Ren
Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
Only really cared for a few stories in here - although I really appreciated the LeVar Burton snippet. My favorite part was the lecture at the end.
Most of the stories unfortunately felt unfinished, rushed, or because of the lack of space to world build seemed nonsensical. I really LOVE the premise of this book, though, and hopefully if a sequel is made they can focus a bit more on fleshing out these stories. I really liked where some of them were going, others I felt I had seen before, but I appreciate that this was many of these activists' first time writing.
Picked this up because I thought this book would be insightful for helping me through an incredibly difficult time in my life. Bad decision on my behalf, and I've read Buddhist teachings before.
This book was repetitive. It could have easily been 100 pages. I get what she is saying, and there was a few good insights, but for certain traumas this book can be so triggering. It has a tendency to victim blame...and yes, there is a difference between accepting that shit happens in our lives and to work through that and saying that WE are the only ones responsible for what happens to us and WE should be solely accountable for how we handle it. Not everything that happens to us is our own fault. Even if the disillusionment to our normalcy is broken, it doesn't mean we deserve it. Trash.
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
So informative. I already eat mostly plant-based (I eat meat about twice a week) and I'm trying to cut that down more so I wanted to get some more information. I was worried this book might be dense but it was super easy AND fun to read!
I'm a long time sufferer of depression and can attest that eating plant-based makes me feel great. My mom is going through chemotherapy for aggressive ovarian cancer and I'm in charge of all her meals - this book helped me learn what foods to incorporate into her diet to help her get through treatment. I really appreciate Dr. Greger's work and I can tell he loves what he does. I would recommend this book to anyone - and no, it's not vegan propaganda. Dr. Greger includes tons of studies to back up his information in this book. Really enjoyed it and I'm planning of laying out all of the information into a table to ensure all these foods are incorporated into my diet daily.
This one was odd...
It took me a long time to get into. I started a new semester in school so that added to it, but the beginning is just boring. When Misha is moved to the ghetto, it becomes more interesting but increasingly unrealistic.
The ending felt rushed. I really do wish I knew what happened with all the people Misha spent the entire book with. It felt like a waste. The parts in the ghetto were a lot of: run, steal food, go back home, Janina crying or screaming over something. I only cared about Janina's father. The rest of the characters had no life to them, I didn't care when something happened to them because all we knew about them was: this one is tall, this one has red hair, and this one has funny shoes.
The Jackboots were all pretty...stupid. There's no way that this kid (along with the others) would have gotten away with all of their shenanigans for so long. I get this is meant for younger readers, but it's still too unrealistic for my taste. I think younger readers who know about the Holocaust would realize this as well.
Interesting enough to grab my attention (by page 100 out of a 200 book - sadly) but should have been longer if the author actually wanted to make a deep impact and tell Misha's story (as well as the other characters) more effectively. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas did a much better job of telling a WW2 experience by a child than this one, but I guess it was an easy cash grab for the author.
I'm really glad this is the one I chose to kick off 2019. I couldn't put it down! The story is more character driven than plot driven for sure, and that was fine by me. There's only one character I didn't care much about cough Mary cough but I understood why Shute wrote her the way that he did.
I loved how the novel captured the different ways people could approach their inevitable deaths - by denial, by keeping busy, by drinking themselves into oblivion; it reads like a character study more than anything. I especially loved Moira and Dwight. This one had been on my TBR for so long and I only wish I had read it sooner.
Beautiful. Like many others, I never knew about this tragedy. I read a book last year about Nanking and it opened my eyes. This book was much of the same, even though it's fiction, it's evident the author researched heavily in order to write this. The ending was perfect. I learned so much from this.
I only wish I knew what happened to Lina's father. I hope for the best but there was no mention.
I loved the descriptions of what it's like to experience psychosis and schizophrenia. I don't struggle with these, but I know people who do, and it was insightful for understanding how they feel and the rationalizing people with these illnesses make.
Unfortunately, the ship allegory did nothing for me. It dragged down the plot. TOO MUCH. I kept wanting to hear more from Caden and less about the ship. I get what Shusterman was going for but it could have been less convoluted and more precise. The book went on much longer than it should have, and the novel's resolution is fine, but I feel like all the symbolism with the ship was just way, way too present. The brains on the ship, the people, the monsters, I get what they all mean. It doesn't stop the fact that they're dreadfully boring to read about. Especially when Caden is developed into nothing but being a guy who likes to draw and has an illness - we never develop a relationship with him.
It takes a while to get into this book, and only about halfway in do you find out what everything on the ship stands for in reality. I had to struggle to finish this book. As I said before, Caden's struggles are interesting and I like hearing his perspectives and battle with these illnesses. I just think the book would have been much stronger if the focus was less on the ship - even just cutting out some parts of it from the book would have been more effective for the overall story.
Beautiful!! Loved this so much. Jackie has such an interesting upbringing and I loved the relationship between her and her grandfather. I thought this book wouldn't be too great because it's intended for younger folks but I was completely, utterly wrong.
Can't wait to see what Jacquline Woodson's other works are like!
