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43
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| 0679722920
| 9780679722922
| 0679722920
| 3.47
| 2,274
| 1976
| Jul 17, 1989
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liked it
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Chapter Alpha: [image] the book is a wall of sound a wall of words it took me over two months to read it, unheard of for me. you open the book you g Chapter Alpha: [image] the book is a wall of sound a wall of words it took me over two months to read it, unheard of for me. you open the book you go to a chapter you read the chapter you fall into a black hole it takes forever to read it is a timeless experience you come out of the chapter and you wonder, where has all the time gone? gone... gone... gone... the book is an echo chamber of ideas but each echo comes back louder louder LOUDER and then the idea is discarded. BOOM on to the next one! or maybe not discarded, maybe looked at from another angle all kinds of angles looking look looked let's look at that idea from behind a one-way mirror, the idea doesn't know you're looking at it, keep looking you sneaky horny thing, your breathing gets shallow and rapid, maybe the idea will undress. or maybe the idea will become something different, transformed. transubstantiated? transcendentalized? transmogrified? the ideas are still there, just turned into new ideas, one shape into another, at dizzying speed, the book is dizzying, I'm getting a headache, my vision is blurring and so are the pages, my mind it hurts. the book is layered with ideas like a room stacked full of pillows, some comfy some not, each pillow is an idea, some soft some hard, just throw yourself into the pillow room, into Ratner's Star, have fun with it, it's pain-free after that first time. "Ideas" are like words, their meanings "change" over time, now is as good a time as any, as ever, what is "time" anyway, let's switch things up! I like talking like this so I will, just listen. [image] Interlude: "But when he put quotes around words for commonplace objects, the effect was unsettling. He wasn't simply isolating an object from its name, he seemed to be trying to empty an entire system of meaning." Chapter Omega: [image] the boy is a genius he is a boy genius, a wunderkind, a Nobel prize winner, his skills with maths is amazings. he is not a curious boy but he is a horny boy like all boys well I suppose he is curious about things that make him horny so he is not completely not-curious. he is here to solve a mystery the aliens have communicated with earth but what is it they are saying and are they even aliens. the first two-thirds of the book is set above ground on a campus for scientists trying to solve this puzzle there are so many characters all buzzing around the boy it is a beehive he is a drone, a horny barely curious drone with a mystery to solve. in the last third of the book he moves underground he and his mentor and a sexy author and four other characters and suddenly the book feels much smaller but the ideas remain big and flexible and ever-changing and the perspectives suddenly shift, it's not just the boy it's all of them, these underground folk, their perspectives blur into each other fade into each other dissolve into each other, sometimes in the same long paragraph, he thought this and she thought that and the reader is like What? I thought I was reading him? but now I'm reading her? and who is having sex with her, the mentor or the boy? the mentor comes out from underground and then he goes into another hole in the ground, he crawls into a hole that he has dug in that hole in the ground, just like the other mentor. ah the fate of all such mentors to all such boys. also living underground was an Asian scientist specializing in bat guano, a Dr. Wu, I liked this scientist not just because he's Asian but because he thought he was going to die and he didn't, he reminded me of me, I root for bat-loving Asian scientists who think they are going to die but don't. "Words" are like people, both die, but do they really, I mean really for "real" in reality, like if you repeat a word enough times, it loses "meaning" and it dies like a person? I don't like listening to that so I won't, just stop talking. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 15, 2023
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Dec 20, 2023
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Oct 15, 2023
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Paperback
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36
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| 0571194710
| 9780571194711
| 0571194710
| 3.87
| 18,337
| 1972
| Aug 01, 1998
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really liked it
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[image]
Last night, when talking to God again, I posed a question atypical for its lack of fawning, begging, or pleading: "Why do You make such a j [image] Last night, when talking to God again, I posed a question atypical for its lack of fawning, begging, or pleading: "Why do You make such a joke of us?" The ceiling throbbed dimly above me, all shadows and cobwebs and barely seen whiteness, only slightly illuminated by the yellow of the streetlights staring blearily through the dusty windows, the tableau of small little shapes embedded in the ceiling could hardly be seen let alone differentiated, these misshapen pimples of paint frozen like a depressed and lackadaisical swarm of sleepy insects covered in cream, or cloud, or whatever color the paint was once named, the little bumps of stucco like small, barely sentient beings whose movements were so slow they didn't appear to move at all. A fitting vision, or at least it felt that way in the moment. Sensing a reply would not soon be forthcoming - so like Him, I thought, resigned - I continued on: "You sprayed Yourself upon this fertile egg Earth and so we were born from this heavenly shower, if that's not too salty a metaphor for You, we motile things moving hither and thither, created by the divine yet living our lives of mundanity, betraying each other, projecting our needs onto each other, hating each other while calling that hate love, hating each other while calling that hate change, hating each other while calling that hate law or freedom or safety, injecting ourselves into each other like You did to this poor Earth who never asked for such parasites infesting her body, infecting each other with ourselves, replicating more of us as is our imperative, or perhaps Your imperative, an imperative to always keep breeding and hating and breeding some more... You created us, but why didn't You just leave us after that? Why stay to laugh, to mock, to create a long-winded joke for which the punch line is not just a shaggy dog, it is a hairy ape, the ape that is man that will never get that it is not just the butt of the joke, it is the head and heart and genitals of the joke as well. Why Lord why? Why not just hit it and quit it, why stay to laugh at what You wrought?" After finishing my appeal, I realized that God had fallen fast asleep while I had rambled on. As He is often prone to do during my more lachrymose musings, sigh. God knows I can sometimes be a bore. I turned to the typically attractive faun asleep at my side and roused him with an urgent shake. At least he would hear me if He would not. As he was fairly used to this behavior, he woke slowly but with a minimum of grumblings. "What now?" he asked with only faint surliness and the beginnings of an erection. "I have an important question to pose," I said self-importantly. "And put that away please. The question is this: Our existence is depressingly ephemeral as is, must it be made a joke of? Our souls are fragile as is, must they be so aggressively manhandled by the State, by the Media, by the Community, by Old Men, most of all by our oh so humorous Creator and His private little jokes at our expense?" My companion smiled sleepily, his surliness but not his erection now gone, and said: "Oh, so you think we have souls? That's adorable." This was neither the reaction I expected nor the path I wanted to walk on, and certainly not at this late an hour. The fact of our soul's existence must be sacrosanct, sacred, or at least an ironic given, otherwise these jokes of God lack even humor to recommend them. And so I responded: "Of course! Don't you think we have souls? Are you such a godless pagan that your lack of faith has rendered you unable to acknowledge the intangible soul within this all-too tangible bag of skin, bones, hair, muscles, blood, semen, and brain matter?" He replied, horned and horny, "Ano, máme duši. Ale skládá se z mnoha malých robotů." And so I experienced another upsetting joke. If you like such jokes, you should read The Farewell Waltz. It is full of them! Eight characters in a comic roundelay, among them a doctor injecting his sperm into hapless women, a little God himself, creating a whole world of people who look like him and think like him, a whole world like him and the seven other characters who live in this angry joke of a novel, a whole world of characters fucking each other and fucking each other over, sometimes dying, sometimes loving, sometimes fooling each other, always fooling themselves, a whole world of insects except of course insects don't do such things. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 21, 2021
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Jul 03, 2021
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Jun 21, 2021
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Paperback
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35
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| 0156278065
| 9780156278065
| 0156278065
| 3.88
| 6,346
| 1959
| Oct 31, 1991
|
liked it
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What are those strange shapes in the distance, those shapes like a factory like a city like a cemetery, what are they? Where are those beings fleeing
What are those strange shapes in the distance, those shapes like a factory like a city like a cemetery, what are they? Where are those beings fleeing to, in a blind rush of terror like lemmings like a hive mind like things trained to fear, where do they run? Why are all those bodies in a ditch, piled up like debris like waste like a mass graveyard, why are they there? When did this atrocity take place, an atrocity so strange so inhumane yet so familiar, when did this happen? Who would do such a thing, it could only be an alien it could only be a monster it could only be a being who acts like a human, who could be capable of such terrible things? How would an author tell a story about humans crash-landing on a planet, a place full of appalling alien misdeeds full of eugenics full of genocide, how should he write about horror in space while also writing about the history of the fucking human species itself? What was where is why are when do who does how could they, we do such things? [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 12, 2020
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Nov 19, 2020
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Nov 12, 2020
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42
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| 0099429470
| 9780099429470
| 0099429470
| 4.02
| 11,091
| 1949
| Mar 07, 2002
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it was amazing
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Anaxagoras, ancient Greek philosopher, differentiated mind and matter. Mind, unlike matter, "is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself"...
