Kane

A humourous and light hearted read about a guy who just wanted to get out on his feet and learn more about the people impacted by the oil industry.
As a through hiker and environmentalist myself I loved it and it inspired me to do my own environmental exploration.

Not my cup of tea but I can see the quality and knowledge that went into it. Which is why I am giving it a 4/5 while my enjoyment was more like a 2.5 .

I read it as a primer for walking the wall... It's not that book. It has so many minute details about the construction of the wall and comparatively little about life on the wall or Roman culture in Britain, which is what I was more interested in.

If you want to know everything about the wall then I doubt you will get better. If you just want a primer I would look at one of the more guidebook style books around (I used and appreciated the trailblazer version).

Thoroughly enjoyed it but I didn't feel it had the same creativity present in some of Jasper's other series. It instead went with drawing some darker parallels to how we treat minority groups within society.

A good book but didn't quite hit me as hard as the first two in the series. Still worth reading just to wrap up the plots initiated in the first two books.

I appreciated that [b:C-Mass: Calisthenics Mass: How to Maximize Muscle Growth Using Bodyweight-Only Training 22372777 C-Mass Calisthenics Mass How to Maximize Muscle Growth Using Bodyweight-Only Training Paul “Coach” Wade https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1401403639l/22372777.SX50.jpg 41785095] is one of the few calisthenics books to focus on the body building aspect of the craft and at trying to convey the differences between strength based training and bodybuilding based training it did quite well. There were numerous things that I didn't like so much about the book though, and why I didn't enjoy it or get as much out of it as I should have. - The casual and often somewhat sexist language was distracting for me, rather than relatable like some reviewers have noted. I don't need to be called names every paragraph. It's like the ancient persuasion trick of salespeople to say your name all the time to falsify some bond, but instead they have forgotten your name so just keep calling you buddy. - There was no references for any of the scientific claims made. The general construct involved saying “This technique or trick will make you big using calisthenics, and here is an old photo of someone who I claim to have used this technique”.- It referenced [b:Convict Conditioning 17846180 Convict Conditioning Ultimate Bodyweight Training Log Paul “Coach” Wade https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1366838697l/17846180.SX50.jpg 24977314] A LOT, and other DragonDoor authors A LOT. I know the book was derived from a blog post where this is more acceptable; but, in the book form it made it feel like I paid for an advertisement. Overall, this book left me a bit desiring. I felt the distinction between training for mass and strength could have been summarized in about a chapter and the rest was just filler from a bunch of other books, that “Coach” was trying to sell.If you still feel you need to read this, then it is currently free on kindle unlimited. You will not gain any benefit from owning this book, as unlike most calisthenics books it doesn't contain anything you will want to refer back to when developing your programs.

I don't know how to to describe this as anything but average. Considering how thick this book is, I would have thought something would actually happen. At best though it ended up being a mess of random ideas thrown together without much care for forming an engaging narrative. The very start and very end where okay, leaving the middle feel like a massive waste of reading time.

Amazing! I don't know how I didn't read this earlier. I am huge fan of urban fantasy and this is certainly a genre defining classic in the genre.

Gaiman did a wonderful job of intertwining the city of London we all know and love with a part hidden from view. It was done in such a way that you are left wondering if maybe that beggar on the street, that empty tram cabin, or that scurrying rat are really signs of something more.

Simply this book was just not the Buddhist book for me. The biggest issue was it diverged from Buddhist teachings quite significantly and without warning. It wasn't a bad book but it wasn't a good book, hence the average rating.

The concept of magical manipulation of man made materials was cool. The book itself though was just okay - I would have loved to have had way more magic and ways less dwelling on mostly irrelevant memories.

No better book on the nitty gritty of calisthenics. 

There isn't really anything else to say about this book. It's the definitive (and weighty) tombe on calisthenics and bodyweight programming. If you have started something like the Reddit /r/bodyweightfitness recommended routine and are wondering why things are programmed the way they are, then this book is a great explanation of everything. 

This book was a struggle to finish. The more I think about this book, the more enraged I get. How did this win so many awards?!?!?!? The only award can give this book is the fact it has created a new shelf on goodreads for me - books I have purchased but won't read because the prequel was so terrible.

Things I liked:
Manchee!! - The most relatable and likable character of the whole book. It gets an extra star just because of Manchee.

