Laelia
Really didn't enjoy this... by the time I was a quarter through the book, I was just hate-reading this lolol
Loved the writing.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is quite good but I am not too sure about the rest. It was still nice to read.
I loved this retelling of Poe's short story!! First of all, I really enjoy Poe's short stories and I genuinely loved the characters, their interaction and the story in this book!! And as someone who doesn't read horror because it's too scary, this is just the perfect amount: enough to terrify me but also not too much to make me want to close the book and hope I don't get nightmares. I also loved the focus on fungi!! I'd like to know more about them now but at the same time I don't lol
I honestly don't know how I feel about this book lol. I enjoyed it a lot, it was really fun to read but there's just something that bothers me about the characters but I can't really pinpoint why. Their personalities and their actions are reasonable (to some point), but it did not make me like them. It has very interesting characters and relationships, and although it's a bit of a cliché, I liked their friendship a lot. Mostly, I really loved following them and reading about the games the created.
Going into this manga series, I expected something else.. At the end of the day, I am slightly disappointed with how it ended. I kept expecting this to be about the main characters dealing and perhaps exploring and thinking about their sexual orientation and coming to terms with it or something like that. While it did not exactly address this, I enjoyed it nonetheless. The end was a bit anticlimactic for me though. Wish it was executed a bit differently but this manga made me think about a lot of things and made me feel so much that I still need to process for a while longer.
But I really enjoyed this and I really liked the characters, the settings and the story.
2.5
This was at first very enjoyable to read because of the metaphors and the use of such poetic writing but it got tiresome after a couple of hundred pages of just that and jumping back and forth in time and between characters. I felt lost at times, which is maybe the purpose of the book, but I couldn't enjoy it at all. Especially Rosie's role in the book, although I can see why she was a plot device, I didn't like that she was used like that. With her being highlighted in all the blurbs as the trans woman the mother befriends, confusing the daughter Beti, who believes she was the more ‘modern' of the two, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth...
Yes, the book raises some issues and I think some parts are really well done and I enjoyed those parts, but I couldn't really enjoy and love the book.
I had high expectations for this book but it didn't impress me as much as Ocean Vuong's first poetry collection. Still, it was enjoyable because the writing is great but maybe it was the wrong time for me, but the poems felt a bit all over the place for me. Like I can't quite follow what they're about. I can imagine revisiting this sometime in the future but it's not something I loved right away.
Loved how this novel begins but the protagonist is rather slow and annoying at times. I had a hard time reading this because of her and I wasn't really surprised at the end.
3.75
I enjoyed most of it because it was very interesting and had quite a few takes and perspectives on things that I haven't considered before. The format of this book was quite refreshing and also very captivating to read. At times it gets rather repetitive and slow which is why I dnf'ed this before but I liked the second half and the exploration of love in the context of grief.
OMG THIS IS SOOO CUTE!! They are becoming more like a family and the dog is just the best!! They'll be partners in crime - well not exactly that but you know what I mean.
So this was... not for me. I didn't think it was funny, well written or feminist.
This is supposed to be historical fiction but it's pretty much a 21st century woman inserted into the 1960s and lecturing people on feminism. The concept has a lot of potential and I expected more chemistry and more cooking but there was barely any mention of it.
The writing and the characters really made this novel read and feel like some make-believe that people come up with, where the world is perfect and everything goes as you imagine it to go. The world is very black and white and it's quite a negative POV, since you cannot just say that these kinds of people are all bad and everyone like her are good. In this book, men and religious people are portrayed as bad. Like there's no in-between. Also, the portrayal of people in STEM - did that have to be such a stereotypical portrayal? It really feels wrong to portray them all like this, it's like using their interest and pursuing a career in STEM as a character trait, explaining why they act the way they act. It's not. Seriously. They can communicate and pick up on social cues just like someone who isn't in STEM.
This book. While I would've been able to relate to this book more if I'd read this back in high school, I still love the characters and their friendships are everything to me. But I'm not entirely sure if it's just me slowly going stir-crazy, but this book also read a bit like a fever dream. Just like Tori, I wasn't sure what is real and what isn't.
So hmm. This book started out really nice and interesting: the typical case of women not being allowed to do things like becoming a surgeon... Seemed fun and it was - at first. But this book literally embodies the ‘not like other girls' trope and that's just ugh. Like sure, Nora is different because she was raised by Dr Croft and assisting him and all but who is to say that there are no other women out there who are the same but just don't have the same opportunities as her???? And then there was the completely unexpected but expected romance... The romance was also kinda bad..? Just ugh no. and while I wanted to keep on reading to find out how this book ends, it wasn't as fun anymore.
The blurb is so misleading too..
4.75
The only thing I didn't like is how the book starts. Everything else was amazing and perfect and I loved every second I spent with this book and its characters.
I love Adichie's writing so much, the way she describes losing her father and grief is just so good. It's so heartbreakingly sad. You can just feel the love she has for her father and after reading this book I feel like in a way I love him too because to her, he was such an amazing father.
I love this book. The way it's written is truly genius in my opinion. You read about all those situations women find themselves in over and over again that are so unfair and wrong, but they can't even tell it's wrong because they've never known life to be any different. The book reflects on a lot of important topics and makes you think differently.
There are so many progressive thoughts in the book too and then the last chapter practically proves that even though the world has changed a lot, the way people think and behave hasn't. Society still hasn't changed. The knowledge is there, but the awareness that something is unfair and the conscious decision to change their behaviour and thoughts isn't. And with that last chapter, I really think the book emphasised that really well.
It's good! Not one of my favourites because I don't care that much about politics in the US, but it's nice to have read it.