GJ

I reached here from r/suggestmeabook for LF partners to lovers book. I usually stick to popular books, but thought I'll give this so-not-my-type-book a try.

An ordinary girl, with a mysterious man goes to hunt ghosts. And ofc the girl has a crush on him.
Slow burn. Thrilling build-up.
It's not great literature, but there are scary elements and a foundation for a cute romantic story.
I'll read the next book sometime soon. It's not very long after all.

4.5
5 for the first 2 books, 4 for the next 3.

This book is an explosion of ideas, splattered on the walls of the writers mind in unimaginable combinations, written down with no sense of need of any sort of order or meaning. I don't know if the previous sentence makes any sense. It's fine even if it doesn't. It's ineffable.

By the end, I was surprised to notice that there was a storyline after all, which almost always eluded me during the course of reading.

Arthur Dent, an Earth man goes on adventures around the universe, when his home is supposedly destroyed. A summary of the book cannot be expanded anymore than this, because I can't really find a plot line to focus on.

You don't pick up this book for its characters or storyline. This is just a fun read; laugh-out-loud fun at times. Now that I've finished reading it, I could randomly pick a chapter and read, and be satisfied - have a good laugh.

If you are the least bit interested in SF, satire or comedy, this would be on your must read list.

Funniest book I've ever read.

Murder investigation | Totalitarian regime
I had to constantly remind myself that this is not a dystopian fiction. Inspired by a real-life investigation, it is set in the USSR under the rule of Stalin – Moscow, 1953.
The story follows Leo Demidov, a high-ranking State Security operative, a believer. The politics of that time is portrayed in the most not boring way possible in the first few chapters. As Leo is forced to investigate an officer's son's death on the railway track which has been reported as an accidental death, he notices something off. To disregard an official report is not an easy task for Leo. He is a believer. A believer in the party, a believer in the society the leaders have formed. In this society there is no crime. To believe that a murder has occurred is to have lost faith. That is blasphemy. “An elaborate charade that fools no one”
There is constant threat to life looming over every citizen's head, as soon as they are twelve years of age. Children are obedient, adults are law abiding, everyone is wary, like prey in a forest. There is no forgiveness, no trust. And it is imperative to catch one spy even if it costs innocent lives. There is a uniform love for the leader in all – children and adults, officials and housewives. It is an unusual combination of fear and pride. Or more likely it is just fear masquerading. It is an unforgiving story and pulls no punches. The reality must have been equally horrifying if not worse. A gripping story, each sentence pulling my eyes to the next.
As the story moves forward and when the façade unravels before Leo's eyes, the hunter becomes the hunted. On realizing that public opinion as well as law is not on the side of truth, but on the side of the Party, Leo is forced to embark on his mission to solve a string of child murders, with only his wife by his side; and even that relationship is hanging by a thread.
There is a calmness to the brutality in the story. It comes unexpected and makes the least noise. The act of violence is never elaborated. There are never descriptions of murder dragged out. All quick and efficient like any job well done, a routine – nothing to be made a fuss about. This further adds to the bleakness of the environment.
The colors in a book sets a mood. What are the colors in this book? There is bright red, excessively red, a little too much just to be safe. The is red on the white snow. There is grey in the sky and dark brown bark in the mouths of dead little children.

It would be a shame for you to miss this book.

4.5 stars. Only because the last 30% was tedious.

Why anyone with the slightest interest in science should read this?

1. It is a comprehensive yet simple account of everything DNA related. It is funny. The necessary concepts are explained in an easily understandable manner.
2. It is nothing like a textbook. It is fully made up of anecdotes and experiments and interesting pieces of history. There are no complicated terms used, no endless sentences. It speaks in layman language, yet it conveys so much.
3. People who once studied genetics as a part of your curriculum but later forgot about it, would love this. This would be only a revision, much better than your original source.
4. It's fascinating. Not the book. Genetics itself, and the book does a wonderful job of showing it to us.

