Emma Goto

Abandoned at 35%. Went through from Warren's childhood through to his life in the early 1970s. This is a huge 800+ page book and unfortunately I'm not that interested in finance or Warren Buffet to want to read all of it.

Buffett gave the author the go-ahead to be brutally honest and it shows. The early pages don't paint a very flattering picture of him. He comes across like a manchild (if I'm being honest). He's very picky with his food, to the point where when he stays out of town at a friend's mum's place (and this is when he's an adult by the way) she cooks him hamburgers for breakfast (!) His wife was doing an amazing job of basically propping him up and allowing him to do the one thing he was good at. This singular focus on money though meant he wasn't really paying enough attention to his wife and kids.

Although he's super money-oriented he's also very concerned about what other people think of him and possibly some loyalty comes into play too. So he's not a complete dick to other people in his pursuit of money. e.g. he wouldn't fire an entire factory worth of people just to make a couple extra bucks. He also did (maybe grudgingly) let his wife spend some of his money, so he wasn't a completely stingy guy either.

Of course since I only got a third of the way in (and there are 40 more years of his life covered in the book, I'm assuming he did grow as a person and a lot more good points happened further on. e.g. he did force his town's country club to start allowing Jewish members.

I made it through 230/480 pages before I had to give up. Too dense and not very fun to read! All I knew about Wells was that he had written War of the Worlds so it was interesting to learn he was pretty progressive for his time, super influential and wrote a big wide range of stuff.

DNF - the book talks about using your time wisely, and I don't think reading this book is worth it. Very shallow anecdotes and examples. Maybe worth reading if you have a problem saying “no” to things and really need a kick up the butt.

DNF this one. Too many cliches and the plot twist is fairly obvious.

Kinda boring so DNF at 50%.

DNF at 50% - can't put my finger on it but the writing style was just not good. Too confusing, maybe?

DNF @ 50%

Very quirky, hitchhikers guide-esque book about a guy taking over his uncle's company and trying to become a super villain. Not really vibing with it, too quirky for me.

Abandoned 30% in - I think I was about 10 years too late with this book. It was filled with a lot of ways employers could “nudge” their employees, but I was more interested in how I could nudge myself and so the book didn't really grip me.

Thought I'd try pick this up cos I vaguely remember Anne McCraffrey did a bunch of dragon fantasy books and this one's a scifi, but I DNF pretty early on - kinda like slave girl meets alien boy? But very cringe. Was written in the 90s and I feel like it shows.

DNF at 40%. The book goes for a very feminist, anti-men vibe (there are still good male characters though) and centres around some women who come into their powers at middle age. However it felt a bit too cringey for me to enjoy.

Abandoned at 50%. The author is a tad too arrogant for my liking and his constant referring to people as “he” tipped me over the edge. I tried to push through but the content wasn't really hooking me either.

E.g. in a scenario where you're asked to imagine buying a new car - “People will think, Hey, he has a great car”. No they wont!!

Or “the ultimate test of whether you like an author is if you've reread him” - what about the women??

He also liked to diss people in certain professions “we humans have the largest cortex, followed by bank executives, dolphins, and our cousins the apes” which I get he's trying to be funny but it's really not.

Another notable “yikes” moment was when he said that attending social events is worth it for the networking and the ideas you'll get, but “if you are autistic, send one of your associates to these events” (I guess people with autism can't network?)

DNF at 30%. This book has won awards and the author sadly recently passed away so I thought I'd finally give it a crack. It's historical fiction about Thomas Cromwell (dude that was around the time of the infamous Henry the Eighth). Unfortunately with the writing style and the lack of background it was really hard to follow. Maybe if you are more familiar with the time period it will be easier..

DNF at 50%. Basically this girl is leading on / getting involved with 3 different men (well, as much as you can get “involved” when you are in the 19th century lol). It's kind of annoying since she doesn't come across as a very good person, and wasn't too fun to read either so I had to give up on it!

Giving this a one star since I gave up 150 pages in.

The author introduces a lot of characters' POVs very quickly and it felt a bit all over the place. The multiple sex scenes were just cringy to read too. The sci-fi concepts itself were cool but once the author started a sex scene with the woman “flipping back into a handstand” I was done.

Since book 2 ended with the two getting married it kind of annoyed me that immediately we're back to square one with the romance. I didn't really want to read about all the other side plots so I mostly flicked through it. Have marked book as “abandoned”.

DNF at 15%

Why does this have such a high Goodreads rating??

DNF at 25%. Couldn't quite get into this one. It was switching between 3 different perspectives but everything felt quite dull, I felt quite detached from all the characters and I didn't really feel like they had much personality.

A very thoroughly-researched fiction book about the haenyeo women on Korea's Jeju island. I only really knew of Jeju as a popular vacation spot for Koreans (and foreign tourists too), but there's a lot of history there to unpack. From Japan's colonisation, the US taking over after WW2, to the horrific massacres that decimated the population - there's some heartwarming bits but it's not a fun book.

Also just learning about the haenyeo in general, who dived up to 20m to harvest abalone, octopus etc. and uniquely it was the women who brought home the money and the men that stayed home with the kids. (Although somehow it still seemed like the men had some of the power. Funny how that happens).

About a bunch of cowboys who live on the border between Texas and Mexico, and then decide to leave their small town to make an epic journey up towards Yellowstone. For a book you'd assume to be totally about men, I was surprised (in a good way) with how well the women were written - both strong and weak characters alike. However I felt a bit let down with how the author builds up these female characters, and then tears them down by making them prostitutes and have to endure rape, etc. Maybe realistic, but not really a fan of how that's used as a plot device.

I thought this was going to be a lot longer than it actually was based on my Kindles reading percentage, but more than half the pages in the Kindle version are endnotes.

The book is a little bit depressing cos it's talking about the obvious of how America has such a big divide between rich and poor, mostly due to politics and the optics of people determining welfare as unfair - even though really the middle and upper classes get tax cuts which isn't seen as welfare but is sort of the same thing.

A heartwarming book about a grumpy old man who gets into fights with his neighbours. I think the only problem I had with this book is that although Ove's heart may be in the right place, he is also an absolute dickhead. But since the book is written from his perspective and with a humorous tone, it's biased towards him coming across as more of a a likeable character than he actually probably is.

About a group of scientists that hop between planets on multiyear research missions, looking for signs of life, before finally returning back home to earth at their end of their expedition. It's a novella so it kind of felt like the climax/plot twist came near the end and then was just sort of resolved but not quite as satisfyingly as you would get from a proper novel.

A cute story about an ex-warrior orc that turns into a barista and coffee shop owner. Fairly short!

I felt pretty let down by this one - I find some of Emily Henry's books to be pretty decent for romance novels but this plot felt a bit too boring? Not sure that boring is the right word considering that it involves the girl dating her ex fiancés new girlfriend's ex-boyfriend (basically a couple swap) but I was expecting a bit more of a twist to the plot but the whole thing just kind of plodded along. Also the main characters had some emotional issues which were maybe realistic but also annoying.

... in saying that, I went back and looked through my other Emily Henry reviews and it looks like I only really liked one of her books and the rest were kind of mid, and so maybe this is just par for the course.

4.5 / 5 stars.

This one was a really fun read! There's a lot of character development and a couple of plot twists so I was hooked on the story and zoomed through this one. It definitely gives some YA sci-fi vibes though.