mafo

Good book, bad mystery

Very page-turny, I was reading it in a coffee shop before a job interview instead of prepping. It bogs down a little in the middle with exposition, but it picks back up.

Sad but bearable because the son's death is the jumping off point for the book, so it doesn't hit you like a ton of bricks. I think what I liked best was that there were a lot of things that set it up to be very cliche, but most of them got turned on their heads.

Sort of obviously a passion project by someone who had enough credibility to get it published. Certainly not a bad book, but reading it is sort of like asking a cattle rancher why you should eat beef. But hey, Moby Dick is an awesome book, a classic, and far wryer and more approachable than people realize, so if it helps people get interested, good for it!

Loved it. It definitely starts out slow (pleasant, but sort of “surely this cannot go on for all these pages?”) but then it gets nuts, but not in a “did someone put this dust jacket on a different book?” sort of way. I appreciated the depiction of Una not necessarily as a “strong female character” but as a real person, and more importantly as a woman who can roll with the punches. I'm sort of sick of books where you're supposed to be impressed that the woman who was TOTALLY CRUSHED INTO RUIN AND DESPONDENCY climbs back out, when a more universal experience for women is to be bowed but NOT broken. I'm undecided about whether it improves this book to read/have read Moby Dick. I had read MD first, but several years previous so I didn't notice all the clever, fun nods to the original text. Just make sure you EVENTUALLY read Moby Dick.

Talented writer and a very moving book, but the narrative was chopped up into several nearly-unrelated parts, and in my opinion, the story used to describe this book in all the blurbs was a very small part of it. Still recommended, although the first few chapters might drive you nuts if you're not a dog person.

Among the most page-turning books I've read in years. Good characters, great backdrop, great story, but sort of didn't live up to its potential. Would still definitely recommend to others.

Among the most page-turning books I've read in years. Good characters, great backdrop, great story, but sort of didn't live up to its potential. Would still definitely recommend to others.

Mostly about lots of horrible things that happened to a lot of people. Sort of redundant (there was dust! again). Definitely more a collection of stories than a history, which sort of turned me off.

It's a great travelogue of the format “drive around the country, stop and talk to people wherever you go”, with a very meditative tempo to it. All of the vignettes are just the right length, and many are provocative without being diatribes or derailing. It's an important snapshot of America in 1975.

I will open with the disclaimer that I audiobooked this and it might be easier to follow if you have pages to flip back and forth to. Interesting story, including many great short-stories-within-a-story - the type you find yourself retelling to others, even. My problem is that it follows like 4 or 5 different people, whose paths don't really cross, while also attempting to build up to a climax along only one of the storylines? I thought it was just all anecdotes until I was more than halfway through and I realized that the story was actually supposed to be moving in a direction. I was disappointed, ultimately.

Sci-fi element: good, general flow of plot/twists: good, lovey-dovey stuff: a little overwrought. But I do like a female character who actually gets to do stuff even in a romance book, and after about halfway through the lovey-dovey crap tones down. Oh, and in general quite well written.

Fairly interesting book about a fairly uninteresting person. The author spent a lot of time extolling Ruess' virtures, but a) I wasn't sold, and b) it doesn't help the story. It's a great mystery, but this kid makes Chris McCandless look like Ernest Shackleton. Hard to rate on the stars scale, because I obviously just wanted to punch the guy who disappeared. Good enough to read to the end, though, and ultimately worth it.

So. Good. The whole thing is just interesting, heartfelt, engaging, NOT overdone, tangents are all just the right length, I can't say enough. And while it's true to the pathos of the war, it's actually full of truly chuckle-worthy one-liners, both from the author's personal narrative and his interviewees. Additionally, it would probably appeal to people not that interested in WWI history if they have an interest in oral history or just life in America at the time of the war.

I gotta say, good day-in-the-life antarctic stuff, casts some light on Douglas Mawson for the non-Australians among us, but damn: the actual “alone on the ice” part only takes about 2% of the book.

Extremely interesting. Will make your blood boil with hindsight.

Pretty interesting and engaging, but the author tried to hard to make himself part of the story.

Definitely a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story. I welled up at work a few too many times, too.

Good story, good narrative style, interesting topic. Will make a good unintentional trilogy with “The Worst Journey in the World” and ...?

Very dark and honest and I still don't think she's a literary genius, but I found I wanted to hear the next thing she had to say. Skippable if you're only interested in the butchering part.

A thoughtful abbreviation of this book would be AMAZING, but it's so important as a historical document you really couldn't. Very fascinating and moving at points, but a lot of drudgery. Would recommend to others, and I think it might be better as not-an-audiobook.

Interesting and entertaining, but somewhat scattered. Passage of time was sort of confusing, and the author seemed to have several motifs she wanted to convey, but it was sort of a mixed bag. Not as good as Destiny of the Republic, but definitely recommendable.

Started out really interesting with sort of like “True Science” (as opposed to true crime) stories that all converged...and then the rest of the book was basically about interpersonal relationships. Womp womp.

A great pick for my personal tastes - good narrative progression with lots of primary source, highlights a famous figure who you're secretly embarrassed to know nothing about, and it weaves together history and science, with a touch of “truth is stranger than fiction”.

First and most notable impression: this is really more of a military history than a medical history, which was ultimately fine with me, but may not be for everyone - this is not “The Family that Couldn't Sleep” or “The Demon in the Freezer” (the bright side of course being that it won't scare the everloving crap out of you). It's also worth noting that there are some gruesome disease & battlefield descriptions that may be tough on the weak of stomach. Overall, though, the narrative progression is clear and logical, and the weaving in of quotations from primary sources is extremely well done and draws from diverse sources. Definitely recommended, especially if, like me, your knowledge of Napolean's campaign into Russia is limited to a) that it happened, and b) it was a real bad idea.