I'll just mention a few random facts from the book here.
1. Toxoplasma can manipulate you into liking it.
2. Polar bear liver is lethal
3. Human genes make up 2 percent of our genome. Virus genes make up 8 percent of our genome. We are 4 times more virus than human.
4. “sonic hedgehog” is gene which determines left-right symmetry when you are an embryo.
5. Cells overwhelmed with DNA damage can sense trouble and will kill themselves rather than live with the malfunction.
6. Toba is - or was - before the top 650 cubic miles blew off - a mountain in Indonesia that erupted seventy odd thousand years ago.
7. Ancient Egyptians ashamed of inbreeding Tutankhamen family (for disregarding their gods), hid them so well and built buildings over the tomb. As a result Tut's treasures survived mostly intact over the centuries. Treasures that in time would grant his heretical incestuous family something like immortality again.
8. Genghis Khan is the ancestor of 16 million men today. One in 200 males on earth carries his testes determining chromosome.

Check out my highlights.

For the first time in my life, I let loose. It's not a guilty pleasure. If you like it, you like it. What is there to be so embarrassed about?

The story follows the relationship between a high school graduate and her best friend's Mom.
Believable, sexy, feel-good. I deserve such breaks after breaking my head over Dostoevsky and Tolkien.

This as you know/would expect is not great work of literature. I don't presume the author intended it to be. It's refreshing to the read a healthy romance especially in a taboo setting - like everything is okay here, it's perfect; if you can ignore one tiny, small detail. This couple works so well, and the author created their interactions so in sync that nothing feels forced. It flows. And the steamy segments are well, very steamy... visceral. I don't have much to compare, but it was very hot.

Pansexual side character -✅
Genderqueer side character -✅
Bi main characters -✅
Black best friend -✅
Misogynistic ex -✅(named Adam)
All feminist propaganda requirements fulfilled. I have nothing against the feminist ideology, but at times I feel they push little too much. Like this.

I cringe when people use the term ‘best friend', especially people in their 20s. Grow up already; or maybe, I'm just lonely. I guess it will be hard to get around that if I'm considering reading more of this.
‘Hey, I'm your best friend. I love you, you know that, right?
I hate you
no you don't
yeah i dont.


Hate this.
Less talk. Do more.

There is not much of story in here, other than these two hotties navigating their relationship. I'm gonna go find similar books with a little more plot to it and a little less teenage drama.

‘We need to talk about Kevin' is Lionel Shriver's debut novel. With nearly 500 pages, written in the form of letters to her husband, Eva recalls the upbringing of Kevin, their first-borne; from his birth till his incarceration at the age of 15 for mass murder. Certain books give away a feeling of it being the author's life's work. Like ‘All the light we cannot see' or ‘To kill a mocking bird'. It could be the length, or how it asks all the right questions or how polished the whole thing is. It appears to the reader that the author has put their everything into it. I was surprised to find that, this isn't her only book.

This book isn't for everyone, and I believe there would only be a handful who resonate with it. There is a stencil of societal norms that rudely pervades every individual's thoughts and actions, at some point in late childhood or adolescence demanding us to walk within its bounds. This permanently molds our perspective. Societal norms guiding our actions are commonplace. Guiding our thoughts? Not so much. Thinking that the person next to you is really ugly, or that you really don't want to be with your partner anymore, or wishing you didn't have to take care of your sick mother are not really unfair thoughts. People understand these, even though they are not talked about or acted upon.

Eva wishes her child wasn't born, so she could go gallivanting across the globe. Eva hates her child. She never tells anyone that, of course.

Blessed with the miracle of new life, she chooses to dwell instead on a forgone glass of wine and the veins in her legs

Now if I could get my mother to read this book(which would be unlikely), she would fling this book out the window before the first chapter was over. And since the copy I got from the thrift store didn't have the first few pages, I bet something very similar did happened before. Most people would find Eva's thoughts unsavory. One-shalt-not-think-of such things. It is a thought crime. For the reader the usual frame of reference is lost. An average person cannot relate with Eva. Perspective is to be skewed to an uncomfortable degree to watch Eva's story through her eyes. Eva's narrative appears to be honest, primarily because she doesn't make the whole thing a white washing scheme for herself; she admits to being wrong at times, but whether it was just those times or were there more, we would never know.

