Yonas
Many years ago, I watched the American film adaptation of this novel (I can't believe 2011 can be described as “many years ago” wtf). Either a blessing or a curse, I have the absolute worst memory when it comes to remembering what happened in films that I've watched. So when I saw this book for sale for $1 at my local library's book stand, I immediately pounced on it and saw an opportunity to dive into this story completely fresh. It was the best $1 I've spent in a really long time.
The book ebbs and flows at the perfect cadence between intense can't-put-this-down suspense and valleys of mundanity, but even the “slow” parts weren't so bad as to be painful to get through. The characters are all unique and have vibrant, interesting personalities and steady story arcs. The story itself is akin to binary stars that orbit a common center of gravity: there are two major plot lines that seem unrelated, and slowly draw each other closer in throughout the book, until they smash together fantastically toward the end.
This was very close to a perfect crime novel, but misses the mark in a few key ways. I'll only discuss one, which frustrated me a lot more than I thought it would: the fact that the two protagonists, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, had a sexual relationship. If a reader hypothetically dove into this book without knowing anything about the author, then this is the part of the book that they would reach and immediately proclaim, “Ah. So this was written by a man.” The sexual relationship between Blomkvist and Salander is so wildly unrealistic because of how it started and how it persisted (all of which was at the behest of Salander), especially given the massive schism in their backgrounds and personalities. The relationship felt shoehorned into the story, I'm assuming to capture and keep the reader's continued interest, but it was unnecessary, given that the story itself was plenty fascinating. I absolutely hate that there was so much wholesome potential between these two characters and it got completely ruined by the author's overactive imagination. As such, I wanted to dock 1.5 stars off of my rating, but Goodreads doesn't do half-stars, so I'm feeling generous. I give the book 4/5, and it's definitely worth reading. I've already committed to reading the second book in the Millennium series, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and I will decide from there whether or not to continue on.
Supposedly this book is what catapulted Haruki Murakami to international stardom. In retrospect, I struggle to see why. Was there a taste for a certain aesthetic in books in the late 1980's?
The book is just OK. It reads like the personal diary of a boring, aimless college kid who, after a while, you just learn to roll your eyes at and pray that he grows up really soon. There are plenty of scenes in the book that made my eyebrows raise to their maximum limits. Lots of content within the book is explicitly sexual, which in and of itself isn't a problem, but it read entirely too much like a perverted male fantasy: tons of subservient, horny women who were more than eager to have unprotected sex and there are somehow zero consequences for all of these encounters: no STI's and no pregnancies. What a magical world!
The redeeming aspects of this book are mostly twofold: 1) the poetic nature with which Murakami describes human emotion, and 2) the tangential view of the very real cultural epidemic of suicide in Japan. The sadness is palpable as viewed through the lens of the protagonist, Toru Watanabe.
A final nitpick of mine is that we as readers know immediately that the book is being narrated by Watanabe 20 years after the events take place. However, the book's story abruptly ends in the past without returning to the narrator's present. There's no closure on how Watanabe survived 20 additional years of unspeakable sadness and what he made of his life as he became a man. We never find out what the hell he's doing in Germany and if the intense physical problems he was said to experience in the beginning of the book signaled to something more morbid. If it was obfuscated on purpose by Murakami, then that's a pretty sloppy way to leave readers hanging.
If you're brand new to Murakami, as I am, then my advice is to skip this one entirely.
This was a great book. Full stop. A friend of mine made a great point in that it's hard to separate truth from fiction, and Knight acknowledges that several times throughout the book, but ultimately this book is the product of the memory that serves him. It is a fantastic writeup & personal memoir that details the beginnings of Nike. It is far from a fully comprehensive history of the company to date, but still jam-packed with amazing detail.
The only thing I was disappointed by was Phil Knight's lack of acknowledgement of how privileged he actually was as a white man living in America in the 60's and 70's. Although he didn't grow up rich, he had some of the most amazing opportunities that paved the way for everything that he has accomplished. He had the opportunity to travel the world on his father's dime (including a 1-year “relaxation” period in Hawaii doing nothing but drinking and surfing), to get put into contact with businessmen through his father's connections, to get offered lucrative accounting jobs when Blue Ribbon (Nike's predecessor) wasn't doing so well. I could go on.
I'm not trying to take away from Knight's hard work, as he nearly broke himself to make this company a possibility, much less a success. But it's a bit lost on him that, say, a black man in his shoes (pun intended) could have in no way accomplished what he did, not because of the lack of ability, intelligence, or drive; but because black people lived in a world where they were explicitly excluded from being able to succeed. There was no humility in that specific regard.
Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Even though it is a memoir, it was written with the similar feel of a suspense novel - I found it very hard to put the book down and was always eager to get back to it to find out what happens next.
I'm not typically into the fantasy genre, but this book is just so excellently written that it had me captivated from start to finish. Gaiman doesn't try to get overly complicated or clever with his prose; he keeps it simple. Ultimately, it's the storytelling that matters, and this is a masterfully told story.
A profoundly beautiful memoir that vividly encapsulates the experience of growing up black in Baltimore. This book can be a bit hard to follow at times since Coates writes the entire book with the urban vernacular of Baltimore, but understanding the context with which certain parts are written should set you straight. Some of the detailed descriptions of his experiences are so poetic that I often read them over and over again, wishing that I could write with such prose. A highly enjoyable read.
Phoebe Robinson is absolutely hilarious and very smart. This book, along with “How to Be Black” by Baratunde Thurston, brings to light so many of the struggles of what it's like to be black in the United States. Robinson covers a lot of the things that I've personally struggled with over the years and have been unable to articulate into words. She also exposes the struggle of what it's like to be a woman in comedy, something that I haven't even considered. It was delightful to learn from this book. My only complaint is that Robinson was a little heavy-handed on pop culture references which will undoubtedly be dated if someone were to read this book a few years from now. Otherwise, a very easy read and totally worth it.
First and foremost, this book was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I wasn't expecting to learn so many deeply personal secrets about Stephen King, but I did. I also learned that he has a tremendous sense of humor! Be aware that the book is about how to write good fiction. Although King delves a bit into nonfiction, don't expect to learn much in that realm. I will say that a lot of the advice is interchangeable. Worth a read.
Never have I read something so depressing and frightening. I must say that there were several times when I wanted to quit reading this book, but I couldn't get myself to put it down. The bizarre world that Kafka created for K. sucked me in. I found myself feeling so sorry for him that I had to continue, if only to discover the outcome of his fate.
On multiple occasions you'll double over with laughter and at the same time your heart will break. This is a literary gem that encompasses a very specific side of the human experience. Can't recommend it highly enough.