Ryan
4.25 stars. A fun read and a great premise. Bought it in an Amsterdam airport bookstore because my kindle broke and I finished it the next day because I was in transit most of that time. A great travel read
4.5 stars, rounded down. Bleak bleak bleak book but really interesting, filled with some really great writing and ideas. Brave of the writer to write such fucked up characters, especially Bruno the sex pest.
4.5 stars. Loved the concept and the direction the story takes. Loved the characters and the political message. Really my only qualm was the “silver-system”...idea was amazing, execution felt a little half baked.
God i loves this book. Franzens best since The Corrections. Better in many ways. I just want to live in the world he's created and the minds of his characters. Already looking forwards to re-reading.
4.5 stars. Had a hard time reading this book because I found it very triggering which means there's probably lots of parts inside me that need healing. Has inspired me to find an IFS therapist.
4.5 stars rounded up. I couldn't put this book down. It depressingly nails the particular dystopia we've created for ourselves in America, from 1993. Excited to read the sequel.
Knocked off half a point for the main character being a little too cool and competent, and for the pyro users which feel a bit one note “drug user evil killer cannibals” to me.
She's not wrong. I found this both entertaining and informative and I agreed with most of it, despite being a man. My favorite bits though were her arguments that men cannot be groovy in the way a woman can. Very 1968
God this book is bleak. While I knew most of the stuff in here, seeing it all in one place makes you realize what a truly evil empire the US is.
Such a good and honest book about being over your head in love in an unhealthy way. Every chapter has a line that took my breath away. Bad title though.
This book resonated with me. That Jung, he might be on to something.
Don't judge this book by it's cover, the writing quality and message are phenomenal.
Wow I loved it. Really nailed everything that's wrong (and right) about Silicon Valley. Anna is an amazing writer and there were times I was floored, or burst out laughing. I can't wait to read more of her work.
Definitely feels like a book written by a 23 year old and I mean that not as a compliment. Just the story of a rich fancy Princeton boy in like 1914. There's some passages at the end that I quite enjoyed when it gets a bit more philosophical. I liked Eleanor and the priest but the main character was not my fav but I can also relate to being an unbearable 23 year old.
I really love everything I've read of John Williams. Such a simple story, simply told. But beautifully written. The adult version of a Jack London book or something like that. Captures the human condition and human history in such a small story about hunting buffalo.
3.5 stars. Parts of it are amazing, and parts of it make me cringe so hard like an Andy weir book.
There were brief moments where I got lost in the prose, and found it like a beautiful dream. Moments. But mostly I found myself rolling my eyes. It's like if you gave a 16 year old a really good vocabulary and tasked him with writing literary fiction. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't.
I forgot that I actually read this when I was like 16, but it came back to me when I was reading it. It must not have made much of an impression on me back then and I can see why. It's an interesting story but I was so bored of it the whole time. Good ideas, bad writing.
4.5 stars. Didn't want to like this book but I really really did. Read it on a plane back from Europe and I didn't finish it on the journey but I kept reading after I got back, that's how enthralled I was. Maybe those feelings will fade with time but I feel like she just knows her characters so well, they felt very real and relatable to me, as an avoidant person with relationship issues.
I really wanted to like it, literary fiction about the midwest! Where I'm from! The corrections is maybe my favorite book! But something about the writing in this book rubbed me the wrong way. It just feels too try-hardy. And while sometimes the characters and situations feel real, it also feels like he relies too much on cliche, the characters caricatures. But I also blasted through it so I obviously didn't completely hate it. Some moments were beautiful.
If there was any justice in the world this book would be taught in every school in America. But of course there isn't any justice in the world. This book is about that and how families can love each other despite that, because of that.
The title and topic of this made me really excited to read it but I'm not sure I learned anything? It felt like a combination of common sense and long since rejected psychological theory.
God, so good. A blistering read. What's that George RR Martin quote, the only story worth telling is the human heart in conflict with itself, or something like that. Was completely blown away by this book.