Sasha's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 24 Mar 2025 21:52:41 -0700 60 Sasha's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America]]> 57340678 260 Will Sommer 0063114488 Sasha 0 to-read 4.06 2023 Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America
author: Will Sommer
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity]]> 61089459
Informed by decades of research and on-the-ground experience advising governments and tech companies, Foolproof is the definitive guide to navigating the misinformation age. From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being―yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. In Foolproof , one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation, how it spreads across social networks, and what we can do to protect ourselves and others. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, it’s very hard to cure. Strategies like fact-checking and debunking can leave a falsehood still festering or, at worst, even strengthen its hold. But we aren’t helpless. As van der Linden shows based on award-winning original research, we can cultivate immunity through the innovative science of “prebunking�: inoculating people against false information by preemptively exposing them to a weakened dose, thus empowering them to identify and fend off its manipulative tactics. Deconstructing the characteristic techniques of conspiracies and misinformation, van der Linden gives readers practical tools to defend themselves and others against nefarious persuasion―whether at scale or around their own dinner table. 35 illustrations]]> 368 Sander van der Linden 039388144X Sasha 0 to-read 4.01 2023 Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity
author: Sander van der Linden
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines]]> 52527565 Brian Deer exposes a conspiracy of fraud and betrayal behind attacks on a mainstay of medicine: vaccination.

From San Francisco to Shanghai, from Vancouver to Venice, controversy over vaccines is erupting around the globe. Fear is spreading. Banished diseases have returned. And a militant “anti-vax� movement has surfaced to campaign against immunization. But why?

In The Doctor Who Fooled the World, award-winning investigative reporter Brian Deer exposes the truth behind the crisis. With the page-turning tension of a detective story, he unmasks the players and unearths the facts. Where it began. Who was responsible. How they pulled it off. Who paid.

At the heart of this dark narrative is the rise of the so-called “father of the anti-vaccine movement�: a British-born doctor, Andrew Wakefield. Banned from medicine, thanks to Deer’s discoveries, he fled to the United States to pursue his ambitions, and now claims to be winning a “war.�

In an epic investigation, spread across fifteen years, Deer battles medical secrecy and insider cover-ups, smear campaigns and gagging lawsuits, to uncover rigged research and moneymaking schemes, the heartbreaking plight of families struggling with disability, and the scientific scandal of our time.

2021 winner: Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY), and 2021 Eric Hoffer Book Award]]> 416 Brian Deer 191161780X Sasha 0 to-read 4.09 2020 The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines
author: Brian Deer
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2)]]> 5941114 466 Tana French 0143115626 Sasha 0 4.06 2008 The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2)
author: Tana French
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: currently-reading, mystery, sophomore-novel, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine]]> 6463967
Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.]]> 264 Michael Lewis 0393072231 Sasha 5 history, e-con, economics
It's only been 17 years since the financial crisis (Monday marked the anniversary of the downfall of Bear Stearns). And yet, with the hindsight that the world got through it, and the absence of hindsight about our current situation, talking about the Great Recession can feel tone-deaf.



Maybe that's just because I was a recent teenage immigrant in 2008, and - even with two freshly unemployed parents, no health insurance, and most stores boarded up at the neighborhood plaza - getting my driver's license and making sense of my American classmates drowned out all other worries while the banks were coming apart at the seams. I would be curious to hear if the tone-deaf sentiment resonates or sounds bizarre to others.

Of course, learning about the lead-up to the collapse of the financial market is never irrelevant. The incentives, culture, and opaqueness of Wall street's bond trading apparatus snowballed to an economic catastrophe. This book (and, to a similar degree, the movie based on it) can help us get a grasp of the fraud that fed into Wall Street's more legitimate tools. The disastrous implications went undetected by almost everyone, thanks to getting buried under layers of financial jargon.

The protagonists of The Big Short are those rare individuals who recognized the steaming volcano on top of which Wall Street was building an upside-down pyramid of bets and hedges. It takes a specific personality, Michael Lewis argues, to not only see the mass delusion, but to have the confidence to stake one's own assets and reputation on the bet that eventually, it's all going to collapse. Even when in hindsight, the delusion should have been obvious - once you sort out what all the financial jargon means.



The book is sliiiightly more dense than the movie in this respect. To pretty much everyone - with the possible exception of people who work in finance - I would suggest watching the movie before reading the book. It made the technical details in the book easier to follow, for me at least. But, even though the movie captures most of the book quite well, it really lacks in the details of how the U.S. government dealt with the financial crisis. For this alone, the book is worth reading.

And then of course, there's Lewis's occasional footnote snark.

Goldman Sachs did not leave the house before it began to burn - it was merely the first to dash through the exit. And then, it closed the door behind it.
]]> 4.20 2010 The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
author: Michael Lewis
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: history, e-con, economics
review:
On a week when it feels like we're watching a Cuban missile crisis unfold between the judiciary and executive branches, coupled with the sense that we might be witnessing the end of the US government as we know it, there is something grotesque in reading about a time when that very government stepped in to prevent the end of the US financial system.

It's only been 17 years since the financial crisis (Monday marked the anniversary of the downfall of Bear Stearns). And yet, with the hindsight that the world got through it, and the absence of hindsight about our current situation, talking about the Great Recession can feel tone-deaf.



Maybe that's just because I was a recent teenage immigrant in 2008, and - even with two freshly unemployed parents, no health insurance, and most stores boarded up at the neighborhood plaza - getting my driver's license and making sense of my American classmates drowned out all other worries while the banks were coming apart at the seams. I would be curious to hear if the tone-deaf sentiment resonates or sounds bizarre to others.

Of course, learning about the lead-up to the collapse of the financial market is never irrelevant. The incentives, culture, and opaqueness of Wall street's bond trading apparatus snowballed to an economic catastrophe. This book (and, to a similar degree, the movie based on it) can help us get a grasp of the fraud that fed into Wall Street's more legitimate tools. The disastrous implications went undetected by almost everyone, thanks to getting buried under layers of financial jargon.

The protagonists of The Big Short are those rare individuals who recognized the steaming volcano on top of which Wall Street was building an upside-down pyramid of bets and hedges. It takes a specific personality, Michael Lewis argues, to not only see the mass delusion, but to have the confidence to stake one's own assets and reputation on the bet that eventually, it's all going to collapse. Even when in hindsight, the delusion should have been obvious - once you sort out what all the financial jargon means.



The book is sliiiightly more dense than the movie in this respect. To pretty much everyone - with the possible exception of people who work in finance - I would suggest watching the movie before reading the book. It made the technical details in the book easier to follow, for me at least. But, even though the movie captures most of the book quite well, it really lacks in the details of how the U.S. government dealt with the financial crisis. For this alone, the book is worth reading.

And then of course, there's Lewis's occasional footnote snark.

Goldman Sachs did not leave the house before it began to burn - it was merely the first to dash through the exit. And then, it closed the door behind it.

]]> <![CDATA[The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry]]> 12391521
The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath.

Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.]]> 275 Jon Ronson 1594485755 Sasha 2 healthcare, psychology
Is there something to that? Are psychopaths - people who are physically incapable of feeling empathy, possibly due to a pathologically functioning amygdala - really that common, especially among those who rise to stardom in business and politics? Or is this a product of the way psychopaths are defined, and the overzealous eyes of someone who believes that they have the power to spot a psychopath without an MRI machine? That is the question that sends Jon Ronson on a quest in this book.

I picked up this book not out of a special interest in psychopaths, but because I found Ronson's podcast on the history of the culture wars quite good. Ronson seems to have a talent for taking commonly accepted truths (such as, the DSM lists the diagnostic criteria for real mental disorders that cause suffering, and should be treated if possible) and asking - how might a reasonable person question this truth. This then leads him to find people who take such questioning away from reasonable territory and into the realm of conspiracy theory and misinformation.

Ronson's narrative does pull us into some interesting stories, and I enjoyed a fair bit of the book. It does go down paths that don't seem relevant or necessary and serve to frustrate the reader instead of intriguing us. This applies to the opening part of the book, which centers around a mysterious booklet that has been disseminated to a group of scientists. Chapter 1 can be fully skipped by readers who are finding it boring, as I didn't find the book gripping until chapter 2, at which point it grabbed me whole.

But the occasional meandering nature of the book isn't my main issue with it. In the course of this book, Ronson repeatedly questions whether psychiatric diagnoses are real or if the whole discipline is built around people who love assigning pathological labels to normal variations in human behavior. On occasion, Ronson does mediate these musings with a mention that he knows some people whose mental illness is real and not a frivolous invention by MD-carrying shills colluding with big pharma. For instance:

I knew from seeing stricken loved ones that many of the disorders listed - depression and schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and so on - are genuine and overwhelming and devastating.


In the next sentence, though, he goes back to the possibility that the DSM is a sham, lingering on this side of the question for far longer than the two instances I remember of Ronson acknowledging the possibility that it is real.

It is possible to put a medical field under careful examination and bring out some aspects of it that may be outdated and should be improved. But it must be done with care and diligence. This book does not do this in a way that takes care to avoid causing harm and perpetuate stigma, even though I believ that is not Ronson's intention.

The part where Ronson opens the DSM for the first time and diagnoses himself with 12 disorders, then asks how can this book possibly be based in reality, reminded me of something that happened right around the time of this book's publication. A young woman came to a psychotherapist, suspecting that she had bipolar disorder. She was getting auditory hallucinations every night and occasionally was experiencing mild catatonia. When she asked the psychotherapist if she was going through a depressive episode, he answered "We're all a little bit depressed". Five months later, she went to another office, where a psychiatrist diagnosed her with bipolar and prescribed meds. A couple of weeks later, the hallucinations were gone and never returned.

The one thing that I did gain from Jon Ronson's books, though, was an interest in psychopathy. But I think a more thorough book will be necessary to make me feel like I've learned something about the subject.]]> 3.97 2011 The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
author: Jon Ronson
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: healthcare, psychology
review:
There's a person in my life who seems to love assigning psychological types - usually quite unflatteringly - to the people he encounters. Lately, he has been pinpointing the psychopaths in his social circle. The way he describes it, it would seem that every tenth person walking this planet must be a psychopath.

Is there something to that? Are psychopaths - people who are physically incapable of feeling empathy, possibly due to a pathologically functioning amygdala - really that common, especially among those who rise to stardom in business and politics? Or is this a product of the way psychopaths are defined, and the overzealous eyes of someone who believes that they have the power to spot a psychopath without an MRI machine? That is the question that sends Jon Ronson on a quest in this book.

I picked up this book not out of a special interest in psychopaths, but because I found Ronson's podcast on the history of the culture wars quite good. Ronson seems to have a talent for taking commonly accepted truths (such as, the DSM lists the diagnostic criteria for real mental disorders that cause suffering, and should be treated if possible) and asking - how might a reasonable person question this truth. This then leads him to find people who take such questioning away from reasonable territory and into the realm of conspiracy theory and misinformation.

Ronson's narrative does pull us into some interesting stories, and I enjoyed a fair bit of the book. It does go down paths that don't seem relevant or necessary and serve to frustrate the reader instead of intriguing us. This applies to the opening part of the book, which centers around a mysterious booklet that has been disseminated to a group of scientists. Chapter 1 can be fully skipped by readers who are finding it boring, as I didn't find the book gripping until chapter 2, at which point it grabbed me whole.

But the occasional meandering nature of the book isn't my main issue with it. In the course of this book, Ronson repeatedly questions whether psychiatric diagnoses are real or if the whole discipline is built around people who love assigning pathological labels to normal variations in human behavior. On occasion, Ronson does mediate these musings with a mention that he knows some people whose mental illness is real and not a frivolous invention by MD-carrying shills colluding with big pharma. For instance:

I knew from seeing stricken loved ones that many of the disorders listed - depression and schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and so on - are genuine and overwhelming and devastating.


In the next sentence, though, he goes back to the possibility that the DSM is a sham, lingering on this side of the question for far longer than the two instances I remember of Ronson acknowledging the possibility that it is real.

It is possible to put a medical field under careful examination and bring out some aspects of it that may be outdated and should be improved. But it must be done with care and diligence. This book does not do this in a way that takes care to avoid causing harm and perpetuate stigma, even though I believ that is not Ronson's intention.

The part where Ronson opens the DSM for the first time and diagnoses himself with 12 disorders, then asks how can this book possibly be based in reality, reminded me of something that happened right around the time of this book's publication. A young woman came to a psychotherapist, suspecting that she had bipolar disorder. She was getting auditory hallucinations every night and occasionally was experiencing mild catatonia. When she asked the psychotherapist if she was going through a depressive episode, he answered "We're all a little bit depressed". Five months later, she went to another office, where a psychiatrist diagnosed her with bipolar and prescribed meds. A couple of weeks later, the hallucinations were gone and never returned.

The one thing that I did gain from Jon Ronson's books, though, was an interest in psychopathy. But I think a more thorough book will be necessary to make me feel like I've learned something about the subject.
]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Sasha 0 humor, currently-reading 3.82 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: humor, currently-reading
review:
Making up for the fact that I "read" Huck Finn as a school assignment before I fully learned to speak English. Perhaps it's best that the text fell through my teenage brain like pasta water through a colander. I hear it's not the most straightforward no-context-or-maturity-necessary novel.
]]> <![CDATA[The Big Book of Science Fiction]]> 28503846 greatest science fiction collection of all time - past, present and future. What if life was neverending? What if you could change your body to adapt to an alien ecology? What if the pope were a robot? Spanning galaxies and millennia, this must-have anthology showcases classic contributions from H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia E. Butler, and Kurt Vonnegut, alongside a century of the eccentrics, rebels, and visionaries who have inspired generations of readers. Within its pages, you'll find beloved worlds of space opera, hard SF, cyberpunk, the New Wave, and more. Learn about the secret history of science fiction, from titans of literature who also wrote SF to less well-known authors from more than twenty-five countries, some never before translated into English. In The Big Book of Science Fiction, literary power couple Ann and Jeff VanderMeer transport readers from Mars to Mechanopolis, planet Earth to parts unknown. Immerse yourself in the genre that predicted electric cars, space tourism, and smartphones. Sit back, buckle up, and dial in the coordinates, as this stellar anthology has got worlds within worlds.

Including:
. Legendary tales from Isaac Asimov and Ursula K. Le Guin
. An unearthed sci-fi story from W. E. B. Du Bois
. The first publication in twenty years of the work of cybernetic visionary David R. Bunch
. A rare and brilliant novella by Chinese international sensation Cixin Liu

Plus:
. Aliens!
. Space battles!
. Robots!
. Technology gone wrong!
. Technology gone right!"]]> 1216 Ann VanderMeer 1101910097 Sasha 0
1897
The Star - H.G. Wells - 5
The Earth narrowly avoids a collision with an itinerant star, but an apocalypse happens anyway. Language is a bit convoluted in places; not entirely astronomically sound. But riveting and beautiful nonetheless. Reminiscent of TWotW and climate change.

1905
Sultana's Dream - Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain - 3
Utopian vision of reversing the gender segregation of the purdah. In Ladyland, men live in domestic isolation, while women take on the roles that at this story's time were exclusively men's. Exploration of how technology makes this flip possible. There's no story here per se, just a description of the feminist utopia.

1907
The Triumph of Mechanics - 4
Toy Story 5: Rise of the Adorable Nightmare. Critique of giving power to a technocrat who creates seemingly benevolent tech. Easy read with a twist you'll see coming.

1911
The New Overworld - Paul Scheerbart - 2
Venus has a ballooning population problem that they solve (kind of) with hot air balloons. Elements of weird fiction; awkwardly written with myriad plot holes. Possibly satire, but I lack the context. Enjoyed the furry turtles.

Elements of Pataphysics - Alfred Jarry
A conte philosophique that doesn't even pretend to not be a philosophy textbook. Someone who is as contre philosophie as me can only get through it via hate-reading. Best for those who enjoy formal philosophy.

1913
Mechanopolis - Miguel de Unamuno - 3
A luddite's fever dream about an AI city with no humans. More an idea than a story. We've heard the idea many times in better form by now.

1918
The Doom of Principal City - Yefim Zozulya - 4
A city descends into self-destructing chaos in response to being conquered by people who want to build their own new city right above the existing one in order to avoid destruction. Some amazing images here, like citizens shooting canons at soap and cocoa ads that are projected into their sky, and enemy planes dropping bouquets of flowers on the conquered city.

1920
The Comet - W. E. B. Du Bois - 5
An apocalypse befalls New York and leaves racial barriers and prejudice in the dust. Or does it? My favorite story so far. Some clunky writing - I've never seen so many exclamation points - but some of the most vivid and beautiful, too.

1927
The Fate of the Poseidonia - Clare Winger Harris - 1
Martian invasion story. The intro mentions that it discusses the fear of technology and loss of privacy. Unfortunately, the openly racial descriptions (far from unusual for the time) of the Martians were so distracting for me that I couldn't for the life of me concentrate on the rest of the story after one particular comment about intellect.

1929
The Star Stealers - Edmond Hamilton - 2
A black hole flying through the Milky Way is on course to fling the solar system out of the galaxy. A spaceship fleet is tasked with rescuing the Sun and its planets from this (apparently catastrophic, though I couldn't tell you why) fate. This is a case where an astrophysics background makes it quite hard to enjoy the story because of how ridiculous the science is. Includes aliens that possibly inspired Cthulhu's anatomy.


---------------------
In-progress review stats
---------------------
Mean rating ----- 3.22
Median rating --- 3
Stories read ----- 10/105 (9.5%)
Pages read ------ 128/1191 (10.7%)
Audio equivalent - 9.5/94 hours]]> 4.17 2016 The Big Book of Science Fiction
author: Ann VanderMeer
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: science-fiction, short-stories
review:
This collection has 105 SF stories, spanning twelve hundred pages. I'll update the review as I complete the stories.

1897
The Star - H.G. Wells - 5
The Earth narrowly avoids a collision with an itinerant star, but an apocalypse happens anyway. Language is a bit convoluted in places; not entirely astronomically sound. But riveting and beautiful nonetheless. Reminiscent of TWotW and climate change.

1905
Sultana's Dream - Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain - 3
Utopian vision of reversing the gender segregation of the purdah. In Ladyland, men live in domestic isolation, while women take on the roles that at this story's time were exclusively men's. Exploration of how technology makes this flip possible. There's no story here per se, just a description of the feminist utopia.

1907
The Triumph of Mechanics - 4
Toy Story 5: Rise of the Adorable Nightmare. Critique of giving power to a technocrat who creates seemingly benevolent tech. Easy read with a twist you'll see coming.

1911
The New Overworld - Paul Scheerbart - 2
Venus has a ballooning population problem that they solve (kind of) with hot air balloons. Elements of weird fiction; awkwardly written with myriad plot holes. Possibly satire, but I lack the context. Enjoyed the furry turtles.

Elements of Pataphysics - Alfred Jarry
A conte philosophique that doesn't even pretend to not be a philosophy textbook. Someone who is as contre philosophie as me can only get through it via hate-reading. Best for those who enjoy formal philosophy.

1913
Mechanopolis - Miguel de Unamuno - 3
A luddite's fever dream about an AI city with no humans. More an idea than a story. We've heard the idea many times in better form by now.

1918
The Doom of Principal City - Yefim Zozulya - 4
A city descends into self-destructing chaos in response to being conquered by people who want to build their own new city right above the existing one in order to avoid destruction. Some amazing images here, like citizens shooting canons at soap and cocoa ads that are projected into their sky, and enemy planes dropping bouquets of flowers on the conquered city.

1920
The Comet - W. E. B. Du Bois - 5
An apocalypse befalls New York and leaves racial barriers and prejudice in the dust. Or does it? My favorite story so far. Some clunky writing - I've never seen so many exclamation points - but some of the most vivid and beautiful, too.

1927
The Fate of the Poseidonia - Clare Winger Harris - 1
Martian invasion story. The intro mentions that it discusses the fear of technology and loss of privacy. Unfortunately, the openly racial descriptions (far from unusual for the time) of the Martians were so distracting for me that I couldn't for the life of me concentrate on the rest of the story after one particular comment about intellect.

1929
The Star Stealers - Edmond Hamilton - 2
A black hole flying through the Milky Way is on course to fling the solar system out of the galaxy. A spaceship fleet is tasked with rescuing the Sun and its planets from this (apparently catastrophic, though I couldn't tell you why) fate. This is a case where an astrophysics background makes it quite hard to enjoy the story because of how ridiculous the science is. Includes aliens that possibly inspired Cthulhu's anatomy.


---------------------
In-progress review stats
---------------------
Mean rating ----- 3.22
Median rating --- 3
Stories read ----- 10/105 (9.5%)
Pages read ------ 128/1191 (10.7%)
Audio equivalent - 9.5/94 hours
]]> <![CDATA[The World Before Us: How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins]]> 56233220 'Fascinating and entertaining. If you read one book on human origins, this should be it' Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules - For Now

'The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the world's experts on the dating of prehistoric fossils' Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

50,000 years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonesis and the Denisovans. At the forefront of the latter's ground-breaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham. In The World Before Us, he explains the scientific and technological advancements - in radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA, for example - that allowed each of these discoveries to be made, enabling us to be more accurate in our predictions about not just how long ago these other humans lived, but how they lived, interacted and live on in our genes today. This is the story of us, told for the first time with its full cast of characters.

'The application of new genetic science to pre-history is analogous to how the telescope transformed astronomy. Tom Higham brings us to the frontier of recent discoveries with a book that is both gripping and fun' Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

'This exciting book shows that we now have a revolutionary new tool for reconstructing the human past: DNA from minute pieces of tooth and bone, and even from the dirt on the floor of caves' David Abulafia, author of The Boundless Sea

'The remarkable new science of palaeoanthropology, from lab bench to trench' Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred

'Higham's thrilling account makes readers feel as if they were participating themselves in the extraordinary series of events that in the last few years has revealed our long-lost cousins' David Reich, author of Who We Are and How We Got Here

'A brilliant distillation of the ideas and discoveries revolutionising our understanding of human evolution' Chris Gosden, author of The History of Magic]]> 320 Tom Higham Sasha 0
There are some books where such a focus on the scientists explores the drama of academia politics, and therefore is interesting to read (Priya Natarajan's Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos is one example*). But I don't think that the approach that Tom Higham takes in The World Before Us reaches that riveting level.

____
disclaimer, I know Priya as a colleague and mentor but that's not why I liked her book.]]> 4.31 2021 The World Before Us: How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins
author: Tom Higham
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: history, did-not-finish, lost-me, science
review:
This is a case of something that happens quite a bit in today's books written by scientists who are actively engaged in research: although the book presents itself as being about the history of human evolution, its main topic is the researchers who work in the field. Consequently, the bits of text that tell us about human origins aren't told cohesively, and certainly not chronologically.

There are some books where such a focus on the scientists explores the drama of academia politics, and therefore is interesting to read (Priya Natarajan's Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos is one example*). But I don't think that the approach that Tom Higham takes in The World Before Us reaches that riveting level.

____
disclaimer, I know Priya as a colleague and mentor but that's not why I liked her book.
]]> <![CDATA[Patty Lyons' Knitting Bag of Tricks: Over 70 sanity saving hacks for better knitting]]> 60899306
Patty Lyons is an expert in all things knitting related - she will help you sort out your gauge, unpick problems like twisted stitches and generally spruce up your knitting know-how in this pocket-sized reference book packed full of her purls' of wisdom. Patty is a well-known knitting 'agony aunt' and she will hold your hand as you tackle the problems that often beset knitters and get in the way of beautiful finished projects.

This handy guide will always be by your side to help you unravel your yarn problems and get you back on track. Packed full of practical advice for knitters as well as step-by-step instructions for a whole raft of knitting issues, this is the ultimate guide for anyone who's ever picked up yarn and a set of needles.

This isn't like other how to knit' books with basic information about casting on and how to form stitches (although there is a handy how-to reference section at the back for when you need a refresher), this is a book about the why' of knitting. Not about why we knit' but about why we knit the way we do'. By digging deeper into the why' Patty doesn't just fix your knitting problems she helps you to truly understand why the yarn/stitches/needles/tension are acting in a certain way and how to fix any issues.

She starts by looking at the basics and explores the anatomy of a stitch, examining how this affects the look, feel and shape of the finished knitted fabrics and how different knitting techniques affect the finished outcome. Patty examines the problems caused by common mistakes that many knitters make without even noticing before diving into more complex knitting issues and how to trouble shoot them. All of Patty's techniques and tips are illustrated with detailed step-by-step artworks for absolute clarity.

And, as you'd expect from a Patty Lyons book, there is a healthy scattering of humour and irreverence thoughout ; you might take knitting seriously but you don't have to be serious while knitting!]]> 207 Patty Lyons 1446309118 Sasha 5 knitting hm, did I do that stitch incorrectly? It looks wonky, and definitely not like the perfection in the photos on the pattern...

You go back to your knitting book, or the grandma who taught you this craft, and even check out video tutorials for that wonky-looking stitch. And nope! You did everything correctly - yet no amount of frogging and redoing makes it look better. Sound familiar?

Patty Lyons is here to show us why those strange-looking quirks of homemade knitting happen - and how to fix them. What I really love about this book is that she doesn't just present tricks, or hacks, without any context. She explains why the problem happens in the first place, and in the end you understand why each of her tricks actually works.

Some of this wisdom is pretty easy to pick up just by reading the book, no needles in hand. But some of Patty's solutions are actually somewhat convoluted. After you read the text the first time, you kind of have to try her instructions out on your own knitting to really understand what she's saying.

Take, for instance, the One-Move SSK. SSK, when you do it according to standard instructions, just does not look neat. Zig-zaggy, janky, and loose, it looks like it's been knit by an intoxicated four-year old.

But then, you see that Lyons has a much-improved method, and it even says it only takes one step. Heavenly bodies move aside, god is smiling on me tonight! Right?

Riiiight..... about that improved SSK. I have never experienced the miracle of childbirth (that one time when I was the baby in the room notwithstanding), but I'm pretty sure that the concept is similar to the One-Move SSK. Completely with crying and torn... yarn. The only exception is that in the case of the knitting trick, every time you pull the yarn (baby) through the loop, it retreats back to where it came from.

Is the torture worth the impeccable outcome? My perfectionism says yes, 100%. My hands, on the other hand, say that they have booked a ticket to Tenerife, and, quote, "don't even try calling to get us to come back because we've blocked your number and thrown away our phone."

How am I going to keep practicing Patty's knitting tricks when my hands are on an indefinite vacation to recover from the neatly executed SSK? Maybe that's a trick in one of Patty's other books.]]> 4.59 Patty Lyons' Knitting Bag of Tricks: Over 70 sanity saving hacks for better knitting
author: Patty Lyons
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.59
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: knitting
review:
Have you ever followed instructions for a knitting pattern, looked at your work and thought - hm, did I do that stitch incorrectly? It looks wonky, and definitely not like the perfection in the photos on the pattern...

You go back to your knitting book, or the grandma who taught you this craft, and even check out video tutorials for that wonky-looking stitch. And nope! You did everything correctly - yet no amount of frogging and redoing makes it look better. Sound familiar?

Patty Lyons is here to show us why those strange-looking quirks of homemade knitting happen - and how to fix them. What I really love about this book is that she doesn't just present tricks, or hacks, without any context. She explains why the problem happens in the first place, and in the end you understand why each of her tricks actually works.

Some of this wisdom is pretty easy to pick up just by reading the book, no needles in hand. But some of Patty's solutions are actually somewhat convoluted. After you read the text the first time, you kind of have to try her instructions out on your own knitting to really understand what she's saying.

Take, for instance, the One-Move SSK. SSK, when you do it according to standard instructions, just does not look neat. Zig-zaggy, janky, and loose, it looks like it's been knit by an intoxicated four-year old.

But then, you see that Lyons has a much-improved method, and it even says it only takes one step. Heavenly bodies move aside, god is smiling on me tonight! Right?

Riiiight..... about that improved SSK. I have never experienced the miracle of childbirth (that one time when I was the baby in the room notwithstanding), but I'm pretty sure that the concept is similar to the One-Move SSK. Completely with crying and torn... yarn. The only exception is that in the case of the knitting trick, every time you pull the yarn (baby) through the loop, it retreats back to where it came from.

Is the torture worth the impeccable outcome? My perfectionism says yes, 100%. My hands, on the other hand, say that they have booked a ticket to Tenerife, and, quote, "don't even try calling to get us to come back because we've blocked your number and thrown away our phone."

How am I going to keep practicing Patty's knitting tricks when my hands are on an indefinite vacation to recover from the neatly executed SSK? Maybe that's a trick in one of Patty's other books.
]]> <![CDATA[Artificial Condition: Dramatized Adaptation (The Murderbot Diaries, Book 2)]]> 199695501
It has a dark past—one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot�. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.

Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A� stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.

What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…]]> Martha Wells Sasha 5 science-fiction, fiction
One big exception to the pleasantness of the audio for me was the fighting, of which there isn't much, thankfully. In the full text, the action felt a bit like it was written as a point-by-point log of events rather than your typical vivid violence. That might sound dry to some of you, but I actually really appreciated this approach - it fit right in with the protagonist's personality and saved me from picturing gore.

But this audio adaptation included fight sounds that made me squirm and take my headphones off. So that's a warning for those who might be sensitive to gore-type sounds.

-------

This isn't part of the adaptation itself, but the audio file opens with the slogan for the GraphicAudio brand:

(dramatic voice) "A MOVIE... IN YOUR MIND."

Come on friends, it's either called an imagination or radio. Let's not be patronizing to the listeners.]]> 4.38 2018 Artificial Condition: Dramatized Adaptation (The Murderbot Diaries, Book 2)
author: Martha Wells
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/26
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: science-fiction, fiction
review:
I enjoyed reading Artificial Condition earlier this week so much that I decided to spring for this dramatized edition and re-experience the story with a full cast and sound effects. I've gotta say, once I got used to separating the narrator's voice from the background noises, the sound effects became a nice addition to a lot of scenes. Since the story is told in first person and there isn't that much dialogue, the addition of a full cast didn't really have a major effect, but it was nice to hear the different voices nonetheless.

One big exception to the pleasantness of the audio for me was the fighting, of which there isn't much, thankfully. In the full text, the action felt a bit like it was written as a point-by-point log of events rather than your typical vivid violence. That might sound dry to some of you, but I actually really appreciated this approach - it fit right in with the protagonist's personality and saved me from picturing gore.

But this audio adaptation included fight sounds that made me squirm and take my headphones off. So that's a warning for those who might be sensitive to gore-type sounds.

-------

This isn't part of the adaptation itself, but the audio file opens with the slogan for the GraphicAudio brand:

(dramatic voice) "A MOVIE... IN YOUR MIND."

