Anna
Lee's prose is really beautiful and poetic. He made the novelty of narration by a collective ‘we' feel natural in the story; having said that though, the narration also felt inconsistent - at times its voice was recanting the story as if it was a folk tale, other times switching to omniscience, always keeping the reader at a distance from the main character. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but the ‘this is what we know of these events' voice vs ‘omniscient voice when convenient' felt a bit too much like slack editorial oversight.
The passivity of the main character is my main problem with the story. It was very hard to see just why other characters felt so much for Fan and wanted to further her despite her passivity. I expected this to be a typical quest narrative, but I'm not sure if this is an ingenious take on it with a message of the futility of trying too hard, or a failure to execute one of the simplest classical narratives in an engaging way (which is pretty had to pull off in a quest narrative! just ask any investigative journalist). Either way it didn't convince me, and large parts of the story felt completely redundant (although the quality of Lee's prose redeems them to some extent).
Very simple yet incredibly moving (though I'm heavily biased towards stories that feature symbolic dogs).
Art A++ as usual.
I'm really glad that I got out of my comfort zone to read this. On the surface it sounded similar to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell which I hated (Regency London, English manners, wizards). Also, dragons, witches, sorcerers and other fantasy staples have not been my usual fare since my Great Fantasy Overload of the late 90s (wherein I ticked off all of LeGuin, Tolkien, Dragonlance and various lesser D&D offshoots... don't judge). Zen Cho's online personality had really charmed me though and I wanted her to have some of my money.
And what a good decision that was! This book is hilarious, impressively written, well paced, entertaining and very, very satisfying (actually, it's downright righteous as hell!).
Read if you're partial to fun & feminism, definitely avoid if you think that white dudes being in charge of everything is the best idea.
This is now my most-highlighted book of fiction. Usually I can pick a definite favourite out of a book of short stories, plus several runners-up. Here I ended up with this:
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/516e5a281cb43d6b014e433b94a31fb9/tumblr_ohgcwl4edo1qe6s13o1_1280.jpg)
Berlin's stories are largely autobiographical, though fictionalised to some degree (or exaggerated, as she herself admits), and there are several third-person stories in this collection that seem to be fully fictional. She's so much stronger in the former though; her own first-person voice creates a character who's a keen observer, kind in her judgement of others, often nostalgic, and always just so recognisably cool. Cooler than any of her contemporaries, which makes it so hard to grasp why it took so long for her to find her audience.
Another distinctive feature of Berlin is her lack of elitism: for most of her life she worked lower-middle-class and working-class jobs, and her strongest stories are set in emergency rooms, clinics and laundromats. It's a good reminder of the perspective that is lost to literature now that almost all published writers teach MFA degree courses.
Really enjoyed this, good old-fashioned thick piece of melodrama. The ending felt a bit rushed though.
The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess
It's a bit annoying that, having pointed out that the purpose of gym equipment is to make money for gyms and that you don't really need it, the author proceeds with a training plan that's full of said equipment... The theory part is solid and busts some common myths, but if you're looking for a dumbbell- and bodyweight-only plan, this isn't it.
Not disappointed — this is absolutely worth all that praise & hype that made me read it in the first place (on top of the fact that Ferrante is not Knausgaard). When it comes to describing the dynamics of female friendship and the sober reality of growing up underprivileged, this is a bottomless well of quotables.
I took a star off for the horrible edition (saccharine cover art + out of line printing that made every page look like a crooked frame on a wall and drove me nuts) and the fact that nothing that surprising actually happens — it's all a bit Anne of Green Gables for adults. I loved Anne of Green Gables though and I'll definitely read the remaining 3 books of the Neapolitan series, but it all feels a bit ‘pleasant escapism without ever being made to think'.
Could've done without all the foreshadowing – it felt unnecessary, the suspense was unbearable enough without it (in a good way). The last 100 pages or so were incredibly stressful. I can't wait to see it on screen.
