Coffee
The second part was easier to read but I preferred the first part. I agree that people will never be truly rational and that sometimes it is that irrationality that they value the most, in fact I myself am an example of that. Not in the way the UM is in the second part, but still the same in different ways. I find peace in insanity sometimes and I wouldn't give that up for no rationality whatsoever, even if it costs me my well being. That's what makes me me. If everything I did was rational I think I'd be nothing more than a clog in a machine, there's no place for my free will there. (I'm just rambling, hope it makes some sense.) The constant pursuit of learning about new things is a big part of what keeps me alive. If I'm devoid of it for too long it's not exaggeration to say that I kind of fall into a sort of madness. And there was a part about this in the book. It is the process of taking in that information and learning about something that is more important to me that actually having learnt that information. I won't be satisfied even if I were given an immense amount of knowledge at once put into my head, as there's no enjoyment in it for me even though I know that going through the whole process of learning it on my own is inefficient than simply getting the final product. Humans will never be completely rational and a perfect society isn't possible. Anyways, that is all for me, I'll end this ramble here.
In general I liked the book and it's ideas and I thought everyone should read it. It's the kind of book I realize that I have to read more than just once to truly understand, and I shall do that sometime. But for now I think I will take a break from it and read some more happy stuff.
Inital rating: 3.8/5
My first book of 2023! I hate the main girl, she sucks. Hugo on the other hand is a character I very much liked. He thinks like I would if I were to be in a similar situation.
Although I didn't understand a lot of the language and what was being sad, what I did understand was great. And the poems are very well structured and written as well.
I don't like the way it's written at all. I only read a little bit it managed to irritate me in these short few pages. One moment we're talking about the main character, next it's about college and her friends, then for a short moment it's about her finding out she's probably been kidnapped, but then it drags along about how her body is moving on its own, then there's this Reeve guy(?), and then we're talking about her possibly being kidnapped again?? What the fuck am I supposed focus on?
I'm writing this much later. I liked the book a lot and the fact that it was highly quotable. But there's just something about it and I don't think it's a 5/5.
Finished reading the book just a few mins ago. It's definitely going in the category of books I'm never in a mood to read.
I didn't feel relatable or attached to any of the characters; I neither liked nor hated any of them. I believe that we can control our destinies, but I don't agree what this book tries to say at all. Also I just don't believe in God or omens and stuff like that so almost this entire book was a drag to read. Also, how heck does a person (genuinely) fall in love with someone after just seeing them for the first time?? It makes no freaking sense to me, they don't even know each other. Anyways, I very much didn't like this book.
Thus, I give it a generous rating of 2/5 stars!
I took way too long to finish reading this book. But nonetheless, every page of it was worth it. It's a great book. I personally am very interested in these sorts of books where it is discussed how our thinking works. The chapters touched on a lot of topics that I never thought of and it feels like reading this book activated many new ways of thinking in my mind.
Anyways, it's cold, my hands are frozen, and I don't want to type much. I got a little bored sometimes but the book still managed to get back my attention pretty quickly. (Plus, I'm a very slow reader so that's most probably the reason why it took me this long to read it.) Honestly, for anyone interested in human psychology, this book is perfect.
I liked how most of the things said in the book was told through stories and examples. And though I ended up disagreeing with a lot of that she said, I like how she didn't talk in vague expression. She said what she wanted to say, straight and clear. This was a nice read, it made aware or some things that never even crossed my mind before. (Like how in most households women do the cooking, but when we look at the biggest chefs in the world almost all of them are men. They are undoubtedly talented cooks, but it can't be a coincidence that almost all of them are men.) I do wish she didn't just talk about Nigeriens so much, but now I know that Nigeria has a big problem with genders (I am yet to know much of that is actually true though as I don't know any from Nigeria). Overall, I had my agreements, and I had my disagreements too, but I don't think disagreeing with a book necessarily makes it bad (though I had to think about that a bit before I made that opinion). It gets a 3.5/5 rating from me, it was good read.
I'll defenitely have to re-read this one as I wasn't paying much attention at first and was quite confused, which affected reading the rest of the book too. I think I'm going to like it more if I read it properly.
