Ninett
I really liked the book! The magic system is fresh because it has infinite variety - something that I suspect is more realistic in our analogue world as compared to the strict binary/tertiary/etc. magic systems in other books. The worldbuilding isn't as extensive as other fantasy novels, though, and a downside is that every trick our main character attempts, he wins! He defeats everyone he fights and always succeeds in all his plans. This makes a lot of the outcomes predictable. Regardless, the book is immersive enough to have kept me reading. There is a largely unexplored aspect of the book that I suspect will open up more in later installments. The book cannot be read as a complete story - there is no real ending and it was written with sequels in mind.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book at first. I struggled to read the first chapter and had to have a few goes at it before I got into it. The language is very poetic, sentences long and twisty-turny. The storyline is a little bit like the Odyssey in that it follows a series of travels of the main character to various places - while he searches for someone else. The ending for me was a little bit disappointing because Remfrey didn't go out in a spectacular way, the Lucidor died with a whimper and didn't even get to kill Remfrey, the big bad guy that started the invasion wasn't vanquished (or we didn't see or know it if it was), and even the shatterling storyline went out with a dim blinker rather than a bang. Regardless, I enjoyed the ride itself and the unique and unusual world so much that the shortcomings of the plot haven't deterred me from giving it 4.5 stars.
When I chose this book, I had in mind a story about a plague and people surviving in it. I would say that this is a book about a character philosophising about human nature, which happens to eb set during a time of plague. The main element is the philosophy and the by-the-way element is the plague. I'm not usually a fan of a book in which the central theme is flowery language around abstract social commentary-type concepts. I can see how others will like this book, but it just was not what I expected and it took me a long time to slowly chug through it. I kept forgetting who each character was and didn't really care enough about the story to even google it.
A great introduction to the world of emotions. I am someone who leans far and heavily into a pure rational interpretation of the world, often neglecting or discounting my own and by extension the emotions of others. It's incredibly hard for me to understand why people do certain things, as well as why I feel the way that I do. This book is seeing the world through a different lens, finding out that there is a different, equally important perspective that I've been dismissing. It doesn't help too much in the way of actionable points, but definitely can serve as a lucid and compelling eye-opener for the completely uninitiated.
I had a lot of gripes with the first half of the book. It read like a play. There was not much narration and the plot was advanced solely via dialogue. The characters are not fleshed out, they are just plot devices, and their copious dialogue is empty too. This section of the book is the reason I can't conscionably give it more than 3 stars overall.
But after the first plodding, disjoined half was over, the story really came into its own and I'm glad I persevered. The plot become interesting and twisty-turny. It even managed to go out with a bang.
I will also say the book needs an editor. Grammar errors, discontinuities of character and plot holes abound. Fair warning if you can't get past that kind of thing.
Good book. Every aspect of it was thoroughly revolting. I did find that the descriptions of the deaths of everyone Grenouille left behind gave him a kind of mystical aura through no action of his own. He's almost like an unwitting ominous talisman. It's a good thing books cannot physically convey smells, some of the things described were truely disgusting.
The unnamed main character is prone to lengthy reveries that are invariably misguided and clich??d. The book is slow. The women all defer to the men in their lives. A man gets away with murdering his wife. An overwhelming majority of the characters are loathsome. But it's not simple. The book is complex, the reader feels the plot shrouded in fog until the very end, never knowing for certain what's coming next. I loved it.
PS. I'd never call this a romance.
Good novel. My boyfriend bought it for me because he thought it was a nonfiction book about chemistry (I feel there's irony there, with the subject matter of the book being what it is), and it turned out to be a novel instead. Not a genre I'd choose for myself to read, with it straddling the line between romance, tragedy and drama, none being genres I generally read.
I liked Elizabeth because I identify with her in many ways. The cooking show theme of the book is an interesting invention from the author, but I found it to be quite left-field. I suspect this was the central idea around which the book was built.
This was a good book, just not aimed at me, someone who has already implemented a lot of the suggestions outlined within. Some of the internal triggers solutions we too vague to be put into practice, and I'm not sold on scheduling every moment (waking AND sleeping) of my day. I did put some of the advice to use though, especially the distraction tracker and the scheduling of the work day.
