Oliver
I loved Pachinko for many reasons. I felt the book was strongly written and while it often got depressing, it provided a sense of realness that soothed the harsher edges. And while upsetting, I enjoyed reading the historical look into the lives of Koreans in Japan and the discrimination they faced there. There were also many strong themes throughout the book that elevated the read and caused me to often think deeply. Tackling issues such as mental health, regret, and shame, this book became more than just your typical generational novel.
However, I had one main issue with Pachinko. As a generational novel this book contained many characters, and while not hard to follow, I found the constant switching around caused a lack of emotional connection. This novel moves swiftly, and I often felt that around the time I was finally getting a strong feel for a character the POV would switch. I found myself often wishing for deep dives into certain characters, only to instead be getting whisked around from character to character. This often meant I wasn't connecting to the characters emotionally, which usually left me feeling distant from the novel.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, and I loved reading about the history of Koreans in Japan. A personal highlight for me was reading about Korean dishes throughout the novel which always left me hungry.
If you're looking to find joy, don't read this book and definitely don't read this review.
75% of this book was just trying to convince you that joy on demand is even possible, and the rest just trying to convince you on why you should meditate to achieve this. This is what I'd expect from the introduction of the book, not the whole 250 pages. For a book so short it really shouldn't feel so long.
Another thing was that the writing style was just PAINFUL. The author seemed to just ramble on and on for forever about things that really could have just been a sentence or too. I feel like this book really could have just been stripped down to an article or bulleted list without losing any relevant content. He goes from story to story to analogy and back to story again, all for one small point and none of which that was interesting.
Throughout the book the author almost came across as braggy and self-centered. He kept talking about how he got the nickname Jolly Good Fellow and how cool that was, which was fine the first time. He also kept talking about his job as an engineer at google and just how absolutely cool it was and on and on again about all the cool stuff he does. For how much of an emphasis there is on going beyond self, this book really had a lot of himself shoved into it.
He was also insensitive throughout the whole book, but mostly from that I'd just say don't read this book if you're mentally ill. This book is meant for people that already have a little joy in their lives and not for people who just struggle to even make it through the day. The author claimed he knew meditating worked because he used to be miserable his whole life growing up and kept alluding to how he got out of it the whole book, only to finally say that the joy had been there the whole time and that he just had to recognize it. Which, no hate to him, is an entirely valid experience but isn't really relevant for people who struggle with mental health, and was kind of frustrating to hear. Towards the end of the book he also brought up how writer friends of his and him had talked about how writing a book is kind of like having a baby. Which is just, not true. maybe as a rule of thumb just don't say that and definitely don't put it down in a book that you publish.
Not to say this book didn't have any good parts, I actually believe there were some good advice for when it comes to meditating and some of the interesting benefits, it was just buried under the rest of the nonsense so I didn't get to appreciate it as much as I wanted to. I was also excited to read this book, I like meditating and I like to practice mindfulness, but this book mostly just felt like it was trying to convince me to do something I already do, not how to approach it in a more joyful and open way.
I absolutely adored this series as a kid and after watching the movie I was left feeling a little disappointed so I went to read the book. I don't really read middle-grade often anymore, and I think that slightly effected my mood while reading it. I just found it really hard to connect with any of the characters at all. While this is still a great read it just had a a few problems that kept sticking out to me. And while I know they fit in with the universe it still really bothered me. There somehow was a mix of woman empowerment and misogyny it in too. Half of the time I felt I was reading one or the other. Sometimes both at the same time. And also there was just to much of an emphasis on peoples looks and especially on being skinny. Especially on not eating to be skinny as well major red flag.
Game On: 15 Stories of Wins, Losses, and Everything in Between
This is the first book of short stories that I have ever read, and I have to say, it disappointed me. The book certainly wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great either. I only really enjoyed about fifty percent of the stories and I felt like a lot of the stories just weren't that interesting. There were also quite a lot of allusions to real world online trends and games which didn't really work for me because when I read I'm generally trying to avoid all of that.
A few of the stories were written beautifully though, with characters and plots I loved. This book was really diverse and had a great cast of characters and stories.
The first couple of chapters of this book didn't really hook me in. It felt like a whole mesh of modern trends shoved in all at once and didn't really feel like enemies to lovers. The two main characters texted each other each morning, and I don't really text people at all, so maybe I'm wrong, but for enemies, this felt really out of the norm for me. Especially because a lot of the texting banter really just felt like friendly banter between two friends, or people at least somewhat interested with each other. The vibe I got from them in the beginning just wasn't really enemies. Later on in the book, once they started interacting in person did I really get the whole enemies sort of feel from them.
The main character, Rowan, also at the beginning of the book really just rubbed me the wrong way, she felt a little bit obnoxious and a bit like a pick me. She felt a little stuck in her head and really felt out of tune with the real world, and was really obsessed with how everyone perceived her. I couldn't tell whether or not I just warmed up to her, or she got better as the story went on, but I ended up really enjoying her POV.