Anaxagoras, ancient Greek philosopher, differentiated mind and matter. Mind, unlike matter, "is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself"... matter is composite, mind is simple. Ah, the purity and independence of the lonely mind! Poor Brat Farrar, a lonely soul, without affect, disconnected from the material world, disconnected from himself, a man and a mind alone. But at least he loved his horse! RIP, horse. Ω The Neoplatonic, medieval Christian theologian known as "Pseudo-Dionysus" posited that what comes from God - and all things come from God - is therefore good. And so evil is merely an absence of this good. An evil person is good in all ways - except when their will operates in this absence. This so-called evil person suffers from... a deficiency. Lucky Brat Farrar, given quite an opportunity. His life an absence, his being lacking meaning, deficient in impetus... but he shall be given a purpose, a new being and a new identity. Doesn't hurt that that new identity is filthy rich! Ω George Berkeley, Empiricist, provoked his fellow philosophers with a simple formula: "to be is to be perceived" - if something were not perceived, it would not exist. Further, he insisted: we only have differing perceptions of things when we see them from different perspectives. Indeed, this is a no-brainer; but still - such an immaterialist stance for an empiricist! Poor Brat Farrar, never perceived, never really existing. Poor little Patrick Ashby, his own being ended too early. Can one truly become the other? Can Brat achieve existence by taking on the identity of Patrick? And who then is being perceived - the long-dead Patrick, or the newly alive Brat? Who is the true Brat, who was the true Patrick - are the answers only a matter of perspective? Ω Henri Bergson, a Metaphysical philosopher, elucidated an absolute path to knowledge: we must "enter" that object to grasp that object as it really is. We must use the way of intuition to have true sympathy; we must think in duration to have a true grasp of reality. We must identify with the object of our scrutiny. Lucky Brat Farrar, able to grasp the reality of tragic young Patrick Ashby, taken before his time. Brat shall enter this persona and understand him, he will identify so completely with Patrick that he will then recognize the incompleteness within himself. Rare is the lonely man who can start his life anew; rarer still, the man who will use his new life to complete the life of another, to achieve justice, to find grace. Ω John Dewey, Pragmatist, decried the "spectator theory of knowledge" in which each idea corresponds to a fixed reality. Not so! cried Dewey. Truth is not static nor eternal; thinking is not a quest for truth. "Thinking" is simply the act of trying to achieve an adjustment between self and environment. Poor Brat Farrar, torn in two and desperately concealing those tears. To give up this new life and be a good man - and so go back to that loneliness, that emptiness? Or to stay in his disguise, to forever move between truth and lie, to divide his true self from his environment? "Truth" for Brat Farrar is a slippery thing, always changing; but he recognizes it when it appears, and comes to like the feel of it. He shall move from spectator in life to participant: a painful journey. It is hard to be a rogue when one is also a thinker; it is harder still to live falsely when one yearns for truth. Ω Edmund Husserl, creator of Phenomenology, believed that to understand existence, we must stand back from it, we must pause and detach and reflect. In that space of detachment, we can understand our own body, our own life, our own subjectivity - and with that understanding can come an empathy with the subjective perspectives of others. Will these shared subjective states, this intersubjectivity, then constitute... objectivity? Lucky Brat Farrar: as he begins to understand his new world, and to understand the living family of that sweet dead boy... so they begin to see him in turn. He moves from detachment to reflection to empathy. They move from wonder to understanding. Perceptions shift, deepen; subjective perspectives meet and a certain objectivity is found. Shall this latest iteration of Brat Farrar be his final self? Ω (view spoiler)[And lucky reader am I! In this world of sadness and anger, I needed a book where understanding was achieved, where subjective states collide but still come together, overlap, connect, where empathy and objectivity did not cancel each other out, where an empty man became full and a broken family became whole, where a happy ending was reached with compassion, forgiveness, and at long last, honesty. (hide spoiler)] ...more |
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1
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Aug 05, 2020
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Aug 10, 2020
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Aug 05, 2020
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39
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| 1416989420
| 9781416989424
| 1416989420
| 3.92
| 719,464
| Oct 13, 2009
| Oct 13, 2010
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it was ok
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Of course this is trash, but it was so creepy and absurd at times that I feel like I should give it more than 1 star. The so bad it's good-ness of it
Of course this is trash, but it was so creepy and absurd at times that I feel like I should give it more than 1 star. The so bad it's good-ness of it all was kinda fascinating. This was a top YA novel a decade ago? Wow, that's wild. synopsis: what happens when a boy stalker finally "reaches out" to the girl he's stalking, and also wants to kill, and it turns out she can be a stalker too, and then a third stalker tries to get between them and then all of a sudden there's a fourth stalker who's been there all along? what happens is... R ❤ O ❤ M ❤ A ❤ N ❤ C ❤ E!! our 4 stalkers, Patch & Nora & Dabria & Jules: [image] one of them is a fallen angel, another is a death angel, a third is a descendant of angels, and the fourth is having what's known as "trouble with angels". you figure out who is who, no spoilers allowed! NEXT WILL BE SPOILERS but honestly who cares - if this is your kind of book, you should have read it already. and if you haven't by now, that doesn't matter either because the book is 10 years old and Young Adult years are like dog years so it has basically been around for what feels like 70 years and so you know all about it anyway. I have so many parts of this book lodged up in my mind that I'm still dumbfounded by, I just don't know if I can list them all. I could go on and on about the worst best friend ever - I mean this girl doesn't just continually humiliate our heroine in public, she calls in a bomb threat to the high school to enable her buddy's stalking, and later tries to force her to go camping with some dude that just physically assaulted her (not the hero this time, and not even a stalker, just the third point on the love triangle) by excusing it as "he was just drunk" because LOL isn't that a great excuse! but I not only can't stand that character, she's not even a stalker either, so I'm not going to waste more time on Worst Best Friend. although I think I just wasted a lot of time on her. instead I will just treasure the memory of that one stalking scene (so many to choose from) where the heroine goes from a booth in a restaurant to the bathroom to change into what appears to be a hooker outfit so that she can question a bartender at the same restaurant. that was definitely some creative the hero has - in addition to chiseled abs, dangerous eyes that you can get lost in, and apparently a body that smells like a combination of mint and cigars (not joking) - quite a lot of mysterious powers. these powers include telepathy, which allows him to cheekily and sometimes sexily enter her mind to read her thoughts and sexually harass her and of course eventually save her life and - in another moment I will always treasure - help her do better at baseball. I know that the other big controversy about this book besides the stalking is the hero's tendency to invade the heroine's personal space and get super handsy and say dirty things to her, often in the middle of class with the teacher egging him on, but I'm not going to critique that, because even though the heroine says she doesn't want him to do that she often realizes she loves it and then she often realizes she hates it because he's scary except that she actually loves it, he's so hot, except no she actually hates it, he's a predator, no he's her protector, except that he literally said he planned on killing her, except she thinks he can't possibly mean it, so she loves it, except she actually feels she hates it, except she actually loves it, no she hates how he chases her around the parking garage, well she may as well get a ride home from him after that, go ahead and invite yourself in and there are some knives you can wave around at me that's not threatening at all because he's just making tacos, no she hates it no she loves it no she actually doesn't appreciate being locked in a motel room with him, no she loves it, oops all of her clothes are soaked and there's only a towel to wear, oops his t-shirt is soaked better take it off, no she hates it, no, really, she loves it, so I guess it's all okay and consensual, and after all, he does love her! love wins! fun fact: did you know there is a whole subgenre of erotic fiction devoted to "mind control"? well everyone has their kinks, so I'm not judging. oh yes I am. Becca Fitzgerald clearly loves this subgenre. poor weak-minded Stalker #2 (our heroine) gets mind-controlled so hard and so long by Stalker #1 (hero) & Stalker #4 (final boss) that it goes from weird to confusing to uh oh am I reading about a fetish that the author accidentally decided to tell the world about? at first, it's relatively harmless mind control, like making you think your seat belt flew off and causing you to almost fall out of a roller coaster but you don't, LOL he's just messing with you, he doesn't really want to kill you, except he does. but at the *cough* climax, it's no longer just illusions anymore, boyfriend psychically enters girlfriend's body to literally control how her body moves, and it's just so literal I was like Author! c'mon! and of course it's to save her life so no harm no foul, that's kind of an assumed consent, right? make that body move bro, she loves it. oops, now she's dead. but don't worry - he also has the power to raise that hot teen body from the dead! a happy ending: of course all's well that ends well because our hero levels up into a "guardian angel" (for real) and so now he gets to literally stalk her forever. and maybe a little mind control too, to keep things fresh? [image] Postscript Sometime in late 2011, after my great experience reading Catching Fire, I went on a giant Young Adult buying binge because I realized I had fallen wildly in love with the genre. Although that love eventually turned into more of an earnest and realistic friendship, I am still very fond of YA. Anyway, here's what I've read and what I still need to read: Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor Ashfall by Mike Mullin Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi Incarceron by Catherine Fisher The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld Everlost by Neal Shusterman Only halfway finished! Yikes, better pick up the pace, not going to live forever unlike Patch. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 30, 2020
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Aug 08, 2020
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Jul 30, 2020
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34
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| 1882968042
| 9781882968046
| 1882968042
| 3.96
| 325
| 1927
| Jan 01, 1996
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it was amazing
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Review: a perfect children's adventure. This is apparently a sourcebook for Tolkien's Hobbit. I can see that. I also was reminded of certain books by
