j wren pennington
catching fire is the second installment of a planned trilogy that describes a facist distopic world where an annual gladitorial tv show provides entertainment and propaganda. the portion of the story we get in catching fire is very similar to the middle film in the original star wars trilogy, the empire strikes back, because the empire truly does strike back. our protagonist who has before now been able only to react to the awful realities that surround and envelope her, begins to realize that there is more than just staying alive. there is more than just keeping the people she loves alive. eventually, she must conclude that she is willing to fight and sacrifice to bring down the regime.
i am up in the air on liked versus really liked. the thing with it is this: like so many other books of this genre, there isn't a lot of truly magical writing. this is not the book thief, but the story does stick. i find myself ruminating on it still. it is good; it's well developed, it's suspenseful, it's plausible.
i get mildly annoyed by katniss' lack of direction at times, but that is a key to her development through the series. in part, it's why teenagers like this series. they identify with being manipulated by adults and the feelings associated with that. and the author truthfully describes this process.
in conclusion, for adults, not a must read. having said that, i read it in one sitting to the neglect of everything else. take from that what you will....
so from most of the reviews this appears to be a book you either love or hate and i can see why, eggers has written something that is all we love and hate about my generation. the writing, story and style, is innovative and engaging, but also painfully self-indulgent and fustian. even eggers is aware of this divide, as this edition suggests you only read the first 123 pages.
everyone and everything in this book is dave eggers. this might be his most innovative device, which in many places is rather genius, like a literary fun house where all of the images end up being you. but eventually his obsession with himself and the mythologies he has created gets a bit tedious. to be fair, it's his book and he mostly sticks to stuff that drives the story onward, but occasionally he gets mired down in what feels like his personal inside joke. no matter how he describes it, it just isn't as entertaining as he seems to think it should be. he also does a lot of moralizing, which gets old pretty quickly, especially from a character who is 22 years old.
now, having made the above criticisms, i have to remind myself that the primary reason i as a woman in my mid thirties, don't spend a lot of time with people in their early twenties is because they tend to be self aggrandizing children made overly bold by their newly acquired freedoms and responsibilities that they perceive as full blown adulthood, equal to that of any one older than themselves. and if the kid has had some kind of tragic experience they feel even more suddenly sage-like and world weary. this is exactly how i feel about dave eggers in this book and while this certainly doesn't describe all twenty somethings, it does describe me when i was 22.
personally, i really liked it, but it speaks so directly to my own experiences, vices, and virtues, that i find even trying to write this review of it incredibly complicated. so...
the good: well written, some really funny and poignant moments. the story is interesting. overall, it's a good book.
the bad: sometimes you'll just want to skip ahead. even the author says so.
i would recommend it, but not broadly.
the verbage is exact, like reading the book, which is awesome.
very roald dahl.
the art though is mediocre. it's really nothing special. it has that unexceptional quality that renders you unable to define exactly why it isn't good, but you know immediately from a glance that it isn't good.
oh well.
i don't even know what to say here....i mean really. this breaks into my top ten weird books of all time.
it's like microserfs and the davinci code had a baby, and that baby grew up playing on reddit and reading the oatmeal and smbc cartoons, and got a useless art degree.
generally speaking, the story is nice and fun with just enough “wink wink but really though” sage advice to give it substance. it does flag somewhere in the middle, not entirely sure why. i think it makes the mystery so compelling from the very start that it has difficulty sustaining it while other parts of the story develop. but it does pick up and deliver a pretty satisfying reveal.
if you meet 3 or more of the following criteria, you will enjoy this book:
-you can identify 5 or more fonts by name
-use a mac
-are interested in art and DIY
-read wired pretty regularly
-aspire to live the lives portrayed in the social network.
it's not middlesex, but it's pretty good. i enjoyed it four stars worth, but i really, really like eugenides' writing; objectively, i felt i should give it three.
although there are many things in this story that speak to me directly, i didn't feel like i connected with it totally. it's possible you will find yourself in the same boat unless you are really primed in the fields of literary/critical theory and the victorian/regency periods of literature. if you miss the lit. crit. stuff, you will probably notice it. there is a lot of name and theory dropping. go ahead and google derrida, barthes, lacan, and their contemporaries before reading. my theory is that if you miss the victorian lit. stuff, you probably won't know exactly what you missed, but you will have a sense of not quite connecting with the book. i have not had a chance to question my own personal dickensian victorianist, and regency austenite, friends who have read it to find out if that genius that i suspect is happening, is actually happening. that's kind of cheating, i suppose i could read the pickwick papers, vanity fair, daniel deronda, the luck of barry lyndon, mansfield park....
This book is really well written and totally compelling. I just can't go down this dark of a path right now.
the love child of a better written Neverwhere and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
like everything else china mieville writes, there is a wealth of truly original ideas that are both clever and well executed. it's rare that you get both.
this book goes down in my own personal history as the first book i picked up, read the first paragraph and realized i have already read it.
interestingly, i did not recognize the words exactly, but i recognized the place it described. my brain created the exact same image and my initial response was not, “hey, i've read this,” but, “hey, i've been here before.”
okay, this is my second brian lumly book. i also read the first volume of titus crow. i would never have picked this up if had i not already read titus and if i did not work in a high school library. the thing is, the writing is good, the stories are pretty good, but i am not compelled to read any more of the 60 other books he's written. i get the feeling that once you've read one, you've got the idea. not that the stories are at all formulaic and i am surprised by how well he writes, it's just somehow not enough to make me want to reach for the next one.
story alone would have been a 3, but there are some really adept observations that push it into the 4 star range. (i changed my mind it's a 3.)
what's wrong with the story: nothing really. it's just one of those anti-hero plot lines like “big lebowski” where the protagonist fumbles around in a drunk stupor and judges everyone else. in this case, as in lebowski, the protagonists drunken stupor leads him to the inevitable mystery of what did he do while drunk.*
what's so awesome about neilan's observations: they are seriously dead on. the protagonists descriptions of cubicle land and what it means and the phoniness of it's artifices is kind of priceless.
