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1501177362
| 9781501177361
| 3.61
| 6,377
| Sep 04, 2018
| Sep 04, 2018
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none
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0
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not set
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not set
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May 09, 2018
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Hardcover
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1101904372
| 9781101904374
| 4.06
| 209
| Sep 05, 2017
| Sep 05, 2017
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Aug 01, 2017
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Hardcover
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0399178481
| 9780399178481
| 3.91
| 11,166
| Aug 22, 2017
| Aug 22, 2017
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Jul 14, 2017
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Hardcover
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1101985364
| 9781101985366
| 3.84
| 119,293
| Jul 11, 2017
| Jul 11, 2017
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liked it
| We were, for whatever reason, the lucky ones who survived when no one else had. Pretty girls covered in blood. As such, we were each in turn treate We were, for whatever reason, the lucky ones who survived when no one else had. Pretty girls covered in blood. As such, we were each in turn treated like something rare and exotic. A beautiful bird that spreads its bright wings only once a decade. Or that flower that stinks like rotting meat whenever it decides to bloom. 3.5 Stars. Quincy Carpenter is the lone survivor of the Pine Cottage Massacre, making her the third member of an elite group that nobody wants to join: the Final Girls. Lisa Milner, Samantha Boyd, and Quincy each endured real-life horrors and survived against all odds. Of all the crimes that have occurred over the years, their cases are the ones that captured the nation's imagination. Ten years after the massacre, Quincy still has no memory of what happened that night. She has managed to put the past behind her and live a relatively normal life as a successful baking blogger. Unfortunately, it's not going so well for all of the Final Girls. Lisa is found dead in her bathtub, in a suspected suicide. After the news of Lisa's death becomes public, Sam emerges from hiding and shows up on Quincy's doorstep. Quincy is suspicious of Sam at first, but she welcomes her into her home. Sam claims that she just wants to make sure Quincy is doing okay, but she's secretive about what she's been up to all these years. Who is Sam and what does she really want? Will Sam's presence help Quincy remember what really happened that night at Pine Cottage? What happened to us wasn’t a movie. It was real life. Our lives. The blood wasn’t fake. The knives were steel and nightmare‑ sharp. And those who died definitely didn’t deserve it. But somehow we screamed louder, ran faster, fought harder. We survived. Final Girl is "film‑geek speak for the last woman standing at the end of a horror movie." This book is the story of a Final Girl's life after the last "scene." In horror movies, the Final Girl usually has a unisex name and abstains from sex, drugs, and alcohol. Quincy definitely fits the role! She has a “goodness" that arouses sympathy, a vulnerability that inspires people's protective instincts, and a strength that shows anyone can overcome trauma and come out better in the end. To the outside world, she emerged from the rubble as an archetype, not an actual human being with complex emotions who watched her best friends get murdered. When there’s an anniversary or new developments, the media descends on her doorstep and she’s expected to make herself available to the masses. Surviving a massacre has become her defining quality. She's expected to rise above it all and be the perfect victim. Even those closest to Quincy want her to forget the massacre ever happened, yet are still willing to reduce her to an "object of pity" when it's useful. She is shamed when she shows any sign of weakness. In the midst of all these expectations, Quincy feels herself disappearing. Her entire life is a performance. Baking is a science, as rigorous as chemistry or physics. There are rules that must be followed. Too much of one thing and not enough of another can lead to ruin. I find comfort in this. Outside, the world is an unruly place where men prowl with sharpened knives. In baking, there is only order. The three Final Girls have different ways of handling their trauma. Lisa surrounded herself with friends and dedicated her life to helping others. Samantha went off the grid. Quincy keeps people at a distance and dedicates herself to her baking blog and a highly curated life. Baking allows Quincy to "pour [her] runny, sloshing existence into a human‑shaped mold and crank up the heat, emerging soft, springy, and new." When Sam shows up her door, Quincy's perfect facade begins to fade away. Sam is one of the only people in the world who understands what she went through, so she doesn’t have to pretend around her. Sam injects chaos into Quincy's life and encourages her to make the messy parts visible. One of my favorite scenes is when Sam helps Quincy set up