's point of views as they were written in a accent. But I loved her personality, how much she actually cared and all the bad things happened to her she wasn't vengeful towards anyone - always so calm, waiting for the moment she strikes back but she never did. She just went with her life like “it is what it is” and move to another chapter. I think that's what makes the book so good and so real for this.

The bittersweet ending.

It felt a little surreal (and now pretty ironic) to read about rating on Goodreads, tweets, instagraming etc. and then here I am sitting and writting my thoughts on this book.

To be honest I feel a little puzzled as I don't really know what to expect from this book and not quite sure if I should rate it 3 or 4 stars. The plot itself was very interesting and as many has already mentioned - the first half of the book got me hooked and couldn't geet away from it. The second half though... it felt kinda repetetive in a while and it really didn't bring anything new to the plot in my opinion. Of course June was exposed in the end but she still somehow made it look like an accident like Athena's unfortunate death. I guess once you are drowning in a huge lie you cannot simply swim out of it.

I obviously know nothing about publishing a book but in today's society I can see that being somewhat diverse sells good and could bring you better benefits and you can even lie about it.

I was very excited to finally read this book but it left me somehow unsatisfied. The dystopian world of Gilead does sound complex, atrocious and also interesting. However the story of how the world became the way it is felt incomplete and we didn't really get much details of how it works or why it was okay for everyone to live in the system of Gilead.

I found the narrative a little bit erratic, the main protagonist kept jumping from one memory in the past back to the present and it was very confusing at times. We know much more details about the main protagonists past before Gilead than the Gilead world itself which I think is a bit of shame and the potential of this story could be great but it is missed out. Also, what was wrong with the dialogue commas? I really couldn't tell if the characters are talking to each other or if the sentences are in the head of our protagonist.

But I appreciate that the author choose kind of “open” ending for the readers and let us ask the questions if she really did get out of the Gilead or was she killed or worse... was she caught?

“Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of life.”

Wow. Reading this book was like reading an art, a masterpiece. It was my first time reading Murakami and I get why are there people who hate his work and people who absolutely love his work. And I'm one of the people who absolutely freaking loved it. The writing style is so beautiful it makes my soul happy. Reading it was like listening to a beautiful sad song that makes you nostalgic and you cry not because of sadness but because of how beautiful it is.
I must wonder what the hell happened to Storm Trooper to disappear like that. Naoko also disappeared very unexpectedly. Her death was honestly a shock to me, I couldn't continue reading. I felt the same devastated emotions like Watanabe did and was happy that he didn't allow the darkness to swallow him like it did to Kizuki or Naoko. When he chooses Midori over Naoko, he basically chose to live and move on rather then be part of death.
Some of the description of the women that Watanabe met might sound weird or even controversial. But it is from a adolescent man's point of view in the end.

“Godspeed, little taters. My life depends on you.”

Oh my, easily five stars. I was little bit sceptical about the humor that it would be too much and it will end up lame. But in a very long, long, loooong time the book actually made me laugh. And it was this amazing book! Matt Damon as a Mark Watney is just such an excellent choice.

Just from the first sentence I was immediatelly hooked. I already knew how it would end but I needed the details that didn't get to the movie adaptation. And honestly, being in Mark's head through his unfortunate adventures on Mars was so much fun. The way this character was written is simply amazing, the reactions in some situations were pretty realistic, funny and on point.

“Yeah, that's right, Mars, I'm gonna piss and shit on you.”

It was natural to assume that BNW would be as much to my liking as the notorious classic 1984. Mr. Huxley did build a very interesting idea of an anti-utopian world that might not be that far from the one we have today, but somehow his ideas didn't fully transcribe to paper.
If I were to rate the work purely from a philosophical point of view, I would certainly have to give it one star more.

“But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art.”

This was a very slow burn read. It was as slow as it could get, and you might think it would bore you to death! Well, what luck that Ishiguro wrote it. He could literally write a thousand pages about one unimportant event, and I would still read it because of how grippingly he writes.
You might think that all the details seemed unnecessary for the plot or character development, but after the big secret is revealed at the end, you'll understand what it was really about, and those unimportant events will suddenly feel very important.
I loved how the author teased you about the secret, like ‘you'll know it in the right time,' and always revealed just enough to keep you reading.

As a sci-fi fan, I found the sci-fi elements in this book to be very subtle—really just a dash of it. It could also be a good starting point for readers who want to get more into this genre.

I'm not into short story collections in general, but this was a good read. One can take a break from more challenging reading with books like this, or by "killing time" when you're waiting for the fifth one in the office.

Of the collection, I liked Quitters, Inc. and The Ledge the best, they seemed the closest to reality of all the stories. I'd have to say the Battlefield was the most boring. So far so good for a first King story, next time I'll tackle the author's more familiar work.