Come on friends, it's either called an imagination or radio. Let's not be patronizing to the listeners.
]]> <![CDATA[Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book: Completely Revised & Updated]]> 35658990 352 Vogue Knitting 1942021690 Sasha 5 knitting 4.70 Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book: Completely Revised & Updated
author: Vogue Knitting
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: knitting
review:

]]> The Knowledgeable Knitter 18229873 296 Margaret Radcliffe 1612120407 Sasha 5 4.42 2014 The Knowledgeable Knitter
author: Margaret Radcliffe
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sock Project: Colorful, Cool Socks to Knit and Show Off]]> 172186076 Oklahoma native and proud member of the Muscogee-Creek Nation, Summer Lee shares her knitting secrets for creating all shapes and sizes of socks with dots, zigzags, stripes, and a near-neon palette of happy colors.
Ěý
Sock projects are universally loved by knitters, but popular knitting creator Summer Lee has turned this favorite pastime topsy turvy with designs that feature the most electric colors and wow-patterns ever dreamt up. The Sock Project is a book for every beginners who want to learn, knitters who want to improve their sock skills, and anyone who wants to fill their knitting needles—and sock drawers—with jazzy colors and new designs.
Ěý
Build your skills month-by-month with 12 levels of sock knitting. First, start with the humble-but-mighty Basic Sock, then try more complicated patterns for lace socks, cabled socks, socks with Estonian Inlay, and socks done in stranded knitting. You’ll be able to sample 18 fresh and zippy patterns, plus new variations on favorite designs! The Sock Project is a joyful Starburst-color explosion for adventurous knitters everywhere.
Ěý
Includes Color Photographs]]> 192 Summer Lee Sasha 5 knitting 4.74 The Sock Project: Colorful, Cool Socks to Knit and Show Off
author: Summer Lee
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.74
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: knitting
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters]]> 56269152
Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents―a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia, adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving, from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves.

In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth , Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor. Drawing on the very latest scientific understanding and writing in a clear, accessible style, he tells an enlightening tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.]]> 280 Henry Gee 1250276659 Sasha 0 to-read, science 4.00 2021 A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters
author: Henry Gee
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read, science
review:

]]> The Kiss Bet, Vol. 1 213870658 In this adorable coming-of-age comic for fans of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Faith Erin Hicks and Rainbow Rowell’s Pumpkinheads, Sara Lin has decided now is the time: she’s going to make her first kiss, something special and magical, happen.

In this adorable coming-of-age comic for fans of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Faith Erin Hicks and Rainbow Rowell’s Pumpkinheads, Sara Lin has decided now is the time: she’s going to make her first kiss, something special and magical, happen.

It’s senior year and Sara Lin just turned eighteen. She’s got great friends, a cool dad (or so he thinks), and a whole lot ahead of her. The last thing she needs is to worry about having her first kiss.

But that’s all about to change because her good pal Patrick just challenged her to a bet that will either lead to love, heartbreak, or embarrassment…or maybe all three.

Sara Lin understands that her first kiss is a rite of passage, one that she takes very seriously, even if everyone around her doesn’t. She wants it to be special–true love’s kiss–and wants to fall for someone she really cares about, not just get it over with.

Along the way, as Sarah explores her relationship options with three different boys...she discovers that life isn't a fairytale and romance is inherently complex. It's messy and complicated, but boy, it sure can be fun.]]> 288 Ingrid Ochoa 1998341143 Sasha 0 to-read 4.22 2025 The Kiss Bet, Vol. 1
author: Ingrid Ochoa
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Knit Socks That Fit: Techniques for Toe-Up and Cuff-Down Styles. A Storey BASICS® Title]]> 26803586 130 Donna Druchunas Sasha 2 Image credit: Training sock from Kate Atherley's

For a book whose title puts such a central focus on a good fit, Donna Druchunas's How to Knit Socks That Fit contains very little information on how to adjust sock patterns for one's specific needs.

For instance, take high instep - a very common reason to adjust a sock's pattern. Here's how this book addresses the instep adjustment in the Basic Cuff-Down Sock Pattern:

You can easily adjust the instep depth by making the heel flap shorter or longer.


Ok, but how much longer should we make it? And how does one know that an instep adjustment is necessary? There is no information on how to measure one's instep, or how to tell from poorly fitting socks that an instep adjustment is necessary - the book doesn't even explain what the word "instep" means.

Advice for improving the sock's fit is isolated to a handful of bullet point boxes, such as "Tips for Getting a Good Fit" on page 29 - which contains four tips, two of which are to use ribbing to make the sock fit on the foot, and one is to use stockinette to make the sock-donning foot fit into a shoe.

What about accounting for variation in the ratio of the foot, heel and ankle circumferences - let alone more specific personal tailoring adjustments? On the one occasion I noticed that being addressed, the book's advice is vague, abstract, and leaves the reader not much better off than they are without this book.

It's a fairly good resource for learning to knit socks in general - and if its cover didn't promise socks that fit, I would be giving it 4 stars. Alas, I am walking away from the book not feeling any more equipped to fix the socks that struggle to be pulled over my heel - yet which then wobble around my thin ankle.]]> 4.28 2015 How to Knit Socks That Fit: Techniques for Toe-Up and Cuff-Down Styles. A Storey BASICS® Title
author: Donna Druchunas
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves:
review:

Image credit: Training sock from Kate Atherley's

For a book whose title puts such a central focus on a good fit, Donna Druchunas's How to Knit Socks That Fit contains very little information on how to adjust sock patterns for one's specific needs.

For instance, take high instep - a very common reason to adjust a sock's pattern. Here's how this book addresses the instep adjustment in the Basic Cuff-Down Sock Pattern:

You can easily adjust the instep depth by making the heel flap shorter or longer.


Ok, but how much longer should we make it? And how does one know that an instep adjustment is necessary? There is no information on how to measure one's instep, or how to tell from poorly fitting socks that an instep adjustment is necessary - the book doesn't even explain what the word "instep" means.

Advice for improving the sock's fit is isolated to a handful of bullet point boxes, such as "Tips for Getting a Good Fit" on page 29 - which contains four tips, two of which are to use ribbing to make the sock fit on the foot, and one is to use stockinette to make the sock-donning foot fit into a shoe.

What about accounting for variation in the ratio of the foot, heel and ankle circumferences - let alone more specific personal tailoring adjustments? On the one occasion I noticed that being addressed, the book's advice is vague, abstract, and leaves the reader not much better off than they are without this book.

It's a fairly good resource for learning to knit socks in general - and if its cover didn't promise socks that fit, I would be giving it 4 stars. Alas, I am walking away from the book not feeling any more equipped to fix the socks that struggle to be pulled over my heel - yet which then wobble around my thin ankle.
]]> <![CDATA[A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924]]> 30653550 Unrivalled in scope and brimming with human drama, A People’s Tragedy is the most vivid, moving and comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution available today.

â€A modern masterpieceâ€� Andrew Marr

â€The most moving account of the Russian Revolution since Doctor Zhivagoâ€� Independent

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship. Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded.

Illustrated with over 100 photographs and now including a new introduction that reflects on the revolution’s centennial legacy, A People’s Tragedy is a masterful and definitive record of one of the most important events in modern history.]]> 960 Orlando Figes 1847924514 Sasha 0 4.60 1996 A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924
author: Orlando Figes
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.60
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: history, novel-length-2024, did-not-finish
review:

]]> 2024 on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ 195342176 2024 on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ should make an interesting and varied catalogue of books to inspire other readers in 2025.

For those of you who don't like to add titles you haven't actually 'read', you can place 2024 on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ on an 'exclusive' shelf. Exclusive shelves don't have to be listed under 'to read', 'currently reading' or 'read'. To create one, go to 'edit bookshelves' on your 'My Books' page, create a shelf name such as 'review-of-the year' and tick the 'exclusive' box. Your previous and future 'reviews of the year' can be collected together on this dedicated shelf.

Concept created by Fionnuala Lirsdottir.
Description: Fionnuala Lirsdottir
Cover art: Paul CĂ©zanne, The House with the Cracked Walls, 1892-1894
Cover choice and graphics by Jayson]]> Various Sasha 0
It's not clear to me if the disconnect is due to me getting older (although early thirties seems a bit young to feel left out of the zeitgeist) or publisher decisions veering in a direction that is actually not as resonant with what humans look for in art. But, I know I'm not the only one who feels like recently released books and other media are more hollow, formulaic, and conformist to a set of generic expectations. See, for instance, the opinion piece called . As one of the close to 600 comments puts it, it's content, not art.

Early in the year, I spent several months as a Netgalley reviewer, at first eager to be on the frontlines of the reading world. Repeated encounters with disappointing releases, however, wore me out. The one Netgalley ARC that stood out was Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad. But it is a strange feeling to write one critical review after another, often on books that get showered with praise from many other reviewers. It often led me to puzzle over what was wrong with me - why wasn't I experiencing the brilliance and resonance of these works, the way other readers did?

On occasion, this led me to wonder if we are stuck in a "the emperor has no clothes" scenario. Maybe we are. Or, maybe something is actually wrong with me. I haven't seen any written discussion of my point of view in the literary world. But, as evidenced in the 570 comments on , a similar discourse does seem to be forming about other media.

I'll be honest, 2024 hasn't shaped up to my favorite year ever. As I tried to turn to books in search of meaning - or at least something riveting enough to provide an escape from reality for a few hours - I can't say that I ever found a book that I connected with to the great degree that I have in the past. The closest I got to feeling a kinship with a book was with The Graveyard Book, a children's book that is now close to 2 decades old. I also enjoyed The God of the Woods. Perhaps, not every year has to result in the discovery of a new lifelong favorite novel. But I hope that 2025 brings an end to this literary drought.


For now, I don't feel drawn to fiction, but I have been enjoying listening to Supreme Court arguments and reading their opinions. My old interest in paleoanthropology has also returned to my life. That's what I'll focus on in my reading early in the new year. And afterwards, I'm sure my ADHD will find new interesting directions to pull me in. I'm looking forward to finding out what they'll be with great curiosity.




=======
May edit: chronicling the first four months of my book year, after a month-long hiatus from the wonderful, wonderful world of literature while I focused on other priorities. Hopes for the rest of the year:

- Find more things to write positively about (cutting down on Netgalley ARCs to accomplish this, as that will free me from reviewing books I don't finish)
- Continue to keep my TBR shelf capped at 50 books
- Read a bit more about art history after enjoying my buddy read with an art classmate, Oil and Marble

Favorite so far: The Graveyard Book narrated by Gaiman himself in (this is a crucial part) .


=====Novels=====
January
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - 5 stars
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton - 4 stars
*Escape Velocity by Victor Manibo - 3 stars
*Bear by Julie Phillips - 2.5 stars

February
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - 5 stars
Pride and Prejudice - encounter number 3 or 4 - 5 stars
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross - 4 stars

March
A Million Junes by Emily Henry - 4.5 stars
Old Man's War by John Scalzi - 4 stars
The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard - review
*Cascade Failure by L.M. Sagas- 2 stars

April
(Bit of a hiatus)
Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey - 4.5 stars


=====Graphic Novels=====
January
The Infinity Paricle by Wendy Xu - 5 stars
*The Many Lives of Charlie - 3.5 stars

February
*Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad by Matyáš Namai - 5 stars

March
*Morgana and Oz by Miyuli - 4.5 stars
Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction 1 - 4 stars
A Sign of Affection, Vol. 1 by Suu Morishita - 4 stars
A Sign of Affection, Vol. 2 by Suu Morishita - 3 stars
*Third Shift Society, Vol. 1 by Meredith Moriarty - 3 stars


=====Novellas (or shorter)=====
January
*A Few Rules for Predicting the Future by Octavia Butler - an essay with pictures and empty pages - 3 stars
*Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler - review

February
Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin - short story - 3 stars
Summer Frost by Blake Crouch - novella - 4 stars
Ark by Veronica Roth - short story - 3 stars


*: Netgalley ARC]]> 4.15 2024 2024 on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ
author: Various
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
review:
I feel a serious disconnect from the books - and other media - that came in 2024.

It's not clear to me if the disconnect is due to me getting older (although early thirties seems a bit young to feel left out of the zeitgeist) or publisher decisions veering in a direction that is actually not as resonant with what humans look for in art. But, I know I'm not the only one who feels like recently released books and other media are more hollow, formulaic, and conformist to a set of generic expectations. See, for instance, the opinion piece called . As one of the close to 600 comments puts it, it's content, not art.

Early in the year, I spent several months as a Netgalley reviewer, at first eager to be on the frontlines of the reading world. Repeated encounters with disappointing releases, however, wore me out. The one Netgalley ARC that stood out was Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad. But it is a strange feeling to write one critical review after another, often on books that get showered with praise from many other reviewers. It often led me to puzzle over what was wrong with me - why wasn't I experiencing the brilliance and resonance of these works, the way other readers did?

On occasion, this led me to wonder if we are stuck in a "the emperor has no clothes" scenario. Maybe we are. Or, maybe something is actually wrong with me. I haven't seen any written discussion of my point of view in the literary world. But, as evidenced in the 570 comments on , a similar discourse does seem to be forming about other media.

I'll be honest, 2024 hasn't shaped up to my favorite year ever. As I tried to turn to books in search of meaning - or at least something riveting enough to provide an escape from reality for a few hours - I can't say that I ever found a book that I connected with to the great degree that I have in the past. The closest I got to feeling a kinship with a book was with The Graveyard Book, a children's book that is now close to 2 decades old. I also enjoyed The God of the Woods. Perhaps, not every year has to result in the discovery of a new lifelong favorite novel. But I hope that 2025 brings an end to this literary drought.


For now, I don't feel drawn to fiction, but I have been enjoying listening to Supreme Court arguments and reading their opinions. My old interest in paleoanthropology has also returned to my life. That's what I'll focus on in my reading early in the new year. And afterwards, I'm sure my ADHD will find new interesting directions to pull me in. I'm looking forward to finding out what they'll be with great curiosity.




=======
May edit: chronicling the first four months of my book year, after a month-long hiatus from the wonderful, wonderful world of literature while I focused on other priorities. Hopes for the rest of the year:

- Find more things to write positively about (cutting down on Netgalley ARCs to accomplish this, as that will free me from reviewing books I don't finish)
- Continue to keep my TBR shelf capped at 50 books
- Read a bit more about art history after enjoying my buddy read with an art classmate, Oil and Marble

Favorite so far: The Graveyard Book narrated by Gaiman himself in (this is a crucial part) .


=====Novels=====
January
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - 5 stars
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton - 4 stars
*Escape Velocity by Victor Manibo - 3 stars
*Bear by Julie Phillips - 2.5 stars

February
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - 5 stars
Pride and Prejudice - encounter number 3 or 4 - 5 stars
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross - 4 stars

March
A Million Junes by Emily Henry - 4.5 stars
Old Man's War by John Scalzi - 4 stars
The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard - review
*Cascade Failure by L.M. Sagas- 2 stars

April
(Bit of a hiatus)
Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey - 4.5 stars


=====Graphic Novels=====
January
The Infinity Paricle by Wendy Xu - 5 stars
*The Many Lives of Charlie - 3.5 stars

February
*Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad by Matyáš Namai - 5 stars

March
*Morgana and Oz by Miyuli - 4.5 stars
Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction 1 - 4 stars
A Sign of Affection, Vol. 1 by Suu Morishita - 4 stars
A Sign of Affection, Vol. 2 by Suu Morishita - 3 stars
*Third Shift Society, Vol. 1 by Meredith Moriarty - 3 stars


=====Novellas (or shorter)=====
January
*A Few Rules for Predicting the Future by Octavia Butler - an essay with pictures and empty pages - 3 stars
*Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler - review

February
Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin - short story - 3 stars
Summer Frost by Blake Crouch - novella - 4 stars
Ark by Veronica Roth - short story - 3 stars


*: Netgalley ARC
]]> <![CDATA[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)]]> 42857281 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox—the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.]]> 218 Douglas Adams Sasha 5 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about?

One can spend hours trying to summarize the book's hook. And with enough effort, one can find a theme that The Hitchhiker's Guide embodies. Such as: humanity is completely clueless about how the Universe really operates.

But, here is the thing. That unifying idea isn't why this book's got so many lifelong fans. In fact, asking The Hitchhiker's Guide about its theme is like asking a tactic what its strategy is.

The question of theme comes from traditional storytelling analysis - which won't lead you anywhere useful here. Because traditionally, the theme would be embodied by the characters' paths, their inner growth, and the obstacles they wrestle with. With all of those components in place, you would get a nice solid story that one might find in a 1978 bookstore, no problem at all. Here's what it would look like as a car.



But all of that traditional cohesion flies out the window when you add an Improbability Drive, a.k.a. a deus ex machina device that will solve any inconvenience for the characters so that they don't have to. The fact that The Guide still reads like a story is kind of a miracle, actually. Because, look at it:



Where a regular, solidly constructed book is a standard Pontiac, The Hitchhiker's Guide is the frankensteined Cadillac from Johnny Cash's , assembled over 20 years by smuggling one car part out of the factory at a time. When you drive it into town to get the tags, writing the book summary takes the whole court house staff - and the opening hook alone weighs sixty pounds.

And that's the beautiful, unique essence of Douglas Adams's work.]]> 3.86 1979 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: humor, science-fiction, fiction, novel-length-2024
review:
What is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about?

One can spend hours trying to summarize the book's hook. And with enough effort, one can find a theme that The Hitchhiker's Guide embodies. Such as: humanity is completely clueless about how the Universe really operates.

But, here is the thing. That unifying idea isn't why this book's got so many lifelong fans. In fact, asking The Hitchhiker's Guide about its theme is like asking a tactic what its strategy is.

The question of theme comes from traditional storytelling analysis - which won't lead you anywhere useful here. Because traditionally, the theme would be embodied by the characters' paths, their inner growth, and the obstacles they wrestle with. With all of those components in place, you would get a nice solid story that one might find in a 1978 bookstore, no problem at all. Here's what it would look like as a car.



But all of that traditional cohesion flies out the window when you add an Improbability Drive, a.k.a. a deus ex machina device that will solve any inconvenience for the characters so that they don't have to. The fact that The Guide still reads like a story is kind of a miracle, actually. Because, look at it:



Where a regular, solidly constructed book is a standard Pontiac, The Hitchhiker's Guide is the frankensteined Cadillac from Johnny Cash's , assembled over 20 years by smuggling one car part out of the factory at a time. When you drive it into town to get the tags, writing the book summary takes the whole court house staff - and the opening hook alone weighs sixty pounds.

And that's the beautiful, unique essence of Douglas Adams's work.
]]> The Plot Against America 703
For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America - and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.]]> 391 Philip Roth 1400079497 Sasha 0 to-read 3.79 2004 The Plot Against America
author: Philip Roth
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dangerous Visions (Dangerous Visions Collection, 1)]]> 199454106 666 Harlan Ellison Sasha 0 to-read 3.62 1967 Dangerous Visions (Dangerous Visions Collection, 1)
author: Harlan Ellison
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)]]> 43387410 349 Stephen Fry 1452178917 Sasha 0 4.36 2017 Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)
author: Stephen Fry
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: currently-reading, novel-length-2024, mythology
review:

]]> The Time Machine 2493
So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.G. Wells’s successful career and earned him his reputation as the father of science fiction. With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes...and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth.Ěý There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well.Ěý Published in 1895, this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a new century. Thanks to Wells’s expert storytelling and provocative insight, The Time Machine will continue to enthrall readers for generations to come.

Ěý]]> 118 H.G. Wells Sasha 4 The Time Machine made me feel like an eleven year old who got to ride a creaky old roller coaster by herself in the middle of a school day. It's old, and so are the views it expresses. There are newer, more polished, longer, and safer books that explore the ideas here in an improved way. But it's still an adventure that I will remember.]]> 3.91 1895 The Time Machine
author: H.G. Wells
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1895
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: classics, science-fiction, fiction
review:
Reading The Time Machine made me feel like an eleven year old who got to ride a creaky old roller coaster by herself in the middle of a school day. It's old, and so are the views it expresses. There are newer, more polished, longer, and safer books that explore the ideas here in an improved way. But it's still an adventure that I will remember.
]]> <![CDATA[Stories of Your Life and Others]]> 223380 ]]> 281 Ted Chiang 0330426648 Sasha 2
Chiang himself :

one of the things that interests me as a writer is finding ways to make philosophical questions storyable.


(let's try to not think about how much 'storyable' sounds like a 2010s tech startup that condenses books into 15-minute brownie bites)

This clearly places his work in the conte philosophique genre - fables whose main/sole purpose is to explore an abstract question of philosophical interest, rather than to depict the complexity of humanity or delve into the reasons behind some of humanity's more puzzling life choices. There are many readers for whom the conte philosophique is enjoyable and attractive. You'll find their reflections on Stories of Your Life and Others among the many glowing reviews that this collection has received.

I suspect that I liked "Story of Your Life" more than I would have - had I not seen the film that's based on it. The two entities cover the same basic plot, but they focus in different things. Chiang's story, at times, felt like a way to show off how many linguistic terms he had learned.

Chiang's debut story, "Tower of Babylon", felt dry and about as far from turning into a vivid otherworldly landscape with lifelike characters as the ground is from the vault of heavens.

I really wish that I could keep going and give the other stories here a chance. But there is only so long that I can let a book lay on the floor next to my bed, gathering dust particles. I feel like the book itself is getting depressed, as it waits for me to get over how much I've struggled to get through it. It deserves the dignity of living on the shelf of someone who will appreciate it.]]> 4.28 2002 Stories of Your Life and Others
author: Ted Chiang
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: short-stories, science-fiction, fiction, speculative
review:
It appears that I'm not the right reader for Ted Chiang. The two stories I read, "Story of your Life" and "Tower of Babylon", are heavy on philosophical musings (and, in the case of the titular story, jargon) with little of the kind of story goodness that makes me love reading: characterization, lifelike or at least interesting dialogue, any kind of emotional reflection, or humor.

Chiang himself :

one of the things that interests me as a writer is finding ways to make philosophical questions storyable.


(let's try to not think about how much 'storyable' sounds like a 2010s tech startup that condenses books into 15-minute brownie bites)

This clearly places his work in the conte philosophique genre - fables whose main/sole purpose is to explore an abstract question of philosophical interest, rather than to depict the complexity of humanity or delve into the reasons behind some of humanity's more puzzling life choices. There are many readers for whom the conte philosophique is enjoyable and attractive. You'll find their reflections on Stories of Your Life and Others among the many glowing reviews that this collection has received.

I suspect that I liked "Story of Your Life" more than I would have - had I not seen the film that's based on it. The two entities cover the same basic plot, but they focus in different things. Chiang's story, at times, felt like a way to show off how many linguistic terms he had learned.

Chiang's debut story, "Tower of Babylon", felt dry and about as far from turning into a vivid otherworldly landscape with lifelike characters as the ground is from the vault of heavens.

I really wish that I could keep going and give the other stories here a chance. But there is only so long that I can let a book lay on the floor next to my bed, gathering dust particles. I feel like the book itself is getting depressed, as it waits for me to get over how much I've struggled to get through it. It deserves the dignity of living on the shelf of someone who will appreciate it.
]]> 1984 33561480 310 George Orwell 8192910903 Sasha 3
It is telling, therefore, how much time permeates 1984, starting with the title and opening sentence, all the way through the last paragraph. It's speaking to how central being in touch with the passing of time is to our sense of being an individual.

The totalitarian state in 1984 steals its citizens' sense of self by a plethora of means. Robbing them of the knowledge of when exactly in history they are located is a major one. Winston, the main character, is tasked with rewriting history to fit the state's shifting whims. And yet, he doesn't know what year it is; he can't be certain exactly how old he is.

A major question, then, is why is the year so clearly stated in the title? Perhaps by telling us the date - and depriving Winston of that knowledge - Orwell calls out the reader's position as an observer. It's as if we are taking on the role of Big Brother while we read the book, observing Winston's external actions and inner thoughts. It is meant to make us uncomfortable with knowing more about the protagonist than he, arguably, knows about himself.

Lots has been said (largely in the West) about this novel being prophetic, a scary vision of a possible future (or possibly something that might be unfolding already). When politics in one's country is going in an upsetting direction, the scenarios in Orwell's work can get pulled and stretched until they fit the shape of whatever is going on in the West at the time.

But Orwell didn't pluck it all from his imagination. In fact, a large portion of what he describes was happening around the time when Orwell wrote 1984 a few hundred kilometers East of him, in the Soviet Union.

In my opinion, learning about the real history of totalitarian regimes is a better way to equip oneself for detecting them as they build up at home - and what one can do to protect the self and one's family if the let's-hope-we-never-need-this-knowledge case comes to fruition. Journey into the Whirlwind, for example, tells the personal journey of one of the victims of Stalinist repressions. Not only is it real and illuminating about how totalitarianism works on a day-to-day scale, it's also engrossing.

Still, the monologues and long chunks of exposition in 1984 raise questions about what a future regime might do differently from what we can find in history books. This novel is definitely worth reading.

I did struggle in a major way with one aspect of the novel - Orwell's musings on sexual deprivation. Among other things in the novel, there is a celibacy movement among women. Both Winston and Julia say things that imply that not having sex with men turns the women in the celibacy movement into thoughtless mutant tools of authoritarian oppression. One shouldn't need to be female or asexual to see what's wrong in this equation. But being both of those things made1984's stance on women's sexual obligation to men particularly hard to stomach and not see as an insult.

Once I pushed past the parts where Winston and Julia are together on the page, the problem subsided. After that, the novel was absolutely stellar - and discussing totalitarianism in a way I hadn't considered before. The ending was great.]]> 4.37 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1949
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: novel-length-2024, science-fiction, classics, dystopian
review:
What was there before the Big Bang? Some would say it's nonsensical to ask this question because time didn't exist yet. And in the absense of time, there was no 'before'. This concept can be maddeningly hard to grasp for us humans. Time is inextricably tied to life - to existence itself.

It is telling, therefore, how much time permeates 1984, starting with the title and opening sentence, all the way through the last paragraph. It's speaking to how central being in touch with the passing of time is to our sense of being an individual.

The totalitarian state in 1984 steals its citizens' sense of self by a plethora of means. Robbing them of the knowledge of when exactly in history they are located is a major one. Winston, the main character, is tasked with rewriting history to fit the state's shifting whims. And yet, he doesn't know what year it is; he can't be certain exactly how old he is.

A major question, then, is why is the year so clearly stated in the title? Perhaps by telling us the date - and depriving Winston of that knowledge - Orwell calls out the reader's position as an observer. It's as if we are taking on the role of Big Brother while we read the book, observing Winston's external actions and inner thoughts. It is meant to make us uncomfortable with knowing more about the protagonist than he, arguably, knows about himself.

Lots has been said (largely in the West) about this novel being prophetic, a scary vision of a possible future (or possibly something that might be unfolding already). When politics in one's country is going in an upsetting direction, the scenarios in Orwell's work can get pulled and stretched until they fit the shape of whatever is going on in the West at the time.

But Orwell didn't pluck it all from his imagination. In fact, a large portion of what he describes was happening around the time when Orwell wrote 1984 a few hundred kilometers East of him, in the Soviet Union.

In my opinion, learning about the real history of totalitarian regimes is a better way to equip oneself for detecting them as they build up at home - and what one can do to protect the self and one's family if the let's-hope-we-never-need-this-knowledge case comes to fruition. Journey into the Whirlwind, for example, tells the personal journey of one of the victims of Stalinist repressions. Not only is it real and illuminating about how totalitarianism works on a day-to-day scale, it's also engrossing.

Still, the monologues and long chunks of exposition in 1984 raise questions about what a future regime might do differently from what we can find in history books. This novel is definitely worth reading.

I did struggle in a major way with one aspect of the novel - Orwell's musings on sexual deprivation. Among other things in the novel, there is a celibacy movement among women. Both Winston and Julia say things that imply that not having sex with men turns the women in the celibacy movement into thoughtless mutant tools of authoritarian oppression. One shouldn't need to be female or asexual to see what's wrong in this equation. But being both of those things made1984's stance on women's sexual obligation to men particularly hard to stomach and not see as an insult.

Once I pushed past the parts where Winston and Julia are together on the page, the problem subsided. After that, the novel was absolutely stellar - and discussing totalitarianism in a way I hadn't considered before. The ending was great.
]]> Cosmology 59891152 477 Daniel Baumann 1108838073 Sasha 5 cosmos, science, physics 5.00 2022 Cosmology
author: Daniel Baumann
name: Sasha
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: cosmos, science, physics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Sasha 0
But for me, trying to start The House in the Cerulean Sea has felt like repeatedly turning the key in the ignition of a car that's been standing in the freezing cold for months, with nothing more than fumes remaining in its tank. I kid you not, I've restarted the book six times. Now, I've finally started moving through the book, and 30 minutes in, I've already got too many complaints.

The tone feels middle-grade without any of the magic of that age category. The focus on the central character's weight is uninteresting. I thought we've stopped describing disagreeable women by focusing on their unsightliness (at length, returning to the woman's repulsiveness over and over after seemingly leaving the subject behind and moving on); it's lazy. It feels like the book is trying to be whimsical - but it's not working for me.

Most importantly, I have yet to be hooked by the story. I think I'll spare my goodreads friends and TJ Klune from what would probably be a dissenting opinion review and go read something else now.]]> 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: did-not-finish, fiction, fantasy-or-magical-realism
review:
I'm happy for the many folks for whom this worked - it's great to have a comfort book one can reread pro re nata.

But for me, trying to start The House in the Cerulean Sea has felt like repeatedly turning the key in the ignition of a car that's been standing in the freezing cold for months, with nothing more than fumes remaining in its tank. I kid you not, I've restarted the book six times. Now, I've finally started moving through the book, and 30 minutes in, I've already got too many complaints.

The tone feels middle-grade without any of the magic of that age category. The focus on the central character's weight is uninteresting. I thought we've stopped describing disagreeable women by focusing on their unsightliness (at length, returning to the woman's repulsiveness over and over after seemingly leaving the subject behind and moving on); it's lazy. It feels like the book is trying to be whimsical - but it's not working for me.

Most importantly, I have yet to be hooked by the story. I think I'll spare my goodreads friends and TJ Klune from what would probably be a dissenting opinion review and go read something else now.
]]> Coraline 17061
In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

Only it's different.

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.]]> 176 Neil Gaiman 0061139378 Sasha 4 4.13 2002 Coraline
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: novel-length-2024, childrens, fiction, fantasy-or-magical-realism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (3 Volumes)]]> 38212108 A landmark event: the complete Hebrew Bible in the award-winning translation that delivers the stunning literary power of the original.

A masterpiece of deep learning and fine sensibility, Robert Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Bible, now complete, reanimates one of the formative works of our culture. Capturing its brilliantly compact poetry and finely wrought, purposeful prose, Alter renews the Old Testament as a source of literary power and spiritual inspiration. From the family frictions of Genesis and King David’s flawed humanity to the serene wisdom of Psalms and Job’s incendiary questioning of God’s ways, these magnificent works of world literature resonate with a startling immediacy. Featuring Alter’s generous commentary, which quietly alerts readers to the literary and historical dimensions of the text, this is the definitive edition of the Hebrew Bible.]]> 3132 Robert Alter 0393292495 Sasha 0 judaism
Enter Alter's English translation of the Tanakh. This translation makes the process of reading scripture more fun than older versions (which often produced the English-language text once it had already been translated from Hebrew into another language, thus creating multiple opportunities for the original words to be lost in translation).

The footnotes, however, are the real gold of this edition. Often, they occupy more real estate on the page than is allocated to the text that they are commenting on (those familiar with Rabbinic commentary will not find this a new phenomenon). Take a look at the first footnote, for example, which is commenting on the opening of Genesis (which, in Alter's translation, reads "When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep..."):

welter and waste. The Hebrew tohu wabohu occurs only here and in two later biblical texts that are clearly alluding to this one. The second word of the pair looks like a nonce term coined to rhyme with the first and to reinforce it...