Review: a perfect children's adventure. This is apparently a sourcebook for Tolkien's Hobbit. I can see that. I also was reminded of certain books by L. Frank Baum, and many other children's fantasies that resonate, that never take a misstep. Although it features two pretty incorrigible kid protagonists (my favorite kind), the real hero of the tale is a friendly Snerg who slowly changes from moronic to heroic over the course of the story. The book is sometimes quite dark, often quite sweet, and completely adorable. The rest of this is pretty much me going on and on about 5 star books, so unless you're in the mood for some elaborate navel-gazing and some highly caffeinated ramblings from someone you barely know, my recommendation is that you just go ahead and skip what follows. ✪ ★ ✯ ✰ ☻ I angst way too much over my precious 5th star. Get a life, me. But I'm a dedicated list creator and compartmentalizer and so this is my Total Virgo lifestyle. Lucky are the friends and family who have to deal with such an extreme tier-maker! And so it is with Goodreads and the 5 star rating, which I only award to "favorites". Perfectly worthy books that are beautifully written, challenging, and original will get 4 stars if they don't strike that chord that feels like Favorite. What does that chord sound like though? As always with me, it can be within several categories, several chords. Sometimes my mind just swoons over what the author is saying and how they are saying it. This is a mental connection and these are books that put me in the position of student, learning from a teacher who is a master of the form. I wish I could express myself so ingeniously, that my thoughts could be as complex and my perspective as layered when trying to understand the world. I admire the creativity, and how intellectually energetic and agile some writers are, so activated. These are books where I understand what is being said while remaining in awe at how those ideas are being related to me, a mere reader. Other times my heart is warmed, slowly heated until glowing or, perhaps, to scalding. These books compel an emotional connection, often one I would not have guessed could take place. How could I feel so much for soldiers at war, for villagers in a country far away, for lovers parted, for a child who sacrifices himself? How can I imagine myself a soulless man, a man completely alone, a man without even love for himself, a man who loves too much, a woman who loves too little, a person who is man then woman then both together? These are books that create empathy, often painfully. There are the books that I immediately connect to. It is like reading my soul on the page, all of the good and all of the not so good, written as if for me personally, for my private contemplation. No need to learn empathy, I'm already there. Or if not there, then these books are the person I'd like to become, the places I dream of, when dreaming of my imperfect but perfect to me kind of world. These books are my past, these protagonists are me, these flaws are mine, I see the mistakes I've made, and the ideals that I strive towards. I can give one of these books to a friend and say, this is who I am. Then there are the books that I also connect to, but in a different sort of way, a less idealistic way: a darker connection. The story told is one my shadow self would write, the self that enjoys my nightmares, that finds them cozy; a self that questions the intentions of others, that laughs at the human kind, that sees the danger in empathy and the pointlessness of trying to understand why, that sees humanity as a collection of villains and insects, that revels in the decay and in the dark past; the self that exults in the stranger paths and the sometime sweetness of that darkness - because that darkness is real and a part of life itself. Finally, there are the perfect books. I may not connect with them intellectually, I may not find myself emotionally overcome. Or I may. These books may not speak to me on a personal level and may have nothing to do with my darker side. Or they may. But whatever the case may be, they create their world so beautifully, so precisely. I have to give 5 stars to a story that stays so true to itself, so completely, from beginning to end. There is a purity to such works. I don't need to "connect" with these books. I look at a book like this from all sides and see something so refined, so marvelous, each part flowing into the next with such ideal symmetry, each part not a piece: each part a whole. All I can do is sit back, full of wonder, and delight at the perfectly designed creation before me. And so it is with this book. ...more |
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1
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Jun 28, 2020
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Jul 03, 2020
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Jun 28, 2020
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30
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| 1302908537
| 9781302908539
| 1302908537
| 4.50
| 5,214
| Jan 23, 2018
| Jan 23, 2018
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it was amazing
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He's only a robot, after all. We knew that; we saw him born, we saw who fathered him. It was we who named him though, his true parents. We are his tru
He's only a robot, after all. We knew that; we saw him born, we saw who fathered him. It was we who named him though, his true parents. We are his true assemblers, we who brought him into our family. We watched him grow, oh so quickly. A robot grows up fast. We saw him long for acceptance and search for meaning, we saw him find love and crave family. We thought we were his family. Much like a human, a robot is designed to protect his family, and will seek vengeance upon those that would hurt them. The world could be razed to protect that family, or to avenge them. We understood that because that is a part of our nature as well. And yet though we know him, we do not trust him, not completely. How can we? He is but a robot. [image] And so we sent another of his kind to him, to spy and to lie. A runaway that we repurposed. Its report: this robot lives like a man. Like a man, he longs for acceptance, he searches for meaning. Like a man, he seeks community and he seeks a purpose. Like a man, he wants to blend, to be like his neighbor, to have a job and a home and a yard and a dog. To have a family of his own. Like a man, he will protect what is his. Like a man, he will lie when necessary, and those lies will become easier with practice. Like a man, he will try to be a good husband and a good father. But like a man, he will disappoint his children, and his wife will shoulder his burdens. And like a man, he will lash out at the world when he becomes surrounded by his failures. He is like a man in so many ways, in his desires and needs, his hopes and deeds. But he is not a man, he has no soul. He is but a robot. [image] We could have talked to him, person to person. We could have trusted him. We could have prevented all of this. We did not need to default to suspicion, we did not need to lie or to spy. We should have trusted him: he has saved the world 37 times. But we did none of those things. He is but a robot, how could we trust such a thing? Trust does not come as easily to us as suspicion. That is our nature. Don't blame us, we're only human after all. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 2019
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Dec 23, 2019
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Dec 01, 2019
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Hardcover
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38
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| 015206396X
| 9780152063962
| 015206396X
| 4.07
| 469,523
| Oct 01, 2008
| Oct 01, 2008
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really liked it
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about six times a year, I facilitate a weekend training on being a peer support volunteer. our volunteers are often very, very different from our clie
about six times a year, I facilitate a weekend training on being a peer support volunteer. our volunteers are often very, very different from our clients, so our training often focuses on how to bridge those differences and build a empathetic and supportive relationship. we go over many topics, include what we call "Cultural Awareness". this is a catch-all phrase and not simply about culture per se - although of course everyone hails from a particular culture, one that helps form who that person is, and that culture is a part of their personal context. but we like to move beyond that, using the concept of "Cultural Humility": approach another person's identity with the intention of learning and in the spirit of humility; a person should define their own identity because that person is the one who is most familiar with their own reality; an individual should not automatically be seen as emblematic of their culture or race or ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation or class or age or whatever. a person's perception of who they are may not parallel what other people automatically perceive about them, based on their appearance or casual, passing interactions. that difference in perception can be annoying and painful. I like to have trainees go through an exercise where they consider who they are and then consider how they have been incorrectly perceived. I use myself as an example before having them do the exercise, like so: [image] what I loved most about this book is that it is all about this idea. this is a young adult novel, and even though this issue of perception versus reality is something that everyone at every age can wrestle with, it is of special importance to young adults because that's a particular time period of self-searching, figuring out your identity, and reacting to whatever box you may be in or whatever box others may be trying to put you in. like so: [image] I really appreciated Cashore's message. it's so simple and yet so important. and that message is woven throughout the book, through most of its characters, from its protagonists to the two probably-gay characters to the foolish guy who loves Katsa to the fascinating and horrendous villain. Cashore hits that message again and again; it's a message worth hitting hard. everyone has to deal with being put in a box despite knowing that their reality is not simply that box. reality is so much more than boxes and other people's perceptions of who and why you are. like so: [image] the story itself is fun and the book was pure pleasure to read. the writing was clean and efficient. the emotions on display were resonant. the love story was actually pretty cool and not annoying. I was impressed with how Cashore illustrated her message not just with Katsa's experiences, but with what eventually happens to Po (i.e. it's not all about what you see; there's more to see than what's right in front of you). I didn't mind the unimaginative place names because it gave the book a rather timeless quality. the three powers most on display were very interesting; I particularly liked how the villain's power parallels the power many politicians have over people who just automatically buy their bullshit messages, and who then deliver that fake message to others as if it were actually the truth. I really, really liked how Katsa's antipathy to marriage and having children, and Po's willingness to meet her halfway, were portrayed in a positive light. I am by no means anti-marriage (and neither is this story), but it was such a different sort of message for young adults that was being conveyed here. a girl (or a boy) doesn't actually have to settle down in a traditional way. a relationship does not have to be sanctified by a title to be real; you can connect deeply with someone, love someone, without being married to them. you can be your own person and that includes not being with another person for the rest of your life. you are who you are; being different and having a different kind of relationship and not subscribing to cultural norms that you aren't feeling is perfectly okay. great message... great book! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 28, 2018
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Sep 02, 2018
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Sep 01, 2018
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Hardcover
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41
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| 0007121733
| 9780007121731
| 0007121733
| 3.99
| 828
| 1986
| Nov 06, 2009
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it was amazing
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(1) recently I went on vacation with a guy who is one of my very best friends (was a best man at his wedding!) and his charming wife. one intense even