Sleep is my religion (I guess it's Dr. Walker's, too). I was an excellent sleeper before I read this book. Now, I lay awake thinking about needing to sleep, and I wake up in the night regularly when before I never once did. Have I gone against the popular adage of “don't fix what ain't broken”? Will this phase pass? Do I need to purchase an air conditioning unit??
Very good book, on the whole. I spend lots of time in academic circles myself, so the clear use of language and the scientific detail was very much appreciated - though I can see why it might be dense for a newcomer to scientific language. I found every morsel of information delicious.
My mom was reading this on holiday, so I decided to get a copy myself and read along at the same time. I wonder what the intention of the publisher was for this book. The author is so self absorbed, so grandiose, so insufferably self-congratulatory that I am forced to think that the publication of this work is a joke played on the author by the publisher. The inner voice of this woman is vapid. She has no redeeming qualities. Her emotional life is sterile and pitiful.
It isn't a novel for entertainment purposes. This is the voice of a woman without knowledge of how her life may present to others - she has no ability to understand that this would come across as repulsive to non-psychopaths, and writes in a gloating tone of her inability to connect with anything. I suppose if I knew I was missing an essential piece in me, I'd try to make it look like a win, too.
Either way, I hated this woman. I felt some kind of primal, instinctual revulsion to this memoir. My mom said that all voices are worthy and we can't judge people for what they can't help, but I wouldn't want to be within a km radius of this lady either way. The idea that this novel serves as a window into the life of someone devoid of humanity, and this being an important window to peer in through, even for just a bit, is what kept me from giving it a 1 star rating.
So in depth. I would never have thought that salt was such an important catalyst for trade and the movement of people. I did find it hard going to read in some sections, because the writing can be very bland. The author takes no pains to make a series of facts into an engaging narrative.
Still, I liked learning about how closely intertwined human societies have always been with an innocuous mineral.
If the reader is able to defeat the seamingly insurmountable disconnectedness of the first 50 pages where the mains are children, the characters' internal ruminations and conciousnesses do become intersting and worthwhile. Woolf peers into the human soul and pulls out what is not often said, and shows us the motivations behind each character's actions. Sometimes it is hard for us to be as honest with ourselves about our reasons for doing things as Woolf is with her protagonists' reasons.
The two stars I knocked off were because of the protracted, often repetitive sentences, and for the part in the beginning where we are thrust into the random, scattered thoughts of children (that nearly put me off the whole book altogether).
Contains spoilers
I really loved this book when I first read it a long, long time ago. It was fresh, funny and unexpected. The absurdity really did it for me then. This re-read has been fun, but this time I've had to knock a star off (oroginally 1.5 stars, but then I didn't have the heart to go through with such a big downgrade), mostly because I realised there is no plot to speak of, things just happen randomly and for no particular reason. The story never evolves and the characters aren't fleshed out. This is more annoying now as am adult than it was when the world was a crazier place (in my teens).
Beware spoilers!
01/12/2024:
I've averaged the scores of my two readings of this book. When I read it in my teens I rated it 5 stars. I now rate it 4.
I still love this book: the myth-founding potency of the Dracula character portrayed in this book remains plain to see just by observing the impact on modern pop culture. Stoker dragged the Vampyre from the depths of folklore into common culture.
But as an adult I've seen some parts differently, too. The story is laced with a kind of benevolent sexism throughout, which is characteristic for its time, yet I find impossible to ignore. I feel the Dracula character did not make full use of all his powers and went out in a whimper rather than a bang. Stoker could have killed off his antagonist in a more befitting way. Also not sure why he kept Jonathan in the castle.
I read this on my nintendo ds originally back in the day, and I have my suspicions that I had read a strongly abridged version, since I didn't recall most of this story.
I just didn't get it. I thought it was unbearable in its dull, neverending descriptions of the most boring elements of peoples' lives. Maybe I should try again. I have a beautiful vintage copy.
I found this book immensely boring, overambitious and contrived. It took considerable willpower to get to the 25% mark in it, and when even then it did not begin fulfilling on its page-turner promise I finally gave up on it. I felt that the author came up with an interesting idea about a physically impossible house and a separate idea about wacky formatting, and then just jammed the two ideas together, with a sprinkle of dry technical datasheet style documentation about both interspersed throughout. Yes, I understand that the formatting is meant to give us the same experience as the inhabitants of the house had, but it was so gimmicky and made it all a colossal hassle. He didn't even attempt to write well, thinking that the formatting will more than make up for it.