Wait, what? The opening of the Torah has a made up word? who knew? I certainly didn't.

And so it goes on, with a good measure of context for making sense of what you are reading when a ton of meaning is implied and not said out loud due to contemporary conventions and conversational taboos (Book of Ruth, I'm looking at you).

Granted, at times the footnotes get into the weeds of the choices made in the translation, and at other times, Alter is in conversation with other academics. But, as the footnote I quote above (I believe) shows, even such pedantic dives into the Sea of Reeds can be fascinating to read.

Whether or not you identify as Jewish, when you are considering reading this major piece of the world literary canon, Alter's translation is a great pick.

Note on the Audible version
64 hours of narration from the Alter translation are available on Audible, included with a basic membership. While that is already a lot of hours of audio, unfortunately it does not include the footnotes at all (which would probably triple the length of the narration, at least). That makes me quite sad.

Without the footnotes, listening to this text feels like taking a supersonic jet to complete one of the routes from the "Most Scenic Drives in America" guidebook. It's missing the point of the journey.]]> 4.74 2018 The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (3 Volumes)
author: Robert Alter
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: judaism
review:
It is often said in Judaism that one should not read Torah in isolation and without accompanying commentary. Traditionally, that commentary comes in the form of Rabbinic writings - but sometimes, a more modern, secular, accessible, or just plain different, set of commentary is called for.

Enter Alter's English translation of the Tanakh. This translation makes the process of reading scripture more fun than older versions (which often produced the English-language text once it had already been translated from Hebrew into another language, thus creating multiple opportunities for the original words to be lost in translation).

The footnotes, however, are the real gold of this edition. Often, they occupy more real estate on the page than is allocated to the text that they are commenting on (those familiar with Rabbinic commentary will not find this a new phenomenon). Take a look at the first footnote, for example, which is commenting on the opening of Genesis (which, in Alter's translation, reads "When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep..."):

welter and waste. The Hebrew tohu wabohu occurs only here and in two later biblical texts that are clearly alluding to this one. The second word of the pair looks like a nonce term coined to rhyme with the first and to reinforce it...


Wait, what? The opening of the Torah has a made up word? who knew? I certainly didn't.

And so it goes on, with a good measure of context for making sense of what you are reading when a ton of meaning is implied and not said out loud due to contemporary conventions and conversational taboos (Book of Ruth, I'm looking at you).

Granted, at times the footnotes get into the weeds of the choices made in the translation, and at other times, Alter is in conversation with other academics. But, as the footnote I quote above (I believe) shows, even such pedantic dives into the Sea of Reeds can be fascinating to read.

Whether or not you identify as Jewish, when you are considering reading this major piece of the world literary canon, Alter's translation is a great pick.

Note on the Audible version
64 hours of narration from the Alter translation are available on Audible, included with a basic membership. While that is already a lot of hours of audio, unfortunately it does not include the footnotes at all (which would probably triple the length of the narration, at least). That makes me quite sad.

Without the footnotes, listening to this text feels like taking a supersonic jet to complete one of the routes from the "Most Scenic Drives in America" guidebook. It's missing the point of the journey.
]]> Out of the Ruins 56752890 307 Preston Grassmann 1789097398 Sasha 0 to-read 3.27 2021 Out of the Ruins
author: Preston Grassmann
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Ghoul Next Door 55659589
He discovers odd, gruesome bits and pieces from the graveyard that are left for him as gifts like art carved from bones or jewelry made from (hopefully not human) remains. Soon Grey is caught up in something bigger than he could ever have imagined.

He finds himself drawn into a strange mystery involving a race of reclusive subterranean creatures—ghouls, the eaters of the dead! Turns out, his secret admirer is a ghoul named Lavinia. An unlikely friendship forms between them. The only problem is, their friendship breaks traditions—and the punishment is a fate worse than death.]]> 200 Cullen Bunn 0062896105 Sasha 4


Beyond the iron gates, Grey, the kid at the center of this graphic novel, encounters a rather strange creature, who wants to give him unusual gifts...



....in exchange for learning what it's like to be human.



This unusual friendship builds over the first half of the book. But the second half, in my opinion, is where this story shines, thanks to the beautiful artwork of the underworld.



In the underworld, the characters face some ...interesting... obstacles



which they overcome with the mighty prowess that the protagonist of a middle grade book should always bring with them.



What I loved the most about this book is the art. Each panel is done in watercolor, which at first looks like a rather tame, could-be-digital, could-be-marker, color-inside-the-lines style when Grey and his friend are still in the safety of their human world.



But the closer they get to danger,



the more chaotic and out-of-control the watercolor gets.



Although the story doesn't quite reach its full potential, the visuals here are properly spooky, even for the occasional adult reader. I definitely had fun reading it. You don't see chaotic watercolor done well every day.

]]> 3.88 2021 The Ghoul Next Door
author: Cullen Bunn
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: childrens, graphic-novel, horror
review:
This spooky tale starts just outside a cemetery on a regular Tuesday in middle school.



Beyond the iron gates, Grey, the kid at the center of this graphic novel, encounters a rather strange creature, who wants to give him unusual gifts...



....in exchange for learning what it's like to be human.



This unusual friendship builds over the first half of the book. But the second half, in my opinion, is where this story shines, thanks to the beautiful artwork of the underworld.



In the underworld, the characters face some ...interesting... obstacles



which they overcome with the mighty prowess that the protagonist of a middle grade book should always bring with them.



What I loved the most about this book is the art. Each panel is done in watercolor, which at first looks like a rather tame, could-be-digital, could-be-marker, color-inside-the-lines style when Grey and his friend are still in the safety of their human world.



But the closer they get to danger,



the more chaotic and out-of-control the watercolor gets.



Although the story doesn't quite reach its full potential, the visuals here are properly spooky, even for the occasional adult reader. I definitely had fun reading it. You don't see chaotic watercolor done well every day.


]]> <![CDATA[American Gods (American Gods, #1)]]> 4407
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...

This is the author's preferred text, never before published in the UK, and is about 12,000 words longer than the previous UK edition.

]]> 635 Neil Gaiman Sasha 3 -- Anna Akhmatova*

It feels like American Gods is the embodiment of this quote. It was as if Gaiman set out to prove Akhmatova right by publishing a severely under-edited** narrative, filled with myriad dream sequences and purposeless lewdness. I would just like to add road trip anecdotes to Akhamtova's recipe for sleepy time tea. A decade ago, I gave American Gods 5 stars. Re-reading it in 2024 has seriously downgraded my rating.

This novel's meandering nature was likely a product of Neil Gaiman writing a stream-of-consciousness account of his road trip through America, mixed with nerding out about mythology. A jumble of ideas poured out of Gaiman's subconscious onto the page. I'm guessing that when it came time to organize them into a compelling story, he felt too attached to too many of this scenes to turn his draft into a coherent narrative.

One thing I should mention here: I've never liked myths. To me, they're the epitome of "he did this, then she did that" with no emotional context whatsoever. This is just a personal thing - some people (Gaiman for instance) enjoy myths, legends, and fairy tales. I probably just experience reading differently, and that difference may account for how polarized American Gods's reviews are.

There is a major myth nerd aspect to this novel. I've read the first few pages of Gaiman's very own Norse Mythology, which shed light on Shadow's tree episode in American Gods. If you enjoy myths and are familiar with them, this novel will probably make more sense to you than to a mythological philistine like me.

Understanding the references, however, isn't sufficient to be fully immersed in a novel. Shadow is this novel's only character with any dimension - which is funny, because many readers feel like he is too emotionally dull to be an enjoyable protagonist. True, Shadow's emotions are stunted, and there's a reason for that. But, at least, there's something that he wants - to start feeling alive again. That was enough for me to care about what happens to him.

As for the rest of the characters, no such luck. At the very least, Wednesday - who controls Shadow's movements for a large part of the story, and for whom Shadow makes some major sacrifices - needed more background to loop us into caring about his actions and their consequences.

So, why did I give American Gods 5 stars ten years ago? That comes down to how straightforward Gaiman's language is - Gaiman himself calls the style in this novel "American transparent" (). The words, for the most part, dissolve into the background, and you can just pay attention to the events they're describing - without the distraction of clever phrasing.

That is my favorite writing style. But, at the time of my first encounter with American Gods, I was exclusively reading dry literary critic bait - where, it seems, there was very little but clever phrasing. American Gods was, thus, my first breath of fresh air, the first step away from literary theory seminars, towards stories I actually enjoy reading.

Do I love the writing here? No. There were too many details that do nothing for the story (think "he turned the door knob, pulled on it, and tugged at the door to open it"). One GR review mentions that Gaiman intentionally added mundane details to ground the surreal in reality, but I don't think they made up for the story's lack of shape. I also counted several instances of "smiled a smile" and "thought to himself," which are pet peeves of mine.

While I give American Gods credit for pulling me towards fiction that puts a good story above literary achievement, it no longer speaks to me the way it did in the antediluvian times. I still enjoyed the middle section that takes place in Lakeside - the part where gods aren't obviously present or central. (See my point about Shadow being the only character with dimension). It felt like a segment from a completely different novel that I would be interested in finishing.

I also really liked the short stories of immigrants to America, which had only a loose connection to the main cast of characters. The chapter about Salim from Oman stands out in particular. As far as my taste goes, Gaiman appears to be much better at short stories than at feature-length works. Sadly, as I was writing this review, I almost forgot that the "coming to America" interludes happened at all - they were that weakly tethered to the story of Shadow and the gods.

2.5 stars for the total entity.

-
* The quote is attributed to Anna Akhmatova in Anatoly Nayman's Akhmatova Stories. The original quote is "Вообще, Ńамое ŃĐşŃчное на Ńвете - чŃжие Ńны и чŃжой блŃĐ´." Translation mine.

** I read the 10th anniversary edition, which is much longer than the first edition of American Gods. Before its original publication, Gaiman's editor felt that the manuscript was way too drawn out and cut 100 or so pages from it.
Despite the editor's advice, on the book's 10th anniversary, Gaiman added a good chunk of the removed text back in, which doesn't appear to have been a good decision. The preface even mentions that adding it all back into the first edition was such a messy task that he handed it over to someone else to complete.
Merely slashing the text down would not address my gripes completely, but it would have helped. Stories like this typically paint the editor as a demonic censor, but I'm on the editor's side in this one.]]> 4.10 2001 American Gods (American Gods, #1)
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: fantasy-or-magical-realism, fiction, novel-length-2024
review:
"Nothing in the world is more boring than other people's dreams and licentiousness."
-- Anna Akhmatova*

It feels like American Gods is the embodiment of this quote. It was as if Gaiman set out to prove Akhmatova right by publishing a severely under-edited** narrative, filled with myriad dream sequences and purposeless lewdness. I would just like to add road trip anecdotes to Akhamtova's recipe for sleepy time tea. A decade ago, I gave American Gods 5 stars. Re-reading it in 2024 has seriously downgraded my rating.

This novel's meandering nature was likely a product of Neil Gaiman writing a stream-of-consciousness account of his road trip through America, mixed with nerding out about mythology. A jumble of ideas poured out of Gaiman's subconscious onto the page. I'm guessing that when it came time to organize them into a compelling story, he felt too attached to too many of this scenes to turn his draft into a coherent narrative.

One thing I should mention here: I've never liked myths. To me, they're the epitome of "he did this, then she did that" with no emotional context whatsoever. This is just a personal thing - some people (Gaiman for instance) enjoy myths, legends, and fairy tales. I probably just experience reading differently, and that difference may account for how polarized American Gods's reviews are.

There is a major myth nerd aspect to this novel. I've read the first few pages of Gaiman's very own Norse Mythology, which shed light on Shadow's tree episode in American Gods. If you enjoy myths and are familiar with them, this novel will probably make more sense to you than to a mythological philistine like me.

Understanding the references, however, isn't sufficient to be fully immersed in a novel. Shadow is this novel's only character with any dimension - which is funny, because many readers feel like he is too emotionally dull to be an enjoyable protagonist. True, Shadow's emotions are stunted, and there's a reason for that. But, at least, there's something that he wants - to start feeling alive again. That was enough for me to care about what happens to him.

As for the rest of the characters, no such luck. At the very least, Wednesday - who controls Shadow's movements for a large part of the story, and for whom Shadow makes some major sacrifices - needed more background to loop us into caring about his actions and their consequences.

So, why did I give American Gods 5 stars ten years ago? That comes down to how straightforward Gaiman's language is - Gaiman himself calls the style in this novel "American transparent" (). The words, for the most part, dissolve into the background, and you can just pay attention to the events they're describing - without the distraction of clever phrasing.

That is my favorite writing style. But, at the time of my first encounter with American Gods, I was exclusively reading dry literary critic bait - where, it seems, there was very little but clever phrasing. American Gods was, thus, my first breath of fresh air, the first step away from literary theory seminars, towards stories I actually enjoy reading.

Do I love the writing here? No. There were too many details that do nothing for the story (think "he turned the door knob, pulled on it, and tugged at the door to open it"). One GR review mentions that Gaiman intentionally added mundane details to ground the surreal in reality, but I don't think they made up for the story's lack of shape. I also counted several instances of "smiled a smile" and "thought to himself," which are pet peeves of mine.

While I give American Gods credit for pulling me towards fiction that puts a good story above literary achievement, it no longer speaks to me the way it did in the antediluvian times. I still enjoyed the middle section that takes place in Lakeside - the part where gods aren't obviously present or central. (See my point about Shadow being the only character with dimension). It felt like a segment from a completely different novel that I would be interested in finishing.

I also really liked the short stories of immigrants to America, which had only a loose connection to the main cast of characters. The chapter about Salim from Oman stands out in particular. As far as my taste goes, Gaiman appears to be much better at short stories than at feature-length works. Sadly, as I was writing this review, I almost forgot that the "coming to America" interludes happened at all - they were that weakly tethered to the story of Shadow and the gods.

2.5 stars for the total entity.

-
* The quote is attributed to Anna Akhmatova in Anatoly Nayman's Akhmatova Stories. The original quote is "Вообще, Ńамое ŃĐşŃчное на Ńвете - чŃжие Ńны и чŃжой блŃĐ´." Translation mine.

** I read the 10th anniversary edition, which is much longer than the first edition of American Gods. Before its original publication, Gaiman's editor felt that the manuscript was way too drawn out and cut 100 or so pages from it.
Despite the editor's advice, on the book's 10th anniversary, Gaiman added a good chunk of the removed text back in, which doesn't appear to have been a good decision. The preface even mentions that adding it all back into the first edition was such a messy task that he handed it over to someone else to complete.
Merely slashing the text down would not address my gripes completely, but it would have helped. Stories like this typically paint the editor as a demonic censor, but I'm on the editor's side in this one.
]]> <![CDATA[Asimov's Science Fiction, September/October 2024]]> 219709480
Heartshock by Nick Wolven
The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea by Naomi Kritzer
In the Dark by James Patrick Kelly
And to Their Shining Palaces Go by Betsy Aoki
All the Homes of Terror by Robert Reed

SHORT STORIES

Art Deco Farmhouse, Original Hardwood Floors, Slightly Haunted by Alice Towey
Bachelorettes on the Devil's Dance Floor by Stephanie Feldman
An Unplanned Hold by Zohar Jacobs
Bitter Chai, Sweet Chai by Anita Vijayakumar
Lost Recall by Robert R. Chase
Eternity Is Moments by R.P. Sand
Project Fafnir by Susan Shwartz
A Gray Magic by Ray Nayler

POETRY

Like a Haiku by Kendall Evans
Futurisms (What Is It Now?) by David Sandner
Wanted: by Sai Liuko
Eating With the Dead #1 by Mary Soon Lee
In a Vial on the Windowsill You'll Find It by Marisca Pichette
You Finally Understand Quantum Mechanics by Robert Persons
Wanted—Personal Demon by Mary Soon Lee
The Kelpie's Back by Jane Yolen
Awakening by Greg Schwartz

DEPARTMENTS

Editorial: Magnifique! by Sheila Williams
Reflections: The Man Who Saw the Future by Robert Silverberg
On the Net: The Music of the Future by James Patrick Kelly
Thought Experiment: Nuclear War, Satire, and the Grotesque in Dr. Strangelove by Kelly Lagor
On Books by Norman Spinrad]]> 208 Sheila Williams Sasha 4 The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea is a seaside tale of being trapped in a marriage where one's spouse takes way more than their fair share without giving very much back. Although it is a descendant of the Scottish folktale of the Selkie Wife and the Human Lover, it reads as its own complete story about the modern "two-body problem": two grad students fall in love, and when they start looking for jobs in academia, only one can take a prestigious faculty job, while the other has to sacrifice their career in order to continue living with their spouse.

The protagonist is a marine biologist who has an intuitive connection to seals, but ever since losing her data from an expensive study, she has been pushed into the background, where she does menial tasks and writes her husband's papers for him without getting credit for her work. Meanwhile, the husband locks himself in his study to keep doing his important research, does not thank his wife for her sacrifices and labor, and partakes in other miscellaneous jackassery.

I was fully rooting for our protagonist throughout this novella. Get her the credit and academic career that she deserves! Get this woman back into the ocean with expensive equipment, where she belongs and longs to be!

The protagonist forms complex relationships with the seals in this story, and her friendship with Murphy The Seal was a particular delight. Kritzer paints a vivid atmosphere of living in a coastal New England town, from a unique perspective (the protagonist describes how the smell of the ocean reaches her house on windy days, then proceeds to share a nerdy detail about ocean bacteria that turns the ocean smell from a generic sensory detail into a telling character trait). Plus, the plot is interesting and gripped me. It's a riveting tale that flies by.

My only gripe is that I wished for dimension to the husband's character, who showed no nuance to his words or actions. Why did our protagonist get married to this jerk in the first place? He can't have always been all bad all the time, otherwise the woman at the center of this story wouldn't have readily married the guy. And maybe he's changed over the years - perhaps, under the pressures of a faculty job. But no character evolution was mentioned in The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea. The twist in the story, consequently, doesn't have the deeply resonant impact that it potentially could. That said, it's still a nice twist.

Despite this gripe, it's a vividly written story, and I was absorbed all the way through. A highly enjoyable novelette.]]> 3.97 2024 Asimov's Science Fiction, September/October 2024
author: Sheila Williams
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/10
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: science-fiction, short-stories, magazine, fiction
review:
Naomi Kritzer's novelette The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea is a seaside tale of being trapped in a marriage where one's spouse takes way more than their fair share without giving very much back. Although it is a descendant of the Scottish folktale of the Selkie Wife and the Human Lover, it reads as its own complete story about the modern "two-body problem": two grad students fall in love, and when they start looking for jobs in academia, only one can take a prestigious faculty job, while the other has to sacrifice their career in order to continue living with their spouse.

The protagonist is a marine biologist who has an intuitive connection to seals, but ever since losing her data from an expensive study, she has been pushed into the background, where she does menial tasks and writes her husband's papers for him without getting credit for her work. Meanwhile, the husband locks himself in his study to keep doing his important research, does not thank his wife for her sacrifices and labor, and partakes in other miscellaneous jackassery.

I was fully rooting for our protagonist throughout this novella. Get her the credit and academic career that she deserves! Get this woman back into the ocean with expensive equipment, where she belongs and longs to be!

The protagonist forms complex relationships with the seals in this story, and her friendship with Murphy The Seal was a particular delight. Kritzer paints a vivid atmosphere of living in a coastal New England town, from a unique perspective (the protagonist describes how the smell of the ocean reaches her house on windy days, then proceeds to share a nerdy detail about ocean bacteria that turns the ocean smell from a generic sensory detail into a telling character trait). Plus, the plot is interesting and gripped me. It's a riveting tale that flies by.

My only gripe is that I wished for dimension to the husband's character, who showed no nuance to his words or actions. Why did our protagonist get married to this jerk in the first place? He can't have always been all bad all the time, otherwise the woman at the center of this story wouldn't have readily married the guy. And maybe he's changed over the years - perhaps, under the pressures of a faculty job. But no character evolution was mentioned in The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea. The twist in the story, consequently, doesn't have the deeply resonant impact that it potentially could. That said, it's still a nice twist.

Despite this gripe, it's a vividly written story, and I was absorbed all the way through. A highly enjoyable novelette.
]]> <![CDATA[The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019]]> 43261152 The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 represents a wide range of the most accomplished voices working in science fiction and fantasy, in fiction, today—each story dazzles with ambition, striking prose, and the promise of the other and the unencountered.
]]> 432 Carmen Maria Machado 1328604373 Sasha 0 guest editor. But the guest editor is not doing the majority of the selection for this volume.

John Joseph Adams is the series editor. Every year, he reads a ton of short stories published in the SFF space. He selects the 80 that he considers to be the best of the year. The guest editor then selects 20 from that 80, and this top 20 ends up printed in this collection.

The upshot is that a single person, the same one every year, performs the initial reduction, through the filter of their own taste and ideas about what makes SFF short stories the best. And Adams's taste doesn't appear to match mine.

The stories here aren't bad per se. They are just "the best" with the big caveat of being the best in one person's opinion.

After reading the first four stories in this collection (and giving the The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 a shot several months ago), I'm concluding that the series editor and I don't align on what makes a great short story.

A reader who is more aligned with literary academia than me might enjoy them way more.]]> 3.93 2019 The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019
author: Carmen Maria Machado
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: science-fiction, fiction, short-stories, did-not-finish
review:
Here's an issue with the way a series like this works. Each year, the cover features the name of a new bright writer in the SFF sphere. In this 2019 collection's case, it's Carmen Maria Machado. That is the guest editor. But the guest editor is not doing the majority of the selection for this volume.

John Joseph Adams is the series editor. Every year, he reads a ton of short stories published in the SFF space. He selects the 80 that he considers to be the best of the year. The guest editor then selects 20 from that 80, and this top 20 ends up printed in this collection.

The upshot is that a single person, the same one every year, performs the initial reduction, through the filter of their own taste and ideas about what makes SFF short stories the best. And Adams's taste doesn't appear to match mine.

The stories here aren't bad per se. They are just "the best" with the big caveat of being the best in one person's opinion.

After reading the first four stories in this collection (and giving the The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 a shot several months ago), I'm concluding that the series editor and I don't align on what makes a great short story.

A reader who is more aligned with literary academia than me might enjoy them way more.
]]> The Paper Menagerie 39803561 32 Ken Liu Sasha 3
It's a story of internalized racism. But also, it is about the pain we experience when we realize how much we've hurt our parents by not returning their love. And somehow, all too often we realize this too late. Personally, I have a vivid experience of this.

I read this story on my quest for a piece of short fiction that I find gripping. Only one short story has ever captured my attention well enough for me to read it in one sitting, without wanting to stop and do something else. That was in 2018. I figure it's about time I find another short story that's interesting. There's got to be one somewhere in the world, right?

Enter the list of Nebula awards for Best Short Fiction. The Paper Menagerie was the 2011 award winner (and got a few other well known prizes). That sounded promising. Plus, there's a podcast where Levar Burton reads it, and how could I turn down something like that?

Despite its accolades, which are surely well deserved, The Paper Menagerie didn't do the trick for me. Even though some of the protagonist's experiences mirror my own, I felt a lack emotional reflection that made the story feel like it was being made up by someone who hadn't actually experienced this - which I doubt is the case.

The choices made by Liu put me outside the story's reach. The dialogue didn't sound real to me, more hyperbolic, like it was written to fit the public's idea of what people say in the situations described here. The scenes chosen to tell the story felt artificially put together to construct a piece that would be most likely to tug on the readers' emotions.

Many reviewers say that this story's impact made them cry. Personally, I also cry when I fail to find something interesting and then read it anyway. Crying from reading The Paper Menagerie, however, was not in stars for me, for better or worse.]]> 4.58 2011 The Paper Menagerie
author: Ken Liu
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves: fantasy-or-magical-realism, fiction, short-stories
review:
The main character is a Chinese-American boy who grows up experiencing bigoted remarks about his heritage, and deals with the pain by putting distance between himself and his Chinese-born mother. Meanwhile, his mother possesses a magical ability to fold paper into little animals that come to life. The boy goes from loving them to shutting them away in a box until the spark of life is extinguished in them.

It's a story of internalized racism. But also, it is about the pain we experience when we realize how much we've hurt our parents by not returning their love. And somehow, all too often we realize this too late. Personally, I have a vivid experience of this.

I read this story on my quest for a piece of short fiction that I find gripping. Only one short story has ever captured my attention well enough for me to read it in one sitting, without wanting to stop and do something else. That was in 2018. I figure it's about time I find another short story that's interesting. There's got to be one somewhere in the world, right?

Enter the list of Nebula awards for Best Short Fiction. The Paper Menagerie was the 2011 award winner (and got a few other well known prizes). That sounded promising. Plus, there's a podcast where Levar Burton reads it, and how could I turn down something like that?

Despite its accolades, which are surely well deserved, The Paper Menagerie didn't do the trick for me. Even though some of the protagonist's experiences mirror my own, I felt a lack emotional reflection that made the story feel like it was being made up by someone who hadn't actually experienced this - which I doubt is the case.

The choices made by Liu put me outside the story's reach. The dialogue didn't sound real to me, more hyperbolic, like it was written to fit the public's idea of what people say in the situations described here. The scenes chosen to tell the story felt artificially put together to construct a piece that would be most likely to tug on the readers' emotions.

Many reviewers say that this story's impact made them cry. Personally, I also cry when I fail to find something interesting and then read it anyway. Crying from reading The Paper Menagerie, however, was not in stars for me, for better or worse.
]]> <![CDATA[The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022]]> 60012514 Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse and series editor John Joseph Adams selectĚýtwenty pieces that represent the best examples of the form publishedĚýthe previous year and explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today.Ěý

Today’s readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever—to illuminate what it means to be human.

With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse,ĚýThe Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022Ěýexplores the ever-expanding and changing world of contemporary science fiction and fantasy.]]> 432 Rebecca Roanhorse 0358690129 Sasha 0 3.71 2022 The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves: did-not-finish, short-stories, science-fiction, fantasy-or-magical-realism, fiction
review:

]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Sasha 4
Personally, I gravitate away from literary fiction, clever wording, multiple POVs, and nonlinear timelines. This novel is all of those things. Still, it is the rare case of a slow, unfocused, multi-POV start that actually paid off. I enjoyed it much more than the first 150 pages had indicated I would.

Mind you, when I say "paid off", I'm not talking about the mystery element. I'm just saying that it became an engaging read that benefitted from its meandering start. I wouldn't say that the disappearance story had an interesting or satisfying resolution. If anything, the disappearance of the teenage camper's brother, a decade and a half before the novel starts, had a more interesting ending. At least, to me.

And now, a spoiler-filled summary I typed up for a goodreads friend, because I want proof that I actually read this, for when I forget about ever having done so, seeing as I am wont to completely lose my book memories every decade or so.

[spoilers removed]]]> 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: mystery, novel-length-2024, fiction, litfic, mfa-graduate
review:
Set in an Adirondacks summer camp in 1975, this story centers around the disappearance of one of the teenage campers, and then spirals outwards like a coil whisk, cycling through the perspectives of seven characters, wandering away from the teen's disappearance to another one that happened years earlier, and eventually spiraling back in to address the disappearance with which the novel starts.

Personally, I gravitate away from literary fiction, clever wording, multiple POVs, and nonlinear timelines. This novel is all of those things. Still, it is the rare case of a slow, unfocused, multi-POV start that actually paid off. I enjoyed it much more than the first 150 pages had indicated I would.

Mind you, when I say "paid off", I'm not talking about the mystery element. I'm just saying that it became an engaging read that benefitted from its meandering start. I wouldn't say that the disappearance story had an interesting or satisfying resolution. If anything, the disappearance of the teenage camper's brother, a decade and a half before the novel starts, had a more interesting ending. At least, to me.

And now, a spoiler-filled summary I typed up for a goodreads friend, because I want proof that I actually read this, for when I forget about ever having done so, seeing as I am wont to completely lose my book memories every decade or so.

[spoilers removed]
]]> The Murder at the Vicarage 60556055
Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing landowner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone wishes he were dead and very soon he is shot in the head in the vicar’s study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer.]]> 285 Agatha Christie Sasha 0
A bit over halfway through however, I'm going to put this down as a DNF. I blame my lack of experience reading mysteries (aside from one cozy mystery I snuck out of my grandma's expansive collection in middle school). Can't say that I've felt like I need to figure out who did the murder here, and isn't that supposed to be a major part of enjoying a mystery novel?

Still, I've loved the dry humor here and really appreciate the first-person POV. If I wasn't stuck in a loop of rereading the same section over and over, and frustrated as a result of it, I would probably finish it out. I just refuse to force myself to read past frustration, since I want to continue loving to read.

Truly, I think my brain just isn't trained to work in this genre yet. But I'm not giving up.]]> 3.91 1930 The Murder at the Vicarage
author: Agatha Christie
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves: mystery, did-not-finish, fiction
review:
Agatha Christie's first novel featuring Miss Marple, an "elderly spinster" with a reputation for understanding the goings-on of her village in befuddling detail. I picked this novel as the first step in my current foray into the mystery genre, drawn to the concept of Miss Marple as the one who unlocks the secrets behind a crime.

A bit over halfway through however, I'm going to put this down as a DNF. I blame my lack of experience reading mysteries (aside from one cozy mystery I snuck out of my grandma's expansive collection in middle school). Can't say that I've felt like I need to figure out who did the murder here, and isn't that supposed to be a major part of enjoying a mystery novel?

Still, I've loved the dry humor here and really appreciate the first-person POV. If I wasn't stuck in a loop of rereading the same section over and over, and frustrated as a result of it, I would probably finish it out. I just refuse to force myself to read past frustration, since I want to continue loving to read.

Truly, I think my brain just isn't trained to work in this genre yet. But I'm not giving up.
]]> The Wealth of Shadows 197516645
1939. Tax attorney Ansel Luxford has everything a man could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant wife, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine team within the Treasury Department that is conspiring to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime.

How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet?

To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of espionage, peril, and deceit. He will crisscross the globe to broker backroom deals, undertake daring heists, and spar with titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and the century's greatest economic mind, Britain's John Maynard Keynes. When Ansel’s wife takes a job with the FBI to hunt for spies within the government, the need for subterfuge extends to the home front. And Ansel discovers that he might be closer to those spies than he could ever imagine.

The Wealth of Shadows is a gripping, mind-expanding thriller about the mysterious powers of money and the lies worth telling to defeat evil, as witnessed by an unassuming American at the center of the hidden war that shaped the modern world.]]> 384 Graham Moore 0593731921 Sasha 0 to-read 4.05 2024 The Wealth of Shadows
author: Graham Moore
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch]]> 12067
People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons � well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel � would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…]]> 491 Terry Pratchett Sasha 4
If Good Omens is to be believed, the arrival of that mythological creature would mean that the Armageddon fight between the forces of heaven and the Antichrist's army is unfolding in my driveway, right where my car is parked. Makes sense. We have a few eleven-year-olds in my neighborhood.

Wait, what - some of you may be thinking if you're not familiar with the premise of this cult classic of the urban fantasy genre. Good Omens begins when the Antichrist is born. A group of satanist nuns are in charge of making sure that the boy grows up in the fashion that is proper for the dark overlord who is fated to turn the whole world into hell. But one of the nuns, what with being the "human" in "human error", accidentally swaps the Antichrist with another newborn. So, the Dark One leaves the hospital in the arms of a totally normal, unsuspecting family - and outside the careful influence of the devotees of hell. And, it turns out, nurture wins over nature in a major way, defying the ominous prophecies of the end of the world.

