Kate
Nick Hornby wasn't up to his usual self - this seemed to be published just for the sake of publishing, which is ironic, because some of the characters are writers who hate what they write for money.
This started off very promising, and the site itself is fascinating: nearly 10,000 years ago, thousands of people lived in a single city, in which the houses abutted each other so closely that people entered from the rooftops. They ate domesticated grains, and lentils, and cattle, sheep, and goats. They rebuilt houses exactly on top of the foundations of an older house, for centuries. They buried their dead under the floor of the houses (or alternatively, buried their dead then built a new house on top). They decorated with wild bull horns. They sometimes cut the head off a dead body, buried the body, and replastered the skull to create a new face.
Balter writes about some of this, but he mostly gives biographies of the archaeologists, which feels like a strange focus. At the start, it feels natural. “Ah ok, we're setting up the cast of characters before we can get into the good part,” I thought. But then this continues all the way to the end of the book, which stops so abruptly I was sure my pages had been stuck together, or some other kind of mistake had occurred.
This book is a great introduction to Catahoyuk, and in parts, a great read, but the focus is odd.
I felt really detached from this book, like I didn't particularly care about the characters or their motivations.
I started this, but I have a hard time with mythological characters (same with elves, interestingly, it's annoying to me that they don't have human foibles), so I moved on to something else. It might be a very good book, just wasn't for me at a particular time.
Really intriguing ideas in this one. and the characters are fun. most of it feels like a setup for Judith's book, though.
I hated the first few pages. So much purple prose. Something was described as “Sisyphean” and I had to roll my eyes.
But the book redeemed itself, with the plot and characters. I loved Graham and the expats and the concept of the ministry. I loved learning about the arctic expeditions.
I felt like High Fidelity did it better but the Julian Assange bits almost made up for it
Very boring. The kind of thing only a severely emotionally constipated man would like.
Maybe in the 60s the idea of a callous and morally ambiguous spy agency was daring, but my reaction was something like “of course, why are you telling us something we would assume already.”
There was nothing interesting about the prose, and the characters, especially Liz, were wooden, as if Le Carre didn't believe women are people, or people are people.
I read somewhere that a good story should present the protagonist with two immoral choices, and the reader is interested in seeing how the protagonist will behave when pressed against the wall. There are no interesting choices here. Once Alec goes with the plan, he's a passive character and things happen to him. His humanity is supposed to be his downfall, but he's so inhumane to Liz that falls flat.
3.5 stars. I love T. Kingfisher, and enjoyed this book so much I read it nearly in one night. But I also realized that probably nothing in this book will stick with me long-term. It felt like more of the same.
Henry has this hyperbolic way of writing where everyone is as extreme as possible. It just seems lazy and produces flat characters. For instance, Peter: he has a huge house! his family is wealthy! he eats extremely healthy! etc etc. Do we ever really know what motivates Peter? Can we see someone we know in him? I don't think so, and that's just bad writing.
The story was cute but the actual reading was a slog.
If you love Robin McKinley, you'll love this book by [a:Intisar Khanani 5780445 Intisar Khanani https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1520258584p2/5780445.jpg].I really liked Thorn by Khanani, so I was looking forward to reading this, but Sunbolt blew me away. It was like having a new [a:Robin McKinley 5339 Robin McKinley https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png] book (possible spoiler: fans of Sunshine will especially like this one).
I really wanted to love this, and in the first couple of chapters, I did. The two main characters are great, with real flaws, but the plot gets very weird about half way through. The plot weirdness means that there's zero tension for the second half of the book.
I couldn't finish this one. There were too much stereotypical teen drama. I wanted to send them all out the airlock, to be honest.
I loved the focus of frugality. Because of it, the book was much more accessible for a beginning cook: There were no lists of copper bottom pans that I needed to buy, or knives that I had to have. Frugality also made the author give several uses for the same starting ingredients and ensure that none of the ingredients are wasted. The end result is much more thoughtful and useful book. While most cookbooks give you a seemingly random and expansive list of ingredients, I felt like I better understood actual properties of the vegetables and herbs and meat cuts that were used.
That said, some ingredients might be economical for the author, but probably not in general, like the capers and sardines and such. Still, the author fervently believes that a meal can be an egg and toasted stale bread, so I suppose it evens out. :)
I also really enjoyed the book's quiet advocacy of slowness - that perhaps canning tomatoes and sorting beans aren't the worst things in the world, and actually might be rather enjoyable, or at least peaceful.
The various points of view were well done, and seeing Holmes as very elderly was fresh and interesting, but the mystery was not very compelling and sort of deflates at the end.
As an unwanted side effect of reading this book, I found myself striding through my local Grocery Outlet and laughing manically to myself as I found a good deal: “This is just like the extra-large egg loophole! Hahahaha! I'm Joe Coulombe!” So be on the lookout for that.
Joe Coulombe's story is gripping but a bit morally ambiguous at times. I actually lost respect for Trader Joe's, in that it's not clear whether an item with a somewhat shady provenance would be turned down by TJ's buyers. Still, as a food and bargain lover, I couldn't help but appreciate the descriptions of various grades of butter, and how brie is the only foreign cheese that Wisconsin hasn't tried to add import restrictions on. Or how ketchup MUST contain added sugar as per the law.
Highly recommend as a fun read for food lovers. Not sure about the merits of emulating Joe. Will let you know when the side effects wear off.