As you would have presumed by now, this is not a happy book. Moments of happiness in this book are as sparse as stars in the night sky. The whole thing is dark. And when everything is going wrong, of course there should be someone to blame. In a book in which the ending is given away in its blurb itself, the captivating element is this mental exercise for the observer to figure out why this happened and who to blame. You get to play seesaw with the nature vs. nurture debate.

Throughout the novel one's opinion about each character would change. They certainly are not one dimensional, though Kevin appears to have no dimension at all. Kevin has no attachment to anything, person or object. He has no passion for anything. He has been in equilibrium since birth. A person's inclination(as well as circumstance) is what cuts a path for their life. Kevin who was inclined towards nothing; loved nothing, hated nothing, ends up killing people. The disinclination/whatever attitude, leads to evil in its purest form. Why did it slide in that direction? There should have been an equal probability of good in its purest form. The idea that goodness is always an uphill climb and evil is the stable low energy state is frightening, yet it could actually be the truth.

The book questions every aspect of parenting without pulling any punches.
”..if there's no reason to live without a child, how could there be with one? To answer one life with a successive life is simply to transfer the onus of purpose to the next generation: the displacement amounts to a cowardly and potentially infinite delay. Your children's answer, presumably, will be to procreate as well, and in doing so to distract themselves, to foist their own aimlessness onto their offspring”

Oh, I had all the answers when I started reading it, only by the end there were none. By the end I was going over chapters I had already read, when I couldn't believe what I was reading. Every minute I had to rearrange my mind to believe that this was only fiction, because over 400 pages of buildup to this tipping point, is insanely good writing - horrifying yet surprisingly immersive and original.

If you own an open mind, patience, a taste for good writing and at least had a passing interest in psychology, this would be just right for you.

This book nosed up, dived down and nosed up again. A no nonsense, info-dense sci-fi. I couldn't care much about the characters, but it definitely had my heart racing.
Apart from the thriller elements, the criticism of modern media, was to the point. I found myself smile-nodding at every sentence.

Talking to a reporter these days was like a deadly chess match; you had to think several steps ahead; you had to imagine all the possible ways a reporter might distort your statement. The atmosphere was relentlessly adversarial.

But now reporters came to the story with the lead fixed in their minds; they saw their job as proving what they already knew. They didn't want information so much as evidence of villainy. In this mode, they were openly skeptical of your point of view, since they assumed you were just being evasive. They proceeded from a presumption of universal guilt, in an atmosphere of muted hostility and suspicion.

The first part is boring. Skip pages. It gets interesting towards the last, from chapter 30 onwards. And a total of 38 chapters😂

It was only at the end of my Little Women book that I realized, that it was only the first part. I got this book only for closure. “Friends” had ruined it for me, still I am glad that I read it.

It is preachy. Very. But if you can get over that aspect, it is a quiet well written book. Funny and light-hearted. The characters and conversations are lovable, but only because of the time period it is set in. I wouldn't read this plot beyond 10 pages if it was a contemporary novel. Does that make me hypocrite? Maybe.

The novel starts off after Meg is engaged to John Brooke. Amid the advice by the author on how to support a working husband and that it is important that the wife involves the husband in the child's development, we get to see a realistic portrayal of a poor working husband and a wife who takes cares of the kids and do all the household work and waits for her loving husband to return. It is boring. I read this book only with an interest quite similar to people looking at ancient rocks from the stone age.

Jo is the only character you could actually like, her arc was well done and I appreciate the non-conformity of it.

Beth was boring.

