Terri
Can't believe I never read this before now! Absolutely loved it, something I would definitely re-read. It's a very cozy, lighthearted book.
I am once again in awe of how genuinely stupid and lacking in common sense the protagonists of Paris's novels are.
I absolutely loved this. Each story was original, enjoyable and well-crafted. I felt as though I was reading centuries-old mythology.
It took me a while to get into the flow of this book, the majority of it reads like the self-important ramblings of someone recalling a story you didn't ask them for - but that's the point. By the end of it, however, I was intrigued and I don't regret reading it. The story was well-crafted, and I felt satisfied with the ending.Not as good as [b:Never Let Me Go 6334 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353048590l/6334.SY75.jpg 1499998] in my opinion, but still worthy of a read.
Finished this book pretty quickly. Not because it was a page-turner, but because every chapter seemed to repeat the same diatribe. The author opens by assuring the reader of her technological know-how, then proceeds to tell story after story involving her lack of basic common sense (How do you purchase an entire HOUSE without realizing it's integrated with smart technology?). She also cites a cashier's inability to serve her a non-menu item as a sure sign of the oncoming digital zombie age, skimming over the fact that she was unnecessarily rude to someone who had no control over how the cash register system worked. While I understand and relate to the desire to see people less attached to their phones, these instances - along with her hyperbolic observations on the “dangers” of autocorrect - made it difficult for me to take the book seriously.
Yet another self-help book that could easily be condensed into a blog post. In short, turn off your devices an hour before bed, make sure you exercise, eat well and don't eat to close to your bedtime, and avoid using your bedroom for anything other than sleep.
The rest is all fluff.
I wouldn't re-read this, but I did enjoy it while I was reading it. I found myself savoring. It wasn't a book that you could speed read. Not because it was dense, but more because of Smith's writing style. I wanted to be present for every moment and detail. I wanted to be mindful of the flow and not rush the process.
Rilke has a gift for capturing the beauty of solitude. His poetry is melancholy, filled with longing, but never depressing.
Favorites from this collection:
Evening
Autumn
Silent Hour
Solitude
The Neighbour
Maidens I
Moonlight Night
In April
Death
Lament
Symbols
Growing Blind
Love Song
The Book Of A Monk's Life
I genuinely do not remember giving this book four stars because I distinctly remember disliking it, downgrading to one. The gimmicky writing style was distracting and grating. A blog post would have sufficed.
The main point - don't do things that you don't want to do.
I read this before watching the film, and I loved both. I'm a big fan of Patricia Highsmith, and this did not disappoint. Atmospheric and romantic, it had me in tears at the end and my heart felt full.
I started this book expecting the actual stories behind the constellations, the mythology and history. What I got instead was a bunch of bizarre woo-woo slam poetry about each constellation.
I'm not a relaxed person, but I'm trying to be. This book helped.
“We can do the same things we always do—walking, sitting, working, eating, and so on—with mindful awareness of what we're doing. Our mind is with our actions.”
Some useful nuggets of information, but this could've easily been expressed in a blog post.
An emotional read, but a necessary story. I wish I would've come across something like this when I was growing up.
Only two pages in I knew that I was going to deeply dislike the author, but I persisted anyway out of morbid curiosity. I have no energy to fully express how unlikeable and ridiculous this woman is - but a quick Google search will provide all you need to know about her lack of morality.
The story begins with her deciding to move with a two-year-old to Beijing in the winter, without researching anything about the country. She is then shocked to discover that winter in Beijing is cold (who would've thought!?) and that the city is polluted. Again, shocker.
She gives up and decides to move to Beirut, again, without bothering to Google anything about the location. Despite political unrest unfolding around her, and despite the fact that her toddler is barely able to string together two words due to the trauma of constantly hopping between cultures, she insists on staying so she can learn Arabic.
Finally, she goes to Mexico where she happily pays a housekeeper $2 an hour to clean her entire home and garden, as if not providing a living wage is just one of the “perks” of living in Mexico. Again, her child is traumatized by the lack of cultural stability and outright refuses to speak Spanish until the very end.
The entire book focused around the author's language learning experiment and barely touched upon the lasting effects it would have on her children. Her son barely interacted with anyone outside of her household until they moved to Mexico.
As someone who grew up in a bilingual and bicultural household, I read this book with shock and disgust. She chose these languages seemingly at random based on what would be the most impressive languages for her children to learn, rather than the most useful or enjoyable. They spend months each year in Thailand, but the thought never occurs to her to learn Thai until the very end.
What I found more grating than her utter lack of common sense or preparedness were her snide remarks about the cultures she was experiencing. For someone who wanted to raise a global family, she definitely had a lot of negative things to say. She seemed to harbor a bizarre hostility towards the Chinese and never bothered to learn about their culture and way of living, and expressed annoyance that they didn't understand her ways.
In short, this book was a waste of time and the equivalent of reading a hostile, slightly xenophobic Trip Advisor review from a spoiled American. I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you want a quick rise in blood pressure.
This book, or rather, short story, had an interesting premise but the pacing was off. While it started off suspenseful and intriguing, the ending felt rushed and unsatisfying.
Overly descriptive without actually forming a picture of anything.
I didn't feel anything for any of the characters, the three sisters all seemed like the same person to me.
Not to mention the whole “abusive character is suddenly forgiven for his atrocities because it turns out he was abused himself (and it's ok because he's hot?)” bullshit. No thanks.
This is a surreal and interesting collection of short stories. The characters from each story intertwine and appear across stories, and there's the recurring appearance of various keys that play a significant role. Overall, the stories feel like feverish dreams.
I really enjoyed this. Lucy was likable, relatable, and she was smart and funny. I laughed, teared up, and felt relieved at the end. Even better: no one was cartoonishly evil in this. We're shown realistic bitchy highschoolers but nothing over the top.
This is your average YA book, and as such there is a serious amount of cringe in it. But it was still enjoyable, and heartwarming at times. The quote about the Tamagotchi nightmare still makes me laugh.
I really liked this, though one thing that bothered me was how the book was introduced as a translation of some ancestral letters found by Ethan Hawke, yet many of the moral stories included were direct adaptations of Eastern fables and moral tales. I felt that it was the author's responsibility to disclaim that at the beginning, because not until after I read it and did some research did I realize that Hawke was merely inspired by the letters and chose to create a collection of stories for his children gathered from various sources.
Still, it was well written and enjoyable, and no matter what the source these stories all contained wonderful lessons.
This is a clever essay, and it definitely has a sense of humor. However, I found myself muddling through the endless stream of references to De Quincey's contemporaries, many of whom are not well-known enough to spare me the Google search. Apart from this, it is an interesting read and through its satire illustrates what the late Georgian upper classes viewed as important (or unimportant).
I'd only recommend it to anyone with a sincere interest in the period, or in aesthetics in general.
Giving this two stars for the occasional quotable line, but the tone of this booked contrasted too much with the content for my taste.