(1) recently I went on vacation with a guy who is one of my very best friends (was a best man at his wedding!) and his charming wife. one intense evening he let me know that he thinks I'm a real asshole - condescending, mean-spirited, always trying to be clever at the expense of my friends' feelings - and that most of our mutual friends felt the same way: I was someone "people had to deal with". (2) last week saw one of my staff moving on to another program; she had a tear-filled meeting with me where she talked about how much she valued my emotional support during some hard times in her life and how much she was going to miss my kindness; later that night, I had a long conversation with my mom and she ended the call by saying how I was the only person she felt comfortable talking with about spirituality, God, and acceptance. (3) last weekend I had an awesome date: I introduced her to this secret bar in Japantown and I got rambunctious and talked too loud; later on in the street I got into a physical altercation with some drunk jerk, defending her honor as a trans woman (jerk got shoved, then tripped & fell into a gutter, haha); we ended the evening having a wild time back at my place. later she texted me and said that I was probably too crazy for her, but we could keep it casual and see each other in a couple weeks, maybe. it's funny to think on the different sides we all have and the different sides other people see - and yet all those sides are one person. we hold many selves. SOME SPOILERS AHEAD... maybe? this wonderful novel knows the idea of "many selves" is true, even as we may try to ignore that truth. it divides its so-called Trickster into three selves: mind, heart, body. the Mind is clever, entertaining, manipulative, cruel. the Heart is the best self yet sometimes the weakest; he shows his face the least, bullied into a corner by his brothers. and the Body has a kind of charisma, sure, but is also basically an animal, or a human who gets off on animalistic things. one of the many smart things that Margaret Mahy does is have the boy who is the Heart look identical to the boy who is the Body. I think we all know that sometimes we mix those two things up. the Mind looks nothing like them and is clearly top dog. or at least he thinks he is! this is one of those coming of age tales that has a prickly-endearing protagonist who is both isolated and creative, an outsider looking in, sardonic perspective and all. it adds unsettling moments of dark fantasy and horror to its everyday wonders and realities, its sweet and its bitter. for a person like me - and probably a person like you, because you're a reader too - middle daughter Harry was frustrating and also instantly recognizable, relatable, lovable. she lives in her books and her writing and her fantasy version of a world, one that is all her own. she is surrounded by family and yet feels alone, not recognized, put in a box. not an outcast, just different. and so she summons this Trickster, this ghost split into three parts; she summons him - them - unwillingly and unwittingly, in a way that defies logic but with a result that also makes perfect sense. of course she summons an angry-sad, lonely, misunderstood boy. and of course that boy is misunderstood because he is composed of different parts, different selves. people see the wrong sides of him, and of her too. she's misunderstood; he's misunderstood; we're all misunderstood. The Tricksters makes it clear that all of us are many things and all of us will never be fully understood. it makes that lack of understanding sad, even tragic. and it makes it okay. it's what happens to you and me and everyone. and it also makes it clear that, in the end, our best self, our Heart, is the self that counts. it's the one that should win - and in this case, it does. the heart of the novel The Tricksters is a hopeful one, and full of love. the book is perfect. a new favorite! ...more |
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1
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Apr 20, 2018
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May 06, 2018
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Apr 20, 2018
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Paperback
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26
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| 3.44
| 397
| 1939
| Nov 1948
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really liked it
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Faulkner is some kind of author, constructing these gorgeous, intense, lavishly long and winding sentences full of commas and semicolons (my favorite)
Faulkner is some kind of author, constructing these gorgeous, intense, lavishly long and winding sentences full of commas and semicolons (my favorite) and parentheses and interesting adjectives and surprising offhand observations that still give one pause (to think on one's own experiences and how they connect with those offhand observations so casually made yet so often ringing with a certain timeless and often sad truth) and somewhat dismissive bits of characterization (that don't feel so dismissive once one again pauses (although it is hard to pause when the sentence goes on for so long, one could get lost) and thinks over what was just said because Faulkner doesn't seem like the sort of author who just casually dismisses a character; close observation of what he is trying to say is of paramount importance) and a narrative that ebbs and flows, starts and stops; clearly the narrative is not the most important thing in his stories. He is like a talkative lover who wants to talk and talk and talk about their love and their passion and who wants to try all sorts of new things, who wants to take you into their world, surround you, just really take you over; I'm not usually into those kinds of lovers but they and Faulkner can be so overwhelming that my defenses are forced down and I have to do things in a new way, their way and his way, and in the end it's not a bad experience, but it is their experience that I have become a part of; as I said, it's distinctly like being taken over, at least temporarily. Faulkner doesn't make things easy for his readers, he wants them to live in his world and in his mind and so his passion and ease and experimentation with language (including a first for me: parentheticals that cross two paragraphs! I'm not sure I've come across such a thing before, certainly not something I recall from reading Faulkner in the past, in high school, with the fearsome and possibly senile southern belle Mrs. Durham, rest in peace. Ah, Mrs. Durham! A terrible person in many ways, but hearing her lavish praise of Light in August day after day, despite her students' decided lack of interest, made me realize that passion can be expressed for many things, including and perhaps especially for books.) and his desire to immerse his readers in his worlds by challenging them with that - one would almost say - berserkly baroque use of language, that kind of storytelling, vivid and visceral yet loose and casual too, it is like a delicious provocation that a person like me, who likes challenges, certainly cannot resist. Faulkner's style is like the Old Man River of this novella's title: a force to be reckoned with: a flood that just sweeps and pulls everything inside of it, your will be damned. "Old Man" swept me away for a little while, but it was at times a distancing experience as well, characters who made some kind of sense to me but characters that are still unknowable by the end, despite all of the words words words. And despite all of the words words words, these characters barely talk! Everyone locked in their stony worlds, their barred cells where they follow their own rules and things like empathy and kindness are never given, man that journey down the river, the people our convict and our pregnant lady come across, the lack of compassion, I could barely understand it: why can't the people in "Old Man" and why can't people in general just show some goddamned mercy? I didn't understand it until in one terrible flood of understanding I did understand it: I'm like those people too, especially that trio on the boat who refuse to shelter our convict and our pregnant lady, clearly in dire straits and out in terrible, life-endangering weather, they showed compassion in their own way by giving some food but they didn't take in our convict and our pregnant lady on the verge of giving birth; just as I didn't take that poor homeless guy and his cat on a leash huddled in a doorway in either, not when I see them in the sunlight nor when I saw them last night in the torrential rain and terrible cold while on my way home from the store, all I can do is spare some change and maybe pick up some cat food for him, but the thing is, I could have, there's room in my basement, not the best accommodations but it is outside of the fucking rain and cold, but no, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to walk on and feel sad and help out in a small way that doesn't matter much but I'm not a bad person, not really, and so I realized these people are not "bad people" either, and what does that mean anyway, they are just people who are looking out for themselves and don't want to compromise their world and that's like me and the convict and the pregnant lady too, we all live our own lives and follow the rules of our own worlds, even when we could do otherwise, we do what we know and stick with what we know; and so after all of his adventures and his amazing bravery in protecting our pregnant lady, at the end our convict is back in his jail cell, not much the worse for wear, and he's happy to be back in the box where he feels the most comfortable, where he understands who he is. Just as I'm happy in the box where I'm comfortable. Personally I don't think Faulkner believes in these boxes; well, he respects them in his own way, and he doesn't hold the fact of the box against the person who lives in that box, but I doubt he believes they are necessary to truly living a life. He's too outside of the box to think that way, I think. 9 of 16 in Sixteen Short Novels ...more |
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1
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Jan 16, 2017
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Jan 17, 2017
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Jan 16, 2017
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Paperback
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27
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| B00N1ECQC2
| 4.14
| 323
| Nov 19, 2014
| Nov 19, 2014
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it was amazing
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∞ systems of 8 ∞ ∞ (1) an ode to Watchmen; a deconstruction of Watchmen; a repudiation of Watchmen; a new Watchmen; an original Watchmen - based on the ∞ systems of 8 ∞ ∞ (1) an ode to Watchmen; a deconstruction of Watchmen; a repudiation of Watchmen; a new Watchmen; an original Watchmen - based on the Charlton characters that inspired Watchmen and created old-new Charlton characters that now in turn inspire new-old Watchmen characters; a moebius strip; an ouroboros; a circle. [image] ∞ (2) Grant Morrison versus Alan Moore? all things move outward and then back inward versus all things inevitably move downward? open systems versus fixed systems? light versus dark, colors versus void? white dwarf versus black hole? are Morrison and Moore enemies? or are they different sides of the same coin? but neither coins nor colors matter in the end: I've learned from them both. [image] ∞ (3) I read the comic from start to finish. then I read it from finish to start. then I picked and chose and read it as I saw fit. I followed one narrative into another, doubling back, rereading. I turned the page upside down and sideways. I made it what I wanted it to be. it was a puzzle and then a story and then a puzzle again. a mystery box full of different things that changed depending on how I opened it. [image] ∞ (4) (view spoiler)[ (view spoiler)[ (view spoiler)[ (view spoiler)[ (view spoiler)[ (view spoiler)[ (view spoiler)[ (view spoiler)[Jonny wrote on November 19, 2014 at 2:59 PM that "I have been waiting my whole life to read this comic" and his comment pretty much sums up my feelings as well. (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] [image] ∞ (5) interesting articles on this comic: 1. http://comicbook.com/2014/11/19/pax-a... 2. http://www.avclub.com/article/morriso... 3. http://comicbook.com/2014/11/25/pax-a... 4. http://www.cbr.com/exploring-morrison... 5. http://www.multiversitycomics.com/ann... 6. http://rikdad.blogspot.com/2014/11/mu... 7. http://comicsalliance.com/multiversit... and a guide to Charlton comic characters: 8. http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/c/... [image] ∞ (6) Violence begets violence and is not the path to change. this is Morrison's thesis in Pax Americana. it has always been his thesis. and yet Morrison loves to display violent tableaux. the ripping apart of bodies and sprays of blood and beloved characters killed horribly, in full color, for hungry eyes to devour. but he despises violence! he sees it as a form of entropy: a way to not make things happen that should happen. alas, Morrison is a hypocrite, as is the rest of the world including me and you and everyone we know. [image] ∞ (7) :Morrison positions Marvel comics as the death of comics, as a symptom of the world dying. :in this Multiversity, the Marvel worlds must be destroyed first. :Morrison has always been a DC Silver Age kind of guy, that age is his golden age. :the purity, the fellowship, the doing of good for no other reason than to do good. :the classic icons... the trinity of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman... and Green Lantern too, his past and future selves. :Pax Americana has been misinterpreted as ending in darkness and pessimism. :Captain Adam shall return! :no matter how bleak its story and the world itself may get, Pax Americana does not believe in fixed systems and closed circles: his systems and his circles are always open. [image] ∞ (8) a circle. an ouroboros. a moebius strip. old/new Watchmen characters inspired by new/old Charlton characters that are the Watchmen characters that were once Charlton characters - the orginal Watchmen. a new Watchmen. a repudiation of Watchmen. a deconstruction of Watchmen. an ode to Watchmen. [image] ∞ an infinity of 8 ∞ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Oct 17, 2016
