Chris Lee
A fantastic book full of stories becoming one with nature. Sobering tales for the would be adventurer.
Was it scary? That's what makes a good horror novel work and for me, it just wasn't. To say the book is bloated is an understatement. I believe the setups are warranted to a certain extent but the simple story underneath is severely heavy handed. There are points within the first 500 pages that flow along but with every new chapter or time change I found myself scratching my head as to why I was not given more. The ending was satisfactory but you would think after all this buildup I would have cared more about the characters than I ultimately did.
Strange Weather in Tokyo is not your typical boy meets girl story. The short but satisfying tale is filled to the brim with excitement, joy, fun anecdotes, and plenty of heartfelt banter.
The story is a simple one. Tsukiko lives alone and likes to drink. One day at her local bar, she strikes up a conversation with an older gentleman who turns out to be one of her high school teachers from the past. You are a fly on the wall as they go to museums, local markets, bars, and meetups. The conversations are incredibly quirky, and the way the author approaches the age gap is handled incredibly well.
If you love haikus, you will enjoy Hiromi Kawakami's writing style. Here is one of my favorite excerpts: “If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would a plant—feed it, protect it from the elements—you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn't true, then it's best to just let it wither on the vine.”
If you have had a bad day, month, or year and need an emotional pick-me-up, level up your soul with this exciting book.
Wow! What an incredibly deep and moving story about following your passion into the great unknown.
After I finished the novel, I thought of the stories and questions the boy asks the alchemist. Each Q&A session is not only profound in the last act of the book, but I feel like everyone asks the same questions in their own way. The answers the alchemist gave the boy were mostly hyperbole, but in the end, they made you feel like he had overcome a great feat to discover his personal legend.
I feel like this is a book you could definitely re-read and gain more and more from it each time. It is not about the destination, it is about the journey.
This collection of letters was a joy to read. It is a simple premise. The author sourced and compiled a plethora of interesting letters from around the world. Some are heartbreaking, others are funny, a few are grim and dark, and others lift the spirits. I found it exciting to read a few each and every day. As the author notes, the letter is sort of an antique practice these days. While emails and texts push information forward quickly, there is nothing quite like receiving handwritten correspondence.
A big thank you to Helga for recommending this book for Non-Fiction November. It was an absolute blast to read, Mon Ami!
From one scene to the next, I was completely engrossed. It throws you headfirst into the eerie details of a town gone wrong. Where rumors and horror stories are swept under the carpet. It's hard to imagine where it will end up. And just when you think all the pity has been sucked out of your soul, the epilogue hits.
I struggled with this book quite a bit. I wrote a couple of pages from the notes I took, but after reading it, I erased it and started over. It was too much of a rant and, at the end of the day, not constructive criticism. After that, I went about trying to write how I felt about general things in the book or comment on happenings and decisions on face value alone, but I still felt obligated to take impassioned detours. It's tough because I am so incredibly opinionated on the subjects broached in this book, but I would feel more comfortable having a back and forth, long drawn out convo. So, sorry for the rant and the non-review, but it's time to get cracking on the next book.
Powerful, poignant, and introspective. These are just a few words I would use to describe “Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich.
This expertly crafted bit of poetry examines a wide range of dynamic assertiveness, including an advocation for rights, a dynamic look at self-purpose, and anger that is let loose from the bottle. To me, it's a cry for people to listen. A poetical discourse to stand up for a certain belief and showcase it as a guiding light, or to use it as a beacon of love for when you are feeling desperately inadequate or underappreciated.
Excerpt from “Burning Oneself Out”:
“that print, that rock,that sun producing powerful dreamsA word can do thisor, as tonight, the mirror of the fireof my mind, burning as if it could go onburning itself, burning downfeeding on everythingtill there is nothing in lifethat has not fed that fire”
The collection captures a wide range of topics, including gender equality, feminism, love, life affirmations, class, sexuality, race, and so much more.
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4 out of 5 ❖
This book is about a team of climbers who are hired to go to Everest to find someone who was thought to have been lost on an expedition. On paper, I should have really liked this book, but it had quite a few shortcomings I could not overlook.