Amy was the only character who changed (I guess the only character who needed a change). Although not particularly fond of the character, she certainly deserved the ending in the book, because she put in the effort to change her mind and habits. In my opinion that takes more effort than sacrifice and love.

On the whole it is a happy account of a family, powered by love that waded through their hardships and celebrated their happiness, set in the US a very long time ago.
It is an okay read.

“Not before I draw more of your blood, husband” I promised him right back, meeting his eyes.

Do people talk like this irl?

As I read in someone else's review this is smut for smut's sake. Plotline is horribly boring, or maybe just not my thing.
Futuristic vampires - alpha male - submission type thingy. Steam 5/5.

Also.
Kyzaire - the king type person.
Kylaira - queen equivalent.
Kaazor - nearby enemy state
Kylorr - this huge alien-vampire species
Krynn - planet of the Kylorrs
Kyrana - bloodmate. A sexualised version of a soul mate.
Kythel - the MMC's brother.
Kaldur - MMC' other brother.
Kyriv - some enemy creature from Kaazor ig.
Killup- another less terrifying species.

Does all of them have to start with a K?

Consult your fantasy register to decide on this book.

Hell is full of books like these.

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged”Maids Dreams Asylum Religion SubconsciousWhile reading Austen, I have often wondered about the lives of those in the background. Those actually get any work done. It is strange that I came across this book only by chance.In the mid 1800s, Grace alias Mary Whitney (or maybe Mary Whitney is the real deal, and it's Mary Whitney alias Grace) a maid, is tried in court at the age of 16 for the murder of the house owner and housekeeper. The story unfolds with Grace walking us through her life as she talks with a psychologist, Dr. Jordan.Disclaimer:It is long, unbearably so. You know it is good; you can't stop reading, but you wish it would just hurry up and end. And if you are here for a murder mystery, bye-bye. Though there is murder and mystery in it, the appeal is not in its resolution. It is in the writing and the ideas.While reading the book, I imagined myself sitting behind a one-way mirror, listening to Dr. Jordan interview Grace. She's not supposed to know that someone else is watching her. But I think she knows. We came for clarity, but it's still a façade. Her guard is up all the time.There is a childlike innocence to this narrative of murder and madness.Grace is brought up religious and knows her Bible front-to-back. Yet, there is a ruthless practicality to her thoughts that quite frequently leaves her religious beliefs helpless. Many parts of the book reflect on the unfairness and impracticality of religion in real life, especially in the lives of people like Grace.“...because the only thing to do about God is to go on with what you were doing anyway, since you can't ever stop him or get any reasons out of him. There is a Do this or a Do that with God, but not any Because.”This is only my second book of Atwood's. Still, I'm pretty sure that the rest of them also feature badass women in crappy circumstances. There are few other authors who portray them so well. (Check out [b: Aarachar 33215688 ആരാച്ചാര്‍   Aarachar K.R.  Meera https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1480602706l/33215688.SY75.jpg 23575547], if you like Atwood.)“In his student days , he used to argue that if a woman has no other course open to her but starvation, prostitution or throwing herself from a bridge, then surely the prostitute, who has shown the most tenacious instinct for self-preservation, should be considered stronger and saner than her frailer and no longer living sisters. One couldn't have it both ways, he'd pointed out: if women are seduced and abandoned they're supposed to go mad, but if they survive and seduce in their turn, then they were mad to begin with.”It is striking that all men are viewed either with indifference or hatred by Grace, unlike most other women in the book. I think we are never meant to know what she really feels. She has lost everything; she left no trace. She shared her dreams with us, but not with Dr. Jordan. Her feelings are hers to keep; it's up to us to guess.” A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.

This book has to be bit off in huge chunks and devoured.

Minnie, is job hunting which is yielding very little result, due to a series of unfortunate events. Surprisingly, she finds a job as a housekeeper, which seems too good to be true.

The story unravels over the course, like petals of a flower, it goes deeper every page. It is not much of a linear story.

If not for a few elements, this would be decent 3 star thriller.