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Kindle Edition
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4
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| 3.61
| 159,564
| May 1938
| Dec 28, 2004
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it was ok
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a long day at work with a lot of that work left unfinished + happy hour drinks with colleagues, no they're more than that, with friends + I have to get a long day at work with a lot of that work left unfinished + happy hour drinks with colleagues, no they're more than that, with friends + I have to get around to reviewing a book by mutterfookin' AYN RAND of all things = DRUNK ЯEVIEW #? so I've been on a hiring spree lately, just hiring people left and right because yay my work is actually getting multiple contracts and that means we can actually hire people instead of everyone doing two jobs per usual nonprofit social services type staffing patterns, so anyway I hired this one young lady who is clearly super smart and super organized and super perfect for the job I hired her for, good job mark, yet again, but she is 21 and so I wonder sometimes if her big brain is the tail wagging the 21 year old, who is very, very much 21 years of age, or at least what I remember of myself when I was 21. namely, emotional. and critical. and all about RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW. still, I'm pleased with the hire, she's great, I love her. and what does everything I just wrote even mean? in the context of this book? i dunno but it sorta made sense to me as I wrote it. anyway, she somehow found out that I am a quote unquote Reader, and so she loaned me one of her favorite books. namely, this book. Anthem. my reaction was decidedly undecided when she mentioned this was one of her favorites. I hate everything I know about Ayn Rand. I am the sort of ass who, way back when i was 21 and in college, actually broke up with a lady I was dating because it was clear that all of the Ayn Rand she was reading was influencing her, she was quoting Ayn Rand for crissakes, anyway it was too much because Ayn Rand's ME ME ME style of libertarian philosofuckery just drives me up the wall and I can't have that in someone I'm dating. so she turned around and started dating my roommate, so someone got that last laugh there and it wasn't mark monday. so my new staffer loaned me this book and i was all UH UH BUT AYN RAND SUCKS ARE YOU SERIOUS?? and she was all OH MY GOD JUST FUCKING TRY IT. so i did! if you are one of the unwashed masses who doesn't know what Ayn Rand is all about, and God bless you if you are, here are some things about her (that I despise): - totally against all forms of socialism because to Rand, socialism = the death of the individual - the most important thing about this curious concept called "Self" is "Ego". Rand worships at the altar of EGO. per Rand, if you aren't your own #1, you may as well be dead. there are aspects of that mentality that I totally get and support, but Rand carries this to the point where concepts like "altruism" are inherently corrupt to her. an altruistic person per Rand is pretty much the definition of a total loser - you are the captain of your own ship; if your ship carries important supplies that could help other people, who gives a fuck, fuck them; your ship needs to sail alone unless people are happy to sail under your personal captaincy. e.g. if you are a brilliant architect who designs a brilliant housing complex and then finds out that that your design is being used for public housing, God forbid, then you are fully entitled to blow up said brilliant housing complex because it is being used for the public good rather than for what you intended. YOUR PERSONAL DREAMS ÜBER ALLES! which reminds me: one of my favorite films is King Vidor's insane adaptation of Rand's novel The Fountainhead, where what I just mentioned is the central struggle of the film (and I assume the novel). this over the top thing of beauty features a berserk plotline, berserk characters, a brilliant housing complex being blown up because God fucking forbid it may be used for public housing, and an incredible scene where architect Gary Cooper is drilling something and neurotic Patricia Neal is watching him drill and gets so worked up she uncontrollably starts beating the literal horse she rode in on, and then rides off, in a Randian heat over the studly I Am My Own Man-ishness of the Gary Cooper character. she gets so hot & bothered she actually delivers a smart slash of her riding crop before riding off. hot stuff! [image] [image] [image] but back to this book, finally actual review: I was surprised at how much I liked it, at first. it is one of those dystopic post-apocalyptic books where we are experiencing the day-to-day life of some poor zombie sap who is slowly realizing that he is living in a world of sad automatons and he is one of the few who gets how pathetic his life is. because everyone is supposed to be like everyone else, and he is an actual someone. as always, this is an automatically enjoyable narrative to live in because who doesn't think that way, at certain points in their lives (or at certain points in their day, cough) the style and the prose itself impressed me. Rand is one of those surprising writers whose prose is stripped-down, clean, and neat while also being oddly poetic: phrases and sentences that are child-like, eager, but also full of longing and melancholy. she's a fully-formed writer as of Anthem, surprisingly only her second novel. even more impressive was her replacement of the word "I" with the word "We" which functioned as an implicit criticism of the communist mindset while giving the storytelling itself an excitingly declamatory feel. on a stylistic level, Anthem is a genuine pleasure to read. oh I just got a text from a friend that was a link saying "typhoon pork bun woman" and I think I'm just not going to check that out right now. whatever could that mean?? anyway, this was turning out to be a from-leftfield 4 star book for me but then the last two chapters happened. there were hints before that, here and there, but I chose to ignore them. but Ayn Rand is gonna do Ayn Rand, and that's only bad news where women are concerned. per Rand, a person with a dick is a person who needs to make himself into his own man; a person without a dick should probably just follow and promise obedience to said dick. THAT IS FUCKING DISAPPOINTING. but I suppose not surprising. and yet I am surprised! I'm always surprised when a woman is all about freedom and rugged individuality and notgivingaflyingfuckeroo about what society says... but for men only! not for the womenfolk! apparently women should just support their man, they are incapable of forging their own hard-won individuality because EMOTIONS. I wish this was a unique perspective but God knows I have come across it many times, in literature and ugh in real life too. my own experience of my own uh experiences but also of my male friends is that I, and they, are all super fucking emotional. this is not just a female trait! argh. but more to the point: the sole female in Anthem shows her worth by declaring her obedience to her ruggedly individualistic, freedom-living man. that's just fucking gross and I don't get it. self-hate much? so anyway, looks like Survivor is on so time for me to end this review. also feels like I am going to have an interesting time reporting my findings to the person who loaned me this book. wish me luck! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 23, 2016
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Sep 24, 2016
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Sep 23, 2016
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Paperback
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5
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| 067973452X
| 9780679734529
| 067973452X
| 4.17
| 180,837
| 1864
| Sep 1994
|
did not like it
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so I came across this guy at a party that I had known in college, many years ago. I remembered him clearly: that brilliant, pretentious guy with his s
so I came across this guy at a party that I had known in college, many years ago. I remembered him clearly: that brilliant, pretentious guy with his stories and his sarcasm and his nihilism. our classmates mocked him and so did I, but I enjoyed him too. he was a funny fellow, entirely self-absorbed, smart and well-read and amusingly melodramatic in his comments about the world and his life; he wore his pathos blatantly, like some kind of robe or badge or shield. I always thought that was brave of him, that naked vulnerability so openly displayed. and here he was, many years later, pretty much the same guy except the years had not been so kind to him. we struck up a conversation and talked about the old days. he asked if I wanted to leave the party and go back to his place, do some drugs; I agreed. his place was a dump but my place is little better (just cleaner). he had piles of books stacked everywhere (mine are kept neatly, in bookshelves). the place had a goaty smell, and a musty one too, smelling like dust and old food and socks and sweat and semen (I keep my windows wide open all the time to avoid those scents). we sat on his ratty couch, side by side, and began to do line after line. he talked and talked and talked. it was amusing at first; his spiteful and malicious commentary made me smile. such an odd fellow, so energetic in his negative way, and yet surprisingly self-aware. he talked about how low he was, but that at least he recognized what he was, unlike everyone else, how he was such a worm, an insect, really that's how he described himself, his life so meaningless and his job so mundane and the only things he gained pleasure from were books, people were nothing to him, he was nothing to himself. at one point I asked him: but what do you do with your time besides reading? he sneered and said not a lot, he's online a lot, he likes the anonymity, the ability to speak his mind and tell people exactly what he thinks about them and their world views and their fake happiness and their stupid families and their stupid beliefs and opinions and their stupid way of ignoring how shitty everything really is, they live their fake lives just pretending they are happy, how we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less, we are so divorced from it that we immediately feel a sort of loathing for actual "real life," and so cannot even stand to be reminded of it, at least he knows the real score, at least he knows how the world works even as he rejects it. he opened up his laptop to show me some of his favorite posts and I have to admit that they were sort of funny. he had a way with words for sure. he also had an enviable collection of porn on his laptop and we enjoyed that for a while, doing more lines and laughing about all of the stupid whores in the world and weren't they just pathetic and wasn't everyone just pathetic. we stripped down to our boxers because the room was stifling and a person can feel pretty hot when they are doing a lot of drugs and watching a lot of porn. at some point I passed out to the sound of his miserable ricocheting laughter, like sad little toy gun bullets popping pitifully. I woke up early; the sun wasn't even out. I had fallen asleep on his couch sitting up and he had fallen asleep sideways: two things creating one perpendicular shape. I noticed a part of his leg touching my own leg; his naked flesh touching my own bare skin. I looked at that connection and recoiled, appalled. I jumped up from the couch and he moaned fitfully in his sleep, like a child or someone being tortured. I grabbed his laptop and smashed it into his head, again and again, making a red pulp. still feeling out of sorts, I went to his bathroom to shower. out of the showerhead poured mud, all over me. I bathed in the mud like it was water, rubbing it all over my face and body until I couldn't see any more of me. LOL what a night! 7 of 16 in Sixteen Short Novels ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 12, 2016