I'll just touch on some builet points because I really do not have much to say about it.
1. It is extremely detailed and the author has a knack for making you feel like you are part of the team.
2. The climbing portions are fun but have WAY too much exposition. Do we really need 15 pages of each and every hold and strategy for a single climb. I know it supposed to be immersive but to me, it gets a little tedious.
3. The characters were a bit too bland. The surrounding plot was ok, but the interactions were just ordinary.
4. I did have fun looking up some of the history on mountaineering and learning about the gear they used.
5. That ending. Oh, no. Just no. That's all I'll say about that.
Unless you really, really, really (I should put like 4 more reallys) like detailed climbing descriptions with a bit of intrigue, steer clear. Ugh, I just cannot get past how much I did not like the last third of the book.
2024: Onward to part #2 - Re-read commencing!
—————————–
2022: When I finished this book and put it on the shelf, I felt like I was saying goodbye to good friends. The world-building is so vivid and so incredibly demanding on the senses. I felt like I had trudged through the anguish, the heartbreak, the despair, and the thirst for retribution with the main characters. I can say without any hesitancy at all that this is my favorite fantasy book.
OK, no more rants. Onward with the review.
What can I say that has not already been said? I kind of feel like I am late to the party, but I'm glad I showed up.
Book Two is like The Empire Strikes Back. It's the best SW movie by a long shot. It's not even a contest. It takes what we learned in the first and expands upon it in a grandiose fashion. All your favorite characters show up, and they go on an exciting adventure. All the while, you sit there in awe of the spectacle, unable to take your eyes off the screen, or in this case, off the page.
In 1963, a young literature student by the name of Annie Ernaux discovers she is pregnant and decides to seek an abortion. At that time in France, the practice was illegal, so she attempted to find other furtive ways to perform the procedure.
Some four decades later, Ernaux recounts these past moments by piecing together excerpts from her daily journal in a straightforward and brutally honest fashion. It's succinct, eye-opening, and assiduous in description.
Ernaux discusses how some sounds and visuals leave permanent imprints on your mind's eye, influencing how you view the world as you grow older and when you recall them. This is definitely a memoir that will not soon be forgotten.
This book opens with the following message: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th at Little Paddocks at 6.30pm. Friends, please accept this, the only intimation.' Would you be curious enough to accept the invitation to this party that ends with a literal bang? I sure would. In fact, maybe I should pin this invitation to the community activity board during Halloween next year. Muhaha.
First nephew read. It was actually pretty good. The illustrations and story were interesting to say the least. The polar bears are starting an ice cream empire.
What do you get when you assemble a rag-tag group of criminals and miscreants, including a shlock horror film director, a carpenter, an egotistical actor, a driver, an FBI agent, and a con man, to run their own covert con for the government? You might think this would be a setup for comedy gold, but it meanders into B-level sitcom territory.
// FBI Special Agent Kate O'Hare must track down a notorious con-man and use him to help take down an even bigger mark. //
Okay, so this started out pretty well. O'Hare seems like a fun gal with a quirky personality, but she has a penchant for narrowly missing her mark. Her mark is Nick Fox, a con artist who always gets away but does so in the most flamboyant way, all the while flirting with Kate. The overall setup was fun in the beginning, but the observational humor really did not do it for me. Don't get me wrong. I love a good joke, wisecrack, and pun, but when fast food name drops, TV show titles, and references to book plots are your mic-drop moments, I find it more eye-rolling than rolling on the ground with laughter. For example, Kate says the guys that she has dined with the most in the past few years have been Colonel Sanders, Long John Silver, Ronald McDonald, and the Five Guys. I rest my case.
// “The best way to win at a game of chance is to remove chance from the equation.” //
The cat-and-mouse games are supposed to be fun! I had a hard time getting into the espionage moments because the amount of foreshadowing was overwhelming. You could guess exactly what was going to happen around every corner, and I think that it was by design. A quick quip or a throwaway joke does not mask the fact that the setups are just not exciting or plausible in any way, shape, or form. I don't know; everything felt extremely written and surface-level. It had quite a bit of potential. An Ocean's Eleven comedy sounds great, but it just missed the mark in my opinion. I will give it one thing though. The vehicles that were selected to do the cons were exquisite, beautiful, and out of the box. I'm looking at you, 60s-era Jaguar E-type.
