Mr Fred
Well this was rough. “A house full of hostage takers and hostages, all horny for an opera singer” could have saved me a few hours and would have accurately reflected the entire book. Alas, most of the story I felt like I was watching paint dry, somewhat convinced that when it was done, a beautiful picture might appear. Details emerged, enough of them not to make me quit the book, but not enough to make me forget I was watching paint dry.
The ending was, oddly, exactly what you'd think it would be, chased by a preposterous epilogue.
Do I wish Patchett gave me my time back? No. But did the last page made up for the rest? Also no.
Still, I'm giving it three stars, for lukewarm, absurdist entertainment value.
Now as much as then, a fiercely anti war book. I bet modern war mongers would find a way to read it and pretend it does not apply to them, that modern wars are better, simpler, cleaner, but every human with a shred of empathy can tell that it's a lie. Today's armies still send their young to a futile, cruel, meaningless death, no matter how much we tell ourselves otherwise. Herein lies both the brilliance and the deep sadness of Remarque's book, that it has not aged in a hundred years, and probably never will.
A great book even if you don't personally feel like “poly” is a description that fits you very closely - I read it on a recommendation, because I never subscribed to the societal notion of relationships acting primarily as handcuffs, rather than an expression of everyone in it being there because they truly want to be.
The first part of the book reads like an academic paper - which I like, but in case you don't, do not despair - the second part has a lot of practical advice on how to develop your attachment patterns with one (or any number of) partners as well as yourself. If you are willing to introspect and work on yourself and your partner(s), you'll find enough advice to think through for a long time.
And at a minimum, you'll end up understanding yourself better. Something we can likely all benefit from.
A collection of James Bond short stories, entertaining though all in all not nearly as polished as the first installments of the series. You can tell how these later books were simply turned into “action dude does action dude stuff” when the films were made. Some of the internal struggle that defines the earlier books is still present here, to be fair, but he ends up shrugging it off a lot more, in favor of whichever pretty woman crossed his path today.
This was straaaaange and so dark. Like a movie you really want to rage quit early on and then you don't and when the end credits roll you're like “the f did I just watch” and somehow you still end up giving it a bunch of stars because you keep thinking about it and you don't know if you love it or hate it.
We're following Mario on a downhill spiral in his life, and at every corner, it gets worse. So much worse.
So this was an interesting one. I felt like the book gave a lot away early on that made me fear the rest of the chapters would bore me by slowly exposing to the characters what I already knew. And yet, it managed to keep the pressure high and accelerate further and further until the end. Sure, there were plot holes the size of a lesser populated Pacific island, but if you suspend disbelief for a little while, I say it's still a good crime series and I'll probably read the sequel soon.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Teetered between 4 and 5 stars for a long time. In the beginning, I struggled to see where this might be heading, and for a long time I was unsure if I could summon enough empathy for the villains to truly buy into the message but I think eventually I got there.
I enjoyed the variety of characters, their diverse backgrounds and various realistic and unrealistic bodily features.
The protagonist's pansexual (?) love interests were a little confusing, all unrequited, and left a lot to be desired from a story point of view, all the way to the end when instead of a resolution we got a cliffhanger, which was honestly a little dissatisfying.
Regardless, a wonderful book and I'm glad I read it.
