Mara
Eh, it was alright. The writing wasn't exactly top notch, which couple by the underdeveloped plot gave me a few eye rolling moments. The historical tie ins felt like they were done by Wiki'ing a few people and their related pages, fairly shallow. It never helps when I find the main character insipid and irritating either, and the character of Dee was pretty much just a narrow minded dickbag who never wised up. This was particularly annoying in relation to women, most of all the character of Magdalena, who was clearly his superior in every way and his head was too far up his own ass to understand that. There were continued hints that maybe he'd broaden his worldview, but they were repetitious and never went anywhere, which just made them irritating - foreshadowing without a payoff is lame. A lot of his prejudices were probably historically appropriate to have, but if historical accuracy of world view is the aim, the hints and him changing his views become inappropriate.
All in all, probably fine as light reading to pass the time on say, a long flight, for those who aren't into the Nicholas Sparks style light reading, but don't expect much.
The beginning dragged a little, but when events finally started happening, it picked up. I didn't find the main character especially likeable, which hurt my opinion of the story some. It had that feeling you find in some books of reading like a movie script, like the author already had a movie in mind while writing the book, which tends to lead to a lot of dumbing down of internal narratives in favor of action that would be visual, which I found to be a shame.
A fun little adventure tale. It felt light and simple to breeze through without being shallow. I happened to have seen the movie before reading the book in this case, but it's been a few years so I don't think it clouded my judgment. The two felt fairly different, and I liked both very much in their own respects.
The writing in this book hurt it some, it was clumsy and in some places riddled with grammatical errors that one would hope an editor might have dealt with. The story of Lobo's life was interesting once it got going, but the beginning of the book took some time to work through boring lead up and side information that I'm still not convinced was needed. I liked, in concept, that the biography meshed so personally with the author's own family, but the connections drawn didn't feel particularly rich, they mostly amounted to passing references to having been to the same parties, or would briefly hint at deeper friendships but then veer away from the topic.
Rybczynski is as always wonderful at spinning design in to a narrative. I love that about him. The early part of the story, when FLO is a young man searching for himself, is a little slow going, which is odd because he does amazing things like sail to China and explore “wild” southern and western parts of America. Once we get in to more of the landscape work, however, the spinning of design in to narrative kicks in. I also found it fascinating how Olmsted's life intersected with so many other fascinating and famous figures of his time.
This is a fun, light read. It has a clear storyline, which makes it nice to read cover to cover, but integrates recipes into that. Normally I don't read cookbooks all the way through, I jump around and pick things up a little at a time, and honestly there are some recipes in even the most interesting cookbooks that I never really look at, and the format of this got me to at least skim all of them. While I won't be making koolickles any time soon, I appreciate that Alton Brown at least got me to learn what they are.
This book is a mixed bag. I found some valid points on architecture and how we view it, but I had to dig through an awful lot of pretentious drivel to get it. I have very little patience for philosophy, so that might be part of why I found sections of this tiresome. It's probably something important for anyone in the architectural field to read because it makes you think about your area of study/work, but it needs to be taken with several grains of salt.
I got pretty bored of the shock factor gross out stuff, it wasn't infused into the story in a very engaging way. I read The Jungle in high school, maybe at that time the edginess would have entertained me more, but right now I want more nuance in my gross out horror.
This was a fun reworking of classical Greek myths, keeping the basic elements but stripping the silly heroics.
I did not enter into this book looking for vampire smut, but that's what I found, and I am never not delighted to find vampire smut (even if it's relatively light smut). Always find it funny when the characters Richard and Kahlan it through a book.
Years after reading this book I still think of it as “Richard and Kahlaning it” when the obviously-going-to-end-up-together character couple don't commence with the boning you know they're going to do in a book or two, and just spend chapter after chapter very narrowly evading each other's underpants.
Full disclosure, I did not make it all the way through. I made it around 1/3 of the way. The story was decent, but the whole thing dragged on and on. I am not afraid of a four inch thick book, there are some great ones, but sometimes there is just no reason for it to be that thick. I checked it out from the library, and had gone the full month check out time plus a renewal of another month, and I figured as I was approaching the end of that, if I was barely that far into it and not that thrilled to keep going, there wasn't much point in keeping it out longer.
I only read this because so many people recommended it to me, and I literally cut all ties with some of them after I finished it, that is how belittled I felt by the suggestion that I might enjoy this piece of crap. Anyone who thought so clearly did not know me at all, or did not hold me in very high regard. Of the people I did not sever all ties with, some said, “oh, Angels and Demons is much better, you should try that one.” Clearly I am a fool, because I did try it. The Da Vinci Code was the single worst book I have ever read... until I read Angels and Demons.
The biggest problem is Dan Brown's writing, or lack there of. I'm fairly certain that he wrote out four pages of scribbled notes on a half formed plot idea, three of which were word trees, probably while drunk or very hung over, then had an intern stretch that in to vaguely coherent sentences and call it a day. No descriptions, no style, no pacing, just bullet points.
It is very rare, in my experience, that a movie adaptation is better than the book, but this is one of those cases. The film is still an unwatchable wreck, but it is better than the book.
The worst part about reading this book was knowing that men need to be listening to it at least as much as women do, but far, far fewer of them will. Not to get knocked down a peg by the henpecking regarding what their ilk do wrong (although ok, yes, there is some wry commentary to blow off steam, deservedly so)! Rather because it would make all of their work so much better, more meaningful. All you dudes who are making shitty things that don't serve half-ish of the people who would use it could very easily be doing better if you just like...spoke to a woman. Seriously, just try it. And try this book.
Fascinating account of some upsetting history. The book balances several difficult elements, humanizing the people involved while still going in to the science and politics.