Kate
I wanted to like this book, but it struck me as kind of pretentious and the main character was an asshole, but I also kind of identified with the main character which also made me sort of not like the book because it made me think about the ways I'm dependent on the opinions of others so I think I really lived in my own head while reading this book more than I was actually reading the book.
I don't remember why I got this book. I must have seen it somewhere and thought the plot was intriguing, and maybe I just wanted to continue reading through the pattern of books with the same starry cover:
The cover was my favourite part of this book. Throughout, I kept thinking about how great the plot was and how much I would have really liked it if it had been written by somebody else. When I looked up the author, I found that he only writes historical westerns/romances so this must be his first foray into sci-fi, so I'm willing to be lenient but maybe just say stick with what you know.
The science in this book, as mentioned by many of the other low-star reviews, was pretty lacking. If the impact was going to be devastating enough to destroy all traces of life and civilization, then there's no possible way that the results of the genetic seeding or the sphinx could have survived. This is an ancient civilization with nuclear capabilities, they've built buildings and cities that presumably rival or at least match our own, there's no way all of that was destroyed with no trace and yet one stone sculpture manages to weather the millennia. I was really irked by the continuous mentions of “the three races” as if it's been proven and all of society accepts that there are three races only and that's that. They are white, black, and Asian, by the way, if you were wondering. Even disregarding the idea that race is a social construct and not a biological organization, do South Asian people fall under Asian? What about Hispanic people? What about Indigenous peoples? And especially the idea that you can do a DNA test on some embryos to find that they're all exactly 33.3% white, black, and Asian is laughable. I am willing to suspend SOME disbelief when it comes to The Before Time because who knows how they evolved but we're also supposed to accept that they and we are the same type of human so I guess I'm not that willing after all. ALSO it blows my mind that this one dude could've come up with this method of accelerated aging in what, a few weeks? He didn't even test it, he just built it in hoping it would work!! It could have killed the surrogate mothers! The children could have ended up braindead or had multiple physical and mental disabilities!
I'm not totally down with the stereotypical characters either. The whip-smart, handsome college professor and the gorgeous, hard-hitting reporter have a romance both inevitable and boring as heck. They're that couple that you're like, okay, WE GET IT you love each other just please have a fight or something already. The conversations between all characters are written so stilted and unlike any person has ever spoken. I've never in my life heard anyone say “One would think so, wouldn't one?” And it's not even just one character with a quirky way of speaking. Also if I have to read “Ava laughed”, “The others laughed”, “Everyone laughed” one more time I'm going to never laugh again. There are better ways to get across someone's charm.
A bunch of stuff about The Before Time really chafed, like all the made-up names and the way that some words were different - like using the word "stel" for "star" because that's the The Before Time word for "star" but we can safely assume that everything we're reading has been translated into English for our benefit so why not just say STAR? I did like that hubris and one man's greed took down the ancient civilization. One last thing that really irked me was just one line when our heroes were talking to the owner of the restaurant about providing their "biological contribution" to re-seed the Earth and they asked if he'd done it: "'I did...My mother-in-law thinks she has as well, but I took care of that. Whatever future life is spawned upon this planet will be spared any rebirth of Lazina Coroway. And if they had ever known her, they would thank me for it.' Both Zorlok and Vilna laughed as Gnonloma left their table." HAHAHA HOW HILARIOUS that he took away this woman's agency regarding the most important thing of everyone's lives right now??? I imagine that this is very important to many people, facing the death of their entire civilization and everyone and everything they've ever known, to be able to leave some part of themselves behind, to believe that maybe their existence wasn't just for nothing and that they can hope that something of them will continue on into the future. That's got to be a pretty profound thought and sounds extremely moving. And this woman apparently put her trust in her son-in-law to carry out this process and he betrayed her. PLUS the GREAT PUNISHMENT for the man who condemned everyone to this fate in the first place because of his greed and assholery is that he is not allowed to leave his genetic material behind! And here are these folks just laughing about a mean ol' mother-in-law being denied the chance to, in some sense, live again after the destruction of her entire world.
So. I don't know much about Robert Vaughan's historical novels but I'll likely stay away from any future sci-fi that he writes.
Based on an ARC from Netgalley
I really loved the idea of the not conquering or malevolent alien overlords, but also not quite benevolent either. There's a lot of fear when it comes to first contact stories, a lot of mobilizing the world to defend our planet etc., and benevolent aliens are sometimes viewed with suspicion because of the what's-in-it-for-them idea. This is a great look at a species that comes to help Earth advance technologically through things like job automation and superior medicine but unfortunately our economic system still exists and it just widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It struck me as a warning message to our increasingly technological society that we need to focus on compassion and fairness going forward or risk losing it altogether.