Really quick read, but it's hard to write a review for a book that, by the year 2018, we have seen countless times without knowing the origin. I thought I didn't know the plot of this story but as I read it, it came to me. As the afterword notes, it's impossible not to. I do appreciate the amount of interpretations that can be used for the text (I liked the Victorian repression of sexuality best). It's simple but not simple.
Oh, and I did not like the introduction. Sorry. I quickly noticed he was going to spoil the story and when I flipped back after reading the book, I found his opinions boring and kind of...obvious?
Reading the reviews on this book disappoint me a little - why are you all taking it so seriously? It's a lighthearted book about a dog going through different lives. I enjoyed reading this while cuddled with my own dog, Max, and I enjoyed contemplating the idea of him having lived lives before me and I wondered what he thinks of living with me now.
Don't take it so seriously guys! A fast and enjoyable read.
If anything, the high rating is for the descriptions throughout the novel. I think I would have appreciated this a bit more if I was younger, but most of the symbolism and foreshadowing were pretty obvious. I also didn't like the ending that much, the hunt at the end was extremely climatic, but I didn't want it to end the way it did. Overall it was definitely worth reading, but not something I'd be dying to read again.
(SPOILER) RIP to my men Piggy & Simon - of course my favorite characters in the novel
Although I definitely enjoyed reading 1984 more (because of course, these two are always compared), I did enjoy this one as well. It was a bit dry at some points, and I often waited for more to happen, especially at the reservation (the part that intrigued me the most in the book). It's crazy how much stuff he predicted that would eventually come to fruition in our own world, even more terrifyingly, how many people reject knowledge and are content with being blissfully ignorant.
I also saw a lot of the The Giver in the novel - not sure if this novel inspired Lois Lowry but it would make sense.
Overall I liked the message, and have a new perspective on how the constant indulgence of pleasures can lead us to our downfall.
I love short story books because they allow me to get a feel of authors I will like and dislike. This collection was great for giving me some new authors to look into, but the “Further Reading” part at the end also gave me tons of new books to look into! Yes!!!
Really bad idea to start this book during finals, but it was SO much fun! People in other reviews say this book is boring or too depressing, but I really didn't see it that way at all. I thought (most) of the stories were really intriguing and so much fun to read. I only skipped one story (sorry Elizabeth Bear) but the rest I thought were interesting, even if they weren't exactly my taste. Definitely recommend if you like realistic post-apocalyptic stories. It's not as negative as other reviewers have stated (although not necessarily super positive either of course, but that should be slightly expected), and definitely not boring either.
Favorites:
The End of the Whole Mess - Stephen King
Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels - George R. R. Martin
Artie's Angels - Catherine Wells
Judgement Passed - Jerry Oltion
Inertia - Nancy Kress
The End of the World as We Know It - Dale Bailey
Didn't read every story, but from the ones I read, most were incredibly enjoyable. This compendium was assigned to me in a university class on Weird Fiction, and I throughly enjoyed the stories and discussion that can take place for each of the stories.
Personal favorites:
The Family
Bloodchild
The People of the Pit
The Color Out of Space
The Penal Colony
In the Hills, the Cities
The Ice Man
The Specialist's Hat
There isn't much I can say about this novel that hasn't been said, but I for one LOVED it. I loved Atwood's writing style, especially the lack of quotation marks (which from reading criticism on the book, it seems to bother a lot of people - they must have never picked up a Cormac McCarthy novel) and by the final chapter, it makes sense as to why they aren't present.
I sometimes had to force myself to put this book down because it was so good. When I finished the novel, I just wanted more; Gilead was extremely interesting to me, even if not necessarily possible overnight as it seems to happen in the book, it's speculative fiction - that's the entertaining aspect of it. Even though I've never been in any situation (of course) similar to Offred's, she was incredibly relatable, and I both empathized and sympathized with her throughout the book.
After I finished it I sat for a solid 15 minutes just thinking about it and then read more about it online. I can't wait to watch the TV show next.
If you haven't read it, you really should.
Sometimes the art was beautiful, and sometimes it was hideous. Sometimes I liked the story, and sometimes it just seemed to drag and be filled with ramblings. The gore was nice, but there wasn't enough. The main character was unusual, but not unusual in a way where I wanted to learn more about him or that he became interesting. He was just odd in a bad way, and I didn't care what happened to him, his girlfriend, or any of his friends.
I won't be continuing the series.
Although I would probably give this book a little less than 5 stars, but more than 4 stars, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I've read some very dark things, but this one was dark on a different level. It was so real. When Eva talks about the “trend” of shooters on page 314, I had to set the book down.
Eva was, to me, incredibly unlikable until the last 80 pages or so. Kevin interested me, of course.
The only two qualms I have about this book are that the minority characters are depicted so un-tastefully & stereotypically. The (maybe 3) minor black characters in this novel all, for some reason, speak in improper English and the gay character is written as being flamboyant. Definitely problematic. Secondly the book was unnecessarily long. There were parts where you will skim because Eva can drone on and on about some pointless topics, but at least for me, it wasn't ever too much that it made me want to quit reading.
There's not much more to say about this book.
