David Portnov

The Creative Gene is a translation/compilation of essays by Hideo Kojima on his relationship with specific pieces of media and media that he enjoyed at specific times in his life. I found a lot of the essays to be pretty inspiring and they really help the reader get to know Kojima as a person. It's probably his most personal writing to date. If you're at all interested in what makes Kojima's brain tick or who he is as a person, this is the book for you. If you don't know who Hideo Kojima is, then you will by the end of the book.

A novel I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did.

Halo: Bad Blood was a pleasant surprise. I had originally intended to read it alongside Halo: Shadow of Intent, but that didn't quite pan out. Bad Blood turned out to be the novel I enjoyed more. Matt Forebeck's excellent dialog and character writing made the book for me. I wanted to see what happened to Alpha-Nine at every step along the way. The plot wasn't hugely impactful to Halo lore, but it was a fun story I don't regret experiencing.

I wasn't getting anything particularly interesting out of this book. I lost interest in it in general.

I wasn't interested enough to see where they story would go.

I listened to this book all at once in one day, only pausing briefly when I needed to focus on something. This is a deeply personal dive into everything you would want to know about Josh Peck. Does he talk about Drake & Josh? So briefly that it might as well not have been in the book. Does he talk about his relationship with Drake Bell? Not at all. This book is about Josh Peck, the person, navigating his life up through 2021 and all of the baggage he's had to deal with in life. It's all delivered in a way that feels like he's talking directly to the reader who asked him to tell his life story. It's the opposite of embellished. There are a lot of ups and downs. It's worth a read, but it's also definitely worth a listen. Josh does his own audiobook, which is great.