I liked this one a lot more than The Ballad of Black Tom. His writing style is the same, and I really like it. I'm partial to creepy, ethereal fairy stories, and I especially love these genres being interpreted by black authors. There was some story bits that I want completely sold on, it felt to me like Apollo's anger at Emma before everything went down wasn't completely earned, but overall I was really engrossed in this book.
I really liked the beginning of this book, when Laurence and Patricia were children, navigating their respective powers/talents and also the social pressures of being tweens/teens. I could have read an entire book like that. The second half, I found myself reading just to get to the ending a bit. I was still interested, but it was a little draggy. I did like the ending, I thought it all pretty much followed. I really loved the genre bending going on here. I love magic realism, and I love anything that messes with genre, and this was a really beautiful melding of science and magic and fairy tale.
It looks like I took a long time to read this book, but actually it sad on my floor for a couple weeks and then I read it in an hour.
There is a lot to love about this book. The illustrations are dreamy and beautiful, the facial expressions are just lovely, and I love Eartha as a protagonist. She's naive but emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and loyal. I think I liked all the individual characters more than the story they were embedded in. There was something about it that felt a little lacking to me, but I liked the backstory of the city and the fjord, and the general niceness of it all.
I zoomed through this book. I love Kory Stamper's writing style, and I like how she tackles the difference between how laypeople perceive the dictionary and how those to actually put the dictionary together do, that is, with a lot of snark.
“To the etymologist, ‘origin unknown' means that while there may be theories regarding a word's origin, there's no direct evidence that those theories are true. But to most people, ‘origin unknown' seems to mean ‘Please send us your best guess as to where this word came from, because we are idiots.'“
I can forgive her snark because there's something about laypeople commenting on one's field of expertise that can be so hilarious and yet, depending on how often people feel the need to comment on it, so entirely irritating. Like, when I tell people I'm a librarian, a lot of people say, “Wow, you must love reading!” Which has yet to become too irritating for me, and I guess I'm more inclined to be chill about it because every time I meet someone who tells me they're an archaeologist I say “Cool, I love Indiana Jones”, even though I can see how instantly their face falls with the weariness of explaining how Indiana Jones was a shit archaeologist and those movies are nothing like the reality etc.
So I also loved reading about how the dictionary is perceived by dictionary editors, especially in terms of “antedaters”, people who write into the dictionary to give an example of a citation where the word was used earlier than the date the dictionary indicates. In some cases these are actually helpful and correct, and the dictionary is updated (eventually) accordingly, but in a lot of cases these are from people who are trying to “one-up” the dictionary and haven't actually thought about the sense in which a word is being used. For example, the word actress (a woman who is an actor - dated to 1680) has a more archaic sense of “a woman that takes part in any affair” - if you found a citation of the word dated between 1586 and 1680, you couldn't use it to prove the dictionary wrong since the word wasn't used in the sense we're looking at in that time.
Basically I just loved reading about how many people write into the dictionary for so many different reasons. People are great/the worst.
I also really liked Stamper's way of describing the slog of defining a word like take. It reminded me of the time I was trying to track down primary sources and I'd spend hours on a computer and then hours in library basements, only to finally find the journal issue I was looking for (and have the cover fall apart in my hand because it's so old) and flip to the article I was looking for a find that THAT ONE PAGE I NEEDED had been torn out who knows how long ago. But then, also the relief and joy of finishing a task that had taken so much of your time and sanity. Stamper really got that down. It makes me want to do something that seems futile.
Yeah, I finished this book in record time. I started reading it immediately after I finished the second, which is good, because that cliffhanger would have made me really angry. One thing I typically don't love reading is descriptions of battles (of any type - space shootouts, hand-to-hand-combat, infiltrations, etc)...if a book is good and the battle is important I understand its necessity but I tend to need to re-read them to really understand where everyone is and how it's playing out. Brown is really good at writing battles in a way that works for me, which is awesome because there are a lot of them in this series. I still sometimes had to step back or pay more attention when I was reading but in general I found them a lot easier to read than normal.
I am so happy about the happyish ending! I was kind of worried when Sevro was shot in the chest and everyone was stuffed in a box that that was going to be the end (but not that worried...I was skeptical that Brown would let it happen that way and confident in Darrow's ability to be a few more steps ahead than that) but not everyone died and Darrow has a kid now! Wonderful. I'm also glad that he pulled out the Jackal's tongue, that was pretty satisfying. I would be interested in the novel about the buildup of the world after the chains were broken, because that seems like the harder part. Though I guess that is what the next one will be about so, hurrah! I want more about Holiday because she sounds adorable.
