melissa
Read it twice, first translated by James Legge, and really disliked it, second translated by Dwight Goddard and Henri Borel and really loved it. So concerning this book specifically, take your time searching for the best translation for you, cause it can make a huge difference in the reading experience.
I was skeptic about his, cause why would i read poems about Palestine in English, but some really do work beautifully. I'm also not a fan of the modernist scrambled syntax in poetry but if there's a place to use them to provoke a feeling of desiccated and attacked History, it's here. I still feel this book is more guided towards English speakers to learn the realities of the Palestinian struggle, than an Arab who grew up with its repercussions, still very much recommend.
Cute book. It reads like a fable on the importance of books in our modern life. Mainly it asks the question “why do we read?”
I only downloaded this cause the cover suggested a Snape like character, and it was exactly that! Professor: Yes - Works in a Lab: Yes - Broody and angry: Yes - but actually söft: Yes - Only wears black: Yes - prefers his coffee black: for some reason that's a fandom favourite and also yes, if there were a genre for Snape-like characters I would exclusively read that, but there isn't so there's book like this one (and fanfiction) and that was really entertaining. Hazelwood knows her tropes and really had fun writing her book and I enjoyed every bit.
Finally a Rooney book that ends with a resolution, like an actual feeling of a book ending. It's a bit different from the previous two, this one feels more mature, subtle, the characters are older, there isn't the usual raw emotion, a bit more cerebral. My favourite parts were the emails exchanged between Alice and Eileen, a kind of stream of consciousness analysis of life, of how life is under Capitalism, of the alienation between friends, society, the role of religion, i would gladly read an epistolary novel by Sally Rooney.
I think i would've liked it more as a book than a graphic novel. Describing mental illness through speech bubbles makes it all superficial, can't say I felt any of the angst. Don't want to be too cynical on here, cause i know I'm not the target audience, but like we get it they love each other and all lgbt people are perfect and very wise.
I did judge it by its cover. The art in this book is so beautiful. Really textured realistic paintings, reminded me of Magritte's work, however it felt like a picture book for adults?
I loved the book. It is very thorough in many subjects, and even though I already agree on many points, I was able to look at many things in different ways. Also the fact that the book is written a century ago shows the curve we're following when comparing it to the present days. In summary basically all issues are just getting worse, wether it's country's arm race, industrialization or prison privatization and slave labor. For women issues, there are progresses since then, but it's good to read early feminist writings, cause it feels like we lost the plot.
A thing I loved about her feminist views, is that the whole equality thing is a sham, we seem to be wanting women to be more like men, while it should be the other way around in many stuff. Why do we all want to thrive in work, instead of focusing on the humanitarian side of our existence. Why are emotions supposed to be set aside and deemed inferior, by men and feminists alike. Also, a very important point, especially that the book is written during the suffragettes time, is the belief that women are going to purify politics. As we know (and as Goldman had seen), elections including women did not bring better leaders. Now the focus seems to be that women politicians will purify politics, which is another lie. Emma Goldman states that all big wins to the feminist movement and women issues happened with the force of protests and strikes, and never with the ballot. Of course she's not against women voting, but she states that it's an illusion of progress, instead of an actual win, and I kinda agree. Especially when women are still bound by the patriarchal shackles, and imposing these views on each other.
Very cute, probably my favourite of Henry's, it was just simple and to the point and without any of the romcom meta books she wrote.
*as usual the cover art is horrible and has nothing to do with the book.
I do love a fake boyfriend trope but instead of getting the usual miscommunication breakup we got it for some subplot. It was fine just not a satisfying ending.
Not a stand alone book but a nice extra read after finishing the previous ones in the series.
I find this book a great one to read, just for people to imagine another possible world. And I don't think a world need to be full of women to be like Herland. but more a society that has rejected industrialization, and embraced the fact that life is not a competition. It's not a perfect book of course, but I like where it got me thinking.
I liked the premiss. At some point it felt like two books in one. Following the writer's process, and the different styles and research writers do while writing is a pretty cool angle. i do think the book was too meta romance books wise for it to let itself fall in the emotions. Both the writer and the protagonist felt too conscious of the usual tropes basically, so even if the story's good it lacks the usual feels.
On a sidenote, the book cover really doesn't showcase the story and I don't know how a book that's about how much editorial houses demean romance novels and female stories would accept with such a flaky looking cover that seems like a copy paste of all other romance novels of the past 2 years.
Mediocre book filled with American propaganda and ignorance about Vietnam. Reading that book you'd think electricity hasn't reached Vietnam yet. Nothing more offensive than sons of immigrants speaking about a country they know nothing about based off their parents stories from 50 years ago.
PS. Someone tell the writer that college is basically free in Vietnam.
The premise is interesting but the writing fell flat. The narrator has no character, the protagonist has no personality, it just felt like it was a man writer behind the female protagonist, there was no depth, no neurosis. It stayed in the visual while name dropping philosophers and quotes as if that would make it smarter. Mental illness just felt like a tool to advance the plot and not something the character was living. It's not as if it's the most creative idea for it to support the whole book, the story went exactly the way i imagined it would go but with none of the emotions i would've expected. Personally i had to fight not to roll my eyes at the writer's attempts at witticisms, after reading “Tissues are like lives. There are always more” i knew it was not the book for me.
It's a really interesting concept of “Time” and the morality surrounding the subject. I loved the story, though it ended too abruptly for me, after raising a lot more questions.
Reviewing classics seems entitled, loved how dynamic his poems are did not know that about Eliot, loved the atmosphere.
I can imagine this book being helpful to many people. Reading about how different people interact with the world around them and how it inspires them and their art, how a certain thought or concept was translated to art, could only push the reader to figure out their own way to reflect upon the world.
The drawing doesn't add much to the text and the writing is more similar to Rupi Kaur's scribbles than actual writing. I did not feel like it speaks to book readers cause there's nothing new added to the cliché which have all noticed and heard. I did enjoy the few pages of intricate illustration and no writing, but those were exactly 2 pages.
The chaos of a hank green tiktok but instead of 30 seconds you have to endure 450 pages. He has too much on his plate, most don't need to be there and the rest isn't even that good. And if Hank Green had read any chapter of American History he'd know that nothing is easier for the American military than to land unannounced on a Caribbean island. That could've solved his book in 10 pages (cause apparently we're in a parallel universe where the American government is good) also the US has been using the internet and technology to form opinion for a few decades now, so his fearmongering about technology is a bit outdated when we're living it every day (but not in americaaaaa spoookyyyy
The illustrations are so good, the story is a bit too meh. Usually kids books have memorable lines and a kind of rhythm in their text, there wasn't any of that, but those illustrations, could look at them all day.
I read this book knowing how it's gonna end, because we learned about the film adaptation in uni. I'm glad i knew, cause that ending is brutal. This story is about 3 Palestinians trying to get smuggled into Kuwait, as it's known as the land of money. We learn about their reasons first and then follow them on their journey.
History keeps repeating itself, and books like this one will always be relevent. Hundrends are dying in the Mediterranean sea, and people are nitpicking about the legality of such immigrations, but no one stops to think about why these people are leaving, gambling with their lives, instead of staying in their countries
. Here's an excerpt, from the book, i have translated, which pretty much says it all:
“_The road is long, and i'm an old man, i can't walk the way you did... i might die.
[...]
_You might die? Hah, who said that's not better than how you live now.”
***Changed my 5/5 rating to a 4, cause I've been reading other Kanafani books, and they're even better. As they can't be rated 6/5, I'll be lowering this one.
In the vein of PG Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde, a brilliantly funny account of the vacuous lives of the upper class.