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Mar 13, 2016
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Mar 12, 2016
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Paperback
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22
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| unknown
| 4.23
| 767
| 2015
| 2015
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liked it
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my stats say I've read 45 books this year. unfortunately my stats lie because I often don't list when I've read a book. I wonder why I've done that an
my stats say I've read 45 books this year. unfortunately my stats lie because I often don't list when I've read a book. I wonder why I've done that and I need to remember not to do that in the future! the actual number was probably upwards of 100 books. 2015 was memorable to me in that I found myself with a lot of relaxing lackadaisical leisure time, and what better way to fill that time than with reading books (and playing with my cat and and buying furniture and napping in the park and cooking delicious meals because who wants to stay thin forever). 2016 promises to be a lot more intense. I'm excited about that but less books will be read. *regretful sigh* the majority of books I read in 2015 were 3 stars books. but that's nothing new. for me at least, a 3 star book is a good or at least interesting book. a book that I liked. I give 4 stars to books that particularly impressed me with their prose, ideas, and/or emotional resonance. the jealously sought-for 5th star is reserved for books I'd add to my list of Favorite Books. I'm very stingy with that 5th star. all of my 5 star books except one were from genre novels or at least genre-related: the obscure horrortime of Dark Entries by Robert Aickman the unstable narratives of Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges the futuristik world of Life During Wartime by Lucius Shephard the classic kidworld of The Garden Behind The Moon by Howard Pyle the exception, an historical novel and political treatise and burning gay "romance": As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann I did a survey of three of my favorite genre authors: Jack Vance, Robert Silverberg, and Tanith Lee Vance and Silverberg had one 5 star book apiece: Jack Vance's wonderfully rambling and lusciously written Night Lamp Robert Silverberg's tightly-paced and multi-leveled The Man in the Maze Silverberg's The World Inside was also pretty compelling. I guess it was too sexed-up for some. there is no such thing as "too sexed-up" for me. no 5 star books for Tanith Lee this year, but a couple really strong 4 stars: Kill the Dead ... ghost hunters! Sabella ... moody vampires in the far future! as far as more literary or mainstream novels go, only two hit the 4 star point: Eleanor Catton's lauded The Luminaries would have been a 5 star book for me, but I found the fates and personalities of its two Asian characters to be personally disagreeable. but then I am personally Asian, so I reserve the right to get pissy about such things. I imagine it will be bumped up to 5 stars upon re-reading it. I'm sure Catton really cares and is closely tracking such things. I know she is dying to join my exclusive 5 Star Club! Richard Price's Ladies' Man was beautifully real, sweet, toxic, depressing, and life-affirming. most of my 4 stars were given to genre novels (but then I mainly read genre novels, so no shocker there): Red Rising by Pierce Brown Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson Bird Box by Josh Malerman Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Revenants by Daniel Mills The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynn Jones the most surprising and bizarre 4 star novel read in 2015: Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups by Robert Devereaux revisited a couple favorites: the 5 star At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft the 4 star The Willows by Algernon Blackwood I'm a queer so I like to do my due diligence by reading my fair share of queer novels. the best by far was the 5-star As Meat Loves Salt. but there were a couple that stood out because I was surprised at how obscure they were, at least in terms of number of Goodreads reviews. both were autobiographical and experimental in nature: filmmaker Derek Jarman's Dancing Ledge and fellow San Francisco resident Kevin Killian's Bedrooms Have Windows otherwise, my 2015 reading list did not have much that was memorable as far as queertime goes. I'm into obscure things and so I also like to do my due diligence by unearthing various obscurities. finding buried treasure should be everyone's pasttime. especially good: the 4 star Lightfall by Paul Monette the absolutely amazing Valencourt Press brought me three delights: The Feast of Bacchus by Ernest George Henham Astonishment!!! by Francis Lathom The Garden at 19 by Edgar Jepson I have no idea where I originally bought this pulpy paperback: Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Hunt Collins I heard this comic was bonkers and hey it sure was: Void Indigo by Steve Gerber I kept my nerd credibility intact by reading my fair share of comics. sadly the only 5 star was a re-read: Absolute Top 10 by Alan Moore. I love Kurt Busiek's Astro City series and have been drawing out the experience for years. 2015's entry was the 4 star Astro City, Vol. 5: Local Heroes. been following Garth Ennis for a bit in two of his series, Crossed and The Boys. haven't read anything amazing yet but both series still interest me. I guess I favor crass brutality and fucked-up sexuality. two of my least favorite books in 2015 were by J. Michael Straczynski: Bullet Points and The Twelve. can't believe I once thought he would turn out to be a favorite. two other notable 1 star books were Young Adult novels: the laughable and vaguely offensive We Were Liars by E. Lockhart the laughable and genuinely offensive No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale both books were controversial but also inexplicably popular with many people outside of Goodreads. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how low the bar can be set. and for no extra charge, I will also throw in my new least favorite reviewer: that one youtuber. ugh! he narrowly beat out that one reviewer who gets off on hating everything and that other reviewer who gets off on everything. congrats _____, you were the cringiest of the cringey! I certainly don't want to end this on a sour, mean note because I am above all things a cheerful, sweet, kindly, and very classy fellow. so I'd like to mention all the wonderful hours I've spent reading Sixteen Short Novels edited by Wilfred Sheed. I'm far from finished, but so far I've read a bunch of great novellas: The Lesson of the Master Henry James The Fall by Albert Camus My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather Youth by Joseph Conrad The Old Maid by Edith Wharton Andrea by John O'Hara Mario and the Magician by Thomas Mann. excellent collection! future goals: - survey some romance novels - read more Joyce Carol Oates, Colin Macinnes, E.F. Benson, Michael Cisco, Manly Wade Wellman - re-read Paul Scott's Jewel in the Crown novels - survey some Wonder Woman comics - read more books from Centipede Press and Valancourt Books - survey some Philip K. Dick, E.C. Tubb, Marion Zimmer Bradley, K.W. Jeter, Moorcock, Poul Anderson - finish some of these damn series because I'm not going to live forever - read more mystery novels, especially classic ones. or in the classic style - continue reading collections by Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Aickman - spend much of September reading Jack Vance while on vacation because that was awesome in 2015 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Jan 14, 2016
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18
| 
| 0312566522
| 9780312566524
| 0312566522
| 3.51
| 726
| 1978
| Jun 21, 2011
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really liked it
|
MONDAY It's circa 1978 and Kenny isn't sure of much except that he has killer washboard abs and a big dick and he needs sex on the regular. He loves hi MONDAY It's circa 1978 and Kenny isn't sure of much except that he has killer washboard abs and a big dick and he needs sex on the regular. He loves his girlfriend La Donna or maybe it's "loves" because he isn't sure about a lot of things except he's not satisfied. Not with his live-in girlfriend, not with his job, not with life. Ever hear of anomie, Kenny, especially the free-floating kind, the kind with no easy answers? There, I've diagnosed you. So what does Kenny need? At this point I think he needs a bj. TUESDAY It's amateur night and it's time for La Donna to shine on stage. Kenny is a supportive boyfriend in his own way, meaning he tries, meaning he at least tries being supportive in his head but that support doesn't come out of his mouth in a really believable way, meaning he's not really that supportive of a boyfriend. Sorry, Kenny - but I will give you points for good intentions. The author Richard Price gets right up in Kenny's head and it's amazing to see because Kenny is just about as alive as anyone I know. Price knows some things about the way people think and talk. He also knows that people are people and maybe it's just due to the time period but maybe it's not just that, but Kenny uses words like "nigger" and "faggot" on the regular and readers will just have to get used to it. That's Kenny and he may be harmless, at least I think he is, but I know that some readers will just loathe him right off the bat because of the way he talks and thinks. Not me though. He's just another human being trying to get by with a modicum of self-respect and satisfaction in life. So what does Kenny need? At this point I think he just needs someone to take the time to understand him. Despite the fact that he barely understands himself. WEDNESDAY Kenny finds himself footloose and fancy free, well as much as an angsty person like Kenny could ever be footloose and fancy free. He accidentally meets up with some childhood friends and at first it's really great and then it's really not and then it becomes all about living in the past and resenting the present and resenting the people who come into our lives and inadvertently make us feel like our life is all about going through the motions. All those complicated emotions that Kenny can barely process. So what does Kenny need? At this point I think he needs some real friends. THURSDAY His old childhood friend Donny from yesterday calls him up and suddenly morose, angsty, I-don't-know-what-I'm-upset-about-but-I'm-fucking-upset Kenny is stoked because yes! he has a friend! and they have plans tonight! It's awfully endearing and the whole book is awfully endearing in its mopey, angry, forlorn, super real way. But it all goes shitward because sometimes smoking pot when you are in the middle of some kind of existential crisis means despite having company over and chicken in the oven, you may just trip out in a bad way about how fucked you are feeling and you don't even know why so you and your friend just sorta pass out and then there's no dinner and the big night was a small, sad night and you feel like shit and you don't even know why. Poor guy(s)! So what does Kenny need? At this point I think Kenny not only needs to get in touch with his emotions in a real way, he needs someone to listen to him without judgment. Maybe therapy? FRIDAY It's Friday and Kenny hates his job. He's a 30 year old guy who is a door-to-door salesman and even though that may mean he could get lucky with the ladies, that old fantasy (but probably not because there's a reason they are called "fantasies"), he still hates it. I'd hate it too. Kenny went to college and dropped out. He was in a frat at college but he dropped out. He was in the Reserves but the military is not for him. He was going to get married a while back but he made sure that didn't