SpoilerI feel oddly calm. I thought the ending was going to be something much more suspenseful, but it wasn't, and I liked it that way. I like the ending. It's not a very clear ending, but also not one that's too open-ended? (I hope I'm making sense, it's 5:05 AM right now.)
I genuinely don't know how to describe how I feel about it at the moment, maybe I'll write about it when I wake up tomorrow, that is, if I end up getting any sleep after this. This book had be interested from the very beginning and managed to keep it that way until the very end. It hasn't been that long since I started reading books, but the ones I did read didn't really stick with me. I liked some of the books I read, and some I didn't. But never before did a book leave a hole in my heart after I finished reading it. A hole that I want to fill desperately by reading something like this again, and experience this feeling of wanting keep reading something, practically being unable to stop yourself once you're in it. I am a big anime fan, I've watched my fair share of it—enough to have own opinions on it at least, more than 600 shows to be more specific—and I remember feeling the same way as I am feeling now after I finished watching Shinsekai Yori (Eng title: From the New World)
I know I'm way off-topic now, but I just wanna keep writing about it now, and I will. Maybe this is it, the answer to how I can fill this hole. To do it I'll have to try out something completely different. Like how I experienced this again after reading a book, not after watching an anime. To this day, no other anime had managed to leave me as thirty for just a drop more as Shinsekai Yori had, but this time a book—a novel—had managed to do it. Anyways... I really liked this book and it's an experience memory I won't forget.
I don't usually listen to audiobooks but I don't think I would've reached the end of this story otherwise. There wasn't any grand story, things happened and the characters simply went along with the waves. That is in fact more realistic in fact I suppose but it's not really my thing. I liked Old Man the most but didn't really feel sad or anything, it was pretty obvious that he was going to die then. I wonder why her mother was the first one to be called by the Memory Police. The most interesting part about the book I'd say was how the views of Arr and main character (whose name I, oddly, can't recall) differed. One was convinced memories never truly fade and tried to make others recall the things they had forgotten about, and the other couldn't understand why it was so important to hold on to memories which had already been lost. Other than that I can't think of much to say, it was okay overall.
It wasn't a bad read. I was constantly annoyed at the characters but that's simply how it was written; and although I did not find it that funny, it was still funny. Also, I can't get the pancake scene out of my head, lol.
Had to watch a analysis video to understand what was going on and that helped a lot. I'll have to reread it now that I understand what was happening. 3.5/5
05-06-2024 - reread it. 3.75/5
Why is this a book? Felt like I was looking at some random pictures on imgur with subtitles or something.
I love the cover art so much, lol. Just like the previous graphic novels in this series I love this one too, and would gladly read from the series if any more were to come out in the future.
It was decent. I found it to be a bit repetitive. Also, she truly has quite a nice and loving husband.
My most favorite book of 2023, and it'll probably remain as one of my most favorites for a long time, if not forever.
28jan2025 - This book really wasn't all that.
Didn't like it that much for the first two chapters. But I really liked chapter 3 and could relate with the fourth chapter. By the time I finished it, my opinion on it changed a bit. The book can sometimes feel like a drag and a bit slow or boring, but I think there's at least one chapter for most people reading it; there's at least one chapter that you'll be able to resonate with on a more personal level, and it might help you with some problems you're stuggling with yourself, just like it did for me.
After reading chapter 4 I felt somewhat inspired and decided revisit something I'm very passionate about—sketching. I did a sketch after months of not drawing at all, and this book takes a lot of the credit for inspiring me to do that.
I would've given it a higher score had I not been so bored during the first two chapters, and so, I'm giving it a rating of 3.5/5.0. Thanks for reading, and have a nice day.
It wasn't bad, I like the first and the last parts, didn't really care or like more of the middle part. In the end I still don't really understand what it was all about though. Gatsby was a hopeless romantic and that's kind of it. I wish I could say more about the book but I really have no clue what to say. It was interesting though how he died pretty much alone, even though it seemed like there was an abundance of people who happened to know him. Overall, I honestly didn't like the story if I think. Ik it's a classic and maybe I just didn't understand the significance and the meaning of a lot of it but it still doesn't change the fact that for the most part I was quite bored and the only interesting subject that kept me reading was Jay Gatsby. 2.75 or 3 out of 5 for me
This totally sucked compared to the first book. Nothing really happened and was slow and boring and I didn't really care about anything that was happening.