// “Sometimes when a plan is right, everything else, all the things you can't control, falls into place just the way it should.” //
I'm king of struggling to think of anything else. It was just ok; would I recommend it? Probably not, but if the comedic parts worked for you, then you might like it. It just did not work for me.
──∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗──Extra
Every spooky season I tend to fit in a classic Steven King novel. This year's selection was Carrie.
Did I have as much fun as the first two? No, but it was still an enjoyable experience.
I think it's fair to say that this one had much less world building and put the focus on characters that were not all that interesting IMO. Nobody had the punch of the first two, nor was the plot engaging. I wish the book would have wrapped up with the gate earlier on and put more effort into the dream sequences. It's more fun when the Roci is off completing missions and getting into trouble offworld. The stakes are kind of confusing to me because the threat is not all that present. It sounds like it's all negative, but there were some fun moments. Everything involving the Melba character was fun, especially when it explained a bit of the science on board the Behemoth.
—DNF around 40%—
It has finally happened. My first DNF. If you know me, I usually trudge through to finish a book, but this was just painstakingly mediocre. It was a gift from a cousin last Christmas that I promised I would read this year. With the new-year clock ticking away, I went into it blind thinking that above all else, perhaps it would be fun.
As you can probably imagine from the cover and the title, there is a metric ton of gratuitous sex in the book, but the depictions seem sexless, almost like it was written by an AI. Oof! You would think this would be where this book would excel, but it never really gets it right.
– Dnf around the 35% mark. –
For now, I think I will just put this on the back burner and circle back around to it later on. I thoroughly enjoyed the Bloodsworn series thus far, but I just have a lack of investment in this. I enjoy the writing and setting, but chapter after chapter, I feel my attention wavering. I want to like it, but I do not want to force it either. Perhaps I am just not in the mood at the moment.
The book opens like a dream. A fever dream built around a main character who has experienced something tragic. A young woman named Belle takes a plane from Canada to California after she finds out her mother passed away under questionable circumstances. She must meet with the solicitor to talk about her mothers apartment, her dress shop, and the surprising amount of debt that she will be responsible for.
This part of the story is quite clear, but the lines start to blur when Belle thinks back to her childhood and the disparities in parenting between her grandmother and mother. Her mother never wanted Belle to go into her bedroom and peruse her closet. What was in her room that was so secretive and off-limits? Perhaps it was the mirror. The mirror allowed one to see things. Things that excite, things that seduce, and things that frighten. On the other hand, the grandmother wants to expose young Belle to the outside world. She rents her Tom Cruise movies from the video store so she can experience feelings such as envy, revenge, lust, and anger. But how does she cope with these new feelings? Well, you have to jump down the rabbit hole to find out.
This intricate plot has numerous levels to dig through: dealing with family, discovering yourself, inner problems with outward-facing issues, and a variety of other complex mental states. It's a puzzle box to solve, and as you start to put the pieces together, the “a-ha” moments might just leave you with emotions you were not prepared for.
If you have read Mona Awad's novel Bunny and enjoyed it, I believe you will be right at home with this book. She has an uncanny ability to explain complex feelings in the fully realized worlds she creates. It may be confusing at first, but the author weaves together some familiar story lines, which help with some of the heavy lifting that's required. Everything makes emotional sense, even if some of the visuals might leave you scratching your head at first. If you do read it, I would suggest filing away some of the more repetitive and neurotic behaviors, such as the overabundant explanations of cosmetics for use in the latter portion of the book. But just like in Bunny, everything comes together in the end.
I had an amazing time with this book, and I think the best way to go into it is to know very little about the plot. Try to avoid any mention of themes, and I think it will really surprise you. There is no avoiding the emotional response to her journey. The impact of the book showcases a young woman's outward struggles with the world around her, illuminating thoughts and feelings we all go through in one way or another. This book also shines in the last 100 or so pages. It's a masterclass in compiling previous emotional sequences into a form that not one person might interpret the same way. It's mysterious, charming, cautionary, and surprisingly heartfelt.