happen. He likes to read and so he thinks that means he could be a teacher but does he really read all that much and does he even have the skill set to be a teacher? Richard Price doesn't know and neither does Kenny and neither do I. Kenny feels he has one real skill in life and that skill is "making a move" but Kenny and Richard Price and I all know that his version of making a move is bailing on a situation for some reason or another. But that's neither here nor there and other cliches. Kenny hates his job and even more than that, he hates not having sex on the regular especially because he is a not-bad-looking guy with killer abs and a big dick, or at least that's his perspective. So what does Kenny need? At this point I think Kenny needs a new job and he definitely needs to get laid. There's too much pressure building up and guys needs sex. Well, who doesn't. SATURDAY Kenny realizes he really needs more sex even though he just had some last night and it wasn't with his girlfriend. So he goes to see a whore and gets some more sex. Kenny is still unsatisfied. Poor Kenny? Yes, poor Kenny. I feel for the guy. Sometimes we don't know what is specifically driving us up the wall, maybe it's the job or the girlfriend or the hornininess or the lack of real friends but probably it's all of the above and so there's no perfect fix to that problem of having an imperfect life. Richard Price knows that and so do I and I sure wish Kenny knew that too. Kenny and Donny find themselves on Christopher Street and then they find themselves going to a bunch of different gay bars because reasons, and Kenny is completely uncomfortable about being around so many faggots and yet he's surprisingly not homophobic, just nervous and horny, and let me tell you, as a queer it was a real relief to know that Kenny is not a hateful guy, he's not going to judge me, he's just confused and horny like 9 out of 10 guys his age or any age. So what does Kenny need? At this point I think Kenny needs to have a real heart-to-heart with his girlfriend, the kind of talk that is truly open and honest and emotionally naked and almost impossible for 9 out of 10 guys to have who are his age, or any age. SUNDAY If "angst" had a name it would be "Kenny" but at least he does the right thing and I'm proud of him. It was hard and he almost talked himself out of it but he did it. Good for you, Kenny. Small steps baby, small steps. And then Donny calls and he realizes yes! he has an actual friend! People need friends, it's a human requirement. The novel is minor note and full of free floating anxiety and angst and anomie but it's a minor note that strikes the human chord if you know what I mean. Minor note in the best sort of way, the real way, a book about a real person with real problems and I see myself and every guy I know in Kenny and I want things to end on a hopeful note because there's hope in life, it's a real thing. So what does Kenny need? How the fuck should I know, what does anyone need, you can't put a finger on it and you can't say ___ = your happiness, right there is the secret recipe, just follow the instructions and you'll be perfectly happy. Who's perfectly happy anyway? That's not life. Still... c'mon mark, try to help this dude out, what does Kenny need? I dunno. Maybe he needs a hug. I mean, who doesn't? I sure do. Not right now but you know, sometimes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 10, 2015
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Nov 20, 2015
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Nov 10, 2015
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Paperback
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23
| 
| 1857151666
| 9781857151664
| 1857151666
| 4.41
| 71,029
| 1944
| May 20, 1993
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it was amazing
|
Borges looked inside the swirling mind of man and made a maze of it. A glorious maze! The maze that is Ficciones is a maze built of mazes, one opening
Borges looked inside the swirling mind of man and made a maze of it. A glorious maze! The maze that is Ficciones is a maze built of mazes, one opening unto another, circling around and looping back, an infinity of mazes, small as the smallest of small minds, large as the universe can be imagined. Its architecture is delicate and refined; the wry wit of its creator is apparent in every twist and turn. Borges' maze gently mocks yet empathizes with the self-important, the self-absorbed, and the self-denying. He understands the foibles of man and his maze offers diverse commentaries on such things. But there are darker things lurking beneath that amiable surface; Ficciones is more than an academician's cleverly constructed playground. Beware the prickly thorns of this maze! There is anger there, under the charm and the playful games; anger at the systems of man and the futility of certain behaviors, at the machinery of government. There is sadness there too, at the thought of those who would treat such mazes as homes, at the machinations of fate. Like every writer, he measured the virtues of other writers by their performance, and asked that they measure him by what he conjectured or planned.An ironic dig, but that phrase is more than a shot fired. Borges is fascinated by the concept that if something has been thought about, has acquired meaning through that contemplation, then that something has become real. Thought creates its own reality, and reality is composed of varied systems of being and behavior; thought becomes the way that reality is interpreted - and therefore enacted. Ficciones tells stories about stories: each story is about the perspective of mankind, the symbols this species clings to, the metaphors they attempt to turn into living, breathing reality. Ficciones is an imaginarium; it is a weird and haunted carnival of games and sideshows come to life. It is a dazzling display of comic, sometimes cosmic gems... and each gem includes a seam of tragedy, fractures that can sometimes be seen on the surface but are most often buried within its heart. Oh the mysterious fallibility and hypocrisy of the human kind! Their failures and their attempts to transcend their fates! The mazes and fictions that they create - and then proceed to live in! each story title is a link to something that that story made me think about... Part One: THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote discard the download The Circular Ruins The Babylon Lottery An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain The Library of Babel The Garden of Forking Paths Part Two: ARTIFICES Funes, the Memorious The Form of the Sword Theme of the Traitor and Hero Death and the Compass The Secret Miracle Three Versions of Judas The End The Sect of the Phoenix The South ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 08, 2015
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not set
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Sep 08, 2015
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Hardcover
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28
| 
| 0785123520
| 9780785123521
| 0785123520
| 3.30
| 56
| Jan 03, 2006
| Jan 01, 2006
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it was ok
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to the tune of Madonna’s “Lucky Star”: He must have a Lucky Star! ‘Cause his brand shines red like an abattoir He just thinks of chicks and he starts to to the tune of Madonna’s “Lucky Star”: He must have a Lucky Star! ‘Cause his brand shines red like an abattoir He just thinks of chicks and he starts to glow The world needs his light But he just lays low… [Chorus:] Starlight, starbright – he can’t see your plight! Starlight, [starbright] – can’t make his own life right! Starlight, starbright – he won’t see your plight! He must be a Lucky Star ‘Cause there’s nothing from which he can’t fly far Want to slap skins – just come on by In a normal world he’s a normal guy [Chorus] Don’t ask any favors, he’ll just take flight ‘Cause you know no one can make everything all right He may be a Lucky Star But you’re the luckier by far ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 13, 2015
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Jul 14, 2015
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Jul 13, 2015
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Paperback
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21
| 
| 0812974417
| 9780812974416
| 0812974417
| 3.80
| 56,990
| 1931
| Jun 14, 2005
|
it was amazing
|
A TRAGIC HOMECOMING And so we slept for a million millennia, on the edge of our great city. So close and yet so far! Why were we outside of our fair ci A TRAGIC HOMECOMING And so we slept for a million millennia, on the edge of our great city. So close and yet so far! Why were we outside of our fair city, our families and companions mere steps away? The reasons are lost in time. And as we slumbered, our tropical paradise became a land of neverending winter, a polar graveyard. [image] We were woken, those of us who still lived. Four lived and four were lost. We woke in confusion and terror, our tropic city gone, the snow and wind howling around us. Strange bipedal things cried out and lay their hands upon us, intent on experimentation, their four-legged companions barking and savage... we slew them all in our panic. Odd creatures, these bipedal explorers. Were they the new masters of this world? Were they our peers? We, the Elder Race, have few of those. [image] We took some of their equipment, and a body each of the bipeds and their companions for further study. We buried our dead and then made haste back to our city, to see what changes a million millennia had wrought. After our leave-taking, new explorers arrived. They discovered our city. [image] [image] We returned to our home. It had became an empty palace of the dead. Where were our fellows? Where were our servants, the creatures we called Shoggoths? [image] Only our loyal companions remained in this terrible empty city. They squawked their excitement at our return. A million millennia is a long time! But they could tell us nothing of what had become of our world. [image] [image] And as we explored our ruins, so the new explorers explored as well. [image] [image] Overcome with despair, we journeyed to a refuge that had been built by our kind, a city constructed within a subterranean sea. We followed our tunnels down. And there we found not our sought-for homecoming... but another necropolis. And so we found our doom. Shoggoths! Traitorous servants! As they had risen up against our kind in ages past, they had rebelled again - but this time they had won. They had destroyed our undersea refuge and all of our kind. And as we gazed upon our shattered city within the dark waters beneath the earth, the Shoggoths rose once more... and slew the last of us. 'Twas indeed a tragic homecoming. We that remained of the Elder Race, lost out of time, born again into a world so strange, and then so quickly slain. The biped explorers had their own meeting with our rebel servants. The meeting did not go well. [image] And yet, unlike us, they managed to escape the Shoggoths, and fled our city. In their flight, did they pass near that fearsome land next to ours, beyond our mountains? Ancient Kadath. A place out of time, home to the Old Ones. Terrible Kadath! We had lived in Kadath's shadow, in the shadow of those old slumbering gods, so long ago. What did the explorers glimpse in their flight near Kadath? Were we not the only beings the explorers had woken? [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 21, 2015
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May 23, 2015
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May 21, 2015
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Paperback
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16
| 
| 0316074314
| 9780316074315
| 0316074314
| 3.75
| 82,574
| Aug 24, 2013
| Oct 15, 2013
|
really liked it
|
Aries the Ram thrusts forward, discarding the past except as a symbol of what has been overcome. Fearsome, single-minded Aries! This book does not fal