I was so close to finishing this book when I looked at my pile of other books to get through and decided it wasn't worth it. I liked the first half, the history of superheros and comics, and then I was less interested in Grant Morrison's contact with higher planes of existence. Though I like his theory of reality and many of his turns of phrase, I just had other more interesting books to get to, so I put this one down.
Pretty entertaining story for the time it took me to read (my lunch break) - some casual sexism (was there really any reason for Laureline's body to de-shrink faster than her clothing?) and nothing too thoughtful in terms of sci fi concepts but it was pretty fun. I hope the movie is more entertaining.
This was a really fast read, and I enjoyed reading it. The conclusion felt rushed and kind of convenient, but it was an interesting look at time travel. Though for all the talk about the real science of time travel by a couple of the characters, this book didn't really feel sciency. I'd recommend if you're looking for something interesting and kind of fluffy!
This book was easy to read, in the sense that the writing was easy and I finished it in no time. It's one where I was reading it on my phone while walking because I was so into it.
This is one book where I feel its popularity speaks for itself. There are so many great reviews and articles and stories about it, and I can't help but feel that this is important. In terms of diverse books, books by and about black women, books about serious issues written for youth, books about police brutality and institutionalized racism. While not being the most well-written book I've ever read, it does acknowledge the nuance for Starr in things like code-switching and how it makes her feel, not being embarrassed or ashamed of dating a white guy but worrying about his ability to support or understand her when she starts to show him more of her black self, reconciling her fear of cops with the fact that her uncle is a cop...there's a lot of really great stuff in here, and even if it's not given a lot of depth in the story I hope it'll get people talking.
As a basic take-away - there's no such thing as a “male brain” and a “female brain”, while some things show gender differences they are usually small, most people of any or no gender have a mix of traits that may be more likely to occur in a person with either a male or female body such that it's not possible to predict someone's gender or sex based on these traits. It is hard to separate biology and sociology, and people become aware of gendered things and how they are supposed to react to them and internalize that from an extremely young age (I recently saw a talk from [a:Shannon Hale 49177 Shannon Hale https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1299093233p2/49177.jpg] where she mentioned that school-age boys will either be completely uninterested in reading her Princess Academy books or will be embarrassed to admit that they do - unless they're homeschooled! Which speaks a lot to the socialization of gender expectations). Also, testosterone is more nuanced in humans and animals than you may think, and doesn't necessarily map easily to things that are “masculine” (and in fact testosterone levels sometimes change in response to external stimuli and behaviour instead of a change in testosterone causing changes in behaviour).Basically, this book says that “boys will be boys because biology” is a silly way to approach the world and human behaviour.
I knew I loved this book when I saw the cover, because it's so excellent. I wasn't sure what to expect inside but I like that too. The illustrations are so adorable, and Pete is an excellent protagonist who just want to tell knock-knock jokes in the nude. Who am I to say that knock-knock jokes aren't better sans pants?
And look at his adorable little elephant feet!
The story was fine, birds with teeth are pretty cool. I did not like Bill Bowerbird's look, he creeped me out a bit, but once I saw the owl I was all in illustration-wise.
Also then I found this adorable and perfect illustration of a pink cephalopod on Burke's website and I decided to not focus too much on weird Bill.
Probably more accurate to be called “Queer Theory: A Graphic History” - in just knowing the title I wasn't sure what to expect but it's an overview of the main theories and theorists that fall under the umbrella of queer theory.A nice overview for me, as someone who hasn't read a thing about academic queer theory. Though sometimes I would think, I definitely understand this concept, and then close the book and be totally unable to explain it to someone else, that's mostly how I deal with academic concepts in general. I liked the style of this book, and the illustrations were great. Here's my favourite one:I also liked this one just for the fun juxtaposition of nihilism with the happy talking head:At the end there's a nice section on how to incorporate queer theory into your everyday life, which is hard to imagine considering how dense and academic a lot of it is; but I think what they've suggested is a nice broad idea for critical thinking in general:“Try to avoid polarizing into either/or binaries: male/female and straight/gay, but also, beyond that, (sex) positive/negative, good/bad, real/fake, essential/constructed, healthy/harmful, transgressive/conforming, assimilationist/liberatory, reformist/radical...Instead ask what an idea or representation opens up and closes down. What is included and what is excluded? Might it be a matter of both/and rather than either/or?”I've been reading this at the same time as [b:Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society 30231724 Testosterone Rex Myths of Sex, Science, and Society Cordelia Fine https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466695471s/30231724.jpg 50692501] which dovetailed pretty nicely in terms of muddling gender and sex binaries.
I remain intrigued. Though it was so long since I read the last one that I forgot mostly what happened...luckily Dr. Creasy was having flashbacks I guess? I'll probably read the next one after having forgotten all that happened in this one. I like the story though, so maybe once I hit the end I'll re-read it back to back properly.