The demon in charge of the antichrist's upbringing, Crowley, is by far my favorite part of the novel. This is the guy who loves his old Bentley - and when the car goes up in flames with him inside, he stubbornly continues to drive it around town for hours, keeping himself from dropping to the ground without any vehicle at all by the sheer force of will.



If I were an editor of this book though, my pen would have run out of red ink. This is a matter of personal preference of course, but I felt like there were too many unnecessary asides, characters, and plot threads that should have been cut, many of them to become their own pieces ranging from flash fiction to novella (e.g. the fast food executive aside would go in the former; the witch hunter subplot would go in the latter).

Keeping track of the multitude of characters required a lot of switching contexts within the text. Ironically enough, I think that this merry-go-round would work better in TV form. I say ironically, because screen adaptations often cut characters from books in order to streamline a narrative.

But here, the proliferation of threads was too much for the written word. At one point, I felt like the different narratives had so little cohesion that I actually went back and re-read a third of the novel, thinking that I must have missed some crucial part. Turns out I hadn't.

Still, I really enjoyed Crowley and his angelic best friend, Aziraphale. I actually wish that the entire book was about them, and the antichrist plot was left out.

And I want to watch the adaptation to see if I'm right about this working better in a visual medium.]]> 4.27 1990 Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: novel-length-2024, dark-humor, fantasy-or-magical-realism, fiction, humor
review:
Weather has been awful all week around here. The skies have been horribly clear - I haven't seen a single cloud in seven days - so the full moon's searing light has been keeping my bedroom lit up like I live in the middle of a stadium on game night. Ghastly. The forces of hell must be at work here. I wouldn't be surprised if Beelzebub lands on my roof (with a thud only a 3000-pound insect is capable of making) on one of these am-I-asleep-or-not-I-can't-tell nights.

If Good Omens is to be believed, the arrival of that mythological creature would mean that the Armageddon fight between the forces of heaven and the Antichrist's army is unfolding in my driveway, right where my car is parked. Makes sense. We have a few eleven-year-olds in my neighborhood.

Wait, what - some of you may be thinking if you're not familiar with the premise of this cult classic of the urban fantasy genre. Good Omens begins when the Antichrist is born. A group of satanist nuns are in charge of making sure that the boy grows up in the fashion that is proper for the dark overlord who is fated to turn the whole world into hell. But one of the nuns, what with being the "human" in "human error", accidentally swaps the Antichrist with another newborn. So, the Dark One leaves the hospital in the arms of a totally normal, unsuspecting family - and outside the careful influence of the devotees of hell. And, it turns out, nurture wins over nature in a major way, defying the ominous prophecies of the end of the world.

The demon in charge of the antichrist's upbringing, Crowley, is by far my favorite part of the novel. This is the guy who loves his old Bentley - and when the car goes up in flames with him inside, he stubbornly continues to drive it around town for hours, keeping himself from dropping to the ground without any vehicle at all by the sheer force of will.



If I were an editor of this book though, my pen would have run out of red ink. This is a matter of personal preference of course, but I felt like there were too many unnecessary asides, characters, and plot threads that should have been cut, many of them to become their own pieces ranging from flash fiction to novella (e.g. the fast food executive aside would go in the former; the witch hunter subplot would go in the latter).

Keeping track of the multitude of characters required a lot of switching contexts within the text. Ironically enough, I think that this merry-go-round would work better in TV form. I say ironically, because screen adaptations often cut characters from books in order to streamline a narrative.

But here, the proliferation of threads was too much for the written word. At one point, I felt like the different narratives had so little cohesion that I actually went back and re-read a third of the novel, thinking that I must have missed some crucial part. Turns out I hadn't.

Still, I really enjoyed Crowley and his angelic best friend, Aziraphale. I actually wish that the entire book was about them, and the antichrist plot was left out.

And I want to watch the adaptation to see if I'm right about this working better in a visual medium.
]]> The Little Witch 55423314 31 M. Rickert 125078204X Sasha 3 are-they-dead?, lots of candy, the police, and a relatively-short length. Let the October vibes begin!

*finally cuts the ribbon on Halloween season*

is a fun novelette. Some have dubbed it "cozy horror", but I would opt for "MFA horror". Fiction that feels like I'm back in literary academia is the stuff of my nightmares. Writing programs tend to encourage a focus on little observations and cleverly-worded sentences at the expense of delving into characters' emotional journeys that are believable (rather than conceptual, clever, or... contrived).

In other words, in order for us to experience (even mild) horror as if it's happening to us directly, the non-supernatural parts of a story have to feel real. I didn't find that to be the case here.

That said, I quite liked the plot of this little spooky tale. If it weren't for the writers' workshop flavor, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.]]> 3.58 2020 The Little Witch
author: M. Rickert
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/19
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: short-stories, fiction, mfa-graduate
review:
Witches, hooves, the dead and the are-they-dead?, lots of candy, the police, and a relatively-short length. Let the October vibes begin!

*finally cuts the ribbon on Halloween season*

is a fun novelette. Some have dubbed it "cozy horror", but I would opt for "MFA horror". Fiction that feels like I'm back in literary academia is the stuff of my nightmares. Writing programs tend to encourage a focus on little observations and cleverly-worded sentences at the expense of delving into characters' emotional journeys that are believable (rather than conceptual, clever, or... contrived).

In other words, in order for us to experience (even mild) horror as if it's happening to us directly, the non-supernatural parts of a story have to feel real. I didn't find that to be the case here.

That said, I quite liked the plot of this little spooky tale. If it weren't for the writers' workshop flavor, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
]]> Save the Cat! Writes a Novel 32805475
Whether you’re writing your first novel or your seventeenth, Save the Cat! breaks down plot in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method so you can write stories that resonate! This book can help you with any of the following:

Outlining a new novel
Revising an existing novel
Breaking out of the dreaded “writer’s block�
Fixing a “broken� novel
Reviewing a completed novel
Fleshing out/test driving a new idea to see if it “has legs�
Implementing feedback from agents and/or editors
Helping give constructive feedback to other writers

But above all else, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL will help you better understand the fundamentals and mechanics of plot, character transformation, and what makes a story work!]]> 320 Jessica Brody Sasha 2 writing, novel-length-2024
I'm just a fan of compelling storytelling who likes to analyze what makes some stories magically immersive - while others make me zone out, no matter how hard I try to focus on them.

This book has popped up enough times in various author interviews to spike my curiosity. Why do some writers or publishing folks find this such a reliable aid in their work? Does it have the secret story sauce that I've been puzzling over for years? I'm quite skeptical that it does.

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel's claim to fame is its 15-beat story structure, which, it claims, is found in every great novel written since the dawn of humanity. It also describes the 10 'universal' types of story. Finally, it gives brief advice on creating a compelling protagonist - complete with the 10 'universal' lessons that protagonists have been tasked with learning ever since literature was a new invention. While I'm tempted to be skeptical of a work just because it makes universal claims that neatly fit into lists of 10, I felt that there were more profound flaws here.

Here's a critical component that Save the Cat! Writes a Novel appears to be missing: a good reason for why its 15-beat structure works, universally or not. It's looking for subparts in the plots of many books and classifying them without a good idea of the deeper principles behind hypnotizing narratives.

This approach reminds me of that old discredited pseudoscience, phrenology, which falsely purported that the shape of specific regions of the skull corresponded to mental traits. But there's actually a brain lying underneath it all, and it's responsible for all the traits. The skull is just a sturdy shell around it.



If someone tries to follow this beat sheet to write a novel, they would have to keep going back to the book to verify that they're following the template correctly, instead of becoming a better storyteller by learning this book's lessons.

The contrived nature of the beats reveals itself in their descriptions. Take the "Debate" beat. Its brief description is "A reaction sequence in which the hero debates what they will do next." But further down, the author admits that sometimes, there is no decision for the protagonist to debate; their next step is crystal-clear. In that case, Brody says, the protagonist prepares for their journey - by gathering supplies and training.

That's a completely different concept from debating what the next step should be. And that sort of conditional 'if-else-except' statement exemplifies that this template is not universal. Instead, it's a collection of points that the creators of the Save the Cat! beat sheet retrofit onto engaging stories, which they then summarize as proof that their method is universal and ancient.

you can't bend the rules until you know what the rules are. You need to know how story works before you can start getting all fancy with it.


I completely agree with Brody's sentiment here. In fact, she's making the central point of my review. Alas, I don't think that hers is the right book for learning how story works.

If you are looking for an antidote to this prescriptive templating, take a look at the Scriptnotes episode called ''. In it, the creator of the Chernobyl miniseries uses Finding Nemo to discuss the hero's struggle. He explains where his ideas come from, such as the principle 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis' - which Brody's Save The Cat invokes without crediting where it came from, and in a way that makes no sense.

Let's not delve too much into the 10 'universal' story types outlined in Save the Cat!. It's possible that they were included to pad the book thick enough to become visible on a bookstore shelf. Nevertheless, one quote from the introduction to these genre-defying genres puts the book's approach to storytelling on a shiny display.

These genres distill thousands of years' worth of literature into ten easy-to-follow templates.


*looks around* Is this paradise? I was trying to get to paradise. Excuse me ma'am, can you give me directions to paradise?]]> 4.49 2018 Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
author: Jessica Brody
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/10/17
shelves: writing, novel-length-2024
review:
I've never written a novel - and certainly haven't had one published after following the blueprint presented in this book. So, don't look to this review for answers to whether or not this blueprint is guaranteed to launch a novel onto a bestseller list. Maybe it is, I honestly don't know. But that's not why I'm here.

I'm just a fan of compelling storytelling who likes to analyze what makes some stories magically immersive - while others make me zone out, no matter how hard I try to focus on them.

This book has popped up enough times in various author interviews to spike my curiosity. Why do some writers or publishing folks find this such a reliable aid in their work? Does it have the secret story sauce that I've been puzzling over for years? I'm quite skeptical that it does.

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel's claim to fame is its 15-beat story structure, which, it claims, is found in every great novel written since the dawn of humanity. It also describes the 10 'universal' types of story. Finally, it gives brief advice on creating a compelling protagonist - complete with the 10 'universal' lessons that protagonists have been tasked with learning ever since literature was a new invention. While I'm tempted to be skeptical of a work just because it makes universal claims that neatly fit into lists of 10, I felt that there were more profound flaws here.

Here's a critical component that Save the Cat! Writes a Novel appears to be missing: a good reason for why its 15-beat structure works, universally or not. It's looking for subparts in the plots of many books and classifying them without a good idea of the deeper principles behind hypnotizing narratives.

This approach reminds me of that old discredited pseudoscience, phrenology, which falsely purported that the shape of specific regions of the skull corresponded to mental traits. But there's actually a brain lying underneath it all, and it's responsible for all the traits. The skull is just a sturdy shell around it.



If someone tries to follow this beat sheet to write a novel, they would have to keep going back to the book to verify that they're following the template correctly, instead of becoming a better storyteller by learning this book's lessons.

The contrived nature of the beats reveals itself in their descriptions. Take the "Debate" beat. Its brief description is "A reaction sequence in which the hero debates what they will do next." But further down, the author admits that sometimes, there is no decision for the protagonist to debate; their next step is crystal-clear. In that case, Brody says, the protagonist prepares for their journey - by gathering supplies and training.

That's a completely different concept from debating what the next step should be. And that sort of conditional 'if-else-except' statement exemplifies that this template is not universal. Instead, it's a collection of points that the creators of the Save the Cat! beat sheet retrofit onto engaging stories, which they then summarize as proof that their method is universal and ancient.

you can't bend the rules until you know what the rules are. You need to know how story works before you can start getting all fancy with it.


I completely agree with Brody's sentiment here. In fact, she's making the central point of my review. Alas, I don't think that hers is the right book for learning how story works.

If you are looking for an antidote to this prescriptive templating, take a look at the Scriptnotes episode called ''. In it, the creator of the Chernobyl miniseries uses Finding Nemo to discuss the hero's struggle. He explains where his ideas come from, such as the principle 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis' - which Brody's Save The Cat invokes without crediting where it came from, and in a way that makes no sense.

Let's not delve too much into the 10 'universal' story types outlined in Save the Cat!. It's possible that they were included to pad the book thick enough to become visible on a bookstore shelf. Nevertheless, one quote from the introduction to these genre-defying genres puts the book's approach to storytelling on a shiny display.

These genres distill thousands of years' worth of literature into ten easy-to-follow templates.


*looks around* Is this paradise? I was trying to get to paradise. Excuse me ma'am, can you give me directions to paradise?
]]> The Eyes of the Dragon 10611
​Thus begins one of the most unique tales that master storyteller Stephen King has ever written—a sprawling fantasy of dark magic and the struggle for absolute power that utterly transforms the destinies of two brothers born into royalty. Through this enthralling masterpiece of mythical adventure, intrigue, and terror, you will thrill to this unforgettable narrative filled with relentless, wicked enchantment, and the most terrible of secrets…]]> 427 Stephen King Sasha 0 to-read 3.95 1987 The Eyes of the Dragon
author: Stephen King
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Misery 10614 #1, #2, #3, #4

Paul Sheldon. He's a bestselling novelist who has finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a rabid reader - she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.]]> 370 Stephen King 0450417395 Sasha 0 did-not-finish, horror
I need to build up my tolerance first with milder horror novels.]]> 4.22 1987 Misery
author: Stephen King
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: did-not-finish, horror
review:
i am not ready for stephen king lol

I need to build up my tolerance first with milder horror novels.
]]> Binti (Binti, #1) 25667918 For the first time in hardcover, the winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award!

With a new foreword by N. K. Jemisin

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself -- but first she has to make it there, alive.

The Binti Series
Book 1: Binti
Book 2: Binti: Home
Book 3: Binti: The Night Masquerade]]> 96 Nnedi Okorafor 0765384469 Sasha 3
And yet, she is determined to go - she knows it's the right place for her, where she can develop her talent in science and math to its full potential. She leaves her desert homeland in an autonomous transporter without goodbye. She believes that once she completes university, she will return - and will be able to give back all the more to her land, people and culture - rendering the choice to leave without warning and against her parents' wishes worth the sacrifice.

It's a wonderful premise, and it's executed beautifully, at first. In the first half, I could visualize the world Okorafor was weaving together, and saw the narrative unfold in my imagination through her eyes.

But I'm very confused by the second half of Binti. It makes little emotional sense. And it goes in a direction that isn't foreshadowed at the novella's opening. That switch can be done in fiction, but it's not trivial to pull off, and Okorafor doesn't do it very successfully here.

After finishing the novella, I have questions that are less about story intrigue and more about the lack of cohesion I felt while reading Binti. [spoilers removed] What are the consequences of the microaggressions she experiences on her way to university?

Binti does talk about feelings of disrespect for her culture and her person whenever the casual racism happens. But I can't help but feel like disrespect doesn't just exist for its own sake, and there has to be something deeper that it hits on inside a person's mind. Maybe it's past experiences or trauma, maybe it's a conflict with one's self-image, maybe it's something else entirely. But there's got to be more behind Binti's reaction than what we get on the page.

One only hopes that the next book in this series answers my questions.

What do you mean by 'math' here?
Finally, call me a physics snob if you wish, but I have a gripe with the way math is invoked in this novella. Binti is supposed to be a gifted science and math student. To me, however, her use of math felt much more like magic. In the real world, math employs logic to solve problems with a clear, traceable chain of steps. If you don't know how you got an answer to a problem, you don't have a proof on your hands.

Binti, on the other hand, mentions patterns in numbers and reiterates a digit in her head like an incantation. She even mentions that she doesn't know why she's doing it or why it works. That sounds much closer to numerology than to number theory. And using "math" as a name for the magical use of digits, disconnected from the beautiful logic that is inherent to mathematics, is, well... akin to calling astrology "rocket science". Binti, the young genius of math and physics, deserves better.]]> 3.81 2015 Binti (Binti, #1)
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: coming-of-age, science-fiction, hugo, nebula
review:
Binti is the first among her family and her people to be accepted to the prestigious, interstellar Oomza University. This isn't an easy position to be in; in different ways, Binti gets pushback from all sides. Her family forbid her to go because she is a talented artisan and is in line to take over the family business, which produces microelectronics with magical properties. Her future classmates push her away with an onslaught of casual racism and microaggressions.

And yet, she is determined to go - she knows it's the right place for her, where she can develop her talent in science and math to its full potential. She leaves her desert homeland in an autonomous transporter without goodbye. She believes that once she completes university, she will return - and will be able to give back all the more to her land, people and culture - rendering the choice to leave without warning and against her parents' wishes worth the sacrifice.

It's a wonderful premise, and it's executed beautifully, at first. In the first half, I could visualize the world Okorafor was weaving together, and saw the narrative unfold in my imagination through her eyes.

But I'm very confused by the second half of Binti. It makes little emotional sense. And it goes in a direction that isn't foreshadowed at the novella's opening. That switch can be done in fiction, but it's not trivial to pull off, and Okorafor doesn't do it very successfully here.

After finishing the novella, I have questions that are less about story intrigue and more about the lack of cohesion I felt while reading Binti. [spoilers removed] What are the consequences of the microaggressions she experiences on her way to university?

Binti does talk about feelings of disrespect for her culture and her person whenever the casual racism happens. But I can't help but feel like disrespect doesn't just exist for its own sake, and there has to be something deeper that it hits on inside a person's mind. Maybe it's past experiences or trauma, maybe it's a conflict with one's self-image, maybe it's something else entirely. But there's got to be more behind Binti's reaction than what we get on the page.

One only hopes that the next book in this series answers my questions.

What do you mean by 'math' here?
Finally, call me a physics snob if you wish, but I have a gripe with the way math is invoked in this novella. Binti is supposed to be a gifted science and math student. To me, however, her use of math felt much more like magic. In the real world, math employs logic to solve problems with a clear, traceable chain of steps. If you don't know how you got an answer to a problem, you don't have a proof on your hands.

Binti, on the other hand, mentions patterns in numbers and reiterates a digit in her head like an incantation. She even mentions that she doesn't know why she's doing it or why it works. That sounds much closer to numerology than to number theory. And using "math" as a name for the magical use of digits, disconnected from the beautiful logic that is inherent to mathematics, is, well... akin to calling astrology "rocket science". Binti, the young genius of math and physics, deserves better.
]]> Sasha Masha 52751335 Transgender author Agnes Borinsky deftly explores gender identity and queer romance in this heart-wrenchingly honest debut novel.

Alex feels like he is in the wrong body. His skin feels strange against his bones. And then comes Tracy, who thinks he's adorably awkward, who wants to kiss him, who makes him feel like a Real Boy. But it is not quite enough. Something is missing.

As Alex grapples with his identity, he finds himself trying on dresses and swiping on lipstick in the quiet of his bedroom. He meets Andre, a gay boy who is beautiful and unafraid to be who he is. Slowly, Alex begins to realize: maybe his name isn't Alex at all. Maybe it's Sasha Masha.]]> 256 Agnes Borinsky 0374310807 Sasha 5 "I grew up in the wrong house."

These words open Sasha Masha, marking the start of a hero's journey that ends with a return to its beginning - but with a profoundly transformed person at its center. This short book hides within its pages an odyssey that takes place entirely inside the protagonist. In Sasha Masha, a dress is the holy grail; a bottle of nail polish is the elixir of life.

This novel speaks about questioning one's gender identity and discovering how a community of people who have gone through a similar experience can not only make the journey easier, but also more complete. It struck me as a story that was very personal to the author - and the genuine quality of the character at the center of Sasha Masha gave it the power to be quite moving.

Because of the almost-biographical feel of the storytelling, it doesn't quite have the pacing of an adventure, but rather that of a memoir. I was really touched by the evolution that the narrative goes through in these pages. Its strength isn't in the events that it describes, but in the way the protagonist processes them.

The mood at the start is "just another day in high school". Our protagonist misses a best friend who's moved to another city, comforts a classmate after a breakup, goes to assembly and hangs out by the pool. The narrative hints that something isn't quite right in this status quo. The main character feels slightly out of place, wishing for an existence free of a physical body.

Maybe I don't feel particularly real yet. Like this world is just something I have to move through until I can get to a place where I can be a real person.


While some discomfort with one's self is part of every teenager's days, the depth of this feeling creeps up on our main character - and the reader. The realization of the full implications of this discomfort flows from the story's tipping point, when classmates drop hints that a girl named Tracy has a crush on the protagonist, and the two start dating.

Difficulties ensue from this new relationship, and the main character is tugged by an unseen force to an LGBTQ support group. During introductions, our protagonist uses the name that, until that moment, had been hidden inside: Sasha Masha.

The story takes us along Sasha Masha's first connection to the LGBTQ community, and the blossoming of a relationship with a group of people who understand what Sasha Masha is going through - perhaps in some ways, more than Sasha Masha does. This dynamic strongly reminded me of what it was like to be a part of that community in New York, after attending schools where I felt like I was all on my own, dealing with the reactions of people who had no place commenting on my romantic attraction to girls.

My favorite part of the novel is a conversation with Andre, who acts as the hero's mentor in this story and asks what pronouns feel good to Sasha Masha. The feelings that come with being asked this for the first time aren't easy to capture, and Steven Carpenter, the book's narrator, did it well. Andre brings up the question with some words that had an impact on me, as they came at the end of a loud night, Sasha Masha's first night out within the community.

I'll admit that during the first half, I thought this novel was headed for a 3-star rating. It was clearly talking about the beginning of a transformation, but felt fairly ordinary nevertheless. By the end, I was revisiting quotes from earlier in the story. This is a rare case of quiet character fiction that I found truly captivating.

Agnes Borinsky doesn't just capture what it's like to assemble one's full self from fragments of quiet turmoil, scattered through the years like trail markings that only become a map once one is looking for them. Borinsky also captures the quiet anxiety of suspecting that the people who've always been by your side might drift away when they realize that they don't fully know you.

It was getting close to the time my parents would get back. I pictured them coming in and seeing me in a dress. I felt an early wave of what I knew would be their discomfort. The anxiety and fear in their eyes, their fretful questions and their worried reassurances. What did it mean, what did it mean?


This short coming-of-age novel only covers a handful of days. And yet, the person at its center, Sasha Masha, traverses a great distance on the journey of finding one's true self. In the end, we are left not knowing exactly what's coming next in Sasha Masha's path of questioning, and it's clear that this not the end of the journey. But the story feels complete nevertheless.

After all, this was home.


I'm going to give this to my friend Masha for their birthday.]]> 3.82 2020 Sasha Masha
author: Agnes Borinsky
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: debut, ya, lgbt, fiction, novel-length-2024, coming-of-age
review:
"I grew up in the wrong house."

These words open Sasha Masha, marking the start of a hero's journey that ends with a return to its beginning - but with a profoundly transformed person at its center. This short book hides within its pages an odyssey that takes place entirely inside the protagonist. In Sasha Masha, a dress is the holy grail; a bottle of nail polish is the elixir of life.

This novel speaks about questioning one's gender identity and discovering how a community of people who have gone through a similar experience can not only make the journey easier, but also more complete. It struck me as a story that was very personal to the author - and the genuine quality of the character at the center of Sasha Masha gave it the power to be quite moving.

Because of the almost-biographical feel of the storytelling, it doesn't quite have the pacing of an adventure, but rather that of a memoir. I was really touched by the evolution that the narrative goes through in these pages. Its strength isn't in the events that it describes, but in the way the protagonist processes them.

The mood at the start is "just another day in high school". Our protagonist misses a best friend who's moved to another city, comforts a classmate after a breakup, goes to assembly and hangs out by the pool. The narrative hints that something isn't quite right in this status quo. The main character feels slightly out of place, wishing for an existence free of a physical body.

Maybe I don't feel particularly real yet. Like this world is just something I have to move through until I can get to a place where I can be a real person.


While some discomfort with one's self is part of every teenager's days, the depth of this feeling creeps up on our main character - and the reader. The realization of the full implications of this discomfort flows from the story's tipping point, when classmates drop hints that a girl named Tracy has a crush on the protagonist, and the two start dating.

Difficulties ensue from this new relationship, and the main character is tugged by an unseen force to an LGBTQ support group. During introductions, our protagonist uses the name that, until that moment, had been hidden inside: Sasha Masha.

The story takes us along Sasha Masha's first connection to the LGBTQ community, and the blossoming of a relationship with a group of people who understand what Sasha Masha is going through - perhaps in some ways, more than Sasha Masha does. This dynamic strongly reminded me of what it was like to be a part of that community in New York, after attending schools where I felt like I was all on my own, dealing with the reactions of people who had no place commenting on my romantic attraction to girls.

My favorite part of the novel is a conversation with Andre, who acts as the hero's mentor in this story and asks what pronouns feel good to Sasha Masha. The feelings that come with being asked this for the first time aren't easy to capture, and Steven Carpenter, the book's narrator, did it well. Andre brings up the question with some words that had an impact on me, as they came at the end of a loud night, Sasha Masha's first night out within the community.

I'll admit that during the first half, I thought this novel was headed for a 3-star rating. It was clearly talking about the beginning of a transformation, but felt fairly ordinary nevertheless. By the end, I was revisiting quotes from earlier in the story. This is a rare case of quiet character fiction that I found truly captivating.

Agnes Borinsky doesn't just capture what it's like to assemble one's full self from fragments of quiet turmoil, scattered through the years like trail markings that only become a map once one is looking for them. Borinsky also captures the quiet anxiety of suspecting that the people who've always been by your side might drift away when they realize that they don't fully know you.

It was getting close to the time my parents would get back. I pictured them coming in and seeing me in a dress. I felt an early wave of what I knew would be their discomfort. The anxiety and fear in their eyes, their fretful questions and their worried reassurances. What did it mean, what did it mean?


This short coming-of-age novel only covers a handful of days. And yet, the person at its center, Sasha Masha, traverses a great distance on the journey of finding one's true self. In the end, we are left not knowing exactly what's coming next in Sasha Masha's path of questioning, and it's clear that this not the end of the journey. But the story feels complete nevertheless.

After all, this was home.


I'm going to give this to my friend Masha for their birthday.
]]> The Machine Stops 9243302 "You talk as if a god had made the Machine," cried the other. "I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that."

E.M. Forster is best known for his exquisite novels, but these two affecting short stories brilliantly combine the fantastical with the allegorical. In 'The Machine Stops', humanity has isolated itself beneath the ground, enmeshed in automated comforts, and in 'The Celestial Omnibus' a young boy takes a trip his parents believe impossible.

This book contains The Machine Stops and A Celestial Omnibus.]]> 96 E.M. Forster 0141195983 Sasha 3 A Room with a View and other non-SF titles. Although this seems to be an outlier in the E. M. Forster canon, it is an impressive piece of futuristic forethought.

In the world of The Machine Stops, humanity lives in massive apartment complexes underground, where they can control the atmosphere and shield themselves from the inhospitable air above ground. People appear to value a certain kind of purity very highly - namely, the purity of a self that is unpolluted by contact with the world outside one's apartment.

One marvels at the prophetic prowess that this short work seems to possess. Many aspects of the world Forster imagines here really do invoke the information-age society. You can draw parallels between The Machine Stops and the pseudo-socialization of social media, zoom fatigue, the potential pitfalls of working from home, being removed from the reality of fighting for survival, international air travel, and more.

Here's the part of the novelette that spoke to me the most. Forster's humanity loves to find and acquire new ideas - and not just any ideas, but "second-hand", or better yet, "tenth-hand" ideas. You don't want to learn about the French Revolution and form your own ideas based on primary sources. Instead, you want to learn what experts say about the event - or rather, what judgements later commentators have to proclaim over the historians' analysis. Layers and layers of the analyses of previous analyses build up, and in the meantime the reality of what actually happened in France during the Revolution is dissolved by a game of broken telephone.

There's an undercurrent of authoritarianism in this society - Forster invokes religion, which apparently is both dead and very much alive in this future world. This is where the novelette's weaknesses start to come out. Because Forster packs a lot into a very short space, The Machine Stops reads more like an outline for a novel than a piece that stands on its own two legs.

Perhaps because of the limited space, I didn't feel immersed in the world of Forster's imagination. Instead, it felt like a list of genuinely impressive ideas that were glued together with dialogue. As Paul Hollywood once said, the flavors are good, but it's underbaked.]]> 4.00 1909 The Machine Stops
author: E.M. Forster
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1909
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: science-fiction, short-stories, classics
review:
A 1909 science fiction novelette by an author who is much better known for A Room with a View and other non-SF titles. Although this seems to be an outlier in the E. M. Forster canon, it is an impressive piece of futuristic forethought.

In the world of The Machine Stops, humanity lives in massive apartment complexes underground, where they can control the atmosphere and shield themselves from the inhospitable air above ground. People appear to value a certain kind of purity very highly - namely, the purity of a self that is unpolluted by contact with the world outside one's apartment.

One marvels at the prophetic prowess that this short work seems to possess. Many aspects of the world Forster imagines here really do invoke the information-age society. You can draw parallels between The Machine Stops and the pseudo-socialization of social media, zoom fatigue, the potential pitfalls of working from home, being removed from the reality of fighting for survival, international air travel, and more.

Here's the part of the novelette that spoke to me the most. Forster's humanity loves to find and acquire new ideas - and not just any ideas, but "second-hand", or better yet, "tenth-hand" ideas. You don't want to learn about the French Revolution and form your own ideas based on primary sources. Instead, you want to learn what experts say about the event - or rather, what judgements later commentators have to proclaim over the historians' analysis. Layers and layers of the analyses of previous analyses build up, and in the meantime the reality of what actually happened in France during the Revolution is dissolved by a game of broken telephone.

There's an undercurrent of authoritarianism in this society - Forster invokes religion, which apparently is both dead and very much alive in this future world. This is where the novelette's weaknesses start to come out. Because Forster packs a lot into a very short space, The Machine Stops reads more like an outline for a novel than a piece that stands on its own two legs.

Perhaps because of the limited space, I didn't feel immersed in the world of Forster's imagination. Instead, it felt like a list of genuinely impressive ideas that were glued together with dialogue. As Paul Hollywood once said, the flavors are good, but it's underbaked.
]]> <![CDATA[Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends]]> 75508 Married to a convert herself, Anita Diamant provides advice and information that can transform the act of conversion into an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.