1) The revelation in the epilogue, which gives a new meaning and new direction to the story.
2) The sweet revenge.
3) The novel idea of hired help for domestic issues.
4) For once, men are getting hit on and women are getting rejected.
5) Humor

There is a surprise around every corner in the story. It keeps you edge. A really good highly recommended one time read (albeit slightly predictable.)

I blame myself for not getting scared. Watching too many movies(horror and others) has dulled my imagination into a stuporous state. I have reached a point where nothing, except jump-scares, can scare me. And that doesn't happen in books. I really loved this book, just so that I make up for giving it only 3 stars. Writing is excellent. Scary - not so much.

The buildup is fine, maybe tad excessive. For the first time in a book, I actually loved the author describing the sun and the wind and the darkness and such. It felt real, visceral.

“The tongue of darkness seemed to lick hungrily at this kitchen, waiting for night to come so it could swallow it whole..”

Summary: A writer comes to his childhood town(Jerusalem's lot), to fight his childhood demons and hopefully make a book out of it. Only, worse demons await him. The fight of the few good people of the town, first against their own rational minds and then against these umm.. vampires.

“No one pronounced Jerusalem's Lot dead on the morning of Oct 6, no one new it was.”
Post-apocalyptic vibes.

I am a rarity here.
The last chapter, had my teardrops peeking over my eyelids. The strong friendship and the tragedy later, gives a warm fuzzy feeling. The first 5 chapters, as such didn't really grab my attention. You won't get the point of the story, until you reach the end. So don't leave it midway.

“I was handed a beautiful set of facts, a rotten but rich defendant, an incredibly sympathetic trial judge and one lucky break after another at trial”

I often search for such statements in books. One that describes 80 - 90% of what the book is about. And this, along with our protagonist being a saviour of a pretty, helpless girl, is what the Rainmaker is about.

Life happened to Rudy Baylor. Rudy Baylor didn't move in any direction. And for this reason, I found the first half terribly boring. Later on it picked up, when he actually started using his brains, to turn around the situations against him. He does a lot of paperwork, yeah. But we don't see that, in the book, which kind of creates an impression that he did nothing. Maybe the book's just honest.
For a rookie, maybe it's just paperwork and a lucky break.
There are a few statements in the beginning, that gives us an idea of the actual practice of law. It's insightful.

It's witty, amusing, honest - a good one-time read.

I feel bad rating a holocaust book, 3 stars. How dare I. But I'd like to be honest.

The first half of the book is about the author's experiences in the concentration camp. If you have read at least 2 or 3 other holocaust literature, there is nothing new. It is short and to the point.

The second part focuses on Logotherapy. Which essentially is a psychiatric tool, which asks patients to find meaning in life for a more fulfilling existence - which could be by 1) doing something 2)experiencing something/ meeting someone 3)unavoidable suffering.
The third point seems like it was forced to be with the other two, and doesn't feel like it belongs there.

One other reason why I rated this 3, is because of the clash between this books ideas and my opinion. I don't think there's a meaning. The whole thing is random. And this meaning is only something we attribute. Can someone capable of thinking, actually fool themselves with this? I envy people who can find make meaning, where there isn't any. Of course in a concentration camp, one is only trying to survive the day, and prayers and meaning fulfilment would work. Is it same for the mundane life the majority of us lead though?

It was a roller coaster ride. I actually enjoyed the book as it is - for the writing, rather than the plot.
The plot had a really nice body but no head and tail.
Attention to detail is fascinating, the author is, no doubt, a genius. Parts I and II are thrilling, but the third one was bleak. When I was near the end of part I, I wondered why Fincher would make a movie out of this. When part II gets over I realized it's a pretty good thriller but not Fincher yet. Part III made it pretty clear.
‘That's the way to do it!'

