Maria
I liked the topic and what the book says about social norms, conformity, hierarchy. I wish though it wouldn't explain all of that so explicitly and repeatedly. I wish some things were left unsaid because with the argument laid out so plainly it was a bit boring to me.
The characters and the constellation of relationships were used well to show the hypocrisy and Keiko's struggle to find her way of being.
Wow. I hope no one, ever gets any advice about love from this book. Unless maybe they are 13 to learn that you can love someone if they like different shoes than you.
But then I think even teenage love can have more depth and is surely more pure than what was presented here.
As the form goes I appreciate the endeavour of merging philosophy with a novel but it was neither a nice novel nor has it taught me anything insightful or new about philosophy. I mean yeah, I get it, idealisation, Plato...
The stories were very monotonous in what they tried to convey and how they did it. Even though each story is written from a POV of a different character I felt like I was interacting with one narrator throughout the book.
The style often lacked depth or variety which made the characters unconvincing. Some endings were over the top dramatic and unfortunately left me cringed rather than moved.
I don't want to go too much into the moral message of this book so that aside it's just bad prose.
I enjoyed some small bits of Thai culture you can get from the book; like descriptions of scenery, food, clothes and jobs. If you're willing to swallow the above complaints, I recommend the book as a means to get a bit of knowledge about Thai culture.
I like the challenge of showing one story/sketch per page and I like the changing styles - it definitely shows the understanding of the medium and mastery over it.
I get Wilson is supposed to be a sort of an antihero and I guess that turned out to be a success, but some of the punchlines just left me cringed rather than laughing or reflective.
This book was like a breath of fresh air, after the first 15 pages I had already gone through so many emotions from laughing to crying. Though it is a memoir and the topics are - like daily life - varied, the whole book holds together and reads extremely well. I couldn't put it down curious to see what the next entry brings. And in the end I was moved, comforted and curious about life.
Mastery of visual storytelling.
This book conveys so well how you can feel completely lost in surroundings that are seemingly familiar yet so strange. I liked how the imagined world was balancing this familiarity/unfamiliarity so masterfully. Like you know they are letters but what do they say? You know it's a plant but how do you eat it? At the same time the book shows how little you need to make a connection with other humans and creatures.
Loved it.
I'm not sure where the “hilarious” part is but still it's a great book. One of the best descriptions of the thought process of a child that I've read. It must've been really hard to describe it and relive it all over again but Janette McCurdy did a splendid work on the narrative style throughout the book. As readers we can really see how she develops, grows up, changes perspective. Though the events described and emotions conveyed where extremely hard, the book was very therapeutic for me, personally.
Beautiful book about grieving, memories, siblings and the relationship between children and parents. Bittersweet relationship marked by expectations, hopes and losses. Longing for knowing each other to the core but never being able - because both parents and children can never fully see themselves in separation from one another. Kinda reminds me of the film Petite Maman.
Hope that fig tree gives some child “the happy moment to remember” for the rest of their life.
Great read for evenings - anger and frustration would remove any drowsiness I might have been feeling. This book compiles all different sides of systemic discrimination and mysoginy. Even being a woman and a feminist I was oblivious to some aspects. Criado Pérez lays out arguments clearly and decisively giving many examples so the arguments stay with you for a long time. Even with a lot of numbers this was a fast and light read, it has never bore me or been hard to understand.
I liked it visually - style and the usage of color was fun but I didn't find anything compelling storywise. It's nice that I could learn how the paper is made in all detail but maybe the focus was too much on the process of paper production than feelings and thoughts of a young manual worker who has a scary leap of faith ahead of him - deciding to follow his dream (not really that lucrative dream, too).
Reading this books was like listening to a coversation of one's two close and very wise friends. Krzysztof Lenk seems to be very humble, sensitive and perceptive person. I'm glad he shared his stories and views in this book.
On the publisher side Karakter has done perfectly, as always. I really like the glossary of names at the end.
Besides being interesting by itself, the book could also come handy when searching for canonic books on design. There are many of them menionted by Krzysztof Lenk and in the citations.