Once I got past the beginning it felt like the author really got into a flow of things and I ended up really enjoying this book. It was lighthearted and fun and I really love the author's portrayal of Seattle. As a Seattleite myself it was really cool hearing about all the places I either knew or didn't know about in a book, and I felt the author really captured the feel of the city.
This book was super cute and I definitely recommend it to people if they love romance. The tension between the two main characters was perfect, and I really felt like I got to know them well. Overall this book took a little to get started but ended up being a witty and enjoyable read.
I did not enjoy the beginning of this book. It felt unnecessarily slow and was tough to get through. Plus the flow felt choppy and there wasn't really a structure to the story for much of the beginning. This book is supposed to be a letter to his mother so of course in the beginning it's going to feel like more of a stream of consciousness that rambles rather a book, but I still felt like a lot of the long rambling felt barely connected to the main subject of the book and therefore was mostly uninteresting. I wasn't interested in these parts of the story and I felt like I had to force myself through them to get to the parts that were actually relevant to what I was reading.
Once I got closer to halfway through though the book picked up a lot better, there was more of a flow to the story, and it seemed to have an actual direction it was headed in. I then felt drawn in and became more invested in the story.
Overall a good book, very lyrical and I like the word choice and overall message of the story.
Absolutely loved this book and can't wait to read the sequel!
I loved how in depth we got into this world and can't wait to see where it goes from here.
This book kept me on my toes and pulled me magnetically through the entire story. An amazing Sci-Fi novel that I felt really captured what I've been looking for lately with an in-depth character study.
Didn't expect to love this book and really glad I picked it up. A definite recommend!
DNF
I came into this book having watched the Apple TV show, and shockingly, I have to say that the TV show was so much better than the book. So much changed from the TV show to the book, including changing the gender of the MC, a man in the book but a woman in the TV series. Having watched that previously my expectations were set really high and coming in and reading the book and having it be an almost different story, that felt like it was missing so much, made me not enjoy the book at all. It felt underdeveloped and just not fleshed out with flat characters and a boring plot. I only got 50 pages in but at that point the whole motive and plot to the story line was that there was political tension with neighboring planets and they were trying to create an encyclopedia that could decrease the amount of time the empire would spend in a dark period. Overall not very exciting.
At this point I was basically forcing myself to read the book and making very slow progress, and while I really try to never leave a book unfinished, lately I've been going through some major book slumps so I decided to let this one go.
Entirely underwhelmed.
Loved the characters and thought the plot seemed really interesting. My problem was I thought it had a ton of potential that none of it was executed on. There was just so much potential for some psychological, thought provoking writing, and I saw none of that at all. Left feeling incredibly disappointed and upset.
The plot was predictable, and the world building was very unique. The romance felt forced and rushed, unrealistic and made me cringe or want to vomit at times. The ending felt unrealistic and chaotic at times, but overall wrapped up nicely. This book was a quick read and the writing was simple, but I didn't like how people were described as girlish, or when her long hair was cut off it was described as losing her femininity. The book wasn't bad but it wasn't good either.
Loved it so much, would rate the book 4.5 stars if that was an option. Something was just holding me back from giving it that 5 stars, and I don't really know what.
Had a really strong ending that kept me glued to the pages, eagerly awaiting the sequal.
Definitely recomend and would definitely read again.
I really enjoyed the beginning. I thought the character was good and that, it had a really strong plot. I couldn't put the book down. But instead of villain vibes I got more vigilante vibes, which was mildly disapointing for me, although the character was definitely morally grey. And the ending felt rushed, and in my opinion didn't really fit the story line.
Personally, this book just wasn't for me, but please keep in mind that this book was not intended for my age group. This book was an adult book, but not because it's too mature, but because that's the intended age group. I wouldn't recomend this book for teens.
The main character was about twenty years my senior and was going through, what I'd characterize as a midlife crisis. Therefore, I could not connect with her at all, or really any of the other characters. I cannot say, because of this difference of age, what I would do in her situation, but when I found her making bad decision, after bad decision, all in a downward spiral, I couldn't help but cringe. This is one thing that I really cannot stand.
Also, minor spoiler warning, this book involves adults in their late thirties messing around and screwing minors. As a minor myself, this, I found, was disgusting. There was no explicit scenes involving this, but still a major thing.
This book also felt very slow for a murder mystery novel. I felt there was a lot of unnecessary information and thought proccess going into the MC's life, and towards the end, found myself scimming most of it. I still got all the necessary information, and understood what was going on perfectly.
On the plus side, the ending was very unexpected and something I did not see coming at all, a thing i always greatly appreciate in books, as some mystery's tend to have very predictable endings.