I was genuinely surprised, when I realized that I was breezing through this novel, as opposed to the uphill rocky climb that her other books are(looking at you, Mansfield Park.)
Either I have gotten used to her style of writing or this is unusually simple and would be a great first book for readers new to Austen. Also, it might have helped that the heroine herself is half the time clueless about whatever that's going on around her.

It's the early 19th century, there are no telephones, no internet. And our 18y/o heroine is naïve and has no idea about the ways of the world. She's a tomboy and has a penchant for ‘horrid' novels. She visits Bath with her friendly neighbors for 6 weeks, where she makes friends and finds love; only things get a little awkward, when she decides to incorporate a little of those novels into daily life; immersive experience you know. That plotline doesn't take much of space, though. It is a character driven, humor predominant novel leaving nothing much definitive in the way of a plot.

There is a general format that Austen follows, which I believe, the readers tend to expect, one they have read 3 or 4 of her books. All her novels depend heavily on characters. Once a character is introduced, there is a subconscious “ waiting” taking place, as we read through lines - waiting for the description of this character. She doesn't lightly introduce her characters, make them say/do things and leave. An elaborate description always follows, that sets the foundation. At the end of the book, there are no picturesque sceneries or incredible plot twists that remains in my mind. There are only people, talking.

There is a thin paste of humor, spread evenly throughout the novel. You know, the kind that's funny, but you aren't exactly rolling on the floor. Also the author chats with the reader. It's incredible if you think, it's actually communication transcending 2 centuries, and they are addressing you. Anyway, I think it makes the book more...loveable.

If you have read other Austen novels and haven't read this yet, please do. If you'd like to start reading Austen, this would be a good first book, on a par with PP. Although having read that a long time back, it demands a second reading for a just comparison. If you have read the book and came just to read my review, hello. If you don't even plan on reading, what are you doing here?

ps mandatory quotes in review:
“Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others , which a sensible person should always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything , should conceal it as well as she can““It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of a man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire...Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone.“” No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment”Just so that the list doesn't look like dating tips out of an 18th century magazine, I'll add one more, “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

The second star is for being an inspiration for the Harry Potter series. The foundation of fantasy, or whatever.
Why didn't enjoy this? Why did this feel like too much of a work to me? Why do I feel sorry for myself for having had to read this thing?
1. If I make this a template. It's a journey from one place to another. Insert many more places, mountains, valleys and rivers in; all with multiple names. And half the book is description for them.
Some faceless dark-lord-assistant-type thing attacks them, every once in a while.
One servant-type friend. Two other friends - whose names if interchanged and read, you wouldnt notice the difference (except that Merry knows to handle a boat). And a few others. They meet a few people on the road, who treat them kindly. Umm well, that's it. Oh yeah, and a few songs too... which I just can't make myself care about.
2. There are no emotions. Something happens, sun westers, river flows, golden larks cry, some guy who is the son of some other guy.. idk, sleeps. I feel so disconnected from the characters. I just can't care about them. The only time I saw emotion, is in the final chapter with Boromir.
3. There are so many places. Why?
4. Apart from very few situations, it's very linear. Maybe when Frodo suspects something, or Sam sees something - we have something to look forward to. Otherwise it's just boring narration, that once becomes past, no longer matters.
5. Not relatable. Obviously
6. Appreciate Lady Galadriel, and the other river-lady( though I didn't get her point). But where are all the other women??
7. Nobody has a personality. Aragorn's sort of nice. Everybody else is borrring..
Okbye.

Would you trade the intelligence you have for anything else in life?
Better looks? More money? What about love and affection?
As the introduction to this book quotes Plato, ‘Would you rather be Socrates, or a happy pig?'

This book was written at first as a short story apparently and the author had the right mind to turn it into a heart-rending novel that would make anyone cry. It does not merely deluge you with emotions making you wonder why exactly you had to read this book; it makes you think and form opinions about what they are doing in here and about the characters in it. This is a book about which you could have a healthy discussion with your friend. There is a certain logic, no pretense, and the honesty maintained by the lead character throughout his reports is a page turner.

