Yesenia's Updates en-US Mon, 07 Apr 2025 10:25:29 -0700 60 Yesenia's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus9282096965 Mon, 07 Apr 2025 10:25:29 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia wants to read 'The Crisis of Culture: Identity Politics and the Empire of Norms']]> /review/show/7470165543 The Crisis of Culture by Olivier Roy Yesenia wants to read The Crisis of Culture: Identity Politics and the Empire of Norms by Olivier Roy
]]> Review7464863081 Mon, 07 Apr 2025 10:09:48 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia added 'Is Europe Christian?']]> /review/show/7464863081 Is Europe Christian? by Olivier Roy Yesenia gave 5 stars to Is Europe Christian? (Hardcover) by Olivier Roy
bookshelves: european, grad-school-type, non-fiction, political
this book was great. i loved it. i have to run to my yoga class so i cannot write a proper review but if i don't write something now i will forget to write anything.

i learned a lot reading this book; it is very enlightening (and by that, i mean the proper kind of enlightenment and not the historical kind); it is very objective, which is pretty difficult with a subject such as the one it tackles; and it is very necessary, too.

maybe i'll read all of Mr. Roy's books! ]]> ReadStatus9276730769 Sun, 06 Apr 2025 03:13:23 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia wants to read 'Tierra contrafuturo']]> /review/show/7466429121 Tierra contrafuturo by Luis Carlos Barragán Yesenia wants to read Tierra contrafuturo by Luis Carlos Barragán
]]> Rating844267738 Sun, 06 Apr 2025 03:13:23 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia Pumarada Cruz liked a review]]> /
Yesenia liked Francisco M. Juárez's review of Tierra contrafuturo:
Tierra contrafuturo by Luis Carlos Barragán
"Qué gusto leer una obra de ciencia ficción latinoamericana de calidad.

Con un tono que remite a obras como La guía del autoestopista galáctico, esta es una fábula de la búsqueda de la humanidad por alcanzar la madurez y terminar su dilatada infancia... Pero sin lograrlo, gracias a la razón de siempre, la infinita estupidez que domina nuestra especie.

Una obra ligera, que se siente fresca y divertida, pero sin dejar de analizar nuestro presente y nuestra historia, extrapolando nuestras sombras interiores al planeta y la especie completa.

Y a pesar de su aparente ligereza, deja un pozo de reflexión profunda sobre cuál es nuestro destino y nuestro propósito en el universo."
]]> ReadStatus9274450857 Sat, 05 Apr 2025 12:25:43 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia started reading 'Is Europe Christian?']]> /review/show/7464863081 Is Europe Christian? by Olivier Roy Yesenia started reading Is Europe Christian? by Olivier Roy
]]> ReadStatus9272865968 Sat, 05 Apr 2025 02:04:25 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia started reading 'The Driver's Seat']]> /review/show/7463747916 The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark Yesenia started reading The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
]]> Review7447458920 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 07:24:17 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia added 'The Constant Rabbit']]> /review/show/7447458920 The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde Yesenia gave 3 stars to The Constant Rabbit (Hardcover) by Jasper Fforde
bookshelves: british-nuff-said, delicious-braincandy, fantasy-sci-fi, humorous-on-purporous
this was a fun read and very interesting as an allegory... but, as far as allegories go, it was a bit too simplistic.

there is not even a minimal exploration of "leporiphobia"--how did the word become a slur, while the actual general sentiment is, in fact, leporiphobic (or so it seems); and why are so many people scared of the rabbits or doubtful about a future in which humans and rabbits (and foxes and weasels) live in a multi-species world.

it would have made a better political statement and a more profound philosophical allegory if the many aspects of the issue were addresed, with humor and hilarity, as is Jasper Fforde's specialty.