Here you will learn how to choose a rabbi, a synagogue, a denomination, a Hebrew name; how to handle the difficulty of putting aside Christmas; what happens at the mikvah (ritual bath) or at a hatafat dam brit (circumcision ritual for those already circumcised); how to find your footing in a new spiritual family that is not always well prepared to receive you; and how not to lose your bonds to your family of origin. Diamant anticipates all the questions, doubts, and concerns, and provides a comprehensive explanation of the rules and rituals of conversion.]]> 304 Anita Diamant Sasha 0 judaism 4.18 1998 Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends
author: Anita Diamant
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: judaism
review:

]]> Maimonides: A Biography 19251744 289 Abraham Joshua Heschel Sasha 0 4.33 1935 Maimonides: A Biography
author: Abraham Joshua Heschel
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1935
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/31
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: judaism, biography-memoir, history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts]]> 65233 448 Barry W. Holtz 0671605968 Sasha 0 judaism 4.03 1984 Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts
author: Barry W. Holtz
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/15
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: judaism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Becoming Jewish: A Handbook for Conversion]]> 2376891 133 Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs 0881254851 Sasha 0 judaism 4.08 1993 Becoming Jewish: A Handbook for Conversion
author: Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: judaism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Conversion to Judaism: A Guidebook]]> 488344 300 Lawrence J. Epstein 1568211287 Sasha 0 judaism 3.80 1994 Conversion to Judaism: A Guidebook
author: Lawrence J. Epstein
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: judaism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Koren Siddur: Nusah Sepharad / Standard Size (English and Hebrew Edition)]]> 16064334 1284 Jonathan Sacks 9653013092 Sasha 0 judaism 4.75 The Koren Siddur: Nusah Sepharad / Standard Size (English and Hebrew Edition)
author: Jonathan Sacks
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/30
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: judaism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Teshuva: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew]]> 9023262 192 Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz 1592642969 Sasha 0 judaism
Told from a distinctly Orthodox viewpoint, the book, to me, served the purpose of broadening my Judaic horizons as a member of a pluralistic community - as opposed to a guide for action that I will follow. If you aren't an Orthodox Jew and are interested in learning about Orthodox ways of thinking - without judgement - this may be a good book to pick up. However, if you aren't familiar with Judaism at all, this isn't the place to start learning about it.]]> 4.12 1987 Teshuva: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew
author: Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: judaism
review:
An accessible presentation of the process and ideas behind what it means to return to being an observant Jew - whether that return happens when someone is raised observant and leaves for a time or is raised by a secular family.

Told from a distinctly Orthodox viewpoint, the book, to me, served the purpose of broadening my Judaic horizons as a member of a pluralistic community - as opposed to a guide for action that I will follow. If you aren't an Orthodox Jew and are interested in learning about Orthodox ways of thinking - without judgement - this may be a good book to pick up. However, if you aren't familiar with Judaism at all, this isn't the place to start learning about it.
]]> Solaris 28770
When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories. The Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without first understanding what lies within their hearts.]]> 204 Stanisław Lem 0156837501 Sasha 2 Solaris seems to be in the realm of impossibility. It all began with three false starts with the 1970 English translation, which, like a magic trick, made me zone out at the exact same spot with every read. Then I switched to a different language, which helped a lot... that is, until my entire being started protesting against this book. Meanwhile, I was hoping way too hard that I would start liking the story.

My question for the Universe today is: Why was my experience of Solaris (literally) nauseatingly bad? So many of my trusted goodreads friends enjoyed it -and, to be honest, I'm a bit jealous of those of you who did.

Perhaps it's because I didn't find the characters' emotional responses believable. I mean, the main character arrives at a space station to find it in mind-boggling disarray - complete with [spoilers removed] the crewmen on board acting like characters from a penny dreadful. What does he do in response to this awfully confusing reception? He goes to his room, immediately forgets about the weirdness just outside the door and becomes fascinated with a map he sees there. Such jarring emotional transitions make a book feel very dry - especially considering the jargon-ridden info dumps that plague these 200-odd pages.

Maybe it's because I don't care for philosophy and for fiction with an obvious message, which Lem absolutely put in these pages.

Or maybe it's just that it's been less than 48 hours since hurricane Milton made landfall in the town where my parents and brother were sheltering in place (they're ok), and my subconscious rebelled against a protagonist who wants to make out with an ocean.

It's probably a linear combination of all three. My apologies to Stanislaw Lem and the gods of SF.]]> 4.02 1961 Solaris
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1961
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: science-fiction, novel-length-2024, fiction
review:
Maybe it was the book itself, or maybe it was a perfect storm of factors that conspired against the book - but my enjoyment of Solaris seems to be in the realm of impossibility. It all began with three false starts with the 1970 English translation, which, like a magic trick, made me zone out at the exact same spot with every read. Then I switched to a different language, which helped a lot... that is, until my entire being started protesting against this book. Meanwhile, I was hoping way too hard that I would start liking the story.

My question for the Universe today is: Why was my experience of Solaris (literally) nauseatingly bad? So many of my trusted goodreads friends enjoyed it -and, to be honest, I'm a bit jealous of those of you who did.

Perhaps it's because I didn't find the characters' emotional responses believable. I mean, the main character arrives at a space station to find it in mind-boggling disarray - complete with [spoilers removed] the crewmen on board acting like characters from a penny dreadful. What does he do in response to this awfully confusing reception? He goes to his room, immediately forgets about the weirdness just outside the door and becomes fascinated with a map he sees there. Such jarring emotional transitions make a book feel very dry - especially considering the jargon-ridden info dumps that plague these 200-odd pages.

Maybe it's because I don't care for philosophy and for fiction with an obvious message, which Lem absolutely put in these pages.

Or maybe it's just that it's been less than 48 hours since hurricane Milton made landfall in the town where my parents and brother were sheltering in place (they're ok), and my subconscious rebelled against a protagonist who wants to make out with an ocean.

It's probably a linear combination of all three. My apologies to Stanislaw Lem and the gods of SF.
]]> The War of the Worlds 8909
Inspiring films, radio dramas, comic-book adaptations, television series and sequels,The War of the Worlds is a prototypical work of science fiction which has influenced every alien story that has come since, and is unsurpassed in its ability to thrill, well over a century since it was first published.]]> 192 H.G. Wells 0375759239 Sasha 5
Something like that happens in The War of the Worlds.

When fire-breathing Martians land in the English countryside and start eviscerating any humans that cross their path, Londoners act like nothing strange is happening just outside their city. The depiction of the numbed public staying calm when they should be anything but is as relevant a lesson today as it was when Wells wrote this classic, in the late 1890s.

Say what you will about how dated Wells's science fiction has become - thanks to the myriad imitators and to the scientific knowledge we have accumulated over 125 years - but the societal quiet before the storm rings so very true.

All we have to do is think back to what we were doing in early 2020, when headlines about a dangerous virus were already ubiquitous - but the virus itself hadn't reached our community yet. I certainly wasn't acting like I was ever going to be affected by it until one of my conferences got cancelled. And on that day, panic hit me all at once.

Part I of The War of the Worlds, The Coming of the Martians, was admittedly not as suspenseful for me as Part II, The Earth Under the Martians. But Part I has the human reactions to the Martians' arrival - the city dwellers ignore the news, while curiosity drives country dwellers right into the pit of death rays. And that felt so incredibly astute.]]> 3.84 1898 The War of the Worlds
author: H.G. Wells
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1898
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: novel-length-2024, science-fiction, classics, fiction
review:
Have you ever been in the position where you have to run for your life, but you don't realize it right away? Maybe a fire has broken out in your building, but instead of evacuating, you run around the apartment, rescuing old photos and library books. Or maybe you hear about a looming catastrophe so incredibly overwhelming that you shut it out completely and go on with your life as usual.

Something like that happens in The War of the Worlds.

When fire-breathing Martians land in the English countryside and start eviscerating any humans that cross their path, Londoners act like nothing strange is happening just outside their city. The depiction of the numbed public staying calm when they should be anything but is as relevant a lesson today as it was when Wells wrote this classic, in the late 1890s.

Say what you will about how dated Wells's science fiction has become - thanks to the myriad imitators and to the scientific knowledge we have accumulated over 125 years - but the societal quiet before the storm rings so very true.

All we have to do is think back to what we were doing in early 2020, when headlines about a dangerous virus were already ubiquitous - but the virus itself hadn't reached our community yet. I certainly wasn't acting like I was ever going to be affected by it until one of my conferences got cancelled. And on that day, panic hit me all at once.

Part I of The War of the Worlds, The Coming of the Martians, was admittedly not as suspenseful for me as Part II, The Earth Under the Martians. But Part I has the human reactions to the Martians' arrival - the city dwellers ignore the news, while curiosity drives country dwellers right into the pit of death rays. And that felt so incredibly astute.
]]> The Midwich Cuckoos 28356992 222 John Wyndham 058223137X Sasha 5
The first three quarters of The Midwich Cuckoos, at least, felt like a satire of British society with a science fiction setup, rather than the stuff of nightmares. If I were to pick a bookstore shelf to put this on --

Hold on there genre police, are you going to summarize the premise of this short novel or not?

Not a chance. If you haven't read the blurb or wikipedia or other reviews, and you don't know what movie is based on this book, save yourself from the ubiquitous spoilers and start reading the book instead.

OK, fine, I can see the protest in your eyes. I'll summarize a little bit without spoiling the book.

---
The village of Midwich is the most yawn-inducing place in England. Nothing of importance has ever happened here. Richard and his wife Janet count themselves among its residents, and have gone to London for Richard's birthday. But when they come back, the road into Midwich is closed. There is just one other road they could take -- but that's closed too. The policeman guarding the village gates is acting shady and suggests staying out of Midwich for a while.

Before Richard and Janet check into a hotel, Janet wants to take a quick look at something strange she's noticed. As Janet gets closer to what she's spotted, she suddenly collapses. The lady is unconscious, for no apparent reason. What made her - and everyone else in Midwich, apparently - collapse and black out for hours is a matter that the police are scrambling to figure out. Weeks pass before they realize what had transpired on that mysterious evening.
---

This is a story of first contact, where we never actually get to see any aliens (kind of) - just the after-effects of their visit. And it's a short novel, ok? Summarizing the premise any further would give away one of the twists.

The narrative starts out so deceptively lighthearted that it's amazing to see the darkness of the book start to creep into the story. Take a look at some of these absurd quotes from the first half of the book.

A crew of two boarded a helicopter. A wire cage containing a pair of lively but perplexed ferrets was handed in after them.


A fire-eater of some truculence, was bent on trouble � all set to get questions asked in the House about loose-living and orgiastic goings-on in government establishments. Anxious, apparently, to make a Fleet Street holiday of his daughter.


Out of a babble behind him his ears picked up the word â€Gas!â€� he dropped the stretcher-handles as if they had turned hot, and stepped hastily back.
There was a pause for consultation. Presently the ambulance driver delivered a verdict, shaking his head.
â€Not our kind of job,â€� he said, with the air of one recalling a useful Union decision. â€More like the fire chapsâ€� pigeon, I’d say.â€�


Later on, of course, the clouds do crowd in over Midwich, and the book becomes a riot in a different sense. It raises an interesting dilemma before the residents of Midwich - and the government agents that have descended upon it. The ending is splendidly done.]]> 4.67 1957 The Midwich Cuckoos
author: John Wyndham
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1957
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: novel-length-2024, science-fiction
review:
Are you telling me that this whole time that I've been avoiding the horror genre like the upyrs and wurdulacs were going to crawl out of the book and drink my actual blood... has been a waste? The horror genre, apparently, is hilarious.

The first three quarters of The Midwich Cuckoos, at least, felt like a satire of British society with a science fiction setup, rather than the stuff of nightmares. If I were to pick a bookstore shelf to put this on --

Hold on there genre police, are you going to summarize the premise of this short novel or not?

Not a chance. If you haven't read the blurb or wikipedia or other reviews, and you don't know what movie is based on this book, save yourself from the ubiquitous spoilers and start reading the book instead.

OK, fine, I can see the protest in your eyes. I'll summarize a little bit without spoiling the book.

---
The village of Midwich is the most yawn-inducing place in England. Nothing of importance has ever happened here. Richard and his wife Janet count themselves among its residents, and have gone to London for Richard's birthday. But when they come back, the road into Midwich is closed. There is just one other road they could take -- but that's closed too. The policeman guarding the village gates is acting shady and suggests staying out of Midwich for a while.

Before Richard and Janet check into a hotel, Janet wants to take a quick look at something strange she's noticed. As Janet gets closer to what she's spotted, she suddenly collapses. The lady is unconscious, for no apparent reason. What made her - and everyone else in Midwich, apparently - collapse and black out for hours is a matter that the police are scrambling to figure out. Weeks pass before they realize what had transpired on that mysterious evening.
---

This is a story of first contact, where we never actually get to see any aliens (kind of) - just the after-effects of their visit. And it's a short novel, ok? Summarizing the premise any further would give away one of the twists.

The narrative starts out so deceptively lighthearted that it's amazing to see the darkness of the book start to creep into the story. Take a look at some of these absurd quotes from the first half of the book.

A crew of two boarded a helicopter. A wire cage containing a pair of lively but perplexed ferrets was handed in after them.


A fire-eater of some truculence, was bent on trouble � all set to get questions asked in the House about loose-living and orgiastic goings-on in government establishments. Anxious, apparently, to make a Fleet Street holiday of his daughter.


Out of a babble behind him his ears picked up the word â€Gas!â€� he dropped the stretcher-handles as if they had turned hot, and stepped hastily back.
There was a pause for consultation. Presently the ambulance driver delivered a verdict, shaking his head.
â€Not our kind of job,â€� he said, with the air of one recalling a useful Union decision. â€More like the fire chapsâ€� pigeon, I’d say.â€�


Later on, of course, the clouds do crowd in over Midwich, and the book becomes a riot in a different sense. It raises an interesting dilemma before the residents of Midwich - and the government agents that have descended upon it. The ending is splendidly done.
]]> <![CDATA[Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies]]> 40530408
While concentrating on British North America, Professor Allison also covers developments in the colonial outposts of Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the all-important British possessions in the West Indies, which were the source of the most lucrative crop in the New World - sugar - and the reason for the enormous growth in the slave trade.

As you'll discover, the colonies were often turbulent, dangerous places. You'll learn about Indian wars, slave revolts, witch persecutions, rampant piracy, and other upheavals, as well as the gradual cementing of social order and the development of customs that made the colonies distinct - and difficult for the British government to rule.

These lectures build toward a discussion of the roots of the rebellion that succeeded in toppling the colonial system - the American Revolution - covering its long gestation and closing with an examination of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence.

In fundamental ways, the world we know today emerged from the tempestuous and eventful history of colonial America. Deepen your appreciation for this formative era with these historically rich, captivating]]> Robert J. Allison Sasha 5 history
I moved to the US midway through high school, which worked out just fine for most subjects. Rather inconveniently for me, however, my school's eleventh grade American History class started around the Civil War, since my classmates had learned earlier history in 8th grade. This has left me with a kids' restaurant placemat's worth of knowledge about the colonial period.

If that's not embarrassing enough, as an adult I've struggled to find a source that could fill in at least a part of this gap in my knowledge. There were a few reasons for this. First, adult history books tend to focus on a very small group of people, or an individual, or one event. This enables the writer to tell a good story (and write a blurb that a publisher will consider sellable). But it's not useful to someone who needs to get a grasp on the big picture of this multi-century period.

And then there's the very real possibility that any history book I may pick up, and that of pre-revolutionary America especially, will be written with an ideological slant. That is quite unhelpful when one lacks the basic understanding of the period that's necessary for a critical reading of such a history lesson.

When I happened upon this 36-lecture series, Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies, I was skeptical for several reasons:

1. This was an audio source that wasn't based on a written text, which would make fact-checking hard (I wasn't yet aware of the 180-page supplementary pdf that contains lecture summaries and a 20-page bibliography)
2. It's produced by The Great Courses - which advertises on TV (somebody fetch some smelling salts, I'm going to faint)
3. There's a hat on the cover, and who ever heard of opening a serious book with a hat picture? Nobody, I figured.

This, of course, says much more about how much of a snob I am than about the quality of these lectures. The blurb describes them as "spell-binding", which made me chuckle - that is, until I started listening and felt the magic. The lecturer tells the stories in a very engaging way. More importantly though, this does feel like it's about as neutral a history telling as one can find.

I was interested to hear the stories of when and why war broke out between specific groups of Native Americans and European settlers. It's valuable to be able to learn about some nuance in separate events that are all-too-often told as a monolith, simplified to absurdity.

I also enjoyed the lectures that focused on societal development, as they helped me see the origins of some aspects of American culture that continue to puzzle me, twenty years into my tenure as a US resident.

Smallpox, 1721 - The Inoculation Controversy tells the origins of the anti-vaccine movement in the US, including the role that young Benjamin Franklin played in it (which he very much regretted later on).

Family Life and Labor in Colonial America points to the beginnings of American disdain for authority (and, to my great chagrin, unwillingness to curtail rude behavior in public spaces when asked).

The Great Awakening tells the story of what made American Christianity so distinct from Europe's.

Witchcraft in New England revealed, to me, many similarities between the Salem witch trials and the Stalinist purges of the 1930s - a similarity that Arthur Miller also found with McCarthyism and captured in The Crucible.

There are 18 hours of lectures here, and I flew through them in 2.5 days. Well worth it, in my opinion.]]> 4.38 2009 Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies
author: Robert J. Allison
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/03
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: history
review:
I am an immigrant with an American history problem.

I moved to the US midway through high school, which worked out just fine for most subjects. Rather inconveniently for me, however, my school's eleventh grade American History class started around the Civil War, since my classmates had learned earlier history in 8th grade. This has left me with a kids' restaurant placemat's worth of knowledge about the colonial period.

If that's not embarrassing enough, as an adult I've struggled to find a source that could fill in at least a part of this gap in my knowledge. There were a few reasons for this. First, adult history books tend to focus on a very small group of people, or an individual, or one event. This enables the writer to tell a good story (and write a blurb that a publisher will consider sellable). But it's not useful to someone who needs to get a grasp on the big picture of this multi-century period.

And then there's the very real possibility that any history book I may pick up, and that of pre-revolutionary America especially, will be written with an ideological slant. That is quite unhelpful when one lacks the basic understanding of the period that's necessary for a critical reading of such a history lesson.

When I happened upon this 36-lecture series, Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies, I was skeptical for several reasons:

1. This was an audio source that wasn't based on a written text, which would make fact-checking hard (I wasn't yet aware of the 180-page supplementary pdf that contains lecture summaries and a 20-page bibliography)
2. It's produced by The Great Courses - which advertises on TV (somebody fetch some smelling salts, I'm going to faint)
3. There's a hat on the cover, and who ever heard of opening a serious book with a hat picture? Nobody, I figured.

This, of course, says much more about how much of a snob I am than about the quality of these lectures. The blurb describes them as "spell-binding", which made me chuckle - that is, until I started listening and felt the magic. The lecturer tells the stories in a very engaging way. More importantly though, this does feel like it's about as neutral a history telling as one can find.

I was interested to hear the stories of when and why war broke out between specific groups of Native Americans and European settlers. It's valuable to be able to learn about some nuance in separate events that are all-too-often told as a monolith, simplified to absurdity.

I also enjoyed the lectures that focused on societal development, as they helped me see the origins of some aspects of American culture that continue to puzzle me, twenty years into my tenure as a US resident.

Smallpox, 1721 - The Inoculation Controversy tells the origins of the anti-vaccine movement in the US, including the role that young Benjamin Franklin played in it (which he very much regretted later on).

Family Life and Labor in Colonial America points to the beginnings of American disdain for authority (and, to my great chagrin, unwillingness to curtail rude behavior in public spaces when asked).

The Great Awakening tells the story of what made American Christianity so distinct from Europe's.

Witchcraft in New England revealed, to me, many similarities between the Salem witch trials and the Stalinist purges of the 1930s - a similarity that Arthur Miller also found with McCarthyism and captured in The Crucible.

There are 18 hours of lectures here, and I flew through them in 2.5 days. Well worth it, in my opinion.
]]> <![CDATA[The Kaiju Preservation Society]]> 57693406
What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble.

It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society that's found its way to the alternate world. Others have, too--and their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389126 Sasha 0 to-read 3.93 2022 The Kaiju Preservation Society
author: John Scalzi
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Conjure Wife 722251 Conjure Wife is a masterpiece of witchcraft and dark fantasy and the source of the classic horror film Burn Witch Burn!]]> 188 Fritz Leiber 0899684351 Sasha 0 to-read 3.83 1943 Conjure Wife
author: Fritz Leiber
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mars is Heaven 60567482 Ray Bradbury Sasha 3
Wait a gosh-darned minute, this planet isn't Red at all! The grass is green, the picket fences are white, the Martians all speak American English, and, by golly, is that my grandma?

Yeah, the astronauts were as confused as you probably are at this moment. Mars is Heaven! is Ray Bradbury's 1948 short story about what happens when a space crew goes to Mars but finds what very much looks like Earth there. As the title suggests, one of the possible explanations they consider is that their ship has had a hard landing, and they have been transported to the afterlife.

The story reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode called I Shot An Arrow into the Air, which is also about a crew of astronauts that have made their landing - except its plot is the perfect antiparticle of Mars Is Heaven! In my amateur opinion, the Twilight Zone episode is the superior SF story between the two.

We can talk about the mildly shoddy mechanics behind Mars is Heaven!, but I don't think that's what makes it interesting, because I believe that Bradbury may have (intentionally or not) wrapped an allegory or two into this relatively short piece.

1948 was quite early on in the Cold War, but McCarthyism (the Second Red Scare) was in full swing by the time this story came out. The origins of the Cold War are complex, but one of the events leading up to it was the USSR's blindsiding the West in Central Asia in the mid-1940s. I see strong parallels between Mars is Heaven! and the bad faith that the American public must have perceived as their (admittedly reluctant) WWII allies breached their agreements with the US.

The parallel between the Red Planet and the official color of communism may be a bit too obvious for Bradbury, so I don't think that an allusion to McCarthyism was his intention. Nevertheless, a reflection of the country's internal struggle against its perceived domestic enemy can certainly be found in this story.

For the SF giant that Bradbury is, I was surprised by the plot holes in this story. The biggest one is (spoiler spoiler spoiler) [spoilers removed] (end spoiler)

Granted, I listened to the of this story, and reading the full text may have addressed the flaws a bit better. But then I would have missed out on the fabulous sound mixing and delectable 1950 radio ads. I think I'd rather live with the plot holes.]]> 4.10 1948 Mars is Heaven
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1948
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: science-fiction, short-stories
review:
The first human crew to travel to Mars leaves from New Mexico (hello, pre-Cape Canaveral launch center!), lands on the Red Planet, opens the hull, and --

Wait a gosh-darned minute, this planet isn't Red at all! The grass is green, the picket fences are white, the Martians all speak American English, and, by golly, is that my grandma?

Yeah, the astronauts were as confused as you probably are at this moment. Mars is Heaven! is Ray Bradbury's 1948 short story about what happens when a space crew goes to Mars but finds what very much looks like Earth there. As the title suggests, one of the possible explanations they consider is that their ship has had a hard landing, and they have been transported to the afterlife.

The story reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode called I Shot An Arrow into the Air, which is also about a crew of astronauts that have made their landing - except its plot is the perfect antiparticle of Mars Is Heaven! In my amateur opinion, the Twilight Zone episode is the superior SF story between the two.

We can talk about the mildly shoddy mechanics behind Mars is Heaven!, but I don't think that's what makes it interesting, because I believe that Bradbury may have (intentionally or not) wrapped an allegory or two into this relatively short piece.

1948 was quite early on in the Cold War, but McCarthyism (the Second Red Scare) was in full swing by the time this story came out. The origins of the Cold War are complex, but one of the events leading up to it was the USSR's blindsiding the West in Central Asia in the mid-1940s. I see strong parallels between Mars is Heaven! and the bad faith that the American public must have perceived as their (admittedly reluctant) WWII allies breached their agreements with the US.

The parallel between the Red Planet and the official color of communism may be a bit too obvious for Bradbury, so I don't think that an allusion to McCarthyism was his intention. Nevertheless, a reflection of the country's internal struggle against its perceived domestic enemy can certainly be found in this story.

For the SF giant that Bradbury is, I was surprised by the plot holes in this story. The biggest one is (spoiler spoiler spoiler) [spoilers removed] (end spoiler)

Granted, I listened to the of this story, and reading the full text may have addressed the flaws a bit better. But then I would have missed out on the fabulous sound mixing and delectable 1950 radio ads. I think I'd rather live with the plot holes.
]]> <![CDATA[Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)]]> 35519101
And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

]]> 158 Martha Wells 1250191785 Sasha 0 Rogue Protocol felt like that slow-but-necessary part of the Murderbot rollercoaster for me.

There was the introduction of Miki, whose nature underlined the absence of ART from the book for me. I understand that Miki is necessary for the protagonist's character development - there were some clear realizations that came out of their relationship. Miki also reminded me of my neighbor's amazing dog, who is very aptly named Daisy, and is the epitome of "everyone is my best friend!" So I like Miki in a vacuum.

My favorite part of the book was the beginning, when the protagonist was on a ship full of humans traveling to a 20-to-life indentured servitude planet, and accidentally got themselves into the role of a town sheriff. But something in Rogue Protocol didn't quite click for me the way Artificial Condition did. I felt an excess of action scenes after the opening part, and I personally don't care for those.

Still, the reason why the protagonist went where they did - and the struggle they went through there - seems like it's setting up for something really promising.]]> 4.21 2018 Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)
author: Martha Wells
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: novel-length-2024, science-fiction, fiction
review:
You know how some rollercoasters start with a slow steep ascent before you reach some crazy height and get released, full-speed, into the awesome ride you actually bought the ticket for? Rogue Protocol felt like that slow-but-necessary part of the Murderbot rollercoaster for me.

There was the introduction of Miki, whose nature underlined the absence of ART from the book for me. I understand that Miki is necessary for the protagonist's character development - there were some clear realizations that came out of their relationship. Miki also reminded me of my neighbor's amazing dog, who is very aptly named Daisy, and is the epitome of "everyone is my best friend!" So I like Miki in a vacuum.

My favorite part of the book was the beginning, when the protagonist was on a ship full of humans traveling to a 20-to-life indentured servitude planet, and accidentally got themselves into the role of a town sheriff. But something in Rogue Protocol didn't quite click for me the way Artificial Condition did. I felt an excess of action scenes after the opening part, and I personally don't care for those.

Still, the reason why the protagonist went where they did - and the struggle they went through there - seems like it's setting up for something really promising.
]]> <![CDATA[Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)]]> 36223860 alternate cover for ISBN 9781250186928

It has a dark past � one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot." But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.

Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A� stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.

What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks.]]> 158 Martha Wells Sasha 5 Sanctuary Moon?

Wow, what a turnaround. I felt rather lukewarm about the first Murderbot novella - I found the premise of a TV-loving, steadfastly well-meaning, rogue yet tame cyborg more interesting than its execution.

But the second installment of the series was sooo good. The warmth of Wells's storytelling really comes into its own here. Although the novella has some action scenes, the awkwardness of Murderbot's social interactions, meshed with their apparent inability to turn down a cry for help, took center stage for me.

And then, of course, there's ART, the overqualified ship navigation system whose overbearing drive to be maximally helpful inadvertently comes off as threatening. ART may or may not be my distant cousin, because (despite ART's likely intended role as comedic relief), I identified with ART more than with the relatable Muderbot at the center of the story.

Here's a sign of great storytelling. In my imagination, I experienced the book in first person, as if I was the main character in body and spirit. So yes, when Muderbot's skin is altered to be more humanlike, I got to see my own forearm covered in shimmering unicorn-rainbow hair. That is the sort of experience I hope to get every time I pick up a book.]]> 4.23 2018 Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)
author: Martha Wells
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/21
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: novel-length-2024, fiction, science-fiction
review:
Murderbot has escaped the clutches of employment and is now rogue fully - not just inside their mind. And with being rogue comes the complication of being the subject of Wanted ads everywhere one goes. How will Murderbot escape being noticed? What will they do with their time? Will they ever get tired of rewatching Sanctuary Moon?

Wow, what a turnaround. I felt rather lukewarm about the first Murderbot novella - I found the premise of a TV-loving, steadfastly well-meaning, rogue yet tame cyborg more interesting than its execution.

But the second installment of the series was sooo good. The warmth of Wells's storytelling really comes into its own here. Although the novella has some action scenes, the awkwardness of Murderbot's social interactions, meshed with their apparent inability to turn down a cry for help, took center stage for me.

And then, of course, there's ART, the overqualified ship navigation system whose overbearing drive to be maximally helpful inadvertently comes off as threatening. ART may or may not be my distant cousin, because (despite ART's likely intended role as comedic relief), I identified with ART more than with the relatable Muderbot at the center of the story.

Here's a sign of great storytelling. In my imagination, I experienced the book in first person, as if I was the main character in body and spirit. So yes, when Muderbot's skin is altered to be more humanlike, I got to see my own forearm covered in shimmering unicorn-rainbow hair. That is the sort of experience I hope to get every time I pick up a book.
]]> <![CDATA[A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables, #1)]]> 56179356
Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.]]> 119 Alix E. Harrow 1250765358 Sasha 3
That's a pretty morbid setup for a novella that starts at a birthday party, huh? Well, fear not, because even though A Spindle Splintered isn't a fairy tale, it's not not a fairy tale either. But like the liminal genre space that this novella occupies (which I don't mind), I felt like the story's mechanics couldn't quite find the right place to settle down upon.

At the start of the novella, Zinnia is resigned to her fate. She appears to not really want anything. Zinnia's just, kind of, waiting for her final breath. Which makes sense. From the point of view of traditional storytelling, this puts Zinnia in the position of growth to become a person who expects more from life. In other words, she's got lessons to learn.

The downside of this, however, is that when Zinnia is transported into the fairy tale world, it's not clear why she would care to go back. The narrative mentions that her best friend is freaking out, but I wasn't convinced that this was motivation enough to move Zinnia to action.

When Zinnia mentions the amount of battery left in her phone, the author is borrowing a technique from the thriller genre, a 'ticking clock'. Typically, this literary device is meant to give urgency to the narrative and creates a sense of will-they-won't-they make it out of the protagonist's predicament. But because Zinnia doesn't seem to care about anything she needs to get back to, the device doesn't work as it's intended.

There is a point that A Spindle Splintered is trying to make in a fairly obvious way - the point is about women's agency - or lack thereof - in the fairy tales we all know. Thankfully, it's doing so with some literary devices - not just telling - and it's not happening so much as to ruin the book for me. Still, I don't love it when fiction comes with an obvious message.

There's also a more subtle point about how we are responsible for recognizing the toxic cycles that circumstances have trapped us in - and then for engaging our friends to help us climb out to fresh air. This might just be me imposing my idea on the novel though. I have a tendency to look for gestalt-like ideas, vicious cycles, and the like.

For some reason I can't quite place, the novella felt more engaging in the last 20% or so, and that pushed my rating up to 3. Those who love fairy tale retellings will likely enjoy this one more than I did. Nevertheless, the novella was enjoyable enough for me to finish, and that's far from a given with the way my laser focus tends to work. I'm glad I stuck with it.]]> 3.58 2021 A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables, #1)
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: novel-length-2024, fantasy-or-magical-realism, retelling
review:
It's the last birthday of Zinnia's young life today - or so she's been told by the doctors, anyway. Ever since she can remember, she's known that she won't live to be 22. And for an equally long time, Zinnia has felt a kinship with Sleeping Beauty, seeing as they both have been cursed to leave their lives behind after turning 21.

That's a pretty morbid setup for a novella that starts at a birthday party, huh? Well, fear not, because even though A Spindle Splintered isn't a fairy tale, it's not not a fairy tale either. But like the liminal genre space that this novella occupies (which I don't mind), I felt like the story's mechanics couldn't quite find the right place to settle down upon.

At the start of the novella, Zinnia is resigned to her fate. She appears to not really want anything. Zinnia's just, kind of, waiting for her final breath. Which makes sense. From the point of view of traditional storytelling, this puts Zinnia in the position of growth to become a person who expects more from life. In other words, she's got lessons to learn.