The story is about Charlie Gordon age 32, IQ 68 working as a janitor at a bakery owned by his dead uncle's friend. He gets accepted as a candidate for the first-ever experiment to improve his IQ. The story arc follows the changes in his intelligence, his emotions and social life. Written in the form of progress reports, we see the whole thing from Charlie's perspective.

I'll stick to three aspects of the novel. There is much more to it, but writing about it just ends up being aimless rambling.

1. Charlie's growth.
If you kept a journal as a kid you'd know - the ‘diary' I kept as a kid is filled with mundane details of the day. Charlie starts at the age of 32, but he as well might have been 8. Riddled with spelling errors and lack of punctuation, it is fun to read - only I have to keep reminding myself that this guy is 32. As the pages turn you'll notice an improvement, he writes more feelings than details of the day. The disillusionments, his realization of the appalling dehumanization of people with low IQ. Only when the fog clears he sees the marsh he is in.

For him it is like waking up from sleep to utter clarity and trying to figure out the vague dream which was his past - a past that doesn't really seem to want to leave him alone. Still he makes the best of what he gets and will leave you in tears at the end.

2. Imagery
Sometimes movies just won't do. Not always, just sometimes. Right after I finished the book I checked out its movie - couldn't watch for more than 5 minutes. I didn't want it to taint the images I had in my head.
Of the scared little boy looking out the window with his cheek pressed to the window
Of the look of disgust on the mother's face that sets him trembling
Of the innocent smile
Of the bohemian Fay in her house with no straight lines and of Alice's unsure countenance.
Of him overhearing Norma telling her friends that Charlie wasn't her real brother

3. Language and characters
Everyone is imperfect in this story. The egotistical Prof. Nemur, the horrible mother, the dad who just didn't care, Alice who allows herself to get hurt, Fay who's always drunk, the people at the bakery and even Charlie himself with the consequences of his varying IQ, his panic attacks due to childhood trauma. It is a mess. A beautiful mess.
All these broken pieces are glued together with phenomenal writing and imagery-by the end forming this exceptional piece of writing.

“I see now that when Norma flowered in our garden I became a weed, allowed to exist only in places where I would not be seen, in corners and dark places”

It's a little like Forrest Gump, but better. Must read.

If I wanted to like Stephen King I should have fought my compulsion, to read even non-series books, in the order they were written. I seem to expect to gain some insight into the author's growth as a writer, or something. Stupid me. If this book was written by someone else, if he hadn't written better books later, this book would have been long forgotten. This average rating I believe (hope!) is for the author rather than the book.
Is this horror? I just found it morbid. Isn't horror supposed be something that scares me, that I don't read it with with just my side lamp on, something that gives me nightmares. This is just sad. I never felt any sympathy, only pity. It feels like this book got stuck somewhere in between adult's and children's fiction, but appeals to neither. (they did me bad i do them bad) infantile revenge, leaving the reader to be an uninterested distant observer.
Yet at some points the writing itself did shine. With TK, you'd expect things to fall on the head and kill people, but slowing down the heart, making it stop was a novelty. Carrie's subconscious is the most amusing. Wish he'd let her talk more.

This is a lazy saturday afternoon read. The humor is amusing, it made me laugh out loud at times too. The book doesn't have any emotions, but it does give you a feeling of... insouciance. After reading there's nothing of it left in my head, except for few incidences and jokes. An “enjoy as you read” book.

For a reader, foreign to American history, especially the Jazz Age (the 1920s), this book would make much less sense. So don't skip the introduction about the same.

I never rated a classic 5 (except Pride and Prejudice), because it makes me feel dishonest. For a classic, this is a pretty good one, and you can finish it in a day.

The levels moral standards are well defined, and the narrator is a decent fellow as we can gather from his actions in the first few chapters, so we tend to resonate with his opinions in the later chapter.

The characters of Tom Buchanan and Mr. Gatsby were developed beautifully, but I couldn't care less about the women. What was the purpose of Jordan's character?

