4YON
"It is in the most surreal situations that a person feels the most present, the closest to reality."
3.5✩/5★
This was my first dive into Ling Ma's work, and while I found her ideas and stories intriguing, her writing style left me with mixed feelings.
Don't get me wrong, I personally think Ma has a unique narrative style, jumping between timelines and fragmented moments, which reminds me of Christopher Nolan's experimentation with time in films. This could be captivating in a novel, but in short stories, it often felt disorienting. Stories like "Yeti Lovemaking," have this the constant jumps of thoughts resulted in a scattered, unfinished feel that I don't really like. At the end of every story, I kept finding myself asking "What did I just read?". However, there were still also some well-written pieces like "Orange," "G," and "Returning," that Ma played around with her ideas pretty neatly.
Despite the inconsistency, I think I had a great time reading this collection. Still, I personally feel like her narrative style might be better suited for longer formats like novels, where the non-linear structure has more space to breathe. Overall, while not every story in "Bliss Montage" landed, the collection's intriguing ideas make me curious to see what Ma does next.
Contains spoilers
The plot can be summarized as follows: What if One Punch Man existed in the world of Harry Potter?
After completing the first season on Netflix (and actually having a good time) , I decided to delve into the manga version of the series to catch up on the rest of the story. In general, it proved to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. While the storyline occasionally leans towards simplicity (even brain-dead at times...) , offering moments of lightheartedness, Mashle is undeniably a captivating and entertaining read for those seeking a fun escape.
"They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats.Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf.Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself."
—This Be The Verse, Philip Larkin
"As I pondered a pronoun change, I began to think of gender less as a scale and more as a landscape. Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home."
“God damn it, there are nice things in the world – and I mean nice things. We're all such morons to get so sidetracked.”
I said it before on my old Goodreads account but I'll say it again,
WHY IS ZOOEY SO FUNNY BRUHHH😭😭 This bastard could just get away with anything with his annoyingly witty takes. Forever in love with the bathroom conversation between him and Bessie. The humour was gold.
"...it's useful to begin this last stage of our journey with a blunt but unexpectedly liberating truth: what you do with your life doesn't matter all that much—and when it comes to how you're using your finite time, the universe absolutely could not care less."
spoiler alert: this book isnt about time management hacks. the fact that oliver burkeman included “time management” in the title is such a click-bait move. but i still think its a good read though. 4.5/5.
3.5/5
reading this was like listening to my dad.
i used to get annoyed every time he told me how i should live and what i should do if i dont want to end up in a certain situation in life. “yes, yes, okay, i know,” i groaned through the conversation, hoping he would eventually move on to something else. but its just weird how now that i realized the things he said has started to become somewhat true, or at least, it makes me feel like he was onto something as im now in my twenties.
but then again, do i have to agree with every thing he said?
no.
do i find his opinions worth thinking about though?
absolutely.
the immeasurable disappointment that i had when i realized this book is not exactly about color theory or how-to guide, but its just a collection of insights about colors- and just as i expected these “essays” (or posts, or short texts, whatever, u name it) to be good, most of them turned out to be either too generic or too short for a book about guidance.
it's been awhile since i got a chance to binge something like this. my brain was on “no thought head empti” mode the entire noon reading this series. i would say it was an okay ride. everything was predictable. boring character development. mary sue, etc, you name it.
however, the art is pretty tho. would not recommend if you're looking for something deep and complex.
Highschool me would have loved these stories. They're packed with meaning and purpose, which is great. However, at times, I just feel like the author was trying to hard to make the story feel “meaningful”, leaving behind messages and such. As a result, some stories came off unnecessarily corny.
The art is amazing tho. No complaints.
"Everyone learns things the hard way at some time or another, and our brains take pictures so the learning stays with us. This is the basis of the saying "That's the lesson you'll never forget." It is a jarring - but efficient and often necessary - way to grow.(...)As we age, we feel less like leaves and more like trees. We have roots that ground us and sturdy trunks that may sway, but don't break, in the wind. The wind that blows by can be more serious. "You're fired!" is much scarier when you have a mortgage. The things we do wrong at work are no longer typos but may be losing a $500,000 account or releasing software that crashes the company website for a day. But older adults - and even twentysomethings who work at it - can be rooted in the confidence that problems can be solved, or at least survived."