The downside of this, however, is that when Zinnia is transported into the fairy tale world, it's not clear why she would care to go back. The narrative mentions that her best friend is freaking out, but I wasn't convinced that this was motivation enough to move Zinnia to action.

When Zinnia mentions the amount of battery left in her phone, the author is borrowing a technique from the thriller genre, a 'ticking clock'. Typically, this literary device is meant to give urgency to the narrative and creates a sense of will-they-won't-they make it out of the protagonist's predicament. But because Zinnia doesn't seem to care about anything she needs to get back to, the device doesn't work as it's intended.

There is a point that A Spindle Splintered is trying to make in a fairly obvious way - the point is about women's agency - or lack thereof - in the fairy tales we all know. Thankfully, it's doing so with some literary devices - not just telling - and it's not happening so much as to ruin the book for me. Still, I don't love it when fiction comes with an obvious message.

There's also a more subtle point about how we are responsible for recognizing the toxic cycles that circumstances have trapped us in - and then for engaging our friends to help us climb out to fresh air. This might just be me imposing my idea on the novel though. I have a tendency to look for gestalt-like ideas, vicious cycles, and the like.

For some reason I can't quite place, the novella felt more engaging in the last 20% or so, and that pushed my rating up to 3. Those who love fairy tale retellings will likely enjoy this one more than I did. Nevertheless, the novella was enjoyable enough for me to finish, and that's far from a given with the way my laser focus tends to work. I'm glad I stuck with it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde]]> 31436046 143 Robert Louis Stevenson 0008195676 Sasha 4 classics, fiction Jekyll and Hyde's twist.



I picked up The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde to see how exactly the twist comes about -- and to witness Stevenson's execution of the concept. The novel is written very well, and it gripped me at first. I have to say that unfortunately, the advance knowledge of the crux of the story dampened its effect; I wish I could have come to this novella with a blank slate. Alas, we don't have access to the full experience that this marvel of a shilling shocker brought to Stevenson's original 19th-century audience.]]> 3.62 1886 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
author: Robert Louis Stevenson
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1886
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/24
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: classics, fiction
review:
Modern readers come to this novella at a disadvantage, since everyone knows the nature of Jekyll and Hyde's twist.



I picked up The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde to see how exactly the twist comes about -- and to witness Stevenson's execution of the concept. The novel is written very well, and it gripped me at first. I have to say that unfortunately, the advance knowledge of the crux of the story dampened its effect; I wish I could have come to this novella with a blank slate. Alas, we don't have access to the full experience that this marvel of a shilling shocker brought to Stevenson's original 19th-century audience.
]]> <![CDATA[Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions]]> 433567 [sic � ed.], a mathematician and resident of the two-dimensional Flatland, where women-thin, straight lines-are the lowliest of shapes, and where men may have any number of sides, depending on their social status.
Through strange occurrences that bring him into contact with a host of geometric forms, Square has adventures in Spaceland (three dimensions), Lineland (one dimension) and Pointland (no dimensions) and ultimately entertains thoughts of visiting a land of four dimensions—a revolutionary idea for which he is returned to his two-dimensional world. Charmingly illustrated by the author, Flatland is not only fascinating reading, it is still a first-rate fictional introduction to the concept of the multiple dimensions of space. "Instructive, entertaining, and stimulating to the imagination." � Mathematics Teacher.]]> 96 Edwin A. Abbott 048627263X Sasha 3 that different from looking at reality.

So, if we see our world with one spatial dimension stripped away, what would life look like to someone stuck in a 2D world? That is the perspective that Flatland's central character, A. Square, is here to convey to us hyperspace beings.

A curious 19th-century novella by a mathematically-inclined schoolteacher, Flatland is narrated by a polygon who is writing from his two-dimensional world to us, his three-(spacial)-dimensional readers. He starts with a description of the practical aspects of what it might mean to live in 2D (like us, he also sees the world with one dimension turned off). Quickly, however, the narrative transitions to a fairly protracted explanation of social interactions and hierarchies in this 2D world.

A novel of two dimensions indeed, Flatland is both a geometry treatise and a satire of Victorian-era English society. However, the geometry ideas are no longer revolutionary, and the societal norms are long gone. To a reader who's picking this book up a century and a half after its creation, Flatland is at risk of falling a bit, well, flat.

It is easy to bristle at one particular aspect of this novella - namely, the way it satirizes women's inequality and mistreatment. In 2024, when a character makes a prejudiced comment, it is expected that another character will call it out to indicate that the hurtful words are wrong (and not the writer's actual opinion). That is not the case in Flatland. Instead, the author here did an "opposites day", taking the misogynist attitudes of his contemporaries and dialing them up to eleven to ridicule them. Through today's lens, this approach can leap off the page and look malicious (which I don't believe is the case).

As a story, Flatland didn't really blow me away. I got a distinct "math teacher" vibe from the narrative, with the first half reading straight up like a manifesto on societal hierarchy with no plot at all. But Flatland has certainly made an imprint on science fiction and popular science works that followed it. There are some good reasons to read it if one is inclined -- the primary one being to see firsthand how this classic of mathematical fiction pioneered a way to explore non-Euclidean geometry in our minds.]]> 3.82 1884 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
author: Edwin A. Abbott
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: science-fiction, novel-length-2024, positive-science-fiction
review:
Do you ever think about the fact that although we live in 3 dimensions, we see the world in 2D? If we looked at the world through a grid, we could only pinpoint the x- and y- coordinates of something we were looking at; we'd have to infer the z- coordinate from the secondary clues we use for depth perception. This is why looking at a photo -- which doesn't even pretend to have more than 2 dimensions -- is not that different from looking at reality.

So, if we see our world with one spatial dimension stripped away, what would life look like to someone stuck in a 2D world? That is the perspective that Flatland's central character, A. Square, is here to convey to us hyperspace beings.

A curious 19th-century novella by a mathematically-inclined schoolteacher, Flatland is narrated by a polygon who is writing from his two-dimensional world to us, his three-(spacial)-dimensional readers. He starts with a description of the practical aspects of what it might mean to live in 2D (like us, he also sees the world with one dimension turned off). Quickly, however, the narrative transitions to a fairly protracted explanation of social interactions and hierarchies in this 2D world.

A novel of two dimensions indeed, Flatland is both a geometry treatise and a satire of Victorian-era English society. However, the geometry ideas are no longer revolutionary, and the societal norms are long gone. To a reader who's picking this book up a century and a half after its creation, Flatland is at risk of falling a bit, well, flat.

It is easy to bristle at one particular aspect of this novella - namely, the way it satirizes women's inequality and mistreatment. In 2024, when a character makes a prejudiced comment, it is expected that another character will call it out to indicate that the hurtful words are wrong (and not the writer's actual opinion). That is not the case in Flatland. Instead, the author here did an "opposites day", taking the misogynist attitudes of his contemporaries and dialing them up to eleven to ridicule them. Through today's lens, this approach can leap off the page and look malicious (which I don't believe is the case).

As a story, Flatland didn't really blow me away. I got a distinct "math teacher" vibe from the narrative, with the first half reading straight up like a manifesto on societal hierarchy with no plot at all. But Flatland has certainly made an imprint on science fiction and popular science works that followed it. There are some good reasons to read it if one is inclined -- the primary one being to see firsthand how this classic of mathematical fiction pioneered a way to explore non-Euclidean geometry in our minds.
]]> <![CDATA[Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos]]> 27189879
“A strikingly lucid account of the expansion, not just of the universe, but of the way we have tried to understand it, from the Babylonians to black holes and dark matter.”—Richard Holmes, “By the Book,� New York Times Book Review

“Part history, part science, all illuminating. If you want to understand the greatest ideas that shaped our current cosmic cartography, read this book.”—Adam G. Riess, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2011

This book provides a tour of the “greatest hits� of cosmological discoveries—the ideas that reshaped our universe over the past century. The cosmos, once understood as a stagnant place, filled with the ordinary, is now a universe that is expanding at an accelerating pace, propelled by dark energy and structured by dark matter. Priyamvada Natarajan, our guide to these ideas, is someone at the forefront of the research—an astrophysicist who literally creates maps of invisible matter in the universe. She not only explains for a wide audience the science behind these essential ideas but also provides an understanding of how radical scientific theories gain acceptance.

The formation and growth of black holes, dark matter halos, the accelerating expansion of the universe, the echo of the big bang, the discovery of exoplanets, and the possibility of other universes—these are some of the puzzling cosmological topics of the early twenty-first century. Natarajan discusses why the acceptance of new ideas about the universe and our place in it has never been linear and always contested even within the scientific community. And she affirms that, shifting and incomplete as science always must be, it offers the best path we have toward making sense of our wondrous, mysterious universe.]]> 288 Priyamvada Natarajan 0300204418 Sasha 5 3.81 2016 Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos
author: Priyamvada Natarajan
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: by-my-acquaintances, cosmos, novel-length-2024, science
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (Adrian Mole, #1)]]> 51070 272 Sue Townsend 0060533994 Sasha 4 3.88 1982 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (Adrian Mole, #1)
author: Sue Townsend
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/21
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: novel-length-2024, fiction, humor
review:

]]> The Captain's Daughter 604578 124 Alexander Pushkin 184391154X Sasha 4
Upon re-reading it in my thirties, I see it as a romanticized fairy tale about a gruesome time in history. The resolution and turns in the story felt way too happy and convenient for the main character. But Pushkin is really good at turns of phrase. 3 for the unrealistic story, 4 for the language, averaged and rounded up --- four goodreads stars.

See you again in twenty years.]]> 3.90 1836 The Captain's Daughter
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1836
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/07
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: novel-length-2024, classics, fiction, coming-of-age, historical-fiction, love-story, read-for-school
review:
Last time I read The Captain's Daughter, around the age of twelve, I experienced it as if it was a romance novel.

Upon re-reading it in my thirties, I see it as a romanticized fairy tale about a gruesome time in history. The resolution and turns in the story felt way too happy and convenient for the main character. But Pushkin is really good at turns of phrase. 3 for the unrealistic story, 4 for the language, averaged and rounded up --- four goodreads stars.

See you again in twenty years.
]]> <![CDATA[The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #1)]]> 40914165 An alternate cover edition for ISBN 978-1492671527 can be found here.

In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry.

The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government's new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.]]> 309 Kim Michele Richardson Sasha 2
Maybe I just wasn't the right reader for this one. It felt like the book had three different stories, and it couldn't decide which one it wanted to tell. Genuine emotion was pushed out by melodrama. The love story in these pages felt stapled-on.

The book has an important message - prejudice is bad and books are good, more or less. But the execution could've been a bit better.]]> 4.17 2019 The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #1)
author: Kim Michele Richardson
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: novel-length-2024, historical-fiction, fiction
review:
It's 1936. Cussy Mary is a young Appalachian woman with blue skin (this is based on a real Kentucky family who had blue skin due to a congenital condition). She takes pride in her work as a mountain librarian, personally delivering reading materials by mule to the people of Kentucky. Her father is a miner and worries that with the short lifespan of his profession, he won't be able to watch over Cussy Mary's wellbeing for much longer -- so he is keen on seeing her married off. Unfortunately for Cussy Mary, getting married would mean leaving the bookish job she so loves. On top of that, with the prejudice that her blue skin invokes, the suitors that her father can find aren't suitable at all. Cussy Mary cusses her skin color and wishes that society would stop shunning her.

Maybe I just wasn't the right reader for this one. It felt like the book had three different stories, and it couldn't decide which one it wanted to tell. Genuine emotion was pushed out by melodrama. The love story in these pages felt stapled-on.

The book has an important message - prejudice is bad and books are good, more or less. But the execution could've been a bit better.
]]> Dubrovsky 2651456 185 Alexander Pushkin 0828526338 Sasha 4 The Captain's Daughter -- also by Pushkin, Turgenev's First Love, and Love of Life by Jack London. What was the secret magic that made these works stand out against a profusion of torturous, almost exclusively Russian, lit masterpieces? My four favorite stories were paced well, didn't waste time on being lyrical, and included love stories (with exception of Love of Life, which is about a man facing death in the Canadian wilderness).

Those of you who have read Dubrovsky or The Captain's Daughter might be wondering just how starved middle-school Me was for love storylines -- if adventure stories about back-stabbings, revenge, violent uprisings, arson, and false identities had me glued to the pages, looking for the three-line confession, one longing look, and maybe a hug hidden within them. Very starved, in fact. Dubrovsky was the closest that I ever got to accessing the YA genre, which would have been a much better source of age-appropriate love stories.

So, is this nineteenth-century YA then? Not exactly. It's certainly coming-of-age: the central character is 23 and starts out as an unbothered officer-to-be, setting himself up to be destroyed by gambling debts and assuming that a rich bride would swoop in rescue him. He ends up as something else, and it's impossible to be more specific without spoiling the book.

But this isn't quite YA; it's a comedy that would appeal to adults. And boy is it a page turner. Very, so very unfortunately, though, it's unfinished, and the abrupt ending is almost as torturous to me now as slogging through short stories about hunting and nature was when I was 13. It's clear that, as written, Dubrovky ends about halfway through the story it's telling -- and let me tell you why:

-End of review-]]> 4.00 1841 Dubrovsky
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1841
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/26
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: novel-length-2024, classics, read-for-school, love-story, coming-of-age
review:
Dubrovsky was one of a very small selection of middle school lit class assignments to which I gave the fullest attention that a thirteen-year-old can possibly give. The other lucky works were The Captain's Daughter -- also by Pushkin, Turgenev's First Love, and Love of Life by Jack London. What was the secret magic that made these works stand out against a profusion of torturous, almost exclusively Russian, lit masterpieces? My four favorite stories were paced well, didn't waste time on being lyrical, and included love stories (with exception of Love of Life, which is about a man facing death in the Canadian wilderness).

Those of you who have read Dubrovsky or The Captain's Daughter might be wondering just how starved middle-school Me was for love storylines -- if adventure stories about back-stabbings, revenge, violent uprisings, arson, and false identities had me glued to the pages, looking for the three-line confession, one longing look, and maybe a hug hidden within them. Very starved, in fact. Dubrovsky was the closest that I ever got to accessing the YA genre, which would have been a much better source of age-appropriate love stories.

So, is this nineteenth-century YA then? Not exactly. It's certainly coming-of-age: the central character is 23 and starts out as an unbothered officer-to-be, setting himself up to be destroyed by gambling debts and assuming that a rich bride would swoop in rescue him. He ends up as something else, and it's impossible to be more specific without spoiling the book.

But this isn't quite YA; it's a comedy that would appeal to adults. And boy is it a page turner. Very, so very unfortunately, though, it's unfinished, and the abrupt ending is almost as torturous to me now as slogging through short stories about hunting and nature was when I was 13. It's clear that, as written, Dubrovky ends about halfway through the story it's telling -- and let me tell you why:

-End of review-
]]> Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Sasha 4 science-fiction, fiction 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/07
shelves: science-fiction, fiction
review:

]]> A Young Doctor's Notebook 15956705
Using a sharply realistic and humorous style, Bulgakov reveals his doubts about his own competence and the immense burden of responsibility, as he deals with a superstitious and poorly educated people struggling to enter the modern age. This acclaimed collection contains some of Bulgakov's most personal and insightful observations on youth, isolation and progress.

THIS EDITION INCLUDES THE PIECE 'MORPHINE']]> 161 Mikhail Bulgakov 184749286X Sasha 0
A Young Doctor's Notebook is semi-autobuographical and one of Bulgakov's earliest published works. And although an early work it may be, the text (which I was reading in the original until, 10% in, I had to put it on my DNF shelf) shows signs of the mastery of language that developed to masterpiece level in The Master and Margarita. If you're wondering why on earth I couldn't finish something I was enjoying, then it's time for the interview with myself that I know you all were hoping to find here.

Q: Hello readers, and welcome to episode 1 of Who Cares About This Anyway. [jingle] Today's guest is Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ reviewer and physicist Sasha, who is here to tell us about A Young Doctor's Notebook. So, Sasha. You DNFed this particular story collection. Can you tell us why?

A: Of course. Thank you for having me on the show. The story collection had really enjoyable wording. But I'm afraid that I couldn't quite handle the medical details here. Bulgakov was a doctor before he was a full-time writer, so he knew what he was talking about, and it's quite realistic.

Q: That's interesting. Aren't you rewatching that medical show about an emergency room nurse, which includes a bunch of medical scenes?

A: Well, actu...

Q: And you own all six seasons of it?

A: That's -

Q: And weren't you a volunteer at a cancer hospital's emergency room?

A: Yes, but -

Q: Sounds to me like you can handle medical details just fine. What's different about A Young Doctor's Notebook?

A: Are you done now?

Q: [nods encouragingly]

A: There's something different about reading gory details, rather than watching them. With a TV show, you can look away for a few seconds if a scene bothers you. In person, you can actively do something to help the situation. And in both cases, the scenes unfold outside of your head. As an external observer, you are not actively causing someone's suffering. But with reading, say, a scene where someone's [spoilers removed], as a reader you have to construct the scene yourself. The action of turning Bulgakov's words into vivid imagery in my head feels like I'm causing this character's suffering. It's harder to remind myself that a story isn't real, when the writing is this good.

Q: So what you're saying is that you DNFed this book because you couldn't handle Bulgakov's talent.

A: Uhhhh... Sure. Let's go with that.]]> 4.26 1925 A Young Doctor's Notebook
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1925
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves: short-stories, fiction, classics, did-not-finish
review:
Our protagonist is a recent medical school graduate who gets a job as the only doctor in a rural clinic in late Imperial Russia, right before the revolution. He is rapidly thrust into a whole lot of medical responsibility without any supervision or experience. And the way he deals with not knowing what to do with his patients makes this collection an amazing read.

A Young Doctor's Notebook is semi-autobuographical and one of Bulgakov's earliest published works. And although an early work it may be, the text (which I was reading in the original until, 10% in, I had to put it on my DNF shelf) shows signs of the mastery of language that developed to masterpiece level in The Master and Margarita. If you're wondering why on earth I couldn't finish something I was enjoying, then it's time for the interview with myself that I know you all were hoping to find here.

Q: Hello readers, and welcome to episode 1 of Who Cares About This Anyway. [jingle] Today's guest is Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ reviewer and physicist Sasha, who is here to tell us about A Young Doctor's Notebook. So, Sasha. You DNFed this particular story collection. Can you tell us why?

A: Of course. Thank you for having me on the show. The story collection had really enjoyable wording. But I'm afraid that I couldn't quite handle the medical details here. Bulgakov was a doctor before he was a full-time writer, so he knew what he was talking about, and it's quite realistic.

Q: That's interesting. Aren't you rewatching that medical show about an emergency room nurse, which includes a bunch of medical scenes?

A: Well, actu...

Q: And you own all six seasons of it?

A: That's -

Q: And weren't you a volunteer at a cancer hospital's emergency room?

A: Yes, but -

Q: Sounds to me like you can handle medical details just fine. What's different about A Young Doctor's Notebook?

A: Are you done now?

Q: [nods encouragingly]

A: There's something different about reading gory details, rather than watching them. With a TV show, you can look away for a few seconds if a scene bothers you. In person, you can actively do something to help the situation. And in both cases, the scenes unfold outside of your head. As an external observer, you are not actively causing someone's suffering. But with reading, say, a scene where someone's [spoilers removed], as a reader you have to construct the scene yourself. The action of turning Bulgakov's words into vivid imagery in my head feels like I'm causing this character's suffering. It's harder to remind myself that a story isn't real, when the writing is this good.

Q: So what you're saying is that you DNFed this book because you couldn't handle Bulgakov's talent.

A: Uhhhh... Sure. Let's go with that.
]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Sasha 5 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/12
date added: 2024/06/12
shelves: novel-length-2024, classics, coming-of-age, fiction
review:

]]> Land of Milk and Honey 101673225 The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body.

In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.]]> 240 C Pam Zhang 0593538242 Sasha 3
The main character loves food. By her delicious luck, a mysterious restaurant in rural Italy is hiring a chef. That tiny patch of Italy is one of the few locations on Earth that still gets some scrumptious sunlight and, thus, has the mouthwatering luxury of seductively fresh produce. Here's what's not as lucky: the main character doesn't actually have the right qualifications for the job. But eh, would a little resume fibbing hurt anyone? No one will find out, probably. And if they do, what's the worst that could happen?

Land of Milk and Honey is literary fiction set in the near future with a speculative element. However, science fiction fans will protest against putting this on the genre shelf, since the speculative element takes a backseat to human relationships in this story - and to lush writing in the way the story is told.

It delves into some timeless topics that are as relevant to us today as they can get. The novel explores codependent relationships and what circumstances could make someone give up their moral principles. It looks at the fetishization of ethnic minorities and the power dynamics that money engenders. Oh how I do hope that these themes will feel less timeless, or should I say neverending, in humanity's future.

The book starts slow, with very little happening. About halfway through, there is a twist that improves the novel, in my experience, as the codependent relationship goes to a new level. Still, the writing relies heavily on descriptions of the protagonist's sensory experiences rather than her thoughts, and that heavy-handed sensory approach dulled my enjoyment of the novel.

Example: the protagonist gets a phone call that presumably shakes her. But instead of describing her thoughts or emotional reaction, the narrator says "I still remember the weight of the phone in my hand."

The only time when the sensory descriptions worked for me was when the narrator described fruit as a metaphor for her romantic relationship.

Speaking of relationships, the central one, although not romantic per se, reminded me of the gilded cage marriage paradigm that I would be expected to pursue were I to stay in Eastern Europe past my adolescence. The description of this relationship is alright, but could definitely benefit from a deeper exploration of the protagonist's thoughts, rather than descriptions of actions and transactions with no deeper commentary.

In the end, I think this novel relies too heavily on being poetic and, as a result, fails to deliver on an emotional level. However, there is value in the messages it aims to send.]]> 3.50 2023 Land of Milk and Honey
author: C Pam Zhang
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/30
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: dystopian, fiction, speculative, novel-length-2023, litfic, sophomore-novel, the-title-is-a-reference, mfa-graduate
review:
In the near future, smog has engulfed the earth and killed most crops. Food is now synonymous with sawdust that's barely edible. Fresh strawberries? What a concept!

The main character loves food. By her delicious luck, a mysterious restaurant in rural Italy is hiring a chef. That tiny patch of Italy is one of the few locations on Earth that still gets some scrumptious sunlight and, thus, has the mouthwatering luxury of seductively fresh produce. Here's what's not as lucky: the main character doesn't actually have the right qualifications for the job. But eh, would a little resume fibbing hurt anyone? No one will find out, probably. And if they do, what's the worst that could happen?

Land of Milk and Honey is literary fiction set in the near future with a speculative element. However, science fiction fans will protest against putting this on the genre shelf, since the speculative element takes a backseat to human relationships in this story - and to lush writing in the way the story is told.

It delves into some timeless topics that are as relevant to us today as they can get. The novel explores codependent relationships and what circumstances could make someone give up their moral principles. It looks at the fetishization of ethnic minorities and the power dynamics that money engenders. Oh how I do hope that these themes will feel less timeless, or should I say neverending, in humanity's future.

The book starts slow, with very little happening. About halfway through, there is a twist that improves the novel, in my experience, as the codependent relationship goes to a new level. Still, the writing relies heavily on descriptions of the protagonist's sensory experiences rather than her thoughts, and that heavy-handed sensory approach dulled my enjoyment of the novel.

Example: the protagonist gets a phone call that presumably shakes her. But instead of describing her thoughts or emotional reaction, the narrator says "I still remember the weight of the phone in my hand."

The only time when the sensory descriptions worked for me was when the narrator described fruit as a metaphor for her romantic relationship.

Speaking of relationships, the central one, although not romantic per se, reminded me of the gilded cage marriage paradigm that I would be expected to pursue were I to stay in Eastern Europe past my adolescence. The description of this relationship is alright, but could definitely benefit from a deeper exploration of the protagonist's thoughts, rather than descriptions of actions and transactions with no deeper commentary.

In the end, I think this novel relies too heavily on being poetic and, as a result, fails to deliver on an emotional level. However, there is value in the messages it aims to send.
]]> <![CDATA[Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect (Ernest Cunningham, #2)]]> 202020140
From the bestselling author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, a fiendishly fun locked room (train) murder mystery that "offers a tip of the hat to the great Agatha Christie novel while at the same time being a modern reinvention of it" (Nita Prose) -- perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz

When the Australian Mystery Writers� Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)

the forensic science writer

the blockbuster writer

the legal thriller writer

the literary writer

the psychological suspense writer

But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

Of course, we should also know how to commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?]]> 9 Benjamin Stevenson 006327910X Sasha 0 to-read 3.75 2023 Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect (Ernest Cunningham, #2)
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sense and Sensibility 10846426 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780143106524.

Audrey Niffenegger and Cathleen Schine pay tribute to Jane Austen's beloved first novel in this graphic deluxe edition commemorating its 200th anniversary.

Marianne and Elinor Dashwood are sisters. Marianne always acts impulsively, while Elinor is painfully sensitive to social convention. When each falls in love, they come to realize that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find happiness. First published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility inaugurated the brilliant career of one of the world's most beloved literary figures and ranks among her most popular novels.]]> 368 Jane Austen Sasha 4
That is the question that Jane Austen poses to her readers at the beginning of Sense and Sensibility. The rest of the novel is spent answering it. But do you actually need to read the novel to know what she is trying to say? The way Austen introduces the two sisters at the center of the story, Elinor and Marianne, reveals the author's feelings on this subject, which arguably then dampens the suspense of the novel. Take a look at the 'sense' sister:


Elinor, this eldest daughter whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence.


And here's the 'sensibility' sister:


Marianne's abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor's. She was sensible and clever; but eager in every thing; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent.


I'm not going to say point-blank which of the sisters Austen favors in her treatment - that would be a spoiler. I'm merely quoting page four out of three hundred and fifty. If you haven't read Pride and Prejudice or Emma, then perhaps the plot of Sense and Sensibility won't feel as predictable to you as it did to me, and these quotes won't reveal how the novel unfolds.

I don't agree with Austen's point on the benefits of being prudent. In fact, I think the question with which I opened my review is a false dichotomy. Time and again, the right way to make major life decisions has been to follow my feelings - especially when they contradict the logical path.

Maybe I'm just lucky to have especially provident gut feelings. But I don't think that's it.

Inevitably, we all go through life with most of our view obstructed. If we rely only on logic to choose our adventure, we can never make a fully-informed decision. As time passes, parts of our path that we couldn't see while making some big decision get revealed. Thus we end up learning how a choice that initially feels like a triumph of restraint over indulgence is ultimately one we regret. Might as well follow our feelings so that we can enjoy the moment while we can.

Since Sense and Sensibility didn't align with the way I think about life, maybe my sensibilities dampened my enjoyment of the novel to its fullest. But let's set my worldview aside and look at the novel through a completely unbiased lens.

This was Austen's first novel, and as a debut it is quite impressive. Her strongest point here lies in the jokes about the way society works. She enjoys writing little comments about how members of the aristocracy say things that they don't actually mean. Every now and then, you'll encounter a vignette that really lets Austen's humor shine. Here's my favorite, from a description of an early-1800s brunch (Do note that it's one long sentence, which I adore):

Conversation however was not wanted, for Sir John was very chatty, and Lady Middleton had taken the wise precaution of bringing with her their eldest child, a fine little boy about six years old, by which means there was one subject always to be returned to by the ladies in case of extremity, for they had to inquire his name and age, admire his beauty, and ask him questions which his mother answered for him, while he hung about her and held down his head, to the great surprise of her ladyship, who wondered at his being so shy before company as he could make noise enough at home.


Apparently, six-year-olds haven't changed one bit in the course of the last two hundred years.]]> 3.94 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1811
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/04
shelves: classics, fiction, novel-length-2024
review:
What's a better course of action: acting sensibly to avoid imprudent decisions (at the expense of enjoying the present moment)? Or acting nonsensically as you follow your gut feelings towards what's most interesting at the moment (at the expense of future well-being)?

That is the question that Jane Austen poses to her readers at the beginning of Sense and Sensibility. The rest of the novel is spent answering it. But do you actually need to read the novel to know what she is trying to say? The way Austen introduces the two sisters at the center of the story, Elinor and Marianne, reveals the author's feelings on this subject, which arguably then dampens the suspense of the novel. Take a look at the 'sense' sister:


Elinor, this eldest daughter whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence.


And here's the 'sensibility' sister:


Marianne's abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor's. She was sensible and clever; but eager in every thing; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent.


I'm not going to say point-blank which of the sisters Austen favors in her treatment - that would be a spoiler. I'm merely quoting page four out of three hundred and fifty. If you haven't read Pride and Prejudice or Emma, then perhaps the plot of Sense and Sensibility won't feel as predictable to you as it did to me, and these quotes won't reveal how the novel unfolds.

I don't agree with Austen's point on the benefits of being prudent. In fact, I think the question with which I opened my review is a false dichotomy. Time and again, the right way to make major life decisions has been to follow my feelings - especially when they contradict the logical path.

Maybe I'm just lucky to have especially provident gut feelings. But I don't think that's it.

Inevitably, we all go through life with most of our view obstructed. If we rely only on logic to choose our adventure, we can never make a fully-informed decision. As time passes, parts of our path that we couldn't see while making some big decision get revealed. Thus we end up learning how a choice that initially feels like a triumph of restraint over indulgence is ultimately one we regret. Might as well follow our feelings so that we can enjoy the moment while we can.

Since Sense and Sensibility didn't align with the way I think about life, maybe my sensibilities dampened my enjoyment of the novel to its fullest. But let's set my worldview aside and look at the novel through a completely unbiased lens.

This was Austen's first novel, and as a debut it is quite impressive. Her strongest point here lies in the jokes about the way society works. She enjoys writing little comments about how members of the aristocracy say things that they don't actually mean. Every now and then, you'll encounter a vignette that really lets Austen's humor shine. Here's my favorite, from a description of an early-1800s brunch (Do note that it's one long sentence, which I adore):

Conversation however was not wanted, for Sir John was very chatty, and Lady Middleton had taken the wise precaution of bringing with her their eldest child, a fine little boy about six years old, by which means there was one subject always to be returned to by the ladies in case of extremity, for they had to inquire his name and age, admire his beauty, and ask him questions which his mother answered for him, while he hung about her and held down his head, to the great surprise of her ladyship, who wondered at his being so shy before company as he could make noise enough at home.


Apparently, six-year-olds haven't changed one bit in the course of the last two hundred years.
]]> <![CDATA[The Geometry of Random Fields (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics)]]> 4699223 280 Robert J. Adler 0471278440 Sasha 0 5.00 1981 The Geometry of Random Fields (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics)
author: Robert J. Adler
name: Sasha
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves: science, math, statistics, neither-finished-nor-unfinished
review:

]]> Rebel Daughter 44418090 For fans of The Red Tent and The Dovekeepers!
Winner of a 2021 National Jewish Book Award
Finalist for The Christy

Rebel Daughter transports the reader to one of the most dramatic and momentous events in human history � the destruction of Jerusalem in the 1st century. This stunning tale of family, love and resilience was inspired by a major archaeological discovery in southern Italy: the 2,000 year-old gravestone of Claudia Aster (Esther). The few Latin words chiseled into the ancient stone, proof of a very unlikely romance, shocked and intrigued scholars around the world.

