Kate
I actually have no idea how I feel about this book because it's the first audiobook I've listened to and the different format really changed the way I processed it. So...I guess it was fine? I didn't care about Thom but I didn't NOT care about Thom. I didn't understand his relationship with Goran. I liked some of the supporting characters but I didn't care what happened to them. Apparently I cannot emotionally connect to something until it's visual.
Reading this book for me was like reading the facebook posts of people I don't know. I'm kind of sad when sad things happen, but in general I don't care.
I didn't learn anything about these characters that I cared about. It was all clever banter and teenage philosophizing draped on top of a story that's gonna be depressing no matter how you write it.
I did learn about evolution and the fossil record and blah blah. So I guess the book did its job; I'm glad I read it. Only the language was weirdly inaccessible considering Gee is a journalist. He sounds like an academic trying to write for the pleebs but not quite getting it. A lot of his sentences are long and weirdly constructed. I had to read a whole bunch of sentences a few times over to try and figure out what he was trying to say. His humour took away from his message, for me. The book could have ended about halfway though. I liked the beginning, about our incredibly sparse fossil record and why phrases like “the missing link” need to be removed from our journalistic lexicon. But then he goes on for a while about how we can't make assumptions about how we evolved certain traits like standing erect but then continues on about how we may have evolved certain traits like standing erect. I liked the bit too where he talked about all the ways that humans are similar to other animals - our evolution wasn't strange or better, just different - but that could have been cut down a whole lot.
If you already like his writing, read it. If you want to learn some about how humans aren't at the top of the evolutionary ladder, read it. But you can probably put it down after the first few chapters.
Meh. Not necessarily an industry I find all that interesting, and I'm not into following psychopathic characters with no flaws. I didn't care about Serena at all, and she kept hurting the characters who were borderline sympathetic, so when this book ended I was just pleased I didn't have to hear any more about the timber industry. The writing was good though.
This book just broke my heart.
The depiction of paranoid schizophrenia in this book is very sad, and very scary, and pretty real. There is an overwhelming sense of futility throughout this story. What can you do when your son and brother has been taken over by mental illness, except love him? But love doesn't make things better either, so you either have to be sad for the rest of your life or go crazy yourself. John's parents do the former, his sister does the latter, and it's beautiful and heartbreaking.
It is rare that I like every story in a short story collection, but here we are (that may not be true...the copy I was reading had pages missing in the middle of the last story so it's possible that was the one I wouldn't like). Geni's writing is poetic and easy to read, and every story is emotional and a little bit fantastic.
I think that's a 2.5 rating. The science speculation in this book, the mysterious object on the moon and the teleportation technology, is seriously chilling. I loved that part of it. It was interesting and terrifying. Unfortunately most of this book is about some bitter, obsessed middle-aged men and their pissing contests and whatever it means to be a “real man” in the 1960's. There are two female characters: one is a one-dimensional femme fatale who only stays with real men, and the other is nothing but an opportunity for one of the male characters to talk about his feelings because he can't do that to other male characters.
Ever since Stiff, I have not hesitated to pick up every new book by Mary Roach and have never been disappointed. There's something about her curiosity and style that is so compelling...I think it's the footnotes:
“Here the soft palate - home turf of the uvula,* that queer little oral stalactite...
Its full medical name, and my pen name should I ever branch out and write romance novels, is palatine uvula.”“While a seaman might survive the suction and swallow, his arrival in a sperm whale's stomach would seem to present a new set of problems.
*I challenge you to find a more innocuous sentence containing the words sperm, suction, swallow, and any homophone of seaman. And then call me up on the homophone and read it to me.”
Unfortunately for me, I tend to read while eating. I don't think I'm necessarily a squeamish person, but somehow reading about the preparation and performance of a fecal transplant (there's a blender involved) made my oatmeal much less palatable.
I recently finished this book for the second time (September 16, 2015, since GR won't let me record more than one finish date) as an audiobook, to test out my audiobook skills. They're still terrible.
This book remains a 3-star. I liked Cinder, and I really liked Dr. Erland. I could have done with less mooning over Price Kai by everyone. There was also one particular line I didn't like (paraphrasing): “If not for her unruly hair, she would have been pretty”. If only you would comb your hair, Cinder/disembodied narrator would have found your appearance pleasing! Also the whole Disney/fairy tale trope of good people being pretty and bad people being ugly. Queen Levana is using glamour to convince people that she's good looking, because she's evil, and therefore can't possibly be good looking on her own.
I'm definitely going to read the next one.
An interesting look at OCD and how an individual deals with it, as well as a subtle and beautifully unfolded love story. Also a very interesting look at mental illness - is it actually illness? When do you seek treatment, and why? What sort of treatment will actually benefit you, and what will cripple you? A nice jab at psychiatry and how the “professionals” are dealing with mental illness.