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4.5 out of 5
Merged review:
The book opens like a dream. A fever dream built around a main character who has experienced something tragic. A young woman named Belle takes a plane from Canada to California after she finds out her mother passed away under questionable circumstances. She must meet with the solicitor to talk about her mothers apartment, her dress shop, and the surprising amount of debt that she will be responsible for.
This part of the story is quite clear, but the lines start to blur when Belle thinks back to her childhood and the disparities in parenting between her grandmother and mother. Her mother never wanted Belle to go into her bedroom and peruse her closet. What was in her room that was so secretive and off-limits? Perhaps it was the mirror. The mirror allowed one to see things. Things that excite, things that seduce, and things that frighten. On the other hand, the grandmother wants to expose young Belle to the outside world. She rents her Tom Cruise movies from the video store so she can experience feelings such as envy, revenge, lust, and anger. But how does she cope with these new feelings? Well, you have to jump down the rabbit hole to find out.
This intricate plot has numerous levels to dig through: dealing with family, discovering yourself, inner problems with outward-facing issues, and a variety of other complex mental states. It's a puzzle box to solve, and as you start to put the pieces together, the “a-ha” moments might just leave you with emotions you were not prepared for.
If you have read Mona Awad's novel Bunny and enjoyed it, I believe you will be right at home with this book. She has an uncanny ability to explain complex feelings in the fully realized worlds she creates. It may be confusing at first, but the author weaves together some familiar story lines, which help with some of the heavy lifting that's required. Everything makes emotional sense, even if some of the visuals might leave you scratching your head at first. If you do read it, I would suggest filing away some of the more repetitive and neurotic behaviors, such as the overabundant explanations of cosmetics for use in the latter portion of the book. But just like in Bunny, everything comes together in the end.
I had an amazing time with this book, and I think the best way to go into it is to know very little about the plot. Try to avoid any mention of themes, and I think it will really surprise you. There is no avoiding the emotional response to her journey. The impact of the book showcases a young woman's outward struggles with the world around her, illuminating thoughts and feelings we all go through in one way or another. This book also shines in the last 100 or so pages. It's a masterclass in compiling previous emotional sequences into a form that not one person might interpret the same way. It's mysterious, charming, cautionary, and surprisingly heartfelt.
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4.5 out of 5
Merged review:
The book opens like a dream. A fever dream built around a main character who has experienced something tragic. A young woman named Belle takes a plane from Canada to California after she finds out her mother passed away under questionable circumstances. She must meet with the solicitor to talk about her mothers apartment, her dress shop, and the surprising amount of debt that she will be responsible for.
This part of the story is quite clear, but the lines start to blur when Belle thinks back to her childhood and the disparities in parenting between her grandmother and mother. Her mother never wanted Belle to go into her bedroom and peruse her closet. What was in her room that was so secretive and off-limits? Perhaps it was the mirror. The mirror allowed one to see things. Things that excite, things that seduce, and things that frighten. On the other hand, the grandmother wants to expose young Belle to the outside world. She rents her Tom Cruise movies from the video store so she can experience feelings such as envy, revenge, lust, and anger. But how does she cope with these new feelings? Well, you have to jump down the rabbit hole to find out.
This intricate plot has numerous levels to dig through: dealing with family, discovering yourself, inner problems with outward-facing issues, and a variety of other complex mental states. It's a puzzle box to solve, and as you start to put the pieces together, the “a-ha” moments might just leave you with emotions you were not prepared for.
If you have read Mona Awad's novel Bunny and enjoyed it, I believe you will be right at home with this book. She has an uncanny ability to explain complex feelings in the fully realized worlds she creates. It may be confusing at first, but the author weaves together some familiar story lines, which help with some of the heavy lifting that's required. Everything makes emotional sense, even if some of the visuals might leave you scratching your head at first. If you do read it, I would suggest filing away some of the more repetitive and neurotic behaviors, such as the overabundant explanations of cosmetics for use in the latter portion of the book. But just like in Bunny, everything comes together in the end.
