Indira
I went into this knowing nothing about Bob Iger aside from the fact that he was the CEO of the Walt Disney Company and I was pleasantly surprised! It was really interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look of the aquisitions that Disney made during his time. It also felt pretty candid and authentic, and included some good nuggets of advice throughout the book. It was engaging (and short) enough that I ended up finishing it over the course of a weekend.
It was little dull compared to the first novel; not a lot of action but felt like more of a backstory for what's to come next. Or at least I hope so!
It was generally a good book, but honestly, I don't think I would've found this book as interesting if I wasn't already invested in Paul Muad'Dib and the rest of the Dune universe.
This book made me both mad and sad, but mostly mad. In a good way though!
I love that it's fiction but also kind of non-fiction (the author interweaves some statistics throughout the book), and I absolutely love that it's feminist. It's a pretty short book so I think it would also make for a good book club kind of book.
4.5/5
Dune is a great book, and the cultural impact it has had is immense. I loved the world building and I thought the underlying themes touched on issues that are still relevant to this day (e.g. oppression of indigenous peoples such as the Fremen).
I really wanted to love it enough to give it a 5 star rating but although this book was engaging, it wasn't necessarily a can't-put-down book for me. The ending also felt a little anticlimactic for me and though I love the Middle Eastern and Islamic undertones, is it just me or does it also feel like appropriation?
I absolutely love Adichie, I absolutely love books on feminism and I loved this book too! Very concise and straight to the point.
Giving this a 4/5 instead of 5/5 cause I felt that it completely ignored the fact that gender and sex are different, and it was very focused hetero relationships. These are things that are top of mind for me (esp in 2021), though I understand it might not have been as common to talk about in 2014.
I found this book hard to read and just plain confusing. Each “chapter” is very short, often just one or two pages, and jumps back and forth between different people in different locations. There were quite a few people mentioned and I found it difficult to keep up with them all (maybe I'm just dumb? lol). I ended up skimming through the last third of the book cause I just wanted to get it over with.
I was originally going to give it a 1 star rating but TBH there were some interesting historical tidbits in there, so it wasn't all bad!
Recently I've been thinking that I should try to expand my reading choices somehow, so that instead of always reading books that I've heard a lot about and are highly rated, I should instead be more spontaneous. So when I saw this in a bookstore in Oaxaca de Juarez, México, I thought, why not. Thankfully, it did not disappoint!
It's a wonderful retelling of the Spanish exploration of La Florida from the perspective of a black slave. At the beginning, I wasn't sure how much of the book is factual vs imagined, but the book piqued enough interest in me to go down a Wikipedia rabbithole afterwards to learn more about the expedition mentioned in the book. (It turns out Mustafa/Estebanico is indeed a real person with a Wikipedia page!). Being in a country with a lot of Spanish influence and reading this book really made me want to read more about the Spanish inquisition!
This book is so strange and unique, but at the same time it was such a drag to read... like honestly, what did I just read lol.
The fact that almost everyone had the same name added to the strangeness of the story, but at the same time, I had to stop multiple times in the book to look back at the family tree and remind myself which Aureliano he was talking about. It was also filled with so much sex, and more than once it happened between family members... which is just gross. It also happened between people with massive age gaps (e.g. old man with teenage girl), which is also gross. And let's not forget about the 17 Aurelianos.
García Márquez's personal style of writing definitely shines through this book, and it's what makes it really interesting to read. The writing is beautiful. But also, why did you have to make each paragraph are so long?! It's not uncommon to find paragraphs that are 2 pages long. Heck, there was an entire sentence that spanned 2 pages!
Overall it was an interesting read, and I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I hadn't found it in the “English books” isle of a bookstore of Mexico City. I've also read 3 García Márquez books in the past month alone, and I think that's enough García Márquez for me lol.
I've heard raving reviews about this book, and especially the audiobook (since it has a full cast) and it did not disappoint! I listened to it all in one day. Not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if I had read the book instead of listened to the audiobook, but the audiobook is definitely a 5/5 for me!
The fact that the story was told through an interview was really unique and I enjoyed hearing about everyone's perspectives too. I also loved certain elements of feminism, e.g. talking about how Daisy Jones handled being a woman in a male-dominated field, and how Karen confronted Graham about the responsibilities of motherhood.
I think another reason why I loved this book was how much it reminded me of Fleetwood Mac, one of my favorite bands of all time. It obviously isn't the same story, but it definitely sounded Fleetwood Mac-esque and I loved that!
It's an inspiring and optimistic take on climate change, but to be honest I don't feel that I learned anything new from this book. There were some interesting scientific tidbits in this book, but it was definitely more of a motivational “yes we can tackle climate change!” kind of book. Nothing bad about that, but I think I would've liked more substance. It was a nice and easy read though (unlike some other climate books that are very dense and difficult to read).
It was alright. The storytelling was interesting — there are a lot of gaps here and there so oftentimes you have to fill in the details for yourself. I enjoyed the setting (a small town in South Korea called Sokcho). The ending felt anticlimactic, but I guess that's the point? Not sure, maybe I'm too dumb to enjoy this book lmao
Love the book cover though!
I absolutely loved reading this book; could not recommend it enough!
I stumbled upon this book at a small souvenir store in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. What caught my attention at first was how beautiful the book is. The cover is beautiful, and the side of the book shows the cross-section of a tree (hard to describe, but it was just beautiful). I didn't end up buying the book at first, but I realized that this specific edition is the Canadian version, and I wouldn't be able to find it back in the US. So the next day, I went back to the store and bought it.
The story itself is chefs kiss. It's follows four generations of the Greenwood family and the format of the book is incredible. At the beginning of the book, you'll see a picture of the cross-section of the tree where each ring corresponds to a year. The book is told in the “same format”, we start with the outer ring (the year 2038), then move to the iner rings (2008, 1974, 1934, and 1908), then back out to the other side of the outer rings. It sounds cheesy and strange, but the way Michael Christie executes this is just perfect. At the beginning of the book, you hear bits and pieces about Jake Greenwood's family, and as you go back in years you start to discover more about Jake's family tree and how everything is tagled together (like the roots of a tree in a forest). The characters in each generation of the family are well-developed and complex, and at a certain point I just couldn't put this book down.
I also love how this book touches on the environmental damage that humans cause. As the book begins, you hear about an environmental catastrophe known as the “Great Withering,” and you hear about how humans around the world have trouble breathing due to the air pollution. All the characters in this book have a strong relationship to nature too, albeit in very different ways.
All in all... this book is simply fantastic. 10/10 would recommend.
