Alexander Meves

Jesus Christ. That's all I could say after I finished this book. The entire time it was amazing to me how Tara Westover wrote about the different worlds she lived in throughout her life and the bridges she used to crossover. The connections she makes between her delusional and rejecting father and the fatherly professors are heartbreaking. The comparison between her proud ignorance in her childhood and her expanding intelligence in adulthood is inspiring. And the effect the mountain from her past has as it casts it's looming shadow over her and her life surroundings is harrowing. Each one of these hits you like a steel pipe in the gut when you quickly remember that Tara Westover made these connections in her own life; it's not just an amazing story but one lived by an amazing woman. The emotional struggle within Tara caused by her manipulative, delusional, and violent family hurts intensely. Yet, each family member comes to her aid at some point in her life to show that there are no true villains, but an evil mindset of fear and pain causes those same family members to reject or harm her. You want to yell at 17-year-old Tara at some points to do the opposite of what she is doing and escape the pit of negativity she throws herself in at times. But it's even more difficult to imagine how Westover felt at herself writing those words on the page.

At times, Tara Westover's life feels like it could not have possibly happened in a modern American household. At others, it feels she could be anyone of us living with our own fears and apprehensions.

Truly a powerful account, and the best autobiographical work I've ever read.

Zelazny's writing is front and center in Nine Princes in Amber. There is a frankness and abrupt sentence structure that is partially refreshing and wholly dull. However, the potential refreshment is shattered as the writing style is supplemented with constant summations of events that could be exciting or emotional. The protagonist having his eyes burnt out and spending three years in prison takes twenty pages, three of which detail his sleeping patterns. Nothing is described with more than a single adjective, and it is more than not a color or size. The recruitment of literally hundreds of thousands of “red and tall guys” and “short and furry guys” is not talked about at all, yet both military groups fight loyally to the death. It might be interesting to here how this happened! Are there more races? How did Corwin find these races to recruit them? What did he say? There are so many questions that are completely ignored if they don't seem to progress the main plot in Zelazny's mind. At times, it seems like bad fantasy and bad writing.

Points must be given to the creative plot, which is both unique and intriguing especially towards the end. But this is mostly due to an amnesia gimmick in the beginning, an obstacle the hinders the reader far more than the protagonist. During this forgetful phase, the main character is somehow able to quickly get information without arising any suspicion, unbelievably conducting conversations like a frustratingly vague super sleuth. This lasts in every conversation until 67% in the book.

The book could be a singular diamond in the rough, but it's a 1/2 carat diamond in a mountain of rough– rough writing, pacing, dialogue, and a lack of any character development.

I would skip this book, although I can't say if it's worth plowing through for the sequels.

Just complete trash to be honest. The book is so full of hypocrisy that it's often difficult to focus on the main point the author is trying to make. Somehow “not giving a f*ck” is actually code for facing adversity, so it seems like the entire tagline of the book is a ploy to repeat the same self-help mantra in a better marketing format. The author says this is not like other self-help efforts, but uses the same tactics (and in fact the same writing style) as a Tony Robbins or Brendan Bruchard. It's casual and friendly, but attempts to have an objective enough tone to come across authoritatively, as if he actually knew what he was talking about. He attempts to write this book for people to improve their lives and turn it around, but admits that it took the death of a close friend for him to do the same. The advice given in the book is not always contradictory. But when it is straight forward, it's simply an intuitive axiom attached to a meaningless historical event. It's tiring for these self-help books to use example stories of defeat and triumph like Dave Mustaine getting kicked out Metallica only to create Megadeath. But, like every single one of his self-help conspirators, Manson forgets the reason these stories are touching is because they are rare. Because what was done is difficult and the average person cannot imagine it. It was exhausting to get through honestly even though it's a two hour read.

Also, constantly said “research shows”, “studies show”, “data suggests” with no citations or notes section. No footnotes or anything about that. 0 stars should be given for that alone.

The Overstory's theme of nature and its ubiquity in a seemingly omnipotent way is present in every possible way. In structure, the novel has not one main protagonist but many characters developing and branching out with leafing connections. In timeline, the story of generations is told, not the story of a single day or month or year or decade – a timeline significant even to that of the oldest chestnut. In tone, with the trials and tribulations although heart-wrenching at points, coldly relayed as if from the perspective of a stoic oak. In title, as an understory is the layer of vegetation on the forest floor. And of course, in content, in prose with diction that somehow ethereally wraps around your brain and simultaneously leaves you with a clear image. The novel poses interesting questions crossing borders between morality and objectivity, between environment and Earth, and between life and sentience, not unlike [b:The Monkey Wrench Gang 99208 The Monkey Wrench Gang (Monkey Wrench Gang, #1) Edward Abbey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349067863l/99208.SY75.jpg 2803318]. In The Overstory, Powers has achieved, not humanizing trees (a task previously accomplished by Dr. Seuss) but making the reader empathize with “tree-ified” people.

The concept in Ready Player One is an 80's nerd styled contest masterminded by an 80's obsessed nerd billionaire programmer. There is one comment towards the end of the book about how this contest was an effort to have everyone on the planet share Halliday's (the millionaire) obsessions. No comments are made about the clear indications of an anti-social slightly narcissist belief that anyone with different obsessions is inferior. This speaks to a larger picture about absent self-reflection and emotional discussion – not that every story needs to be touchy feely, but it is nice occasionally to have something more than surface level “he did that, she did this”. Some parts of the book are intriguing and intelligent, but a large part is cringe-inducing wish fulfillment by a different 80's obsessed man, Ernest Cline himself. He is quoted as saying “as a teenager [during the 80's] I was obsessed with video games, John Hughes movies, and Dungeons and Dragons”. This wish fulfillment instrumental in the motivation of writing the novel is apparent in the plot as well. It leaks into the main character being the best at every contest component, and the book isn't large enough for these acts of superior heroism to not be tiring. That could be found in Kvothe, the protagonist of [b:The Name of the Wind 186074 The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) Patrick Rothfuss https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1515589515l/186074.SX50.jpg 2502879]. This is, in my opinion, the most significant flaw of the book, but not the only one. The romance between the main protagonist and the only significant female character (besides Aech) is awkward, patriarchal, and unbelievable. The minor characters are lifeless and uninteresting. The plot sometimes seems an excuse to wear every piece of 80's media not as an influence but as decorum. There are certainly good things about the book. The technology descriptions are interesting, even if they do cause a global decline of human conditions. The description of the OASIS as a whole is compelling and the representation of a dystopian mega-corporation an the manifestation as evil (while far from unique) fits the setting well. Overall, the book is a guilty pleasure at best if you grew up in the 80s or are a heavy video game enthusiast, just be prepared to groan when the aforementioned problems are at their worst.