Kate
I gave up on this book. I had thought it was a travel book but it was one man's version of what he sees as Italian culture, especially on the trains. That's fine, I was willing to give it a try. But he seems really disdainful of Italian culture in general, even though he lives there. I had to stop when it got to the racist description of a Roma family in a station.
I work for Rakhma Homes, and I have been there for 5 years. I finally got around to reading our origin story, written by the founder. While this is not the best written or edited book, if you are looking to learn more about dementia/memory loss, and about care in a home setting vs a nursing home, you can learn a lot from this book. Rakhma was established in 1984, the book was written in 1998, and it's amazing how much of Rakhma's “heart” has remained the same over the past 30 years.
I skimmed and skipped a lot of those book (only 1 or 2 chapters, but that's a lot for a devoted completionist like me). There was a lot of descriptions of other people's works of art, pages of it, including plots of books, movies, and a long description of an art museum exhibit the author had visited, which I didn't find particularly enthralling.
She has some interesting opinions but a collection of essays like this can't help but give you the impression that the author hates everything they read/watch, and there are no good examples of diversity or representation in this world. She gives no “good” examples or ways to improve on diversity/representation, so I just found the book frustrating. Even then something which strives to have a diverse cast, oitnb, she makes fun of for being too excited about having a diverse cast. I don't know what she wants from me.
- There was way too much YA novel style necking/nuzzling and descriptions of lips. Especially for them being in college.
2. For the story being about her love of writing fan fiction, that plot was sure not described at the end. We get a satisfying ending to both her fiction class story, and the Simon snow part (in an excerpt), but we don't get to find out how she ended her most important project. Why?
3. I couldn't help but feel like my positive feelings for the story and character were just borrowed from my nostalgia for Harry Potter. Case in point, the midnight release scene.
This was similar in a lot of ways to the movie Snowpiercer. I did like this book better than that, but still not my favorite. It's another ‘humanity is the worst' kind of story, which there are many of. 3 out of 5 because I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but I would find it hard to recommend to others or ever read again.
So I have been curious about reading horror for a little while now, because it had been so long for me. I really liked the stories in this first issue (especially the first two) but I thought the nonfiction section about the horror genre was especially thought provoking. It is true that horror is more meant as a “bad thing” rather than just a description of the genre. I hadn't considered that angle before, and actually felt kind of weird at first about reading horror at all.
I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of this book, a lot more than I was expecting to. The personal stories of different people and their experience with hospice I found very persuasive and effective. Even if the author did seem a little full of himself about his ability to change people's lives for the better (both his patients and his students)...But then the last section turned to physician assisted suicide and society's obligations as caregivers and etc. I quickly lost interest in reading one doctor's personal opinion on the world at large. It tried to be contemplative and philosophical and instead became preachy and kind of annoying. Worth reading the first seven chapters.
I have rarely been so torn about a book. I would definitely recommend it to particular people, but it was ultimately just not my style. The stories were just a little too surrealist for my taste. That being said, the stories had great atmosphere. Stone animals in particular was just unsettling enough, like a dream that scares you but you can't describe why.
