Kate
Amazing setting, promising characters but I'm 186 pages in and it's not very compelling. The characters' actions don't fully make sense. For instance, how on earth did Ali meet his “best friend” while in the notoriously isolated citadel?? I'm also confused by all the different groups.
I definitely have the “project brain” described in the book. I go hard, forget all routine, then emerge later and ask who wrecked my house. This book was so reasonable and so helpful!
Jane Eyre + Bridget Jones + Gone Girl.
I picked this up thinking it'd be a forgettable romance, but the first person narration was gripping and strangely empathetic. Just when you think you understand the entirety of the story, the floor drops out below you, and you find yourself stunned, the world entirely changed.
It's also hilarious. 5 well-deserved stars.
The beginning didn't grab me. It was too based in fantasy tropes and not in interesting characters. But I loved other books by this author so I'll try again later.
I didn't finish this one before it had to be returned to the library. What I had read was interesting, but started to get depressing: so many raucous parties and divorces and depression and terrible people (who may have been good writers.) It made it hard to be interested if everyone in the scene seems awful.
This is the first I've read of this author. Loved the main character and her suit and her interactions with her partner. The world was fascinating, and it made me wish that I knew much more about the cultural background (places, history, etc). The plot was probably the weakest point.
A fascinating discussion of whether democracy is unjust. Brennan compares political decision-making to jury deliberations, in which a decision is deemed unjust when the jury proceeds incompetently because they either ignored the facts or acted corruptly. He argues that perhaps voting should be more like driving, or becoming a judge, where certain levels of competence are required.
I wish there had been more focus on possible epistocracies (governance by the competent), rather than only one chapter, but it makes sense that it should take nearly a whole book to convince people of the downsides of democracy. For instance, one astonishing fact was that a large majority of people thought that the Marxist slogan “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” might be part of the Constitution. Egads. Apparently, there are numerous other studies that show a significant amount of population knows very little about who they are voting for, some even confusing the party platforms.
It's a book well worth reading, both for the overview of various political science studies and for the thoughtful look at alternative forms of government that might better protect people's rights. Highly recommended.
Absolutely fabulous. One of my favorite reads of the year.
The book explores so many things - what happens when people can “consent” to be, effectively, slaves? How can one escape such a sentence? What would life look like with constant access to a personal AI? What if everything is 3D printed? What would the backlash against it look like? If the world is taken over by corporations? What do the rich act like in a world with this much technology?
On top of all of that, there's a fantastic detective story.
Love this book. It reminded me of Robin McKinley's writing, and had wonderfully deep characters.
The book's a little rough. Objects essential to the plot are remembered by the characters only a few moments before they're needed to serve the plot. The secondary characters such as the ship crew, aren't that distinguishable from each other, probably because we rarely hear the crew members talk to each other, just to Ky.
Despite all of that, I loved this.
I enjoyed this one and stayed up to finish it. There weren't any hyperbolic descriptions (thank God), but a few things seemed a little off or strange. We know who did it early on, but I kept reading to find out how and why.
This book has forever changed the way I see lower-class, white culture. There's no way to read it without empathy for the kind of life experiences that J.D Vance and his family have gone through - the traumatic childhood events that would shape his expectations for adult relationships. But Vance doesn't want us to think that it's a “cycle of violence” or a forgone conclusion. He believes low expectations and a learned hopelessness are also causes, and pouring outside help in the form of things such increased money for public schools won't help kids who don't have a room in their house where they can't hear screaming and fighting. He believes it has to be an internal change within the community, and attributes the changes in his own life to the love of his Mamaw and Papaw, and the examples of a few family members in positive relationships.
One aspect that I wish Vance would have touched on more is the harmfulness of an “honor” culture, where “yo mama” jokes actually start huge fights, and getting threatened with a shotgun is a real possibility. Besides the amount of time wasted in defending honor, it removes control in one's life. (At any moment, someone could insult you, and then you'd be obligated to beat the crap out of them.) Vance mentions his new spouse helping him learn not to get of out of a car to confront the guy that cut him off, but it still seems like this is uncharted territory for him, and could perhaps deserve a closer look.
Not bad, but seemed to be a shallower version of Harry Potter. I did love Simon though.
The premise of the book is that technology has created too much communication. You might expect a thoughtful Black-Mirror-like reflection on our tech addictions and anxieties. Instead, you get a story written by someone who apparently does not know how Facebook works. Or Twitter.
At one point, one of the characters says, “I'm guessing you don't want to be seen coming home on a Sunday morning dressed like that... Especially since one of your neighbors is bound to be on Facebook.” How does Connie Willis think Facebook works??? It's truly astounding.
In another section, a character has invented a way to delete tweets. That's right. Delete tweets. Which you can do right now. The characters also seem to think that you send a tweet like a text message, to an individual person. In which case, having trouble deleting them actually makes some sort of sense? I don't know, but I tell you, it is fascinating.
Also, the main character, Briddey, turns off her phone when she doesn't want to talk to someone, and then is unable to use her phone for other things like directions. This is actually part of the plot.
There are other flaws: Briddey has no concept of boundaries. She has given most of the other characters in the book the KEYS TO HER HOME. Part of the plot hinges on her not being able to go home because someone whom she is avoiding might be there. (MAYBE DON'T GIVE THEM YOUR KEYS.) What's more, soon after this, she says that it would be been easier for her to communicate with someone if she had given them a key to her apartment and then put a note on her bed. REALLY.
More: The love interest continuously lies to her for her own good and this is deemed acceptable.
Even more: Briddey seems incapable of sorting out “look what you made me do”-type arguments and believes she's the cause of other people's bad actions. She acts like an abuse victim, but the book doesn't seem to notice.
It wasn't as action-packed as the previous books and the main conflict in the plot revolved around very minor issues. It was an interesting look into a stage of life, but the book wasn't a page turner.
I loved the idea of “creative living” and of the quiet impudence of doing your own thing.