Tom Buchanan was presented as an unlikable guy, from the beginning itself, so the further statements about him just added beautifully to the picture, it was heartwarming.

Maybe the gender roles were so messed up that I didn't care about it. The fight between Tom and Gatsby about who Daisy loved, did not seem to involve Daisy's opinion. Daisy's a character to which stuff happened to. She didn't move through time, time moved through her. And of all the sh*t and roses flying around a few stuck on to her.

The first few chapters built up to too much, and the ending sorta flattened out.

Reading experience was good, the humor and the foreshadowing.

I'd suggest it if you have a few hours to kill, for the thoughts of the narrator, that you can relate to, than for the storyline as such.

Remember the scene from ‘The Office', in which Dwight and Pam are repairing a printer, but there are only German instructions?
“That is either an incense dispenser or a ceremonial sarcophagus”. Dwight later explains that his German is preindustrial and mostly religious.

My situation reading this book wasn't entirely dissimilar. Culture heavily influences language, and language from an entirely foreign culture of 1800s England must be hard for people not acquainted with it. With the aid of a few helpful fans on r/janeausten I got some idea about clergy and livings; a topic which takes up a few chapters in the beginning. The rest of it is not easy either.

Austen's other books were written around the same age too, but the themes of those books are relevant in the present. ‘Pride' and ‘prejudice' haven't changed much over 200 years. ‘Sense' hasn't changed either. (Sensibility though has thankfully taken a sensible turn; which made me really confused about what to feel about Marianne. But that's for another review). Mansfield Park as far as I understood deals with norms and propriety. And this has changed drastically over the years. Which probably made this book a difficult read.

PP and SS are all about Elizabeth and Elinor. Though, there's stuff going on in the background, they drive the story. Elizabeth and Elinor were the reason(s?) why those books were written. At least in the first half, Fanny appears to be more like an excuse for Mansfield Park to be written. Fanny slowly ‘fades in' into the story. And even in the later half, she is more an observer than a doer. (There are some quotable dialogues, one or two - when she rarely speaks. I'm too lazy to type those down here)

The whole book is rather a character study - from the workings of societal relations than a linear drama. There is no intrigue of what-next or will-they-won't-they. It's intended for passive observation of interactions between characters which gives us an insight into their personalities. We have all sorts of people in here. And THAT is the primary attraction.

The genteel proper Edmund(who I'm not sure is supposed to be likeable), the prodigal son, William. Their mother who's like a stoned royal lady - completely useless, only has vague idea of what's going on around her and people treat her with utmost respect.
......The woman's husband has to cross the Atlantic for work stuff.....
“Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband to leave her; but she was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety, or solicitude for his comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous or difficult, or fatiguing, to anybody but themselves”

And isn't Mrs. Norris fun? I've seen many an Aunt Norrises on Indian serials. So she wasn't hard to figure out. Then there's Ms. Crawford who you would expect to turn out to be a fascinating character, but ends up one-dimensional. Two sisters whose only role is to jealous of each other. And Mr. Crawford with his really weird character arc.

While reading this, I was in a constant struggle to figure about what this book was really about. Apart from what I mentioned above, there is this theme explored in the last few chapters, in multiple situations, when Fanny reaches her own home.
“She could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates, its happy ways. Everything where she was no was in full contrast to it. The elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps above all the peace and tranquility of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance every hour of the day, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them here.”
It's nothing much. Just how, circumstances change people. ‘Cause I had to find some meaning in this mess.

Maybe there is more to this book, that has clearly gone above my head. The book moves slowly and takes wild turns, including the ending, which must be the wildest turn that didn't do justice to many characters. It would make you think why all the stupidity earlier had to happen at all.

The book is underwhelming at first, then it kind of grows on you, ‘cause the characters are interesting, and then it just shrivels up and dies on you.

Maybe I'll appreciate it on a later read, but I wouldn't know.