I had an amazing time with this book, and I think the best way to go into it is to know very little about the plot. Try to avoid any mention of themes, and I think it will really surprise you. There is no avoiding the emotional response to her journey. The impact of the book showcases a young woman's outward struggles with the world around her, illuminating thoughts and feelings we all go through in one way or another. This book also shines in the last 100 or so pages. It's a masterclass in compiling previous emotional sequences into a form that not one person might interpret the same way. It's mysterious, charming, cautionary, and surprisingly heartfelt.
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4.5 out of 5
Merged review:
The book opens like a dream. A fever dream built around a main character who has experienced something tragic. A young woman named Belle takes a plane from Canada to California after she finds out her mother passed away under questionable circumstances. She must meet with the solicitor to talk about her mothers apartment, her dress shop, and the surprising amount of debt that she will be responsible for.
This part of the story is quite clear, but the lines start to blur when Belle thinks back to her childhood and the disparities in parenting between her grandmother and mother. Her mother never wanted Belle to go into her bedroom and peruse her closet. What was in her room that was so secretive and off-limits? Perhaps it was the mirror. The mirror allowed one to see things. Things that excite, things that seduce, and things that frighten. On the other hand, the grandmother wants to expose young Belle to the outside world. She rents her Tom Cruise movies from the video store so she can experience feelings such as envy, revenge, lust, and anger. But how does she cope with these new feelings? Well, you have to jump down the rabbit hole to find out.
This intricate plot has numerous levels to dig through: dealing with family, discovering yourself, inner problems with outward-facing issues, and a variety of other complex mental states. It's a puzzle box to solve, and as you start to put the pieces together, the “a-ha” moments might just leave you with emotions you were not prepared for.
If you have read Mona Awad's novel Bunny and enjoyed it, I believe you will be right at home with this book. She has an uncanny ability to explain complex feelings in the fully realized worlds she creates. It may be confusing at first, but the author weaves together some familiar story lines, which help with some of the heavy lifting that's required. Everything makes emotional sense, even if some of the visuals might leave you scratching your head at first. If you do read it, I would suggest filing away some of the more repetitive and neurotic behaviors, such as the overabundant explanations of cosmetics for use in the latter portion of the book. But just like in Bunny, everything comes together in the end.
I had an amazing time with this book, and I think the best way to go into it is to know very little about the plot. Try to avoid any mention of themes, and I think it will really surprise you. There is no avoiding the emotional response to her journey. The impact of the book showcases a young woman's outward struggles with the world around her, illuminating thoughts and feelings we all go through in one way or another. This book also shines in the last 100 or so pages. It's a masterclass in compiling previous emotional sequences into a form that not one person might interpret the same way. It's mysterious, charming, cautionary, and surprisingly heartfelt.
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4.5 out of 5
Merged review:
The book opens like a dream. A fever dream built around a main character who has experienced something tragic. A young woman named Belle takes a plane from Canada to California after she finds out her mother passed away under questionable circumstances. She must meet with the solicitor to talk about her mothers apartment, her dress shop, and the surprising amount of debt that she will be responsible for.
This part of the story is quite clear, but the lines start to blur when Belle thinks back to her childhood and the disparities in parenting between her grandmother and mother. Her mother never wanted Belle to go into her bedroom and peruse her closet. What was in her room that was so secretive and off-limits? Perhaps it was the mirror. The mirror allowed one to see things. Things that excite, things that seduce, and things that frighten. On the other hand, the grandmother wants to expose young Belle to the outside world. She rents her Tom Cruise movies from the video store so she can experience feelings such as envy, revenge, lust, and anger. But how does she cope with these new feelings? Well, you have to jump down the rabbit hole to find out.
This intricate plot has numerous levels to dig through: dealing with family, discovering yourself, inner problems with outward-facing issues, and a variety of other complex mental states. It's a puzzle box to solve, and as you start to put the pieces together, the “a-ha” moments might just leave you with emotions you were not prepared for.