Things I didn't like:
Basically everything else.
SpoilerAfter the death of Manchee, the dog, I really didn't care how the story ended. Manchee was the only thing going for this book and I enjoyed picking it up to just see how he would react to various situations. “Todd?!”.
Todd himself was incredibly predictable, boring, and unlikable. Oh no, a challenging situation, I better hesitate until somebody else helps me out.
Aaron was stupidly over powered. It was like the author had just watched the terminator and figured that having an indestructible robot was a good plot line to include in their own story; but, then forgot to make them into a robot.
I liked Viola but her flipping between helpless captive and keeping Todd in line became predictable. I would be tempted to read the next book just to see if she survives but she would have to otherwise Todd would curl up into a ball and cry himself to death for the remainder of the series.


Regrettably I bought the entire series on special. I guess the library is getting a brand new trilogy!

A good message but overall it is a pretty repetitive book that can be summed up by the title.

Note: I received this copy from Netgalley as an ARC. This has not impacted my review.

I really loved this book - breaking down gene editing into terms and concepts that could be read by laypersons. It's a thoroughly engaging topic that is yet to be truly explored in any books I have encountered previously. 

I know know infinitely more about CRISPR and the repercussions of gene editing on a society - including the premise of increasing our IQ and life expectancy in the near future and essentially “beating evolution”. 

I thoroughly recommend this title to anyone who is interested in gene editing but has always been too afraid to dive in due to its perceived complexity. 

Nothing particularly remarkable about this short novella, but it does provide some crucial background for Fred who you meet in the first book.

Interesting premise and setting but just boring execution.

I didn't feel engaged in the story at all or really care about any characters. The technology was also glossed over and never really explained and used terms that probably showed up in a quick google like when they reference using a SIEM to protect their mech, which is a defensive security tool but doesn't really make sense in the context.

I think if you are interested in the premise you are probably better off reading a book about the actual Nigerian civil war.

I am definitely in the camp of people who do not understand the “Unfinished sentence” writing style that Claire employs.

I am sad to say I got about 30% of the way through and figured there were better uses of my time. I hate abandoning books but I was just not enjoying the experience.

A lovely short story about how you don't need to conform to societal standards of normality and success to find your place in the world.

Boring as. I know this first hour was just set up and the real story is coming but I just don't understand why it took an hour to get anywhere. 
At the end of the day this was a library loan and I have better things to be reading. 

Clearly an expert in his field but not an expert on engaging literary structure. This book proved a hard read through repetitive and poorly structured content.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley. This has not impacted my review. 

Reading this book in the midst of a pandemic was a weird and welcome experience. I know for some people it was very confronting but I found the concept of a pandemic book satisfying to escape our lived pandemic into a speculative one.  I really liked the concept of a society that was so deprived of touch that it lead to weird social norms and customs but I really did not feel the pacing or characters in this book. Ultimately I did not finish this during the pre-release window - I always intended to come back to it to finish and provide a complete and honest review but with so many great books on my TBR I just couldn't justify returning to a book I wasn't feeling. 

It generally just felt like the author threw a bunch of scifi concepts at the wall and hoped something would stick. By the end it was just a bunch of concepts scattered around in an attempt to make something that was greater than the sum of its parts; but, ultimately it failed and I didnt care at all about what happened - largely because the characters were extremely flat and left no impression on me and because I didn't care about the characters I didn't care about the impact of the overarching plot.  The only character with any personaity was 大史 (Big Shi) who overall had a fairly minor part to play. 

I really don't understand the people who have said this changed their world view. Now I've actually read it I'm keen to dive into that deeper. 

I was excited to read this as its so well regarded .... but it was just average. 

I received this as an eARC from Netgalley.

I really struggled with this book. The concept sounds fantastic. I have been getting into grimdark lately, having discovered it later than I should have. This grimdark with Celtic elements should have been right up my alley; but, ultimately it wasn't and I was pretty bored and keen for it to end. 

I realised it was going to be a slog when at 30% in we are still going back and forth between the main character and her children on the run from an unspeakable evil. Even after spending that first third of the book doing nothing but building the characters (the plot certainly wasn't progressing) I found I didn't care about any of them and ultimately didn't care what happened. 

Overall I think the concept is great but it wasn't for me. If you want something that focuses on what older parents with a young family on the run is like then this might be for you. If your idea of a good grimdark is more like first law then this is not going to scratch your itch. 

This was mostly a DNF. I sped through a bunch of it to find if it got any better but it didn't seem to.

I was quite excited to read about an alternate history of London being divided by an iron curtain but it was really just a geographical shift of the real history more than anything novel.

Mostly what ruined it for me was too much pining over unrequited love and not enough cool alternate soviet history.