Aries the Ram thrusts forward, discarding the past except as a symbol of what has been overcome. Fearsome, single-minded Aries! This book does not fall under the sign of Aries; it is invested in the past, it is enchanted by it. The past is such an important part of the novel that the narrative continues after its climactic resolution with a series of escalating chapters that take the reader back to where it all began. The Luminaries' characters live under the shadow of their own pasts, they judge others by their past actions as well. Aries is well-represented by Te Rau Tauwhare, a Maori greenstone hunter. Taurus the Bull is a sign of love, in all of its strength and awkwardness, its earthiness and purity. Obstinate, strong-willed Taurus! This book has a strong Taurean influence: it has at its heart a passionate and moving story of star-crossed lovers, determined to persevere, blind to reason - two parts of a whole that yearn to merge. Taurus is represented - poorly - by the aloof banker Charlie Frost. Gemini the Twins, sharp and cutting, a sign of the mind, of the air. Impulsive and restless Gemini! This book has a marked Gemini influence in its clever narrative voice, one often sidelined by description and dialogue yet still distinct, full of wit and sly innuendo. Gemini's influence is even stronger when considering the almost dizzying ingenuity of the book's look-at-me structure and its increasingly cheeky chapter introductions. Gemini is represented by Benjamin Lowenthal, a Jewish newspaper editor and a character in need of richer development. Cancer the Crab moons about in its shell, moody and self-absorbed, yet caring and loyal to the end. Complicated, sensitive Cancer! The Crab has little to do with The Luminaries, except when looking at the novel in general terms. A strong and thick hardcover book, a complicated structure, a soft heart lurking within. Cancer is well-represented by the hotelier Edgar Clinch. Leo the Lion sits back, the very image of self-satisfaction, a magnet to lesser men, a sun that would have the whole universe revolve around it. Confident and surprisingly generous Leo! The heavy-lidded sensuality of the Lion holds court throughout The Luminaries, its beautiful imagery and its rich descriptive prowess openly displayed; well-hung Leo also clearly influenced this book's impressive length. Leo is represented by Dick (lol) Mannering, a goldfields magnate. Virgo the Virgin is the sign of this reviewer. It is the most wonderful sign imaginable: critical yet fair, judgmental but only in the most loving of ways, altruistic, well-read, self-sacrificing, practically perfect in every way, the Mary Poppins of the Zodiac. All must bow to the wonder of Virgo! The Virgin is terribly represented by Quee Long, who is about the opposite of any decent Virgo. For shame, Eleanor Catton, you have betrayed the Zodiac with your libelous portrait of a so-called Virgo! Okay here's the one thing that bothered me about The Luminaries: the way it treated its Asian characters. Perhaps because I'm a hyper-critical half-breed who favors his Asian side, I'm always on the look-out for things to irritate me in the way that Asians are represented. Now I don't think that Catton has an issue with Asians, but it does chafe on a personal level how little they are respected in this novel. I understand the lack of respect coming from other characters, given the time and place. But I resented their actual parts and paths in the narrative - and that's all Eleanor Catton. One Asian is presented as single-minded in the most simple and greedy way possible; another is an opium addict and merchant whose tragic life and grand quest for revenge end in a limp little fizzle, off of the page. I raged (a bit) at the injustice of it all. Libra the Scales is a sign of beauty, and much like Beauty itself, displays both grace and superficiality, charisma and vanity. Lovely, indecisive Libra! Libra's scales are seldom in balance; this sign seeks to make things equal and often fails. And so it is with the author of The Luminaries, a Libra on the cusp of Virgo. Her favorites among the novel's astrological characters are dynamic and richly developed; those less-favored are given mere cameo appearances. But don't look for fairness from a Libra - look for beauty! And there is much beauty within the pages of The Luminaries. Exquisite prose, gorgeous imagery, lovely moments within its lovely love story; the beautiful mind of its author, yearning to be recognized for its brilliance - and rewarded by the 2013 Man Booker Prize. Libra is represented - perfectly - by Harald Nilssen, a commission merchant. Scorpio is the Scorpion, and the Eagle as well. It soars above the earth and lives in its holes. This strange sign is the Investigator of the Zodiac and is also its greatest conundrum - secretive to its core, yet suspicious of secrets in others; dark and unyielding; often cold yet deeply sexual. Mysterious, obsessive Scorpio! The Luminaries is intimately connected to the Scorpion, in its basic nature as a Mystery Novel and in its refusal to solve certain mysteries, to keep them shrouded in ambiguity. The Eagle dislikes having to explain itself. Scorpio is represented by Joseph Pritchard, a chemist and a perfectly executed character who is left almost entirely off of the page. Perhaps Catton feared the perverse potential lurking within him and so curtailed her exploration of his depths. I also felt the Scorpio influence upon this novel's villain, the dark, manipulative, unknowable Francis Carver. Sagittarius the Archer shoots an arrow into the future, his true place; Sagittarius the Centaur gallops quickly, heedless of those too simple and slow to keep his pace. Strong-willed, independent Sagittarius! This sign's influence on The Luminaries is striking: it has no patience for readers of the idiot class. It makes scarce concessions to those longing for explanations or a simple plotline; it will give you the opportunity to come into its world and be surrounded, enveloped... and it will leave you behind if you are unable to keep up. Sagittarius is well-represented by Thomas Balfour, a shipping agent. Capricorn the Sea-Goat: "still waters run deep" was surely coined for this sign, one whose stable and inhibited surface appearance belies the complicated ambitions within. Patient, resourceful Capricorn! A courageous introvert, a fastidious intellectual, virile yet chilly, dignified and aloof and rich with hidden depths. The novel The Luminaries was born under the sign of Capricorn. The novel's birth sign is represented - perfectly - by Aubert Gascoigne, a justice's clerk. Aquarius the Water-bearer abhors restrictions and eschews barriers, seeking the enlightenment beyond, traveling the stars without and within, ever in search of wisdom. Inventive, rebellious Aquarius! A shallow reviewer of the novel would find little influence from the Water-bearer as the book is a carefully constructed puzzle rather than an ingenious invention, a mathematically mapped-out pièce de résistance rather than a spontaneous improvisation. But dig deeper and you shall find the sublime Aquarian ruling an eerie and haunting love story, one full of unexplainable visions and brazen leaps of faith. Aquarius is well-represented by Sook Yongsheng, a Chinese hatter and lover of opium. Pisces the Fish, Pisces the dreamer, the last sign and the oldest. Pisces yearns for escape, in dreams, in drugs, in art, in the dark damp spaces. Elusive Pisces, the sign of self-undoing! I had a Piscean experience when reading this novel. It was my go-to book for a certain period of time, a little bit nearly every morning and every afternoon, for almost 3 months. I escaped into its depths, it was my sweet sweet drug and I fear that I am suffering from withdrawal. This lengthy review was an attempt to live in it again. Alas, now even this review is over. Pisces is represented - rather poorly - by Cowell Devlin, a chaplain. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2014
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Mar 09, 2015
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Dec 20, 2014
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||
40
| 
| 038574126X
| 9780385741262
| 038574126X
| 3.66
| 1,205,504
| May 13, 2014
| May 13, 2014
|
did not like it
|
[image]
well this was all kinds of pointless and also depressing. ugh! the writing is so mannered it is an affectation a studied display of real or pr [image] well this was all kinds of pointless and also depressing. ugh! the writing is so mannered it is an affectation a studied display of real or pretended feeling. the whole book lacks affect; it lacks the real emotion that it so desperately tries to convey in its own affect-less way. the writer has talent sure but here it is squandered. I like the premise, it's enticing; who doesn't want to read about the fragile cloistered lives of insular rich white people who summer on their own private island? makes us not-rich people feel better reading about the miserable rich. I guess? [image] but why go to all that trouble setting up class critique and racial tensions and family drama and dressing it up in fairy tale finery when that will all just be thrown away on a maudlin twist ending with a corny moral message: "Be a little kinder"... ugh! those ideas went nowhere those ideas were rendered pointless because in the end the book is not a scouring brillo pad after all, it's just another soppy wet sponge. rub that sponge on your face it will look like you cried! [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 2015
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Jun 2015
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Nov 18, 2014
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
43
|
| 3.47
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liked it
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Dec 20, 2023
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Oct 15, 2023
|
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36
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| 3.87
|
really liked it
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Jul 03, 2021
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Jun 21, 2021
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35
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| 3.88
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liked it
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Nov 19, 2020
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Nov 12, 2020
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42
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| 4.02
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it was amazing
|
Aug 10, 2020
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Aug 05, 2020
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39
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| 3.92
|
it was ok
|
Aug 08, 2020
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Jul 30, 2020
|
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34
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| 3.96
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 03, 2020
|
Jun 28, 2020
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30
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| 4.50
|
it was amazing
|
Dec 23, 2019
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Dec 01, 2019
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|||||
38
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| 4.07
|
really liked it
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Sep 02, 2018
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Sep 01, 2018
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41
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| 3.99
|
it was amazing
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May 06, 2018
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Apr 20, 2018
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26
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| 3.44
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really liked it
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Jan 17, 2017
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Jan 16, 2017
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27
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| 4.14
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it was amazing
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not set
|
Oct 17, 2016
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4
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| 3.61
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it was ok
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Sep 24, 2016
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Sep 23, 2016
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5
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| 4.17
|
did not like it
|
Mar 13, 2016
|
Mar 12, 2016
|
|||||
22
|
| 4.23
|
liked it
|
not set
|
Jan 14, 2016
|
|||||
18
|
| 3.51
|
really liked it
|
Nov 20, 2015
|
Nov 10, 2015
|
|||||
23
|
| 4.41
|
it was amazing
|
not set
|
Sep 08, 2015
|
|||||
28
|
| 3.30
|
it was ok
|
Jul 14, 2015
|
Jul 13, 2015
|
|||||
21
|
| 3.80
|
it was amazing
|
May 23, 2015
|
May 21, 2015
|
|||||
16
|
| 3.75
|
really liked it
|
Mar 09, 2015
|
Dec 20, 2014
|
|||||
40
|
| 3.66
|
did not like it
|
Jun 2015
|
Nov 18, 2014
|
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