If you have read Mona Awad's novel Bunny and enjoyed it, I believe you will be right at home with this book. She has an uncanny ability to explain complex feelings in the fully realized worlds she creates. It may be confusing at first, but the author weaves together some familiar story lines, which help with some of the heavy lifting that's required. Everything makes emotional sense, even if some of the visuals might leave you scratching your head at first. If you do read it, I would suggest filing away some of the more repetitive and neurotic behaviors, such as the overabundant explanations of cosmetics for use in the latter portion of the book. But just like in Bunny, everything comes together in the end.
I had an amazing time with this book, and I think the best way to go into it is to know very little about the plot. Try to avoid any mention of themes, and I think it will really surprise you. There is no avoiding the emotional response to her journey. The impact of the book showcases a young woman's outward struggles with the world around her, illuminating thoughts and feelings we all go through in one way or another. This book also shines in the last 100 or so pages. It's a masterclass in compiling previous emotional sequences into a form that not one person might interpret the same way. It's mysterious, charming, cautionary, and surprisingly heartfelt.
⭐ | Rating | ⭐
❖ 4.5 out of 5
“How It Unfolds” by James S.A. Corey gravitated towards my radar from my bookish friend, Rosh. As a fan of The Expanse series (well, the first four at least), I knew I had to check this quick short out. Deep down, the book is about hope, fate, destiny, and the permutations that may happen with the choices we make.
A team of interplanetary engineers is taking trip(s) to different galaxies looking for inhabitable plants for the future of mankind. The catch? The team does these ‘folding' excursions over different lifetimes. Stay with me here. It sounds sort of complex, but the rules are fairly easy to follow. The characters are rich; there is a bit of exploration, a tiny bit of humor, and a whole lot of heart.
|| “ We can live a billion different ways from here, but there's only one path behind us. That was never going to change.” ||
It is refreshing to get so much story in something so short, and I had exploration vibes similar to those of Christopher Columbus. Replace the sailing with teleportation, a spice trade with hydroponics, and a light sprinkling of new world/old world concepts.
If you are in the mood for a fun little sci-fi story, this would fit nicely.
**Side note: I just have to comment on the food in the book and the conundrum I pondered after I finished it: “the food was always the same: dense cakes with all the nutrients, fiber, and microbiota to sustain life in a puck the size of a pack of cards.” I was trying to decide if this would be better than the ‘protein-rich porridge' from the Matrix.
“A Clockwork Orange” is an audacious tale full of debauchery, allegory, spite, and thoughtfulness. Despite its often off-putting subject matter, the book lends itself to a burgeoning look into youth culture and adult impassiveness. The plot is a simple one. Alex and his hooligans run amok through the city, inflicting extreme violence on everyone they meet. The droogs, as Alex puts it, are a gang that spouts off slang and whose tempers rise towards anyone in establishments. Once the group is caught by the police, jail time and re-education ensue. Is the radical treatment enough for Alex to change his ways?
I don't really know how to review the rest of the book. There are so many themes of religion, music, rules, and structure that would be interesting to talk about in a book club-type setting.
The book is sort of like a grand experience. One that, depending on your age, you might see differently. If you're a youth, you might connect with the anti-establishment or governmental control of Alex's story. As an adult, you might cherish the staunch methods of control the lawmakers use to try and help control the rambunctious youth. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, I think this classic has all the underpinnings of what makes great satire. It's a well constructed symphony of emotion, and even though I'm supremely late to reading it, I kind of wonder what I would have thought about it when I was younger.
❖ Category: dystopian
❖Rating: 5/5
Yoko Ogawa writes a range of thrilling shorts in this collection called “Revenge.” Each story takes a short look into the lives of seemingly interconnected characters. However, once you get to know the characters, their tendencies, and their innermost thoughts, each thread sort of winds its way together.
