Val

The basic idea is very interesting, but it could have been developed in countless other better ways. I found the characters unrelatable because they keep flip flopping between extremes over and over again, which I guess is a way to explore the concept of “nobody is ever completely good or evil”, but I found no nuance to it. There are a lot of story lines, and a lot of them are not fleshed out enough for me to care about. I found Margo's TikTok scripts super cringe, not for the content itself but for the writing style, and I found it hard to believe that they would have ever granted virality or even fame. There's an explanation given as to why the point of view keeps changing between first and third person, but I found it unnecessary and annoying none the less. There are also paragraphs that break the fourth wall and speak directly to the reader, but again I found them unnecessary and randomly placed.
I read that this book is going to be picked as a limited series and it might work way better as such, but I would definitely not recommend this book in the meanwhile.

I understand the reasoning for the two different timelines in the narration, but I would have preferred a full focus on Tonya's one and more historical details.

The last third and especially the rushed ending are the things that stop me from giving 5 stars.
Overall, great plot (especially if you read David Copperfield), great writing style, great social commentary. Definitely recommended.

Not usually one for celebrity's memoirs, but found the free audiobook on YouTube after rewatching Friends and got curious. It could have done with a lot of editing, as there are a lot of flashbacks and flashforwards which I found confusing and repetitive. However, I found this gut wrenching story able to create empathy towards people that suffers from addictions.

Not my genre, found it in a BnB while on vacation and finished it. Easy read, especially if you want to take your mind off of things or you need to occupy your time

Interesting story and overall metaphor, beautifully written sentences here and there, but generally overbloated and full of repetitions. Could have easily done with at least 200 pages less.

While it is overall an enjoyable story, with interesting aspects about how war can affect different people in different ways, it was not a super enjoyable book to read.
I found the subplot about the Sea of Flames completely unnecessary, as well as the final part after the end of the siege.
While the prose is very poetic, there are also a lot of repetitions and at times it was hard to pick up the book as the pace of the events was overly slow.

The topic is very interesting and the book highlights meaningful connections between historical events, making it easy to understand the big picture and the overall context.
However, the author's opinion comes through quite strongly, in what it seems in more than one instance a defense of the empire and the potential inevitability of more empires in the future.
It also glosses over the empire territories in the far east compared to the rest, and it feels like the first part of the book is more thought out compared to the rest.

Few of the stories were quite interesting (Lulu, Land of Big Numbers, Gubeikou Spirit) but the rest ended abruptly, and it felt like an style which I could not really understand or get myself to like.

È una storia molto interessante, e si può facilmente mettersi nei panni di Nahid. Purtroppo però lo stile oscilla tra la superficialità sui dettagli della vecchia vita e la pesantezza dei pensieri di Nahid che la rendono quasi un personaggio sgradevole.

A lot better than the tv series (which I started twice and didn't manage to finish), with a lot more warmth and humanity instead of the wild drama.
It's a good charachter development, at times, I felt there were either points that felt like repetitions, and others where the narration felt a bit rushed.
Overall, recommended.

The book is well written and the theories presented are very interesting, however, the connections between them at times seem a bit far-fatched.

Nice food for thoughts, with some good nuggets of inspiration and a very readable style, but also quite shallow and too spread out in terms of covered topics.