Loved it. Toews writes with wit and warmth and consistent humour that makes you giggle despite the uber-depressing subject matter. I loved how eloquent the characters were — I kept googling the authors and poems and tunes that they were referencing and added a bunch of books to my to-read list as a result, which always means extra props to the book.
I took a star off for all the parts where characters talked about their dreams — can't deal with this, my eyes immediately glaze over. I have yet to read a book where this is handled well/justified.
This book is completely insane and astonishing. Als is such a brave, unorthodox writer. He does things with syntax I just can't imagine ever doing myself.
Moore's characters seem to be of a narrow social group that I don't find much in common with. These stories are masterfully written though, maybe not so much in structure as in the detail and in the flow of voice.
Pretty basic stuff. I'm not sure why the author intended it for advanced creative writers — it's all fundamentals. It was a good exercise though!
I was so invested in this, and I don't even care about cheerleading. Abbott sure knows how to bring all the noir out of teenage girls.
Just really boring and doesn't present any alternatives to its central idea (which nobody even disputes, I think?). Abandoned halfway.
The longer I sit on it the more I lean towards giving it 5 stars — my only problem with this book, which I found to be engagingly written, structurally interesting in an unaffected, cinematic way, and complex in its treatment of the genre, was the extent of Dustin's delusion which would at times really beggar belief. Then again, I know so many people who are just as easily fooled by ostensible lack of randomness. Psychologists should know better though, right?
Also, the amount of creepy in this book is... wow. The author's been generous with it (saltbae.gif). I wouldn't quite call the book scary, but its horrors are all too relatable. The characters could've been saved from so much trouble if they only talked to each other! But they're human so they can't!! Because communicating is fucking hard. And Chaon is really good at writing familial dysfunction of the common sort, just as good as he is at making you feel the choke of the character who is trying and failing to form a response in a situation where a thoughtful response could immediately turn that character around on his path towards BAD SHIT.
Actually I'm taking a star off because I really wanted to read Jill's therapist's letter in full, I mean COME ON CHAON, YOU CAN'T TEASE US LIKE THAT).
I agree wholeheartedly with this analysis (work is bullshit) and the proposed solution (UBI). The original essay might have been enough for me though.
Could've used some input from economists in the final section about UBI and maybe a bit more solid data in the middle.
Has there ever been an author more brutal than Yates? Yeesh... I'm trying to find something to counter the bleakness of this. I guess the fact that Yates did not take his own life means there's a chance he didn't actually possess some secret knowledge of the ineluctable hopelessness of human life and so we can all calmly proceed, whilst thinking hard about life/choices.
I picked this up at a Heathrow bookstore hoping for a good holiday read and it didn't disappoint! I'm a bit weary of the ‘experimental fiction' format, but this book, with its iphone app, illustrations and browser screenshots, has actually turned out to be surprisingly smooth. All that extra material adds up to a truly immersive experience actually, and if you treat the iphone app as an approximation of google for the world of the book, it turns out all the more believable for it.
There's just so much good stuff here — crime, black magic, romance, loveable characters and loveable villains. It's a solid tome but I passed its halfway point on my short 2.5h flight, so as banal as it sounds, it is a real page-turner. The ending unspools with one twist after another, each trying to reclaim the narrative for a different genre (at some point it gets very meta, which was awesome). It's all tied up neatly at the end though.
It was a hugely satisfying read for which I have only one complaint, and that is: for a novel this cinematic — not only concerned with film making and story telling, but also obviously destined for the big screen — it paints its (obviously token) minority characters with the thickest possible brush. Those parts made me cringe so, so painfully. There's one episode in particular which is the Jar Jar Binks of Night Film, when the protagonists run into a clan of Chinese restaurateurs, then catch a ride with a Jamaican cab driver. None of those characters is given any depth and they all seem to be taken out of conservative comedy, in that instead of amusing you, they leave you annoyed — at the author. If this was supposed to be a statement on the stereotypical treatment of ethnic minorities in films (I really doubt it was), it backfired by taking some depth out of the whole story.