shots for her baking blog. After spending time with Sam, Quincy gets even more dependent on Xanax and wine and becomes a completely different person. The rage she has been forced to lock up begins to seep out. Will the memories she keeps locked up finally break free? There’s such a thing as too much sweetness ... All the best bakers know this. There needs to be a counterpoint. Something dark. Or bitter. Or sour. Unsweetened chocolate. Cardamom and cinnamon. Lemon and lime. They cut through all the sugar, taming it just enough so that when you do taste the sweetness, you appreciate it all the more I loved the atmosphere! My favorite parts were the flashbacks to the night at Pine Cottage. All the ingredients for disaster are there and the lead up to the massacre is tense. The flashback chapters are few and far between at first, but they get closer together as it gets closer to the conclusion. There were a few things that kept this book from being a favorite. In books with amnesiacs + first-person perspective, there's almost always a lull after the first third where I get sick of being stuck in the main character's head (In a Dark, Dark Wood, Gone Without a Trace, The Trap). The characters didn't come alive for me so much that I was invested in their fates. (Honestly, Quincy didn't always seem invested in her own fate!) The conclusion was the exact one I was hoping against and it made the parts that intrigued me not so interesting anymore. Some events seemed to not have much of a purpose except to mislead me. However, I also couldn't put it down, which is sometimes exactly what I'm looking for. I read 90% of the book in one day. It's a good summer read, and probably an even better autumn one. You can’t change what’s happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it. As Quincy reads articles about Lisa's death, she gets a glimpse of what her own obituary will look like. The journalists focus "on the horrors Lisa witnessed that long‑ago night, as if no other moments of her life mattered." Quincy hates that other people see her as a Final Girl or a victim, but sometimes that's exactly what she sees when she looks in the mirror. Will she ever be able to see herself as a survivor? The Final Girls shows how horror movie tropes have roots in reality--the fetishization of young women who endured unspeakable horrors, while ignoring the reality of their situation. The sordid details of their ordeals are what sells papers, but few are comfortable recognizing the resulting trauma. I wasn't completely on board by the end, but I enjoyed it while reading it. This book is a good choice if you're looking for an all-consuming weekend read. ___________ I received this book for free from Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available July 11, 2017! ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jul 06, 2017
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Jul 07, 2017
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May 23, 2017
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Hardcover
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0142420913
| 9780142420911
| 4.05
| 29,384
| Apr 14, 2011
| Jul 11, 2017
|
really liked it
|
Twelve-year-old Sunny's family moved from the United States to their native Nigeria when she was nine years old. Even though her family is originally
Twelve-year-old Sunny's family moved from the United States to their native Nigeria when she was nine years old. Even though her family is originally from Nigeria, Sunny is always an outsider amongst her schoolmates. She's American by birth and albino, both traits that make her a target for bullies. When she has a terrifying vision of the end of the world, she discovers yet another quality that sets her apart from the rest of the community. She's a Leopard, a person with magical abilities. With the help of three new friends and a challenge to protect her community from a ritual killer, she will find out who she really is and the full extent of her capabilities. I adored Sunny! She's continually underestimated and "her path to anything seemed to always be difficult." Her father favors her brothers over her, possibly because she "wasn't the son he wanted or the pretty daughter he'd have accepted instead." She loves to play soccer, but her gender and sensitive skin prevent her from playing with the boys after school. I loved Sunny's intelligence and fortitude in the face of adversity. She knows that the limitations and stereotypes that others saddle her with say more about them than her. Prejudice begets prejudice, you see. Knowledge does not always evolve into wisdom. When Sunny discovers her abilities, she also finds out there's an entire part of her community that was previously invisible to her. Leopard Knocks is a rich, magical world rooted in Nigerian tradition and mythology. There are some of the typical elements that you'd expect of this genre, but there are also so many new things to discover. Spirit faces, vengeful insect specters, and the approval-seeking (and charming!) wasp artists were especially interesting to me. While power and material possessions are the most valued things in the non-magical world, knowledge is the most important resource of the Leopard People. They receive a financial reward for learning new skills. However, opportunities