Seonghyun Cho
Possibly the best/worst book I could've read before a trip to Korea. It doesn't help that every time I'm in Korea or leave the motherland, I bawl my eyes out, but I'll get reminded of this book.
What a wonderfully written book that captures so many emotions that I've harbored. Potentially my favorite book of the year.
If you've been inside a kitchen, then you'll find Bourdain's anecdotes as a bit of a throwback. Highly entertaining regardless of whether you have experience, but as someone who grew up around a kitchen, I would've loved to trade stories with him.
That being said, I was not a huge fan of a lack of chronological order throughout the book as it felt Bourdain was getting a stream of consciousness out of him.
I was told this book was about gaming, but similar to how I view Ted Lasso, the best parts aren't when the book doesn't show the actually gaming aspects.
I found the three co-founders of Unfair very relatable throughout, although (I'm probably being biased here) I found Sam's grandparents as my favorite characters despite their small cameos throughout the book. Other characters such as Dov, Ant, and Simon also were written fairly accurate to reflect the gaming generation of their respective eras imo
There are few reasons as to why I'm a bit hesitant to give it 5 stars is because I would've loved a bigger dive into the various themes such as racism, sexism in the gaming industry, etc. I felt that Zevin brushed over them and those problems were just easy to be conquered.
Moreover, while the constant change of Sam and Sadie's friendship status is fairly realistic, I thought it was unreasonable for Sadie to constantly hold some grudge over Sam on a myriad of reasons, especially when Sadie gave Sam the initial (and rightful) reason to halt their friendship (that Sam later acquiesced).
Overall, I'd recommend this book (and have been to a few folks) as it kept me engaging and enjoyed it!
Reading Go Set a Watchman while knowing the context behind the publishing controversy as well as it being the first failed draft prior to To Kill a Mockingbird, this book, while filled with good story telling of our Scout's past anecdotes, disappointed overall still.
Moreover, I was disappointed by the ending especially as it felt Scout just acquiesced to Hank/her father/Maycomb's opinions, and showed no conviction besides proclaiming her thoughts.
As someone who grew up in rural Georgia, I found it fascinating and haunting that a lot of the rhetorics you find about racism throughout the book are still argued today.
