Indira Pranabudi

I picked up this book at the recommendation of a friend, and as someone who studied Computer Science at university, I wanted to love it. I did find this book interesting, but I also found myself skimming a lot. I felt that some of the chapters were quite long and I lost interest towards the end. I'm not sure it got the right balance between hard CS concepts and their real-life applications.

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.

This was surprisingly good. I honestly don't know much about Will Smith and wasn't planning to pick up an audiobook copy, but I recently got recommended Will's “Best Shape of My Life” series on YouTube in which he includes excerpts of his new book... and I was hooked.

From his audiobook, you can really tell how good of a storyteller he is. I loved all the different voices he did in it and all the music he included. Prior to listening to this audiobook, I only knew of Will Smith as a famous actor (heck, I had no idea he was a rapper, let alone the first person to ever win a Grammy for Rap), but I now have a newfound appreciation for how hard working and talented he is. It's inspiring to see a black man accomplish so many groundbreaking accolades!

The only thing I wanted to call out was the ending — I thought it was a little cheesy. I think I would have preferred it with less of the “life lessons” so that the audience can interpret his story however they want.

The story just gets stranger and stranger. I think I'm done reading the Dune series now lol

Olga Dies Dreaming had all the necessary ingredients for a great book in my eyes: a unique backdrop, complex characters and strong political/cultural themes. It's generally an entertaining read, although some of the things that took place in the book did feel a little forced and far-fetched.

I was going to give this a 4/5 but dropped it down to a 3/5 because the ending for me was just disappointing. There was a lot of build up that wasn't fully resolved.