Rebel Daughter is Esther’s story. An aristocratic young woman, she comes of age during the Jewish revolt against Rome. Esther dreams of so much more than the marriage her parents have arranged to a prosperous silversmith. Yet she is torn between her family duties and her own desires.

Meanwhile, the growing turmoil in Jerusalem threatens to tear apart not only her beloved city, but also her own family. As the alleyways turn into a bloody battleground between rebels and Romans, Esther's journey becomes one of survival. She remains fiercely devoted to her family, and braves famine, siege, and slavery to protect those she loves.

This thrilling and impassioned saga, based on real characters and meticulous research, seamlessly blends the fascinating story of the Jewish people with a timeless protagonist determined to take charge of her own life against all odds.]]> 400 Lori Banov Kaufmann 0593125819 Sasha 4

Image source:

What sets this particular tombstone apart from your typical rock that bears two-thousand-year-old words filled with the kind of sadness that neither formality nor all-caps can conceal? To answer that, let's translate this inscription:

Claudia Aster
Hierosolymitana
captiva. curam egit
Tiberius Claudius Augusti libertus
Proculus. rogo vos fac-
ite per legim ne quis
mihi titulum deiciat cu-
ram agatis. vixit annis
XXV
---
"Claudia Aster, prisoner from Jerusalem. Tiberius Claudius Proculus, imperial freedman, took care (of the epitaph). I ask you, make sure through the law that you take care that noone casts down my inscription. She lived 25 years."*


Who is the man leaving this heartfelt plea to the future, asking whoever discovers this stone to never erase Claudia Aster's epitaph? That is the question that Lori Banov Kaufmann’s love story Rebel Daughter sets out to answer. Except, wait a second, is it actually a love story? Or is the novel about something else that isn’t the focus of the epitaph on Claudia Aster’s tombstone?

The novel is an imagining of the life story of Claudia Aster, the woman who was captured in Jerusalem, enslaved in Rome, freed from slavery, and then died at the young age of 25. It starts when she is a teenager and ends in her early twenties. Because of the age range covered in these pages, the book is categorized as Young Adult, and some themes covered here are characteristic of the genre - namely, the protagonist's agency, relationships with family, taking on serious responsibilities, and having a crush on someone that everyone tells her is a bad boy.

But other themes here don't lose their relevancy among adult readers. In a way, Rebel Daughter presents a sliver of the Jewish diaspora today, starting with the way Esther's brother talks about the shame of using Roman-made products when Judea was buckling under Roman rule, which reminded me of the discourse on Jewish isolation vs assimilation. Once Esther is transported to Rome, every small encounter she has with Jewish culture and religion is so special that I couldn't help but see it as a reflection of the author's personal experiences.

I quite enjoyed the novel. However, its structure did remind me of The Red Tent quite a bit, which is why Rebel Daughter didn't make it to the top of my shelves. The Red Tent was so deeply enjoyable for me and made me cry bittersweet 2 AM tears when I finished reading it. Rebel Daughter didn't quite have the same impact.
________
* This tombstone, which dates to late 1st century CE, is possibly the earliest written record of a Jewish woman, Claudia Aster, in Rome (Aster being a Latin transliteration of Esther). Credit for both the transcription and translation of Claudia Aster's epitaph goes to by David Noy and Susan Sorek (Women In Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 2007).]]> 4.12 2021 Rebel Daughter
author: Lori Banov Kaufmann
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/30
shelves: fiction, ya, coming-of-age, historical-fiction, debut, love-story, novel-length-2024
review:
Dear goodreads, may I present to you an ancient Roman tombstone.


Image source:

What sets this particular tombstone apart from your typical rock that bears two-thousand-year-old words filled with the kind of sadness that neither formality nor all-caps can conceal? To answer that, let's translate this inscription:

Claudia Aster
Hierosolymitana
captiva. curam egit
Tiberius Claudius Augusti libertus
Proculus. rogo vos fac-
ite per legim ne quis
mihi titulum deiciat cu-
ram agatis. vixit annis
XXV
---
"Claudia Aster, prisoner from Jerusalem. Tiberius Claudius Proculus, imperial freedman, took care (of the epitaph). I ask you, make sure through the law that you take care that noone casts down my inscription. She lived 25 years."*


Who is the man leaving this heartfelt plea to the future, asking whoever discovers this stone to never erase Claudia Aster's epitaph? That is the question that Lori Banov Kaufmann’s love story Rebel Daughter sets out to answer. Except, wait a second, is it actually a love story? Or is the novel about something else that isn’t the focus of the epitaph on Claudia Aster’s tombstone?

The novel is an imagining of the life story of Claudia Aster, the woman who was captured in Jerusalem, enslaved in Rome, freed from slavery, and then died at the young age of 25. It starts when she is a teenager and ends in her early twenties. Because of the age range covered in these pages, the book is categorized as Young Adult, and some themes covered here are characteristic of the genre - namely, the protagonist's agency, relationships with family, taking on serious responsibilities, and having a crush on someone that everyone tells her is a bad boy.

But other themes here don't lose their relevancy among adult readers. In a way, Rebel Daughter presents a sliver of the Jewish diaspora today, starting with the way Esther's brother talks about the shame of using Roman-made products when Judea was buckling under Roman rule, which reminded me of the discourse on Jewish isolation vs assimilation. Once Esther is transported to Rome, every small encounter she has with Jewish culture and religion is so special that I couldn't help but see it as a reflection of the author's personal experiences.

I quite enjoyed the novel. However, its structure did remind me of The Red Tent quite a bit, which is why Rebel Daughter didn't make it to the top of my shelves. The Red Tent was so deeply enjoyable for me and made me cry bittersweet 2 AM tears when I finished reading it. Rebel Daughter didn't quite have the same impact.
________
* This tombstone, which dates to late 1st century CE, is possibly the earliest written record of a Jewish woman, Claudia Aster, in Rome (Aster being a Latin transliteration of Esther). Credit for both the transcription and translation of Claudia Aster's epitaph goes to by David Noy and Susan Sorek (Women In Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 2007).
]]> <![CDATA[Heartstopper: Volume One (Heartstopper, #1)]]> 40495957
Charlie Spring is in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The past year hasn't been too great, but at least he's not being bullied anymore. Nick Nelson is in Year 11 and on the school rugby team. He's heard a little about Charlie - the kid who was outed last year and bullied for a few months - but he's never had the opportunity to talk to him.

They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn't think he has a chance. But love works in surprising ways, and sometimes good things are waiting just around the corner...]]> 288 Alice Oseman 152722533X Sasha 5
Charlie Spring, meet Nick Nelson. Nick, Charlie, Charlie, Nick.

Charlie is a skinny tenth grader who is a really fast runner and a very good drummer.


Nick is a year above Charlie at their all-boys school, and he’s on the rugby team, which just happens to be in need of a really fast runner.

±áłľłľłľłľłľâ€�


Turn page
Turn page
Turn page
Turn page
Turn page

Hearteyes

Reach for volume 2]]> 4.43 2018 Heartstopper: Volume One (Heartstopper, #1)
author: Alice Oseman
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/25
shelves: graphic-novel, lgbt, love-story
review:
Requested volume 1 from the library - they sent me the entire series. What a happy, happy mixup.

Charlie Spring, meet Nick Nelson. Nick, Charlie, Charlie, Nick.

Charlie is a skinny tenth grader who is a really fast runner and a very good drummer.


Nick is a year above Charlie at their all-boys school, and he’s on the rugby team, which just happens to be in need of a really fast runner.

±áłľłľłľłľłľâ€�


Turn page
Turn page
Turn page
Turn page
Turn page

Hearteyes

Reach for volume 2
]]> <![CDATA[Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad]]> 199598445
In all, approx. 300,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area. A massive emergency operation to put out the fire, stabilize the reactor, and clean up the ejected radioactive material began. During the immediate emergency response, 237 workers were hospitalized, of which 134 exhibited symptoms of acute radiation syndrome. Among those hospitalized, 28 died within the following three months.

In this harrowing graphic novel, Matyáš Namai, creator of George Orwell’s 1984 , tells the story of how this horrific disaster unfolded and the brave men and women who struggled to contain the disaster, many losing their lives, and the terrible cost to those who survived.]]> 112 Matyáš Namai 1786751364 Sasha 5
If so, Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad is here to fix that injustice with a graphic novel that illustrates how a major historical catastrophe happened. This goes into both the human and technical details of what went wrong leading up to and in the aftermath of the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl atomic power station.

Reviewing this graphic novel is meaningful to me on a personal level. My grandma worked at the research institute that developed the nuclear reactor that blew up at Chernobyl. As a side note, she worked on a completely unrelated project, the , which is trying to create renewable energy from hydrogen by emulating what happens inside the Sun. Nevertheless, she worked with some of the technocrats mentioned in these pages. I'm happy to say that this graphic novel is more faithful to what she's told me about them as people than the HBO series about Chernobyl.

The creators were hardcore about making an in-depth and accurate historical account. The back cover includes credits for a nuclear expert (Ondřej Novàk) and a history expert (Ondřej Civín). Be prepared for a more technical read than what you'll find in the emotion-driven accounts like the HBO series or Svetlana Alexievich's Voices of Chernobyl (which is spectacular, by the way).

Still, it manages to treat this subject with a kind of poetic feel that I haven't seen before, when, for instance, it shows an enormous concrete anvil with the words "The flower of Soviet megalomania is beginning to bloom".



In just one image, it captures the Saint-like status that technocrats enjoyed in the USSR.



In another, death incarnate drops hypothetical bombs on the nuclear power plant, sending shivers down the reader's spine with a glorious Cold War memento mori.



The graphic novel concludes on a beautifully simple note that slowly fades into the vibrant quiet of a town that was never quite completely abandoned. No longer can you hear the discordant noises of human error or technological disaster. You can only hear a young family of storks welcoming new life into their nest at the top of an old telephone pole.


Thank you, Matyáš Namai and Palazzo Editions, for a free Netgalley advance reader copy of Chernobyl in exchange for my honest review.]]> 4.08 2023 Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad
author: Matyáš Namai
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/10
date added: 2024/05/24
shelves: history, netgalley-2024, graphic-novel
review:
Has a history textbook ever made you think "ugh, why can't they make this a graphic novel"?

If so, Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad is here to fix that injustice with a graphic novel that illustrates how a major historical catastrophe happened. This goes into both the human and technical details of what went wrong leading up to and in the aftermath of the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl atomic power station.

Reviewing this graphic novel is meaningful to me on a personal level. My grandma worked at the research institute that developed the nuclear reactor that blew up at Chernobyl. As a side note, she worked on a completely unrelated project, the , which is trying to create renewable energy from hydrogen by emulating what happens inside the Sun. Nevertheless, she worked with some of the technocrats mentioned in these pages. I'm happy to say that this graphic novel is more faithful to what she's told me about them as people than the HBO series about Chernobyl.

The creators were hardcore about making an in-depth and accurate historical account. The back cover includes credits for a nuclear expert (Ondřej Novàk) and a history expert (Ondřej Civín). Be prepared for a more technical read than what you'll find in the emotion-driven accounts like the HBO series or Svetlana Alexievich's Voices of Chernobyl (which is spectacular, by the way).

Still, it manages to treat this subject with a kind of poetic feel that I haven't seen before, when, for instance, it shows an enormous concrete anvil with the words "The flower of Soviet megalomania is beginning to bloom".



In just one image, it captures the Saint-like status that technocrats enjoyed in the USSR.



In another, death incarnate drops hypothetical bombs on the nuclear power plant, sending shivers down the reader's spine with a glorious Cold War memento mori.



The graphic novel concludes on a beautifully simple note that slowly fades into the vibrant quiet of a town that was never quite completely abandoned. No longer can you hear the discordant noises of human error or technological disaster. You can only hear a young family of storks welcoming new life into their nest at the top of an old telephone pole.


Thank you, Matyáš Namai and Palazzo Editions, for a free Netgalley advance reader copy of Chernobyl in exchange for my honest review.
]]> Lust For Life 38095090 The classic, bestselling biographical novel of Vincent Van Gogh

Since its initial publication in 1934, Irving Stone’s Lust for Life has been a critical success, a multimillion-copy bestseller, and the basis for an Academy Award-winning movie.

The most famous of all of Stone’s novels, it is the story of Vincent Van Gogh—brilliant painter, passionate lover, and alleged madman. Here is his tempestuous story: his dramatic life, his fevered loves for both the highest-born women and the lowest prostitutes, and his paintings—for which he was damned before being proclaimed a genius. The novel takes us from his desperate days in a coal mine in southern Belgium to his dazzling years in the south of France, where he knew the most brilliant artists (and the most depraved whores). Finally, it shows us Van Gogh driven mad, tragic, and triumphant at once. No other novel of a great man’s life has so fascinated the American public for generations.]]> 496 Irving Stone 1787461394 Sasha 4 Lust For Life, my only encounter with Irving Stone was hearing Peggy Olson’s very Catholic mother say “I have to renew The Agony and the Ecstasy. It’s taking forever," in the second season of Mad Men. At the time, that book title made me imagine something sultry, and the title of Lust For Life had the same effect on my imagination. But this was written in 1934, so what is considered sultry today definitely doesn’t include this novel. It’s not really a light read, either - while Lust For Life isn’t quite the 750-page Michelangelo jumbobook that The Agony and the Ecstasy is, it’s still a hefty novel, covering about fifteen years� worth of Van Gogh’s life.

The narration starts a few years before Vincent gets on the path of the self-taught artist - at a point, one might say, where Van Gogh’s tragic path began. He was a young sales clerk at his family’s prosperous art shop, in love and driven to succeed in his work because he believed that his feelings were reciprocated. And, Lust For Life seems to quietly suggest, if the lady did indeed love Vincent back, maybe he would have stayed in sales, made a fair living, and prospered as an art dealer as he provided for his family. Alas, we will never know whether or not that is how things would have worked out for him.

As the story travels along the path of Vincent’s soul search, from a coal mining town in Belgium where he went in hopes of becoming a minister, to the Netherlands, Paris, and the South of France, the author keeps returning to the question of Vincent’s poor luck when it comes to falling in love with someone who would love him back. What does show evolution over time is Irving Stone’s interpretation of how Van Gogh developed his style.

I wish that Irving Stone had ventured a bit further away from the biographical source material to create a story that was more enticing to read. Most of the information in Lust For Life is based on Van Gogh’s letters, and describing a person’s entire life doesn’t make for an interesting story without extra effort. I think Stone did shape Van Gogh’s biographical points into a narrative, but he could have pushed it further to make it really flow.]]> 4.26 1934 Lust For Life
author: Irving Stone
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1934
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/24
shelves: art, historical-fiction, fiction, novel-length-2024
review:
Until reading Lust For Life, my only encounter with Irving Stone was hearing Peggy Olson’s very Catholic mother say “I have to renew The Agony and the Ecstasy. It’s taking forever," in the second season of Mad Men. At the time, that book title made me imagine something sultry, and the title of Lust For Life had the same effect on my imagination. But this was written in 1934, so what is considered sultry today definitely doesn’t include this novel. It’s not really a light read, either - while Lust For Life isn’t quite the 750-page Michelangelo jumbobook that The Agony and the Ecstasy is, it’s still a hefty novel, covering about fifteen years� worth of Van Gogh’s life.

The narration starts a few years before Vincent gets on the path of the self-taught artist - at a point, one might say, where Van Gogh’s tragic path began. He was a young sales clerk at his family’s prosperous art shop, in love and driven to succeed in his work because he believed that his feelings were reciprocated. And, Lust For Life seems to quietly suggest, if the lady did indeed love Vincent back, maybe he would have stayed in sales, made a fair living, and prospered as an art dealer as he provided for his family. Alas, we will never know whether or not that is how things would have worked out for him.

As the story travels along the path of Vincent’s soul search, from a coal mining town in Belgium where he went in hopes of becoming a minister, to the Netherlands, Paris, and the South of France, the author keeps returning to the question of Vincent’s poor luck when it comes to falling in love with someone who would love him back. What does show evolution over time is Irving Stone’s interpretation of how Van Gogh developed his style.

I wish that Irving Stone had ventured a bit further away from the biographical source material to create a story that was more enticing to read. Most of the information in Lust For Life is based on Van Gogh’s letters, and describing a person’s entire life doesn’t make for an interesting story without extra effort. I think Stone did shape Van Gogh’s biographical points into a narrative, but he could have pushed it further to make it really flow.
]]> <![CDATA[Presidential Doodles: Two Centuries of Scribbles, Scratches, Squiggles, and Scrawls from the Oval Office]]> 865438 224 David Greenburg 0465032664 Sasha 4 history, art, humor
a. Benjamin Harrison:


b. Teddy Roosevelt:


or

c. LBJ:


Apparently the winner of this quiz, LBJ, had his staff preserve all of his doodles, even if they had been crumpled up and thrown in a wastebasket. This book informs us that he also didn't hesitate to snatch one of his creations out of the hands of a sly reporter who tried to steal one. The author's phrasing suggests that this may have happened more than once.

If you are considering reading this book because you are also part of the Hopeless Doodlers Club (welcome, by the way), be warned that while some presidents' sections might indeed make you feel accepted, others might give you nightmares.

Proceed at your own risk.]]> 3.66 2006 Presidential Doodles: Two Centuries of Scribbles, Scratches, Squiggles, and Scrawls from the Oval Office
author: David Greenburg
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves: history, art, humor
review:
Quiz. Which former leader of this nation drew the most terrifying doodles while paying attention to his morning briefings? Was it:

a. Benjamin Harrison:


b. Teddy Roosevelt:


or

c. LBJ:


Apparently the winner of this quiz, LBJ, had his staff preserve all of his doodles, even if they had been crumpled up and thrown in a wastebasket. This book informs us that he also didn't hesitate to snatch one of his creations out of the hands of a sly reporter who tried to steal one. The author's phrasing suggests that this may have happened more than once.

If you are considering reading this book because you are also part of the Hopeless Doodlers Club (welcome, by the way), be warned that while some presidents' sections might indeed make you feel accepted, others might give you nightmares.

Proceed at your own risk.
]]> <![CDATA[Heartstopper: Volume Two (Heartstopper, #2)]]> 43307358
But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is discovering all kinds of things about his friends, his family ... and himself.]]> 320 Alice Oseman 1444951408 Sasha 4 4.52 2019 Heartstopper: Volume Two (Heartstopper, #2)
author: Alice Oseman
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/22
date added: 2024/05/22
shelves: graphic-novel, lgbt, love-story
review:
Love the bisexual rep. Pure wholesomeness and innocence. A very solid 4.5/5, almost as great as volume 1.
]]> <![CDATA[When Among Crows (Curse Bearer, #1)]]> 195790597 When Among Crows is swift and striking, drawing from the deep well of Slavic folklore and asking if redemption and atonement can be found in embracing what we most fear.

We bear the sword, and we bear the pain of the sword.

On Kupala Night, Dymitr arrives in Chicago’s monstrous, magical underworld with a perilous mission: pick the mythical fern flower and offer it to a cursed creature in exchange for help finding the legendary witch Baba Jaga.

Ala is a fear-eating zmora afflicted with a bloodline curse that’s slowly killing her. She's just desperate enough to say yes to Dymitr, even if she doesn’t know his motives.

Over the course of one night, Ala and Dymitr risk life and limb in search of Baba Jaga, and begin to build a tentative friendship. . . but when Ala finds out what Dymitr is hiding, it could destroy them both.]]> 166 Veronica Roth 1250855489 Sasha 3
When Among Crows is an interesting urban fantasy addition to the New Veronica Roth canon. Although it didn’t quite have the chemistry to make it a new favorite for me, I think it shows signs of the growth that Roth is going through.

I happen to belong to the small club of literature degree holders who will openly admit to liking Veronica Roth’s debut, the 2011 YA sensation Divergent. Before anyone reading this review assumes that my enjoyment of Divergent comes down to teenage nostalgia, let me share with you that I read Roth’s debut in my thirties. It had exactly what I hope to find every time I open a book - a gripping story that’s vivid enough for my brain to turn it into a movie in my head, along with some insight into people’s thoughts that you can’t get from a screen. Sure, reading it was a bit like being on the phone with a sixteen-year-old as she describes her day. But it happened to have been a wild day, so I enjoyed my conversation with the young Veronica Roth.

Roth took a bit of a break before redirecting her career away from lengthy YA to short stories and novellas - still speculative, but clearly meant to appeal to an older audience. When Among Crows is my second New Veronica Roth piece, after her SF short story Ark (I spent way too much of my review of Ark talking about Divergent, too).

I wish I could say that When Among Crows made me feel more than it did. Sadly, I didn’t find any magic in it - no story spark to make me want to buy an extra couple of copies to dog-ear for revisiting its characters and scenes at a later date. It felt like the story was checking items off a list of what makes a â€goodâ€� book. A complicated past with trauma for the protagonist and supporting characters. Some foreshadowing, but not too much (although not enough of it, in my opinion). A want, a fear, inner and outer conflict. Language that is not repetitive (here, Roth shows clear growth from her early era). But it didn’t really come together to a story that set my heart aflutter.

A twist happens very close to the end of this novella, and I think it should have been revealed to us on page one. A very minor spoiler here will explain why: [spoilers removed]

Nevertheless, I see progress in Roth’s work. This story is more interesting than Ark, and the sentence-level writing is better than it was in Divergent. I just hope that in her near future, Roth once again taps into the chemistry I felt in her early period. I hope she writes longer works again, too, because I get the feeling that she needs the page space to let her storytelling come into bloom.]]> 3.71 2024 When Among Crows (Curse Bearer, #1)
author: Veronica Roth
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/05/18
shelves: novel-length-2024, fantasy-or-magical-realism, fiction
review:
This is a story of the Polish diaspora, told through the language of Slavic folklore against a gritty noir background of Chicago’s supernatural underground scene. It is about the simultaneous belonging and alienation of being an Eastern European immigrant or their descendant in North America. It is about the struggle between a mainstream culture and those who were born never to fit into it.

When Among Crows is an interesting urban fantasy addition to the New Veronica Roth canon. Although it didn’t quite have the chemistry to make it a new favorite for me, I think it shows signs of the growth that Roth is going through.

I happen to belong to the small club of literature degree holders who will openly admit to liking Veronica Roth’s debut, the 2011 YA sensation Divergent. Before anyone reading this review assumes that my enjoyment of Divergent comes down to teenage nostalgia, let me share with you that I read Roth’s debut in my thirties. It had exactly what I hope to find every time I open a book - a gripping story that’s vivid enough for my brain to turn it into a movie in my head, along with some insight into people’s thoughts that you can’t get from a screen. Sure, reading it was a bit like being on the phone with a sixteen-year-old as she describes her day. But it happened to have been a wild day, so I enjoyed my conversation with the young Veronica Roth.

Roth took a bit of a break before redirecting her career away from lengthy YA to short stories and novellas - still speculative, but clearly meant to appeal to an older audience. When Among Crows is my second New Veronica Roth piece, after her SF short story Ark (I spent way too much of my review of Ark talking about Divergent, too).

I wish I could say that When Among Crows made me feel more than it did. Sadly, I didn’t find any magic in it - no story spark to make me want to buy an extra couple of copies to dog-ear for revisiting its characters and scenes at a later date. It felt like the story was checking items off a list of what makes a â€goodâ€� book. A complicated past with trauma for the protagonist and supporting characters. Some foreshadowing, but not too much (although not enough of it, in my opinion). A want, a fear, inner and outer conflict. Language that is not repetitive (here, Roth shows clear growth from her early era). But it didn’t really come together to a story that set my heart aflutter.

A twist happens very close to the end of this novella, and I think it should have been revealed to us on page one. A very minor spoiler here will explain why: [spoilers removed]

Nevertheless, I see progress in Roth’s work. This story is more interesting than Ark, and the sentence-level writing is better than it was in Divergent. I just hope that in her near future, Roth once again taps into the chemistry I felt in her early period. I hope she writes longer works again, too, because I get the feeling that she needs the page space to let her storytelling come into bloom.
]]> Birds of America: Stories 19631 Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help. Stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer beauty and power of their language.

From the opening story, "Willing", about a second-rate movie actress in her thirties who has moved back to Chicago, where she makes a seedy motel room her home and becomes involved with a mechanic who has not the least idea of who she is as a human being, Birds of America unfolds a startlingly brilliant series of portraits of the unhinged, the lost, the unsettled of our America.

In the story "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People" ("There is nothing as complex in the world--no flower or stone--as a single hello from a human being"), a woman newly separated from her husband is on a long-planned trip through Ireland with her mother. When they set out on an expedition to kiss the Blarney Stone, the image of wisdom and success that her mother has always put forth slips away to reveal the panicky woman she really is.

In "Charades," a family game at Christmas is transformed into a hilarious and insightful (and fundamentally upsetting) revelation of crumbling family ties.

In "Community Life,"a shy, almost reclusive, librarian, Transylvania-born and Vermont-bred, moves in with her boyfriend, the local anarchist in a small university town, and all hell breaks loose. And in "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens," a woman who goes through the stages of grief as she mourns the death of her cat (Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Haagen Dazs, Rage) is seen by her friends as really mourning other issues: the impending death of her parents, the son she never had, Bosnia.

In what may be her most stunning book yet, Lorrie Moore explores the personal and the universal, the idiosyncratic and the mundane, with all the wit, brio, and verve that have made her one of the best storytellers of our time.

Willing --
Which is more than I can say about some people --
Dance in America --
Community life --
Agnes of Iowa --
Charades --
Four calling birds, three French hens --
Beautiful grade --
What you want to do fine --
Real estate --
People like that are the only people here --
Terrific mother]]> 308 Lorrie Moore 0312241224 Sasha 0 short-stories, litfic Autobiography of Red that Anne Carson signed to my alter ego is the one I no longer own. Life is full of inexplicable twists.]]> 4.11 1998 Birds of America: Stories
author: Lorrie Moore
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/15
date added: 2024/05/18
shelves: short-stories, litfic
review:
Somewhere in the ether exists a yellow-greenish, decade-old photo of me happily showing off an autographed copy of Birds of America. Somehow the copy of Autobiography of Red that Anne Carson signed to my alter ego is the one I no longer own. Life is full of inexplicable twists.
]]> Service Model 195790861 To fix the world they first must break it further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.]]> 376 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1250290287 Sasha 3
Why would a robot suddenly do that? And now what happens to Charles? If Charles could feel any emotions (which, again, he of course can't, what with him being a robot), he would care about the next step in his life. Will he be decommissioned? Rust in a closet? Be recycled into a garden bed?

With a human protagonist, readers easily get pulled into this sort of premise precisely because humans feel emotions. But Service Model doesn't have that luxury. Adrian Tchaikovsky addresses this issue by offering us a protagonist robot who for some reason cares about what happens to him. Charles wants nothing more than to find another human that needs a mechanical valet. That quest turns out to be so complicated that it sends Charles on an entire hero's journey.

Service Model is promoted as part of the cozy science fiction camp, with many mentions of Murderbot in the buzz around this upcoming release. In my experience, this is a treatise disguised as science fiction because the main character is (technically) a robot.

The plot is an absurdist mishmash of events that draw heavily from references to Dante's Divine Comedy, Kafka's The Trial, Borges's The Library of Babel, and The Jesus Chronicles. There's probably a fifth source that I'm missing, because there are five parts in the novel, and the parts are named after these references (in a semi-obscured way)*. There is little foreshadowing of what is going to happen later in the book, and since every major event is a modified version of a literary classic, the story can feel disjointed and lack cohesive flow. That's especially the case in the second half.

The first fifth or so of the novel was really enjoyable. I'd characterize it as a collision between British aristocratic manners and Soviet rule-burdened employee inefficiency. I was laughing out loud during the first part, while the main character was at home, and there was an investigation into him murdering his owner. Truly fun. Once the protagonist left home to go to the diagnostics center, the book started to lose its appeal for me.

There was a surprising amount of religious commentary here, what with references to Dante's Divine Comedy and the Bible itself. In the latter half, the protagonist was depicted as a Christ figure. I've only read one Tchaikovsky book before, Children of Time, which had commentary on religion too. But there, it was interesting and mainly a criticism of the church. Here, the religious element read like a regurgitation of the most basic criticisms of the Bible. I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say that I missed the more nuanced message about Christianity that he put into Service Model. I get easily distracted when a story references outside sources.

There's a way to put a message in a book without it getting preachy. I don't think Service Model managed to do that successfully for me. I don't happen to enjoy philosophy, and that's not super helpful for appreciating a novel like Service Model. Still, I expect this to become a love-it or hate-it book and hope that it finds the many readers who will appreciate its merits more than I could.

__
* May 17 Edit: Agatha Christie and George Orwell are also missing from this list. Thanks to my goodreads friend Ian for picking up on this.

I got this as a free ARC from Netgalley.]]> 3.99 2024 Service Model
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves: netgalley-2024, science-fiction, positive-science-fiction, humor, novel-length-2024
review:
Charles is a robot valet, designed to be a modern aristocrat's right hand. If he could feel any emotions (he can't, as the book reminds us whenever Charles's emotions come up in the story, which is very often), Charles would take pride in caring for his owner's schedule and wardrobe - and in following protocol every day without fail. That is, until he breaks a cardinal rule in that very protocol and kills his owner.

Why would a robot suddenly do that? And now what happens to Charles? If Charles could feel any emotions (which, again, he of course can't, what with him being a robot), he would care about the next step in his life. Will he be decommissioned? Rust in a closet? Be recycled into a garden bed?

With a human protagonist, readers easily get pulled into this sort of premise precisely because humans feel emotions. But Service Model doesn't have that luxury. Adrian Tchaikovsky addresses this issue by offering us a protagonist robot who for some reason cares about what happens to him. Charles wants nothing more than to find another human that needs a mechanical valet. That quest turns out to be so complicated that it sends Charles on an entire hero's journey.

Service Model is promoted as part of the cozy science fiction camp, with many mentions of Murderbot in the buzz around this upcoming release. In my experience, this is a treatise disguised as science fiction because the main character is (technically) a robot.

The plot is an absurdist mishmash of events that draw heavily from references to Dante's Divine Comedy, Kafka's The Trial, Borges's The Library of Babel, and The Jesus Chronicles. There's probably a fifth source that I'm missing, because there are five parts in the novel, and the parts are named after these references (in a semi-obscured way)*. There is little foreshadowing of what is going to happen later in the book, and since every major event is a modified version of a literary classic, the story can feel disjointed and lack cohesive flow. That's especially the case in the second half.

The first fifth or so of the novel was really enjoyable. I'd characterize it as a collision between British aristocratic manners and Soviet rule-burdened employee inefficiency. I was laughing out loud during the first part, while the main character was at home, and there was an investigation into him murdering his owner. Truly fun. Once the protagonist left home to go to the diagnostics center, the book started to lose its appeal for me.

There was a surprising amount of religious commentary here, what with references to Dante's Divine Comedy and the Bible itself. In the latter half, the protagonist was depicted as a Christ figure. I've only read one Tchaikovsky book before, Children of Time, which had commentary on religion too. But there, it was interesting and mainly a criticism of the church. Here, the religious element read like a regurgitation of the most basic criticisms of the Bible. I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say that I missed the more nuanced message about Christianity that he put into Service Model. I get easily distracted when a story references outside sources.

There's a way to put a message in a book without it getting preachy. I don't think Service Model managed to do that successfully for me. I don't happen to enjoy philosophy, and that's not super helpful for appreciating a novel like Service Model. Still, I expect this to become a love-it or hate-it book and hope that it finds the many readers who will appreciate its merits more than I could.