*at first these stories seem funny and people root for the anti-hero because, well, they also like to get drunk and win; and a lot of times this is what happens in these kinds of stories. i find them sad, and i find people rooting for the self-obsessed, lazy a holes even more sad. these characters are built to mirror the times, they are intelligent capable people who choose to be self-obsessed lazy a-holes who judge themselves superior to people who put themselves out there by trying or buying ideas. granted some of those people are a little delusional and/or absurd and poking a little fun or recognizing that delusion is not the evil, it's the judging from a position of apathy and inaction.^ and people idolize them for that. this does not speak well for our collective future.
^of course this is the entire point. the book is called apathy and other small victories. so the story is doing what is supposed to do, and i don't think the author intends for you to root for the sorry ass protagonist, but people do and that's distracting. to me at least.
i'm not 100% sure about anything in this book. the protagonist; i like her, i hate her, i'm annoyed by her, i identify with her, etc. i suppose that's why it's so good.
i am also quite sure that my thoughts on this book will change as i sit with it.
i think some people grow up knowing exactly where they fit into the scale of introvert and extrovert; i am not one of those people, so much of the new work being published about introversion is nothing short of revelatory.
so, it breaks down like this: writing gets 3/4. it's good, but stylistically it is not gripping. maybe that's because it's about introverts; more likely it is because i want all nonfiction to be written by bill bryson, stephen pinker, or shirley jackson. i am aware that i have unrealistic expectations.
the subject matter, no matter how it is presented, gets a 5 because this is one of a few books that have truly and irrevocably altered my perspective regarding myself and/or everything else.
more reflection is required, but still, neat-o.
very engrossing. the characters are believable, likable, hatable....everything they need to be to make the story work. it is a fairy tale, but one that addresses identity in a very contemporary and accessible way.
i don't like the love story aspect, so the fact that i still really liked the book in spite of the romance, is saying something profound.
ok, who wouldn't love an alternate reality where a premium is placed on good literature and there is a segment of law enforcement devoted to it; where the rocky “horror picture show” is actually a weekly staging of Richard the III where the actors are cast from the audience and participants yell responses on cue with props in hand; where dna sequencing and cloning allow everyone to have their very own pet dodo?
if your tastes is for good literature with some scifi proclivities on the side, this is totally worth your time.
very informative stuff, and a sense of humor to boot. it's a bit pedantic, but i perfectly understand goldacre's frustration with the general ignorance concerning science. in a buyer beware market, the buyer is required to be aware. and shamelessly stupid and dishonest people profit when they are not.
unsurprising is the info debunking kinoki foot pads, ionic foot baths, and homeopathy as a whole. was surprised though by the chapter on the placebo effect and some of the big pharma info. the writing is pretty cheeky, not award winning stuff, but entertaining and interesting with some priceless quotes sprinkled throughout.
holy crap this book is awesome....not done....brb.
i am not going to write a real review, there are a lot of good ones out there, go read one of those.
whatever i or you or your reviewer of choice think about the story, the writing is incredible. even sentences that don't describe anything are constructed in such a way that i could read them over and over aloud and dance to it. it's not what i would call pretty, or beautiful. it's smart, sardonic, punchy, funky....if i were writing a real review i would say something about the alluring cynicism of the language adds another layer subversion, and another serving of disillusionment for Oedipa as she becomes aware of the world disingenuineness.
it's a great book.
there aren't really any stunning revelations here but this book is still awesome. it really drives home the difference in thinking between the right and the righter.
we live in such a complex and confounding country, riddled with so many divisions; and spirits are running so high and violent, it's amazing we are able to do anything at all.
this was published before the tea party really got off the ground, i'll be looking up frank to see what else he has to say. also, there are some great quotes that i will add later when i have the book in front of me.
a fun little non-fiction read in the vein of bryson's “a walk in the woods.”
mark adams, a magazine editor with a pretty decent CV, decides after years of working for Outdoor magazine that, as he is 41 years old and therefore could die at any minute, an adventure is in order. the adventure he chooses is following in the footsteps of Hiram Bingham III on his 1911 expedition that brought the great Incan ruin of Machu Picchu to the front pages of the US press.
adams is a clever writer with a knack for appropriately weighting his narrative against historical data about Bingham and the original journey. he is also wise enough not to stray too much into his own musings and relay his trip, and the people he met on it, in a very authentic way.
this is a solid good read no regardless of it's particular subject matter, but if you have an interest in Peru or the Inca or in anthropology in general, you are likely to enjoy this one. if you like travel books, this is also good for you.
STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND READS THIS.
seriously, it's good stuff. human beings think they are such hot shot's. they think they know everything, but science is here to show them what irrational, emotional, neurotic monkey's they really are.
they will eventually be ruled by robots because they are too stupid to recognize their own shortcomings, this book illustrates that very well.