Sarah
I read this book for the first time when I was a lot younger, and I never understood the gravity of the ending until now. Reading it this time around, I wasn't all that impressed with the first 90% of the book. It was the same old story I'd heard many times before and seen in the movies, and it was cute and reminiscent of my childhood, but nothing huge. The last chapter, however, was different. It was much heavier and more realistic. It's hard to put into words, but Barrie somehow perfectly captures the nostalgia and pain of growing up without saying it directly. The last chapter was so bittersweet and sad but still very good and it stuck with me and made up for the rest of the book.
What use are these people's wits,
who let themselves be led
by speechmakers, in crowds,
without considering
how many fools and thieves
they are among, and how few
choose the good?
The best choose progress
toward one thing, a name
forever honored by the gods,
while others eat their way
toward sleep like nameless oxen.
Still quite possibly my all-time favorite book from my childhood. I've read this too many times to count, and each time is such a unique experience. Now having to read it for a class and write a paper on it has given me an another perspective altogether. It's so much darker and more morbid that I ever realized, and it fascinates me that I didn't pick up on that as much when I was younger.
So glad I finally had a chance to read this classic. It was amazing! Just not as scary as I was assuming it would be.
This book was dragging and slow at times and became a bit tedious to read, but the characters made up for that by a lot. Margaret and Mr. Thornton were amazing characters and I grew to love them both by the end and I'm actually going to miss their story. It was a lot like Pride and Prejudice, and the very last chapter had me dying. Glad I had to read this for my Brit Lit class; overall, it was very good.
Not a huge poetry fan but Wordsworth is really good and a classic that obviously had to be read.
I really liked how Moran used personal anecdotes in each chapter to discuss feminism and all of the various aspects of it. She did a good job with that, and I found her stories entertaining and relevant, for the most part. Sometimes though it did seem like she was just rambling and the point she was trying to make was a bit incoherent and lost amid the rest of the chapter. I sometimes found it difficult to understand the point she was trying to make since she was all over the place with her thoughts on it. Overall though, this was a great book and wasn't too difficult to get through. Moran made it very interesting and relatable throughout. I especially appreciated her chapter on abortion, and found that to be the best part of the novel. Her personal anecdote there made her argument very clear and persuasive. This is really the first book on feminism that I've ever read, and I think it was the perfect one to start out with.
The art in this book is stunning and so is Kimball's ability to reflect on her family's story. She's so honest and raw and open about her experiences with her family. I'm struck by her sections about Ted and how she talks about him and talks about how she works to understand him.
My library puts a paper in the front of every book for people to leave reviews/comments for other readers to see. The review in this one hurt my heart and made me pick up the book to read it.
It said: “I saw myself and I got help.” ❤️
I loved someone with severe OCD and wish I read this while we were together. OCD is a tough mental illness to understand from the outside and this really did a good job of illustrating how the intrusive thoughts and compulsions work. It can be hard to know how to be there for someone experiencing OCD sometimes. But I think the graphic format here lends itself well to fostering a better understanding of the OCD experience.
Is it perfect? Hell no. Did this make me deeply think through the meaning of life while also laughing my ass off every few minutes? Hell yes.
Some of the ideas Manson puts together here at first seem wild and random but when he explains it, it's genius. Hello, Nietzsche and Kant, and woah, Plato and Bernay, to name a few.
And I knew going through this that many people would hate this. But he's so so right about the state of our society today. His observations of the weaknesses of BOTH sides of the political divide here are on point.
I'm sure I'll be adding more to this as I think about how much I loved this book. It's perfectly imperfect and spoke to me in just the way I needed.
Alas, poor Yorick, I knew this would be so cute that I had no choice but to read this and I WAS RIGHT
I really appreciated her introduction acknowledging her privilege but the rest of the book seemed kind of tone deaf to that.
I never realized what made this Agatha Christie novel more special than all her others. I was told I HAD to read this one and I never realized just how amazing it could actually be. Agatha Christie is truly the greatest mystery writer and the writing in this story in particular proved that. My mind is still blown from the ending and I may need to go back and reread it to appreciate Christie's genius all over again.
This book was nothing short of awful. Some of the worst writing I've seen in a while. Here's an example:
“I've been eating red meat for the first time since Chris and Davis died. I'm amazed (and a little disappointed in myself) by how much I still love that rich, salty, juicy, bloody taste. And I've started to associate that delicious taste with being around Sean. I feel almost as if we're vampires on a sexy TV series where the undead with their fangs and perfect bodies zoom across the screen to have sex.”
What?? I can't believe I wasted my time on this.
So cool to read parts of the Selection series from different points of view. I really enjoyed Amberly's perspective, as well as Maxon's. It's not often that you get to see parts of a series from multiple perspectives, and I really enjoyed it.
This woman is something else. I mean, her level of in-depth-ness and, well, obsession is insane but amazing. I'm just sad she didn't live to see him caught.
Amazing speech but some of the typography was killing me. I get it's an artsy book version of the speech but sometimes it was really hard to read
Would have only given this 4 stars if I hadn't listened to the hilarious audio book version. Amy Poehler is absolutely hilarious and was so entertaining to listen to. I loved the chapter by Seth Meyers and hearing him read his chapter and I loved hearing secrets about SNL and Parks and Rec. Her chapter about memories of cast members was so cute! I was also surprised by how deep this actually got and how well Amy dealt with tough subjects like divorce, depression, anxiety, and just the trials of life in general. I'd highly recommend listening to the audio book instead of just reading it because Amy adds hilarious commentary and it's so cool to hear from all the guest speakers and readers like Carol Burnett and Patrick Stewart.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Going into it, I was pretty skeptical and almost unwilling to give it a chance. However, I'm really glad that I did. Harris does an impeccable job of turning a subject that most people would roll their eyes at into something believable and compelling. It was valuable to read Harris' insights on meditation because he showed how it was possible to find success in something that originally seemed ludicrous to him. I loved Harris' conversational tone and the way he injected his thoughts into everything. A former skeptic himself, he worded everything in a manner that indicated that he completely understood why we might think this is stupid, but persuaded us to give it a chance. I'm really glad I read this and it provided me with fresh insight and inspiration about this simple practice I was told in things like therapy and yoga would really help me. I tried this stuff a while ago when I was going to therapy regularly but I never actually believed it could work. But now, reading about it from this entirely different perspective, I have a new appreciation for it and a lot less embarrassment and skepticism about it.
Started off pretty horribly. I hated the writing and it felt too cliché and whiny. I was going to give up but finally, the murders began and it got better. I don't think any of the characters were that particularly well written either. Overall, it was just okay, I liked it enough by the end but it wasn't great at all.
I predicted the twist about halfway through, but still, damn. Sara Shepard is kind of amazing!