but it was fun, for sure. and smart. ]]> Review7449670268 Sun, 30 Mar 2025 23:38:48 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia added 'Red Side Story']]> /review/show/7449670268 Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde Yesenia gave 4 stars to Red Side Story (Shades of Grey, #2) by Jasper Fforde
bookshelves: british-nuff-said, delicious-braincandy, fantasy-sci-fi, humorous-on-purporous
this was as fun as the previous instalment and hopefully as fun as the next (fingers crossed that it will come soon!).

jasper fforde is great: his world-building is as good as any of the serious fantasy writers, and as good as the funny ones (although terry pratchett is beyond comparison). his stories are funny and entertaining and his characters are, good. relatable, sometimes. a bit... they're not great characters, because they're sort of all of them, somehow, the same. it's like deep down he is a follower of the upanishadic shift from the vedic religion, and he believes in the oneness of life and the soul, all lives and all souls, and that each living being is but the temporal embodiment of the One, of life, and, therefore, ultimately, part of this sameness. So each character is like an element of a greater more complex character that forms The Character, or, All Characters. I am reading The constant rabbit and it feels the same as the Thursday Next series and the Shades of Grey trilogy (wink wink): there is a sameness to ALL of the characters, even the bad guys. All of the main, good characters, are versions of each other, some more complex than others; all of the bad guys are versions of each other, too. I have never left the Thursday Next universe because it's the first i read: if you start with this trilogy (please please), you will feel that the Thursday Next books are all in this universe...

BUT that does not bother me because it is what it is: i do not come to Jasper Fforde for Anthony Trollope or some other character-driven writer who writes character-driven literature. I come for highly creative, interesting, entertaining, lovely, funny, cool, did i say creative, fantasy that is real-life-adjacent. Not in Narnia, or Discworld, or outer space, but adjacent to the UK, that drab and dreary universe of great literature.

at least during the first two thirds of the book, i felt that i was reading a book written shortly after shades of grey, which was as awesome and hilarious as that one. then it became clear that it was a different book, and i don't mean that as a compliment. some plot-holes and storylines of the first book were abandoned, for no reason and without explanation (like, greens and reds weren't supposed to be seen talking together... that was a terrible taboo... but oh well, that won't work in this book so let's forget that that was ever said in book one...)...

but that's because i'm very nitpicky and because i started book 2 a day after finishing book 1 and was like, wait, hello, why is this happening!!?!? they cannot talk to each other in broad daylight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also, what happened to the spork factory!!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!?!?!??! ]]> ReadStatus9249694681 Sun, 30 Mar 2025 08:26:06 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia started reading 'The Constant Rabbit']]> /review/show/7447458920 The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde Yesenia started reading The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde
]]> Review3564015805 Tue, 25 Mar 2025 08:11:57 -0700 <![CDATA[Yesenia added 'Temporada de huracanes']]> /review/show/3564015805 Temporada de huracanes by Fernanda Melchor Yesenia gave 4 stars to Temporada de huracanes (Paperback) by Fernanda Melchor
bookshelves: contemporary-fiction, crime, ±đ˛Ô-±đ˛ő±č˛ąĂ±´Ç±ô, literatura-latinoamericana, women-writers, the-horra, book-club
a las demás dpersonas de mi club de lectura no les gustó este libro.
a mĂ­ me enganchĂł desde la cuarta palabra. lo leĂ­ en dos dĂ­as porque estaba demasiado ocupada para leerlo en uno.
es horrible. casi todas las personas son horribles. los espacios descritos son horribles. las relaciones son horribles. todo es sucio y feo y zafio.
algunos personajes son increíbles de lo sucios y feos y zafios. algunas mujeres, particularmente. no porque no haya mujeres así, sino porque están todas juntas y salen en este libro. no se salva ni una. con los hombres, más de lo mismo. es un submundolumpen.
pero helo ahĂ­. he ahĂ­ ese mundolumpen. fernanda melchor lo descubre para nosotros, para que lo veamos. nos contamina. sales sucio, sales oliendo mal.
porque es así de real y así de magistral la capacidad de la autora para crear este mundo, estas sensaciones, estos personajes. exagerado, pero quizás no. espero que sí. ]]>