The dark narratives always include some sort of macabre undertone and subtly that really gets under the skin. For instance, in “Sewing for the Heart” (my absolute favorite of the bunch), we are introduced to a singer who literally has her heart attached to the outside of her body. She is self-conscious of it, and as you can imagine, she wants it covered up so nobody can see it when she performs. She enlists the help of a handbag designer to develop something that fits over it. He has some interesting inner thoughts (to say the least) and develops a unique solution. This story really captures the feel of Japanese horror in a way that excites, nauseates, and makes you think. Sadly, not all of the shorts are as good as this one.
To me, most of the stories are a bit too heavy-handed. Yes, the universe being built between the stories is interesting, but it meanders quite a bit throughout, leaving some of the ah-ha moments to fall flat. I really did not have the inkling to review some of the past stories to really connect each and every thread together.
So, who is this for? Well, that is a tricky question to answer. It is effective enough to give you genuine goosebumps if you are a seasoned horror fan while also stimulating the brain with some extra sensory imaginative underpinnings if you are looking for something a bit more challenging. It just does not hit any trope with a wide brush.
———
A reaction to each story and a separate review for each:
Story 1 of 11: “Afternoon at the Bakery” - This one was on the creepy side. Especially the refrigerator scene. (⭐⭐⭐)
Story 2 of 11: “Fruit Juice” - this story had an eerie feel to it. A weird date, some fruit eating, and a melancholy follow up later in life. (⭐⭐)
Story 3 of 11 - “Old Mrs. J” - This was the best one so far! A drunk husband, fingerling vegetables, and massages gone wrong.
If you're like me, you appreciate modern techno-thrillers such as Project Hail Mary because they're cleverly designed theoretical science books that masquerade as taught action thrillers. In the case of Sphere by Michael Crichton (the master of the genre), it warms my heart that we can have a book with real human emotion in one chapter and spend the next chapter waxing poetic on astrophysics and oceanography. Sure, the book satisfies the inner thrill seeker, but to me, the most exciting bits have to do with tangents on psychology, space, medicine, and the nerdy first contact bits. If you enjoy mission-based, high-science thrillers, this might be for you.
// A team of scientists is summoned to investigate the remains of a ship in the murky depths of the ocean. Everything goes awry when they find a sphere. What is it, and more importantly, how do they communicate with it? //
You're probably thinking, “Oh no, another run-of-the-mill, deep sea exploration novel with corny dialogue and a ho-hum ending.” This is not that, by a long shot. What we do have is a team consisting of an astrophysicist, a marine biologist, a zoologist, a mathematician, and a psychologist. As you can imagine, the team is at odds with each other over how to proceed with the discoveries they make in the deep blue sea. It gets kind of hairy because the habitat that they reside in is only set up for them to survive for a few days, and when communication gets cut off to the surface, it becomes a fight for survival.
** In my eyes, Sphere does three things especially well. **
1. It creates a setting that is on the cusp of reality and stages it with a believable cast of characters. They may not be right for the job, but they use their unique skills and training to make the best of the situation.
2. The team often makes decisions based on logic rather than emotion. It is not at all robotic, though; some people might not be themselves, while others might act a certain way because they have skin in the game.
3. The impact of their decisions is not inherently clear. As far as you know, nobody is trying to save the world or prevent some sort of disaster. This is a fact-finding mission where the stakes are subtle, giving the story a chance to breathe.
// You always have an option. There is always something you can do. You are never without choice. //
I will not delve into spoilers, but I had a grand time trying to figure out what was going on in the murky depths. Once the sphere is brought to the forefront and you have an understanding of what is going on, other strange occurrences start to happen. The habitat is seemingly changing its layout, others seem to be losing their wits, and some crew are even becoming much more beautiful as time rolls on. Weird!
// “Myths had once represented the common knowledge of humanity, and they served as a kind of map of consciousness.” //
I thoroughly enjoyed the ending. It has one of those winks to the reader that makes you smirk at its cleverness. It's definitely a 5-star rating for me, and like I said before, if you like Blake Crouch and Andy Weir books, this will definitely be up your alley. Just like Jurassic Park and Congo, this is sci-fi at its best.
──∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗── Extra
I feel like the third book in the saga was not as profound or thrilling as the first. Maybe its just me, but the story was at its best when the character had limited resources and showcased the inner struggles of survival.