Ninett

I think I was just not the right audience for this book. For me it did not live up to the hype, and I can't really see why it is so highly praised. It is about middling, a bog standard relationship novel, really. I didn't dislike it and it wasn't bad, but it doesn't have anything new in it for me.

I do love games and play many genres of game, though, so to see games coming through to literature is fun, though the games were just a backdrop to a love story (and I am not into the latter)

I love Bardugo's plotting. She weaves a great story every time. It was paced well, and there were twists and turns, leaving me guessing the whole way through. When the end came about, I was surprised by the events.

The reason for the relatively lower score despite excellent plotting is that I just didn't connect with the world, the magic system, or the main character. It was lacking in some way that I just can't put my finger on. I don't really care about the characters or the world enough to really go and read the next novel in the series (but I will anyway to satisfy my completionist tendencies).

I never read crime, so the genre will feel fresh to me every time, even if laden with tropes. I loved the characters of the two monks, and the way that the setting was written. It felt very real and alive. The only reason I couldn't rate it five stars is because I was immediately able to guess who the perpetrator was as soon as they were introduced, and the weird side-line about the kid who comes to harass the main after being questioned by him was an obvious ploy to throw the reader off the scent of the real killer.

Reading this is more like dropping into a beautifuly crafted ideal world in the future than reading a novel. Nothing much really happens, and I did miss the presence of a storyline. But the world Chambers wrote is worth getting into, it feels like a warm hug to soothe anxieties about the modern world. So, all in all this book is an immersive experience rather than a story.

I had high hopes for this because it has been recommended by a few people whose opinions I respect, but for me it fell flat other than a few good points. It opened my eyes to the true extent of the problems that could arise from use of AI by bad actors, and it is interesting to read the perspective of someone who is so intimately involved in the development of the tech. But it was also dry and repetitive to me, and the chapter headings weren't very linked to the content in them. Overall could have been executed a lot better and didn't really need to be this long as all the points were made early on.

Can't fault the memoir, really. I was interested to read about the early days of personal computing in particular, and I enjoy media set in that era immensely in general. The enthusiasm of everyone involved is palpable from the writing. I learned a lot about the timeline and the tech, as well as the origins of many of the companies who are now the absolute foundations of modern life. I tend to enjoy Gates' writing, this was no exception.

The space cowboy neons and slang are a fresh take, especially for sci-fi written in the 80's, with some of it coming across even now as quite prescient. That said, I didn't like any of the characters. I connected with nothing from the story, either. I'm kind of just glad it's done now. I'm writing this review two or three weeks after finishing it and I'm at a loss trying to even remember the plot.

The idea that certain types of stress trigger a repair process wasn’t new to me—I’d read Exercised by Daniel Lieberman, which discusses how exercise acts as a stressor that prompts more repair than damage. This book went further, listing various stressors that can induce similar repair responses: exposure to uncomfortable temperatures, calorie restriction, fasting, and exercise, among others. It also dives into a fair amount of biology, which I expected from a scientist leading a Harvard lab. The content strikes a good balance—detailed enough to satisfy a fellow scientist’s need for rigour, yet clear enough for non-biologists like me to follow. I was somewhat sceptical about certain points, but the author does a good job of distinguishing between conjecture and established facts.

I loved the Victorian Edinburgh setting, which feels very authentic—unsurprising, as the authors are from the Central Belt of Scotland. The writing is impeccable, and the narrative flows well with well-thought-out pacing.

I've never really wondered about how abortions were handled when they weren't well developed as a medical intervention, but this novel got me thinking about it. I shudder to imagine what I would have done without contraceptives or a way to abort an unwanted pregnancy.

For me, this novel was a bit of pure, somewhat gruesome Victorian escapism, though some elements remain to be cleaned up—perhaps in the next instalment.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this, but I wanted to read more highly acclaimed books from literary perspectives that are not strictly western. This novel was short, but so intelligently written and so emotionally deep that I found myself wishing to have seen more of the life of the protagonist. The blending of a traditional world with the modern is something I have personally seen in my own home country and find the meshing to be captivating, I'm glad someone is writing it down while it's still there.

For most of the novel, I thought that the animals really were killing people, and I felt pleased with the outcome, the real ending took me very unaware. I can't believe I didn't see it coming.

This memoir was so other from my own personal experience in its setting and depictions of daily life, and yet at the same time I felt so connected to the author through the common thread of struggling to get educated. Tara's abuse and her story are far sadder than mine, but I know how it feels to be fighting the odds as an independent adult, trying to go places in the world where there aren't many like her, and it was absorbing to read some reflection of myself in the perspectives of someone so completely different.

I found the family Tara grew up with to be very interesting, never having come across any fundamentalist christians before. It is positively baffling to me that some people choose to live like this, and I suppose that in its own right is enough to warrant this type of memoir.

I got this from the library as an experiment to see how well graphic novels read on a tablet. It turns out they fare very well, but I found the graphics here to be somewhat disappointing. I didn't enjoy the art style, which I felt was at times very chaotic. The writing left a bit to be desired as well, but I think the work originally having been written to be performed on air probably caused jankiness in writing. I wasn't a huge fan of any of the characters either. The ending was at least nice enough.

Exactly what I expected having seen the series first. I really enjoyed the author's note at the front which essentially tells the reader that this is going to go on for a very long time in order to avoid an ending. There were some elements of the story that I liked more in the version of events as written here rather than in the series, but there were some that I liked better in the series (tank). The artwork is class and the writing is top notch.

Solid work. I somehow didn't realise there would be a romance element to this novel and didn't find it very convincing. People do not start touching each other's face and hair upon first meeting. There were lots of good ideas and unique settings/ situations in the novel, but I did feel like the work was a repository of these great ideas essentially just cobbled together. More of a patchwork than a seamless story.

That said, the characters were interesting and there were enough twists to keep me reading, so I can't rate it badly :)