__
* May 17 Edit: Agatha Christie and George Orwell are also missing from this list. Thanks to my goodreads friend Ian for picking up on this.

I got this as a free ARC from Netgalley.
]]> The Color Bible 59237865

From ancient plant pigments that are revolutionizing contemporary fashion to new colors, such as the recently viral Millennial Pink, this wide-ranging deep dive into the world of color guides readers through the origins, connotations, specs, brand associations and artistic use of colors throughout history. Unfolding, like a rainbow, across the visible spectrum, the chapters are divided by basic color - from red to violet and including black and white - and introduced with engaging background information. Each chapter takes a closer look at a variety of specific shades in the color family, delving into cultural references that span fashion, art history, traditional and modern crafts, and product design. Readers will learn about woad - an ancient pigment that was employed by William Morris and has resurfaced in sustainable dyes - as well as the earliest known use of violet some 25,000 years ago. Each shade is accompanied by sidebars that offer technical specifications, mood connotations, and examples of its use in art and commerce. Informative and endlessly inspiring, this guide will be indispensable to anyone interested in how to use and combine colors in their life or work.]]> 320 Laura Perryman 3791387898 Sasha 4 art
Each color profile includes a photograph or work of art that features that color prominently (with some exceptions - I’m looking at you, Kate Moss wearing a pistachio green dress and a tiny taupe hat on the page that claims it’s about the color Khaki). There’s the hex/rgb/cmyk/hsl codes, common emotional connotations, history and present-day trivia sections, as well as a brief blurb with advice on using the color. Here’s a typical example:

Pair kakhi with other warm and cool neutrals to create a modern palette that works with active outdoor brands to express a kinship with natural settings.


Although the subtitle calls this book a guide for artists and designers, I don’t think professional artists and designers would find much benefit in this book. They would likely see the color wheel section as elementary. The Color Theory section would be called A Brief History of Color Theory in an art class. You won’t find “sienna� under S in the index because it’s under B as “burnt sienna.� The profile of umber doesn’t even mention the distinction between raw and burnt umber. Et cetera.

All that aside, the book is nice for random idea generation if you need to quickly pick a color. The “Use� section for each color profile may be useful for marketing professionals, since they talk about the moods that a color might evoke - and, at times, it literally goes into advice for business.

The history section for each color is fun to read, which also makes this a nice side table/waiting room book. The author went through a fair amount of research to write about all these individual colors, as is evidenced in the 7 pages of bibliography. A book title and blurb are usually written by the publisher, not the author, and I think they overpromised here. So let’s disregard the cover, pretend that this book’s title is “The 100 Color Profiles� and judge the book by what’s actually inside it.

3.5/5.]]> 4.24 The Color Bible
author: Laura Perryman
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/05/12
shelves: art
review:
The main detractor from Laura Perryman’s Color Bible is the promises that the cover makes about the contents of the book. A work that calls itself the bible of a subject, then follows it up with the words “The Definitive Guide� and “An Essential Source� on the cover, sets its own trap unless it’s actually prepared to be a in-depth compendium. In a definitive guide, just the 4-page glossary alone should have been a hundred pages longer to properly discuss each concept. This book isn’t a comprehensive source of color knowledge, but rather a very nice collection of color trivia. The blurb mentions that (among other things that aren’t the true focus here) “It features 100 profiles of significant hues�, and that really is this book’s focus.

Each color profile includes a photograph or work of art that features that color prominently (with some exceptions - I’m looking at you, Kate Moss wearing a pistachio green dress and a tiny taupe hat on the page that claims it’s about the color Khaki). There’s the hex/rgb/cmyk/hsl codes, common emotional connotations, history and present-day trivia sections, as well as a brief blurb with advice on using the color. Here’s a typical example:

Pair kakhi with other warm and cool neutrals to create a modern palette that works with active outdoor brands to express a kinship with natural settings.


Although the subtitle calls this book a guide for artists and designers, I don’t think professional artists and designers would find much benefit in this book. They would likely see the color wheel section as elementary. The Color Theory section would be called A Brief History of Color Theory in an art class. You won’t find “sienna� under S in the index because it’s under B as “burnt sienna.� The profile of umber doesn’t even mention the distinction between raw and burnt umber. Et cetera.

All that aside, the book is nice for random idea generation if you need to quickly pick a color. The “Use� section for each color profile may be useful for marketing professionals, since they talk about the moods that a color might evoke - and, at times, it literally goes into advice for business.

The history section for each color is fun to read, which also makes this a nice side table/waiting room book. The author went through a fair amount of research to write about all these individual colors, as is evidenced in the 7 pages of bibliography. A book title and blurb are usually written by the publisher, not the author, and I think they overpromised here. So let’s disregard the cover, pretend that this book’s title is “The 100 Color Profiles� and judge the book by what’s actually inside it.

3.5/5.
]]> The Library of Babel 172366 36 Jorge Luis Borges 156792123X Sasha 4 4.37 1941 The Library of Babel
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1941
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves: short-stories, classics, fiction, speculative, the-title-is-a-reference, literary-theory
review:
Oh, the irony of writing a review of The Library of Babel when it already has 677 reviews just in this hexagonal subsection of the internet alone.
]]> <![CDATA[Those Beyond the Wall (The Space Between Worlds, #2)]]> 58257069
Scales is the best at what she does. She is an enforcer who keeps the peace in Ashtown; a rough, climate-ravaged desert town. But that fragile peace is fractured when a woman is mangled and killed within Ash's borders, right in front of Scales's eyes. Even more incomprehensible is that there was seemingly no murderer.

When more mutilated bodies start to turn up, both in Ashtown and in the wealthier, walled-off Wiley City, Scales is tasked with finding the cause—and putting an end to it. She teams up with a frustratingly by-the-books partner and a brusque-but-brilliant scientist in order to uncover the truth, delving into both worlds to track down the invisible killer. But what they find points to something biggerĚýand more corrupt than they could've ever foreseen—and it could spell doom for the entire world.]]> 384 Micaiah Johnson 0593497511 Sasha 3 Those Beyond The Wall a star rating has been a huge challenge for me. I've been struggling to work through this novel for weeks at this point. What follows is my personal subjective experience of this book, not a discussion of its objective merit.

Those Beyond The Wall is set in the universe of Micaiah Johnson's debut, The Space Between Worlds. It has a different protagonist, so it's not a sequel in the strictest sense. But reading The Space Between Worlds before Those Beyond The Wall would certainly help if you are considering picking this up.

Those Beyond The Wall is science fiction about real-world issues that are deeply personal to the author. She has a message and experience that should be heard. The novel includes references to real-world events from the past decade throughout the novel, starting with the author's note at the beginning of the book.

The references to real-world events were at times so thinly veiled that my mind would immediately get pulled out of the story, and I would start thinking about politics, race, resistance movements in the US, and a variety of disturbing but very real events from the last ten years or so. Every time I got pulled out of the story, it took me a serious amount of time and effort to get into the flow of the story again.

If my thoughts drifted off to a real-world event for even just one sentence while reading Those Beyond The Wall, I would miss some detail. This then made it very hard to understand what was going on in the story.

Still, I was determined to get into the novel. I restarted this book five or six times. And yet my efforts didn't make Those Beyond The Wall an enjoyable experience for me. Reviews of it seem polarized, so some readers will enjoy the novel. If you liked reading The Space Between Worlds, then consider sampling the first couple of chapters of this novel to decide if it's right for you.

Many thanks to the author, Del Rey and Penguin Random House for providing me with a free advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.]]> 4.00 2024 Those Beyond the Wall (The Space Between Worlds, #2)
author: Micaiah Johnson
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/24
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves: dystopian, fiction, science-fiction, netgalley-2023, novel-length-2023, speculative, lost-me, sophomore-novel
review:
Giving Those Beyond The Wall a star rating has been a huge challenge for me. I've been struggling to work through this novel for weeks at this point. What follows is my personal subjective experience of this book, not a discussion of its objective merit.

Those Beyond The Wall is set in the universe of Micaiah Johnson's debut, The Space Between Worlds. It has a different protagonist, so it's not a sequel in the strictest sense. But reading The Space Between Worlds before Those Beyond The Wall would certainly help if you are considering picking this up.

Those Beyond The Wall is science fiction about real-world issues that are deeply personal to the author. She has a message and experience that should be heard. The novel includes references to real-world events from the past decade throughout the novel, starting with the author's note at the beginning of the book.

The references to real-world events were at times so thinly veiled that my mind would immediately get pulled out of the story, and I would start thinking about politics, race, resistance movements in the US, and a variety of disturbing but very real events from the last ten years or so. Every time I got pulled out of the story, it took me a serious amount of time and effort to get into the flow of the story again.

If my thoughts drifted off to a real-world event for even just one sentence while reading Those Beyond The Wall, I would miss some detail. This then made it very hard to understand what was going on in the story.

Still, I was determined to get into the novel. I restarted this book five or six times. And yet my efforts didn't make Those Beyond The Wall an enjoyable experience for me. Reviews of it seem polarized, so some readers will enjoy the novel. If you liked reading The Space Between Worlds, then consider sampling the first couple of chapters of this novel to decide if it's right for you.

Many thanks to the author, Del Rey and Penguin Random House for providing me with a free advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
]]> If You'll Have Me 83817463 Heartstopper and Loveless

Momo Gardner is the kind of friend who’s always ready to lend a helping hand. She’s introverted, sensitive, and maybe a little too trusting, but she likes to believe the best in people. PG, on the other hand, is a bit of a lone wolf, despite her reputation for being a flirt and a player. Underneath all that cool mystery, she’s actually quick to smile, and when she falls for someone, she falls hard. An unexpected meet-cute brings the two together, kicking off the beginning of an awkward yet endearing courtship—but with their drastically different personalities, Momo’s overprotective friend, and PG’s past coming back to haunt her, Momo and PG’s romance is put to the test.]]> 336 Eunnie 0593403223 Sasha 0 to-read 4.41 2023 If You'll Have Me
author: Eunnie
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Oil and Marble 25898723
Michelangelo is a virtual unknown when he returns to Florence and wins the commission to carve what will become one of the most famous sculptures of all time: David. Even though his impoverished family shuns him for being an artist, he is desperate to support them. Living at the foot of his misshapen block of marble, Michelangelo struggles until the stone finally begins to speak. Working against an impossible deadline, he begins his feverish carving.

Meanwhile, Leonardo’s life is falling apart: he loses the hoped-for David commission; he can’t seem to finish any project; he is obsessed with his ungainly flying machine; he almost dies in war; his engineering designs disastrously fail; and he is haunted by a woman he has seen in the market—a merchant’s wife, whom he is finally commissioned to paint. Her name is Lisa, and she becomes his muse.

Leonardo despises Michelangelo for his youth and lack of sophistication. Michelangelo both loathes and worships Leonardo’s genius.

Oil and Marble is the story of their nearly forgotten rivalry. Storey brings early 16th-century Florence alive, and has entered with extraordinary empathy into the minds and souls of two Renaissance masters. The book is an art history thriller.
]]> 362 Stephanie Storey 1628726393 Sasha 5 Oil and Marble opens in 1499, when Leonardo is already an aging painter. Michelangelo, on the other hand, is a broody 24-year-old lad, new to the art scene and high on the public's adoration of his first masterpiece, the PietĂ  (which, side note, looks like it's made of porcelain - not marble). While Michelangelo still has to fight for every new commission, Leonardo gets clients by the dozen, despite his reputation for never actually finishing the paintings he starts.

Thus we have the conflict in Oil and Marble. Two strong-headed, malcontent artists who have returned to Florence just as its public art commission is looking for someone to carve a gargantuan chunk of marble into a male figure (spoiler, that stone would become Michelangelo's David). Both artists need this commission so that they can achieve their personal goals. When Michelangelo ends up being the one with the gig, a bitter rivalry unfolds between him and the unlettered genius from Vinci.

The best part of this novel is the anguish that Michelangelo goes through while carving his David. He's inherited a block of marble that everyone else has deemed unusable, after an earlier sculptor's crack at it didn't go so well. The limitation of the stone itself, combined with the young artist's temper, really make the Michelangelo chapters vivid.

I loved the scene where Michelangelo has to sneak into a monastery to study human anatomy at night. Suffice it to say that there weren't any textbooks available to him, so it was a complicated task. On top of the risks that came with studying anatomy when it was forbidden, Leonardo decides to crash the study session. The drama is spectacular.

The Leonardo sections are fun as well, although maybe not as relatable (for me at least). I particularly enjoyed his relationship with Machiavelli. It's nice to see a seemingly infinitely clever man reach his limit when he encounters the infamous statesman. The Machiavelli character felt like a real person - not a flat Machiavellian cartoon.

While the events in Oil and Marble take place during a politically turbulent time, the novel's focus is very much on the inner worlds of two great artists. I wouldn't go into this novel expecting deep historical context, with the exception of art history (although even that is fairly limited). If you are curious about what goes through the mind of an artist as they work on a sculpture or painting though, this is a good book to pick up.

But you don't need an interest in art to enjoy Oil and Marble. The strength of this novel isn't in the facts. Rather, this is a book for when you feel like exploring how people think as they go about the struggles that we all relate to: paying the bills so that you can pursue a passion, contending with a disrespectful rival, facing your own errors, falling in love with someone who is outside your reach, and winning back the respect of your family.

4.5/5.]]> 3.95 2016 Oil and Marble
author: Stephanie Storey
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/24
date added: 2024/05/03
shelves: art, historical-fiction, novel-length-2024, debut
review:
Oil and Marble opens in 1499, when Leonardo is already an aging painter. Michelangelo, on the other hand, is a broody 24-year-old lad, new to the art scene and high on the public's adoration of his first masterpiece, the PietĂ  (which, side note, looks like it's made of porcelain - not marble). While Michelangelo still has to fight for every new commission, Leonardo gets clients by the dozen, despite his reputation for never actually finishing the paintings he starts.

Thus we have the conflict in Oil and Marble. Two strong-headed, malcontent artists who have returned to Florence just as its public art commission is looking for someone to carve a gargantuan chunk of marble into a male figure (spoiler, that stone would become Michelangelo's David). Both artists need this commission so that they can achieve their personal goals. When Michelangelo ends up being the one with the gig, a bitter rivalry unfolds between him and the unlettered genius from Vinci.

The best part of this novel is the anguish that Michelangelo goes through while carving his David. He's inherited a block of marble that everyone else has deemed unusable, after an earlier sculptor's crack at it didn't go so well. The limitation of the stone itself, combined with the young artist's temper, really make the Michelangelo chapters vivid.

I loved the scene where Michelangelo has to sneak into a monastery to study human anatomy at night. Suffice it to say that there weren't any textbooks available to him, so it was a complicated task. On top of the risks that came with studying anatomy when it was forbidden, Leonardo decides to crash the study session. The drama is spectacular.

The Leonardo sections are fun as well, although maybe not as relatable (for me at least). I particularly enjoyed his relationship with Machiavelli. It's nice to see a seemingly infinitely clever man reach his limit when he encounters the infamous statesman. The Machiavelli character felt like a real person - not a flat Machiavellian cartoon.

While the events in Oil and Marble take place during a politically turbulent time, the novel's focus is very much on the inner worlds of two great artists. I wouldn't go into this novel expecting deep historical context, with the exception of art history (although even that is fairly limited). If you are curious about what goes through the mind of an artist as they work on a sculpture or painting though, this is a good book to pick up.

But you don't need an interest in art to enjoy Oil and Marble. The strength of this novel isn't in the facts. Rather, this is a book for when you feel like exploring how people think as they go about the struggles that we all relate to: paying the bills so that you can pursue a passion, contending with a disrespectful rival, facing your own errors, falling in love with someone who is outside your reach, and winning back the respect of your family.

4.5/5.
]]> In Universes 195853541
In Universes is a mind-bending tour across parallel worlds, each an answer to the question of what life would be like if events had played out just a little differently. The universes grow increasingly strange: women fracture into hordes of animals, alien-infested bears prowl apocalyptic landscapes. But across them all, Raffi—alongside their sometimes-friends, sometimes-lovers Britt, Kay, and Graham—reaches for a life that feels authentically their own.

Blending realism with science fiction, In Universes explores the thirst for genius, the fluidity of gender and identity, and the pull of the past against the desire to lead a meaningful life. Part Ted Chiang, part Carmen Maria Machado, part Everything Everywhere All At Once, In Universes insists on the transgressive power of hope even in the darkest of times.]]> 240 Emet North 0063314878 Sasha 0
This has been a melancholy read - I have been longing for some sunshine in the story the entire time. Not sure if the main character has anything positive they're hoping for. I get the feeling that the absence of hope is driving the protagonist's thoughts.

DNF at 40%, during the second chapter in a row that's really painful to read for me personally. Too personal to go into in a public review, too. I'm going to look for a more lighthearted story antidote now.

I got an ARC of In Universes from Netgalley.]]> 3.82 2024 In Universes
author: Emet North
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/02
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves: netgalley-2024, did-not-finish, debut, fiction, speculative, pointlessly-bleak
review:
Some novels center around a person who hasn't been through an extraordinary tragedy but is experiencing a crisis of meaning. Arguably, it's happening precisely because they have been fortunate enough to spend most of their life in the high-level section of the Maslow hierarchy of needs, away from concerns for their survival. The character ends up sounding like they think they've been dealt the world's worst hand when that clearly isn't the case. There are readers who enjoy reading that genre, maybe because it makes them feel seen. But I'm not part of that target audience.

This has been a melancholy read - I have been longing for some sunshine in the story the entire time. Not sure if the main character has anything positive they're hoping for. I get the feeling that the absence of hope is driving the protagonist's thoughts.

DNF at 40%, during the second chapter in a row that's really painful to read for me personally. Too personal to go into in a public review, too. I'm going to look for a more lighthearted story antidote now.

I got an ARC of In Universes from Netgalley.
]]> A Million Junes 30763950
Who exactly is this gruff, sarcastic, but seemingly harmless boy who has returned to their hometown of Five Fingers, Michigan, after three mysterious years away? And why has June—an O’Donnell to her core—never questioned her late father’s deep hatred of the Angert family? After all, the O’Donnells and the Angerts may have mythic legacies, but for all the tall tales they weave, both founding families are tight-lipped about what caused the century-old rift between them.

As Saul and June’s connection grows deeper, they find that the magic, ghosts, and coywolves of Five Fingers seem to be conspiring to reveal the truth about the harrowing curse that has plagued their bloodlines for generations. Now June must question everything she knows about her family and the father she adored, and she must decide whether it’s finally time for her—and all the O’Donnells before her—to let go.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0448493969 Sasha 5 A Million Junes surprised me. At first, I thought this was a fairly standard, enjoyable YA love story with strong Romeo and Juliet influences. By the end, it built into an exploration of what can lead two households in fair Verona to get completely bashed in their heads about each other. I quite enjoyed it.

Emily Henry is an absolute phenom in the world of adult romance. I have only read one other book by her, Book Lovers, and found that it followed a story formula too obviously for my taste. And during the first half of A Million Junes, I wondered if Book Lovers was Henry's fan fiction of her own YA work, retold for an adult audience. There were a good number of parallels between the two stories.* And the longing between the two leads... Let's just say Emily Henry was clearly made to write for the adult market.

But the second half of A Million Junes shifts from a high school romance to a magical realism exploration of intergenerational gestalt. And that’s where it gets really good.

Don't get me wrong - I've got *nothing* against a high school romance. Has any other genre ever persuaded me to dedicate any portion of my closet to fandom merch? Still, as Divine Rivals recently demonstrated, the simple presence of first love isn't enough for me to grant a book five stars.

A Million Junes takes a truly interesting turn towards the end. I lost the feeling that I was reading a formula for a captivating story. Instead, I felt like I was diving into someone's mind.


--
*Parallels between A Million Junes and Book Lovers:
[spoilers removed]

4.5/5.]]> 3.80 2017 A Million Junes
author: Emily Henry
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/05
date added: 2024/05/01
shelves: coming-of-age, ya, love-story, fiction, novel-length-2024, fantasy-or-magical-realism
review:
A Million Junes surprised me. At first, I thought this was a fairly standard, enjoyable YA love story with strong Romeo and Juliet influences. By the end, it built into an exploration of what can lead two households in fair Verona to get completely bashed in their heads about each other. I quite enjoyed it.

Emily Henry is an absolute phenom in the world of adult romance. I have only read one other book by her, Book Lovers, and found that it followed a story formula too obviously for my taste. And during the first half of A Million Junes, I wondered if Book Lovers was Henry's fan fiction of her own YA work, retold for an adult audience. There were a good number of parallels between the two stories.* And the longing between the two leads... Let's just say Emily Henry was clearly made to write for the adult market.

But the second half of A Million Junes shifts from a high school romance to a magical realism exploration of intergenerational gestalt. And that’s where it gets really good.

Don't get me wrong - I've got *nothing* against a high school romance. Has any other genre ever persuaded me to dedicate any portion of my closet to fandom merch? Still, as Divine Rivals recently demonstrated, the simple presence of first love isn't enough for me to grant a book five stars.

A Million Junes takes a truly interesting turn towards the end. I lost the feeling that I was reading a formula for a captivating story. Instead, I felt like I was diving into someone's mind.


--
*Parallels between A Million Junes and Book Lovers:
[spoilers removed]

4.5/5.
]]> <![CDATA[Nothing Special, Volume One: Through the Elder Woods (A Graphic Novel)]]> 174146944
In the grand scheme of the worlds at large, Callie thinks she's nothing special. Sure, she's friends with the ghost of a radish and her dad owns a magical antique shop--but she's spent her life in the human world. Her dad won't let her join him on his collection trips in the magical realm “for her own protection�, so she’s only caught glimpses of that world through the gates of the town where her father’s store is.

On her seventeenth birthday, Callie goes home with her friend Declan to find her home in disarray and her dad missing. Signs of a struggle point to the portal to the magical realm and when there are signs, you follow them. Now it's up to Callie, Declan, and Radish to band together and bring him home. As they face creatures good and bad, and all sorts of adventure, Callie and Declan may just find out that they are both special in their own ways after all.

The first season of mayhem, magic, vegetables and adventure from Katie Cook's beloved Webtoon, Nothing Special , is collected in this gorgeous graphic novel, which also features exclusive behind-the-scenes content.]]> 416 Katie Cook 1984862839 Sasha 4
What’s the size of a golf ball, protects you like a possessive shih tzu, third wheels your romantic relationship, and could make all of Germany’s dead philosophers spin in their graves with its existential rants?

It’s Radish! The ghost of a vegetable that died while serving as a party platter garnish, never receiving the fame and recognition that its clingy personality deserved.

Radish is one of the numerous ghosts of dead plants trapped in the realm of the living. You’ve seen those, right? They’re:

attentive,



protective,



eloquent,



and will absolutely use their knowledge of nutrition



to make sure



that you eat



the best vitamins that soil has to offer:



And if you don’t like their offer of friendship,


then, sure, yeah, go ahead and reject it.

Just don’t come crying into my DMs later when you regret it.

Callie, the 17-year-old protagonist of Nothing Special, has the good sense to accept the friendship of plant spirits like Radish. She has lived between the human and the magical worlds with her Dad, who, for some unknown reason, won't let Callie venture outside her small magical town's gate.

Besides befriending Radish, Callie is also friendly with the guy who’s had a cru-…uhhhh� seat behind her in biology class since, like, Kindergarten. He’s been failing all his classes because, for some weird reason, he can never see the board behind Callie’s ponytail (just kidding, his grades are probably good considering that he insists on studying for a physics final with her. But this series isn’t about school, so it doesn’t matter).

It’s a cozy adventure with cuteness and laughs in a fantasy world.

There is also a something about a spark between Callie and that classmate of hers, Declan:



The plant spirits and other magical creatures were my favorite part of this book. I didn’t find the relationships to be very deep here, and I particularly wished for Declan’s character to have a more developed backstory. If his initial interactions with Callie happened in real life, their relationship would fizzle fast. So, maybe, you know, treat this as innocent fiction and not an interpersonal psychology textbook.

Nothing Special, Volume 1, covers the first season of the and has now been published in physical form. Some panels in the print edition are enhanced compared to the web version. For instance, the earthquake scene has been re-rendered and looks more dynamic in the book.

The experience of full-page spreads is different by nature from a webtoon, too. I’m a fan of the webtoon format because there’s never questions about panel order, and at times I find graphic novels to be visually chaotic and overwhelming. Not so with the layout of Nothing Special -- its use of negative space guided my eye through the adventure well.

An absolute delight.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to write a letter to webtoon about a certain series I would sprint to buy as a hard copy. Don’t ask me which one because I won’t say unless we’re close friends. Although if you work at webtoon, please ask. I’ll be offended if you don’t.

Thanks to Katie Cook and Ten Speed Press for a free Netgalley advance reader copy of Nothing Special, Volume 1, in exchange for an honest review.]]> 4.24 2024 Nothing Special, Volume One: Through the Elder Woods (A Graphic Novel)
author: Katie Cook
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/30
date added: 2024/05/01
shelves: fantasy-or-magical-realism, netgalley-2023, graphic-novel, ya
review:
Riddle time.

What’s the size of a golf ball, protects you like a possessive shih tzu, third wheels your romantic relationship, and could make all of Germany’s dead philosophers spin in their graves with its existential rants?

It’s Radish! The ghost of a vegetable that died while serving as a party platter garnish, never receiving the fame and recognition that its clingy personality deserved.

Radish is one of the numerous ghosts of dead plants trapped in the realm of the living. You’ve seen those, right? They’re:

attentive,



protective,



eloquent,



and will absolutely use their knowledge of nutrition



to make sure



that you eat



the best vitamins that soil has to offer:



And if you don’t like their offer of friendship,


then, sure, yeah, go ahead and reject it.

Just don’t come crying into my DMs later when you regret it.

Callie, the 17-year-old protagonist of Nothing Special, has the good sense to accept the friendship of plant spirits like Radish. She has lived between the human and the magical worlds with her Dad, who, for some unknown reason, won't let Callie venture outside her small magical town's gate.

Besides befriending Radish, Callie is also friendly with the guy who’s had a cru-…uhhhh� seat behind her in biology class since, like, Kindergarten. He’s been failing all his classes because, for some weird reason, he can never see the board behind Callie’s ponytail (just kidding, his grades are probably good considering that he insists on studying for a physics final with her. But this series isn’t about school, so it doesn’t matter).

It’s a cozy adventure with cuteness and laughs in a fantasy world.

There is also a something about a spark between Callie and that classmate of hers, Declan:



The plant spirits and other magical creatures were my favorite part of this book. I didn’t find the relationships to be very deep here, and I particularly wished for Declan’s character to have a more developed backstory. If his initial interactions with Callie happened in real life, their relationship would fizzle fast. So, maybe, you know, treat this as innocent fiction and not an interpersonal psychology textbook.

Nothing Special, Volume 1, covers the first season of the and has now been published in physical form. Some panels in the print edition are enhanced compared to the web version. For instance, the earthquake scene has been re-rendered and looks more dynamic in the book.

The experience of full-page spreads is different by nature from a webtoon, too. I’m a fan of the webtoon format because there’s never questions about panel order, and at times I find graphic novels to be visually chaotic and overwhelming. Not so with the layout of Nothing Special -- its use of negative space guided my eye through the adventure well.

An absolute delight.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to write a letter to webtoon about a certain series I would sprint to buy as a hard copy. Don’t ask me which one because I won’t say unless we’re close friends. Although if you work at webtoon, please ask. I’ll be offended if you don’t.

Thanks to Katie Cook and Ten Speed Press for a free Netgalley advance reader copy of Nothing Special, Volume 1, in exchange for an honest review.
]]> Otherworldly 176443877 New York Times bestselling author of Spell Bound and So This Is Ever After.

Seventeen-year-old Ellery is a non-believer in a region where people swear the supernatural is real. Sure, they’ve been stuck in a five-year winter, but there’s got to be a scientific explanation. If goddesses were real, they wouldn’t abandon their charges like this, leaving farmers like Ellery’s family to scrape by.

Knox is a familiar from the Other World, a magical assistant sent to help humans who have made crossroads bargains. But it’s been years since he heard from his queen, and Knox is getting nervous about what he might find once he returns home. When the crossroads demons come to collect Knox, he panics and runs. A chance encounter down an alley finds Ellery coming to Knox’s rescue, successfully fending off his would-be abductors.

Ellery can’t quite believe what they’ve seen. And they definitely don’t believe the nonsense this unnervingly attractive guy spews about his paranormal origins. But Knox needs to make a deal with a human who can tether him to this realm, and Ellery needs to figure out how to stop this winter to help their family. Once their bargain is struck, there’s no backing out, and the growing connection between the two might just change everything.]]> 352 F.T. Lukens 1665916257 Sasha 0
Knox is a supernatural being who gets pulled into the world of the living to serve as a genie for a clever witch. He has an enormous amount of supernatural power, yet longs to have agency so he can make his own choices. He wants to explore the world outside his witch's living room, but he hasn't been given a chance to see very much besides the restaurant where Ellery works.

One evening, as Ellery heads home from work, they happen across a weird and apparently unfair fight. Before they realize what they're getting themselves into, they jump in to defend the guy who's being attacked.

It's a supernatural love story in a winter setting (my favorite season).

DNF at 25%. I might come back to finish the novel - it's just not interesting enough for me at this time, unfortunately.

I got this ARC from Netgalley.]]> 3.91 2024 Otherworldly
author: F.T. Lukens
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/30
shelves: did-not-finish, netgalley-2024, fantasy-or-magical-realism, fiction, love-story, lgbt, ya
review:
Ellery is a young skeptic from a family of farmers. The family has been struggling ever since a brutal, unending winter descended upon their region. Out of concern for the family's wellbeing, Ellery has disobeyed their family's wishes and moved out to hold a restaurant job in a bigger city. They keep to themselves and keep their head down. They have a small crush on a handsome, mysterious guy who stops by the restaurant often - but they haven't done much about it, aside from admiring the guy from a distance.

Knox is a supernatural being who gets pulled into the world of the living to serve as a genie for a clever witch. He has an enormous amount of supernatural power, yet longs to have agency so he can make his own choices. He wants to explore the world outside his witch's living room, but he hasn't been given a chance to see very much besides the restaurant where Ellery works.

One evening, as Ellery heads home from work, they happen across a weird and apparently unfair fight. Before they realize what they're getting themselves into, they jump in to defend the guy who's being attacked.

It's a supernatural love story in a winter setting (my favorite season).

DNF at 25%. I might come back to finish the novel - it's just not interesting enough for me at this time, unfortunately.

I got this ARC from Netgalley.
]]> <![CDATA[By Means of Mutual Correspondence]]> 6610694 104 Vladimir Voinovich 185399474X Sasha 4 book-amnesia, read-for-school 4.00 1996 By Means of Mutual Correspondence
author: Vladimir Voinovich
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/20
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: book-amnesia, read-for-school
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books]]> 7603 Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

]]> 356 Azar Nafisi 081297106X Sasha 0 3.64 2003 Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
author: Azar Nafisi
name: Sasha
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2013/03/27
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: biography-memoir, book-amnesia
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins 0439023483 Sasha 5 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Sasha
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/29
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: novel-length-2023, fiction, ya, science-fiction, dystopian, love-story, set-inside-a-game
review:

]]>