Guerin Balkovec
Very pretty little book, super nice to read especially towards the end. I wish the authors were a little more heavy on how much time had passed for the characters because that was pretty powerful and it wasn't shown much
I really didn't enjoy this, however, the last third of the book did get a lot lot lot better, and by the end I thought it wrapped up nicely
I was super conflicted about halfway through this book, because a lot of these stories are super super good, and some of them are just kind of meh.
When I had finished The Finklestein 5 I had thought to myself “yeah that was pretty great!”. Five or so days later I found myself explaining the story in its entirety to my coworker, down to explaining how the story creates tension with the reader through its pacing.
I adored The Era, and found myself quoting it around friends, because something was just special about reading that story from the viewpoint of an innocent child. Imagine “The Giver”, but told through the lense of an actual child.
The next three stories didnt hit as hard though. Zimmerland just wasnt able to evoke the same sort of emotional response that The Finklestein five did, Lark Street was too confusing for too long to make me enjoy any of it too much, and while I liked The Hospital Where the most out of these three I just mentioned, I still think this book has better entries.
The Lion and the Spider and Light Spitter were both incredible. There was a line in the former that reminded me of actual real conversations that ive witnessed and heard in real life. My old roommate tells this story (more times than id like to have heard it, and way more times than hed like to admit) about his old boss at a catering job he worked at, where they were talking about one of their coworkers, who they both consistently got along with. At some point this dude quit his job, and this boss that my roommate talks about all the time said something along the lines of “I liked that guy , but what a piece of shit”. This coworker who was the topic of the conversation was black, and this boss Im telling you about didnt actually call him a piece of shit he called him a racial slur, but in the same way youd call someone a piece of shit. This is sort of the inverse of what happens in The Lion and the Spider, but the same sort of idea can be drawn from both interactions. If youve read the story you know which line im talking about. Very normal people walk among us, and some of those people are racists. Some of these racists have worked with black people in the past, and theyve probably used these experiences to alleviate some of that racism in their head, even if its in an incredibly backwards manner. Light Spitter was a lot less realistic and relatable, but it drew me in immediatley and I very much enjoyed what it was doing. I have a lot less to say about this one but it was also very good.
Through The Flash was pretty interesting too, but it honestly made me more excited to read Chain Gang All-Stars more than it got any sort of emotional response out of me.
If youve read this book you probably noticed I skipped a few stories. If you want to read this and havent yet im gonna put this next section under a spoiler tag. Nothing about the plot of these stories will be revealed, however I think what im going to talk about was a nice suprise for me when I was reading, so I have no reaosn to believe that it wouldnt be for you too.
Spoiler”Friday Black,” “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by Ice King,” and “In Retail” are all incredibly good stories, but my experience with enjoying these was a little more complicated than it should have been. When I first read the story that the book was named after, I thought it was fine. Nothing about the story as a standalone short story is spectacular. It's only when you realize that this mall that this guy works at is a mall that people in the other stories I mentioned also work at that it really clicks. The Ice King story might be my favorite story in the entire book, even if I'm willing to admit that it's not nearly the best one in the book. Something about the internal dialogue of what is an everyday customer interaction for literally anyone that works with the public is so fascinating and relatable at the same time. I could not tell you how many times I've been working with a customer, and I've sat there and made up some skillful reason for every word and mannerism I've spoken and presented for that individual sale. There is something hilarious about Ice King that you just won't be able to appreciate unless you've been Ice King before. A guy who wants to be the very best at his dead-end job. A guy who revels in doing what is, by all means, important work but work that, at the end of the day, is unfulfilling to anyone who wants to make something of themselves. A guy who has very clearly outgrown his workplace mentally and stays there anyway for reasons you'd only understand if you were Ice King. “In Retail” was also super relatable in this sense. The “Lucy” person our character keeps bringing up is someone we are all familiar with, even if the circumstance isn't exactly a 1:1 reflection of the actual situation you're thinking of right now. Rather than your coworker committing suicide, maybe you just noticed the slow and steady mental decline of someone you've worked with for years, or maybe there's just someone that you work with that everyone agrees is so stupid that you've gone and made their name into a verb. And then you realize that there are people all over America that feel this way. All over the world even, and then you feel a little less insane about yourself.
I was too lazy to spellcheck this so I made AI do it for me, sorry if any of this looks super strange and doesnt make sense
I lack the necessary tools to explain to you why me, someone who only read YA his whole life and then somewhere halfway through being 22 years old decided to pickup seriously reading again, thinks that this might be in the top ten pieces of writing ever written, so what I will do instead is just share some things I wanted to disorderly throw into this obligatory review.
There were multiple times during reading before I ended up getting used to mcarthys style (don't make this your first book of his please lol) where I would reread a page five or six times trying to make sense of the insanely dense prose only to realize what I'm reading is just the thirtieth time our characters are riding horses through the desert, but it's written in like the most beautiful way you've ever seen
I read the first one probably ten years ago or something so I can't say whether or not I liked this one more but it was definitely just as witty. Even when presented with universe shattering situations Monroe makes me laugh
I gotta be honest I hated the first two chapters of this book. The way Vonnegut writes from his own perspective is insuferable to me. Something about his attittude screams “Funky uncle who would have loved Warhol” and its absolutley the most annoying thing Ive ever read in my life. All this being said, anytme that the perspective shifts to the book within a book (It only goes back to Vonnegut for more than a sentance twice after this) , it's amazing. Theres a lot to be said about this book but I actually decided Im gonna save long reviews for when I get really passionate.
This is NOT a book about caves. You might think then that this is a book about something called “The Underland”. This is also not necesarily true. This book is about exactly the thing it says in the title. It is “A deep time journey”, meaning that this book is about one mans specifc personal journey with his exploration of what writer John McPhee calls “Deep Time”, and how exactly he thinks this relates to the anthrocene of earth. The book is seperated into three parts, with a shorter piece before each one, and a final piece after the third section. Almost every single bit of writing in Underland is both equal parts incredibly eloquently written, and explained in a way that makes the subject matters interesting. If you bought this book (please buy it, its worth having a physical copy to mark all your favorite quotes (there will be a lot)) expecting McFarlane to just wax poetic about caves or something, youre in for so so so much more, and its beyond worth it to give it a chance.
I find caves (and nature in general) incredibly boring. That thing you just read that I typed was true on June 17th, 2023. Now it is July 21st, 2023, and that statement is a massive lie. Here is a very real and genuine list of some of the things this book is about, in simple and reductive terms, because a part of the magic of reading this lies in figuring out how McFarlane connects everything to society and what it all means in his world view.
Burial of loved ones and how humans have done it through history
Urban exploration and the exploitation of unavoidable ruin
Our place in the universe and carrying on through uncertainty
How forest communicate within themselves and how humans sort of do this too
The indomitable human spirit and also carrying on throug uncertainty
How war bakes history into the living world and how landscapes are within themselves terrifying storybooks
the intoxicating call of ice maulins and the genuine wonder in seeing things happen in nature
and even how a team of semiotics experts werent even able to figure out how to stop humanity from destroying itself with radioactive waste on purpose
As I read this book over the span of a month I had tons of ideas of things I wanted to talk about, but I decided that this review probably wont help anyone decide whether or not they want to buy this, so instead im gonna wrap this up by talking about how “The Understory” chapter in the first section of this book is one of the most interesting and education things Ive ever read. McFarlane is an extremley talented writer, but a lot of my favorite lines from this entire book are actually quotes he borrows from another writer. These quotes always match the tone and style of writing of Underland pretty perfectly, so they never feel out of place when used, but there are a few specific quotes from The Understory that I absolutley adore. Do yourself a favor and check it out
I heard from a close friend of mine that this is easily far and above Kings best piece of work. Having read this, Salems lot, and Dreamcatcher (which a lot of people consider his worst (they are wrong)), I can believe it, but I really hope it isn't true. The experience of reading this book is kind of insane. The first 200 pages or so are expertly paced, the middle section has a perfect rising tension about it as you discover what the rest of the story is gonna look like, and then as it's wrapping up everything just kind of makes sense. I can't say much without going into spoilers but I haven't gotten so lazy that I'll start including them in here without tagging them so until I get hit with a random burst of inspiration I'll leave this as is.
Super fun and surprisingly frightening at times. Moments during this where I said out loud “oh no please” and stuff like that
A lot of things here I liked more than colour of magic and a lot of things I liked less.
Super into the character development that happens with twoflower. He's becoming more jaded in a way that isn't too on the nose
I'm not so much into how high the stakes were. All of our main characters are complete bozos and I don't believe they would be able to do most of the things they do in this book
This book makes you desire desire itself.
I worked with this girl at work for about six months, and i really liked her. She had a boyfriend. I got her to cheat on this guy and eventually me and her after many many ups and downs got together. I tried very very very hard to get her to be with me. Eventually I got what i wanted and we started dating. Everything was perfect. I cheated on her with my ex, and after I told her what I did she broke up with me. Everything was not perfect, and part of me started not to feel bad, because honestly she was really bad girlfriend, and calling us a couple was insulting to me. A week after she broke up with me I read this book, and it started to make me feel a lot less bad.
The Hellbound Heart does a really good job at making you not feel as bad about cheating on your perfect girlfriend. Something about the way the affair in this book is written makes it seem desirable. Even though Rory is depected as a guy who did literally nothing wrong, you cant help but want to ignore that because the same thing that happens to Julia will happen to you. Frank embodies both pleasure and the desire to feel pleasure, and he WILL draw you in.
Books have genuinely never been more important. Never before has a story told with a timeline like this ever been paced this well
There could be an argument to be made about how as a standalone story, this book isnt really that strong. I disagree with this notion, and I ask that anyone who happens upon this review considers what I have to say. The first entry in the Discworld series has a very strong and fast paced opening, a pretty decent middle section, and a pretty great closing section. It ends on a cliffhanger, and there are a lot of questions that are left unanswered, but why should this matter? Art is a constantly evolving thing, and whether you lame death of the author nerds like it or not, art is and will always will be inextricably linked to its artist. In the same way that the Discworld grows, so does Pratchett, and so treating this as a standalone story makes no sense to me. That being said, I had a lot of fun with this book and it got me excited to learn all about the world inside it.
Exciting from start to finish, deeply hilarious at times, and tense at others. Slows down a little anytime Roland's world becomes the focus, but I think the only reason we aren't as invested in that space is because there hasn't been solid worldbuilding there yet. Hoping book three remedies this
Insanely well written, the last section being one of the best things I've ever read. Very hard to follow at times. This doesn't have the same humanity other king novels have which is disappointing but I'm expecting that to change in the second entry on
Honestly I didn't really get into this until the halfway point. I also kind of just don't like Glokta, a lot of his earlier chapters feel like YA with bad words
Throws all the momentum away from the second book. If I say anything else about this it's gonna be how every fantasy book YouTuber (except for Mike we love you) is a fucking idiot
Reading this really illuminates how much of a massive scale failure the 2021 and 2024 movies were at adapting the story of Dune.