to accumulate power and wealth are always tempting and even Leopards can be corrupted. Both the magical and non-magical world can be dangerous and the children are not sheltered from the harsh realities of life. Sunny is aware of ritual sacrifices and people being sold into slavery. Her community is currently being terrorized by ritual killer Black Hat Otokoto, who is mutilating and murdering children. Sunny and her friends encounter life-threatening situations during their magical training. In the Nigerian Leopard community, punishments are "swift and painful," unlike the America Leopard community's "verbal and lawful" system. Of course, America has its own problems, which are discussed. Home will never be the same once you know what you are. Your whole life will change. Nigeria is already full of groups, circles, cultures. We have many ways. You are Yoruba, Hausa, Ibibio, Fulani, Ogoni, Tiv, Nupe, Kanuri, Ijaw, Annang, and so on. You add being a Leopard Person to that and your groups split into a thousand more groups. The world becomes that much more complicated. Division and discord are a major part of Sunny's world. There are tensions between people of different tribes, nationalities, and abilities. The multitude of languages spoken leaves a lot of room for misunderstandings and alienation. The title reflects some of these conflicts. One classmate calls Sunny a "stupid pale-faced akata witch," mocking her for being an American and albino. "Akata" is a derogatory term that refers to black Americans and people with albinism are often assumed to have "magical evil powers." Even in the Leopard community, Sunny is a minority. Both of her parents are Lambs (non-magical people), making her a rare Free Agent. The best resource available to her kind is written from a place of prejudice. But for the most part, the things that make Sunny different are assets in this new part of her life. Sunny's new friends all have different backgrounds, strengths, and weaknesses, but it's their differences that make them strong as a team. In fact, some of the traits that are considered weaknesses to Lambs are a source of enhanced strength to the Leopards. Mature and humble Orlu keeps the team grounded. Chichi is quick in both speed and wit. Sasha is angry and impulsive. Sunny is jealous that everyone else seems to know who they are, but she will figure out her place as she gains more experience. Learn how to learn. Read between the lines. Know what to take and what to discard. The only part I didn't like was (view spoiler)[the rushed and anti-climatic ending. I was beginning to think the big confrontation I was expecting wouldn't happen. Perhaps the major arc in this story would just be Sunny finding out who she is, coming into her own, and learning to navigate her two worlds. The big fight did come eventually, but it was over in a few pages and the result came confusingly swift. I didn’t get the same satisfying thrill witnessing the kids fight the big bad as I did seeing Sunny kick butt on the soccer field. (hide spoiler)] Of course, this is just the first book in the series and there's much more to come. Like many preteens, Sunny is trying to figure out her place in the world. She just has a few extra challenges on top of that, like trying to save the world from ultimate destruction! Will these magical novices be able to put their divergent abilities together and defeat a more powerful foe? I loved Sunny and the world of Leopard Knocks. I'm anxious to see what Sunny, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha will be up to in the long awaited sequel Akata Warrior, available October 3, 2017. I'm glad it'll be a short wait! Other Links: Review of this book written by a man with albinism - There are book recommendations in the comment section. "Don't Call Me Albino" -- A Primer on Albinism Etiquette The story of Nigeria's 'untouchables' (BBC) - Osu people referenced by Sunny in Chapter 12. ___________ I received this book for free from Penguin First to Read. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available now! ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jul 07, 2017
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Jul 11, 2017
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May 23, 2017
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Paperback
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0735224293
| 9780735224292
| 4.09
| 956,583
| Sep 12, 2017
| Sep 12, 2017
|
liked it
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3.5 Stars. Celeste Ng certainly knows how to start a story! "Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of th
3.5 Stars. Celeste Ng certainly knows how to start a story! "Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down." The town was already on edge because of a controversial adoption case, but now the Richardsons' family drama has given them something new to talk about. What's going on behind closed doors in this perfect suburban community? How did they get to this point? But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on. The story is set in the 1990s in Shaker Heights, a planned suburban community near Cleveland, Ohio. To give an idea of the community's atmosphere, I had the Weeds theme song stuck in my head as I was reading! Rules dictate everything in the tight-knit community. There's one way to do things and little patience for those who take a different path. Many of the residents tend to judge people within the bubble of their own experiences, such as when they unfairly judge the competence of a waitress by their 9-to-5 standards. Their "color-blindness" allows them to be oblivious to things in plain sight, such as their own biases or the subtly different treatment of those who are different. At one point, white Lexie's black boyfriend has to explain to her how differently they will be judged individually for the same mistake. Some members of the community have a difficult time understanding that not everyone lives like they do or that there's value in different ways of life. There's also a recurrent attitude of entitlement: the feeling that those with more financial stability are more entitled to a child or Elena Richardson's entitlement to peoples' secrets and other compensation in exchange for her "charity." The progressive community members mean well, but they recoil when the work of righting injustice gets too messy or rowdy. Elena Richardson is terrified that everything will spin out of control if things aren't done within the established order: "Rules existed for a reason: if you followed them, you would succeed; if you didn’t, you might burn the world to the ground." Elena fears an inferno, but maybe a clean slate is what her family and community need. Passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches. Sparks leapt like fleas and spread as rapidly; a breeze could carry embers for miles. Better to control that spark and pass it carefully from one generation to the next, like an Olympic torch. Or, perhaps, to tend it carefully like an eternal flame: a reminder of light and goodness that would never—could never—set anything ablaze. Carefully controlled. Domesticated. Happy in captivity. The key, she thought, was to avoid conflagration. Ng's writing captivates me so much because of her astute observations of human behavior. She has a way of capturing complex feelings and those seemingly innocent little gestures and facial expressions that are actually incredibly revealing. The omniscient narrator slips into the minds of all the characters, so we get to know all of her characters intimately. We meet the Richardson family first. Elena Richardson writes for the local newspaper. Journalism is a perfect outlet for her because she can "do good within the system." The dad, a lawyer, exists in the background, but he remembers a time when Elena was passionate about changing things for the better. It's why he fell in love with her. Comfortable suburban life has quelled Elena's flame and made them complacent. My favorite part was the dynamics between the Richardson teens! Each teen has a distinct personality: warm Lexie (18), charming Trip (17), sensitive Moody (15), and self-righteous Izzy (14). I loved the scenes where we got to see each of their specific responses to an event. There were parts that I could relate to as one of four siblings, especially since the younger three are a year apart. The scene of the Richardsons watching their house burn down as they sat in birth order actually made me smile, because we still sit in that exact same configuration after three decades! Everything, she noticed, seemed capable of transmogrification. Anything had the potential to transform, and this, to her, seemed the true meaning of art. When Mia and Pearl (15) move into the Richardson's rental property, everything begins to change. Elena is intrigued by Mia, but uneasy with her disregard for the established order. Mia's rebelliousness awakens something uncomfortable inside of Elena that she would rather keep locked up. The Warrens have lived a completely different life than the Richardsons. While the Richardsons have a stable life in Shaker Heights, the Warrens have moved 46 times in Pearl's lifetime. It's always just been her and her mother traveling around the country in a VW Rabbit. As Pearl gets to know the Richardson teens, she wonders where all of their confidence comes from. She can't imagine what it's like to feel grounded, "to have such a deep taproot in a single place, to be immersed in it so thoroughly that it had steeped into every fiber of your being." As Pearl becomes infatuated with the Richardson family, the Richardson kids grow increasingly fascinated by Mia. Rebellious Izzy becomes especially obsessed with her. Mia is the first person that makes her realize she has the power to change things. Everything had nuance; everything had an unrevealed side or unexplored depths. Everything was worth looking at more closely. Feelings and opinions can become so internalized that we forget what sparked them in the first place. People that remind us of things we are trying to forget or don't want to see can trigger an automatic revulsion. Some characters have experiences that make them empathetic (Lexie). Other characters' beliefs become more rigid because of past pain; their emotional closeness to a situation clouds their perspective (Moody, Elena). I loved the explanation for Elena's confrontational relationship with Izzy, how her "resentment began to sheathe concern" and "anger is fear’s bodyguard." Feelings can become so permanently ingrained that it can be hard to step back and see things clearly. Sometimes a significant emotional experience is the only thing that can snap us out of our complacency. “Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret, now and then. You just have to carry them with you.” The story gets off to a slow start because of the character introductions and the focus on the teenagers, but I was still completely engrossed in their lives. It really took off for me when the adoption plot starts about one-third of the way through, especially in relation to Mia's backstory. There are so many interesting questions raised: Is it biology or love that makes a parent? How important is the role of cultural heritage in upbringing? But by the end, I felt like the author played favorites with the characters. For all the focus on complexity and gray areas, sometimes it felt too simplistic. Elena got more one-dimensional as the story went on. The adoptive parents were treated with such tenderness at first, but by the time the trial rolled around I kept having to remind myself that hadn't literally snatched the child out of the biological mother's arms. I love the feeling of having my sympathies pulled in a million directions, but here I felt reflexive resistance as my sympathies were yanked to one side. The scales tipped towards Mia a little too much and my contrarian side started rearing its ugly head. Mia is often described as enlightened and empathetic, but she's just as flawed as anyone else. Mia's selfishness and hypocrisy are not as emphasized as Elena's flaws and she got off extremely easy compared to other characters. It's not that I don't understand her actions, but there were issues regarding parental rights and the importance of family bonds that I wanted to see Mia wrestle with more directly. Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way. The arrival of Mia and Pearl Warren is the spark that sets of series of little conflicts that culminates in the Richardson's house being set ablaze, but there was already plenty of fuel to feed the flames. Despite the best-laid plans, things don't always go the way we expect. Mrs. Richardson thinks she prepared her kids for life so well that they will never get into tough situations and they will always make the "right" decisions, but life is more complicated than that. Sometimes people don't realize how affecting the consequences of their actions will be, because of lack of experience or circumstances beyond their control. Situations are never as clear-cut as they look from the outside. There are so many instances in this book when people make snap judgments based on an incomplete picture. Uncharitable, simplistic assumptions are made when there are actually complex, relatable explanations. As I read, I was reminded of a Stephen M.R. Covey quote: "We judge ourselves by our intentions and everyone else by their actions." I didn't fall in love with Little Fires Everywhere as much as Everything I Never Told You, but it's still a captivating and thought-provoking sophomore novel. I just didn't get everything I wanted from the wrap-up, perhaps because I was most interested in the adoption storyline. If you liked this book, you might enjoy The Leavers by Lisa Ko. It also deals with the complexities of interracial adoption. It was a full four-star book for me, though I must say that I preferred Mia's photography career over Deming/Daniel's struggling music career! ____________ I received this book for free from Edelweiss and Penguin Press. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available now! ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Sep 2017
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Sep 06, 2017
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Mar 24, 2017
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Hardcover
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0399574638
| 9780399574634
| 3.55
| 4,775
| Mar 14, 2017
| Mar 14, 2017
|
really liked it
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3.5 Stars. Three astronauts embark on a seventeen-month training simulation in preparation for a real trip to Mars. During the hyper-realistic simulat
3.5 Stars. Three astronauts embark on a seventeen-month training simulation in preparation for a real trip to Mars. During the hyper-realistic simulation, Prime Space will be studying the astronauts' behavior and monitoring their communications with their families to see how they hold up on such a long mission. The goal is "not asking them to deal with the environment [Prime Space has] created for them, but creating the right environment for them to deal with whatever they encounter." The most unexamined territory is not within the simulation but within themselves. The Wanderers is a character-driven novel that explores the nature of humanity and our relationships with each other. You don’t stop being a real person just because you aren’t in a real place. I was eager to read this book because it was described as "The Martian meets Station Eleven." That's not really what it is (and I don't think they're making that comparison anymore), but I was lucky that it ended up being another type of book that I like: introspection in space (in a way)! Like much literary fiction set in space, most of the book actually takes place in the characters' heads. It's more like Good Morning, