Tyler

This is one of my first fantasy novels, and I must say that I am not disappointed. Rushdie wrote his story in such a way that I would not doubt it had come from the “Sea of Stories” itself. Writing this as a fully-grown man, the one thing I liked most about this book is that it brought back those feelings of childhood wonderment that one experiences watching a classic Disney cartoon for the first time. I will be seeking out his other works and I recommend you do too!

Not my cup of tea, personally. I've always been very “iffy” about poetry, and this collection solidified that. Just seems like a bunch of word salad to me.

Arguing With Zombies, because he likes proving his very opinionated arguments whilst not allowing the other side the time of day. I could barely make it through the first chapter on social security before throwing in the towel with this one. I would argue that reading something you already agree with, while demonizing the other side is something you enjoy (let's face it, most of the public doors that on a daily basis), then this book is for you. But if you're an actual academic like myself who looks at both sides of an argument before coming to a conclusion, then this book is absolutely worthless, because Krugman does not do that.

Borges' book is well written, insofar as much as a translated book can be. The stories are varied but often hard to follow. Whether that's due to my comparitively lacking vocabulary or whether it just didn't translate well, I'm not entirely sure. I read most of the stories, but skippied some that didn't really interest me. The one about the Spy in WWI was perhaps my favorite.

Started fairly interesting, however McLaughlin seems to have a tendency to be overly verbose. Well-written as it is, he often lost me halfway through his rambling descriptions. I abandoned the book about halfway through as the allure of the other options on my shelf had a better pull than the continung plot of this story. That being said, if you prefer a healthy amount of poetry with your novels then my all means give this one a shot.

I picked up this book at a yard sale thinking it would be a great, light-hearted read during my summer vacation down in the Outer Banks. Boy was I wrong! I really didn't like the ending and I feel like it could've had so much more potential, but here we are. I felt like the rest of the book kept me entertained enough to enjoy reading it without much regret though, to be fair. Luckily I'm fairly used to stories not ending the way I hoped they would. After all, it's not my story to begin with! I would reccomend Message In a Bottle to anyone who enjoys the genre whilst knowing that not every one will have a fairy tale ending.

The Return kept me entertained throughout. Though, like the other reviews have stated, the ending is not terrible but definitely anticlimactic. 99% of the story was a fantastic read, (other than the weird parts, if you've read it, you know what I mean) but Little definitely dropped the ball for the ending. It's like he didn't know what to write and just gave up. Other than that, my only other criticism would be that there were one too many characters to keep track of that it got a bit confusing at times. That being said, overall it's worth a read.

I thought Langan's novel was pleasantly genre-bending in a way that it stubbornly refuses to fit neatly into any one category. It was described to me as horror fiction, and while that is true, it wasn't quite as scary as I was hoping. That's okay though because the sheer oddness of the novel was done in a tasteful and effective manner which more than made up for it. I think the origin story halfway though was quite long, and likely could have been expanded into it's own prequel. That being said, If there was a way to rate it as 4.5 stars, I would because I feel it's just shy of perfect.

It started out okay, but once I got to the part about shared saliva among all humans and masturbating fetuses, I was quite disturbed. Maybe some people like that sort of thing but this seemed far too strange for me to come close to enjoying.

This is probably one of the most depressing books I've read in quite a while. Boyle certainly doesn't particularly care for happy endings in his short stories. That being said, they were very well written and thoroughly engaging in every one. Many authors have a tendency to have some good and some bad in their collections, but After The Plague is all good. I definitely recommend it!

Gave this one a shot due to the many positive reviews. It's fair for what it is, all things considered, but it often reads more like poetry than an actual narrative. This is not to say that's a bad thing, just not my preference.

The basic premise of this book is well founded. Ehrenreich decided that she wanted to conduct hands-on research on what it is like to be a lower-class American making ends meet. There's only one issue with this, and it's incredibly significant. She's an upper-class “bleeding heart socialist” living in Key West, Florida. While that's not inherently a non-starter, her biases consistently affect her descision-making. She says herself that she was unwilling to sacrifice any comforts of her wealthy lifestyle. She constantly allows herself to “cheat, as she puts it, by giving herself allowances and simply going back home whenever she feels like it. In my opinion, if she was really willing to actually conduct a worthwhile study, she should have gone all-in. As it stands, this is useless to me as it is a half-baked attempt geared towards out-of-touch upper class individuals.

Alice Munro is a good writer, this is made very clear on the cover. And while that may be true, this collection of short stories did not exemplify this talent. That being said, there were some that were very well written and truly made an impact on me personally. Unfortunately this was not the case with all of them. Perhaps it was the first story, about a woman who decides to cheat on her husband with no clear explanation given as to why, that threw me off for the rest of the book. As a recently married man, I found absolutely no way I could relate to the character, and perhaps that's my own fault. It simply did not feel realistic. These criticisms, while significant, could not force me to lower my rating to anything less than three stars. That much is deserved. Worthy of a nobel prize in literature? Absolutely not, not based on this work alone. But it's not my call to make.

I am honestly surprised that this book has such a high rating. While it is true that it is clearly labeled as an opinion piece; which is completely fine in and of itself, Hoffer did not provide much in the way of empirical evidence for his statements. They come across as simple observations from an armchair expert, and we are meant to believe the words of someone who has had no apparent formal education (Eric Hoffer was a simple dockworker in the 40's), and little in the way of personal experience aside from a status of being an American citizen. In my opinion, I disagree with many of his stances on mass movements, and many others are simply outdated. I find it rather humorous that I possess just as many expert qualifications as the author on these subjects, (that is to say, none at all) and yet I have not written myself a book proclaiming facts on subjects I have no authority in. Perhaps I should?

Not what I expected. I very much enjoyed reading the exerpts from the fairy tales and legends themselves, but did not care so much about how they came to be. It lost my interest before 50 pages in, unfortunately.

Have you ever wanted to read a book that seems like it could've been written by a literate psycho from the video game series Borderlands? Because I'm convinced this is it. Not exactly sure what I expected when the outside cover said “very very weird”, but that's exactly what it is and it's simply not my cup of tea.

Beyond Sleep is certainly well written and kept me engaged with the story throughout, though I feel as though there are some cultural nuances that remain over my head for lack of knowledge about Dutch and Norwegian culture, not to mention this was originally written decades ago. All in all, worth a single read in my opinion, but likely won't be coming back to it any time soon.

This is my second novel by Sidney Sheldon, and better than the first I must say. I'm quickly becoming a fan of his work. I thought I would be let down with the utter predictability of the storyline (and there were some that turned out true, to be fair), but Sheldon more than provided a suitable number of twists and turns towards the end that made it all worth the read. Overall, I can't think of any significant critiques and thus deserves a full 5 stars.

My second attempt at a Bolano novel. I found this one interesting in concept, but once I actually started reading, it was honestly rather boring. Skipping ahead to later stories and from reading other reviews, it does seem a bit repetitive. Perhaps it would've been better as one or two larger biographies rather than a collection of smaller ones.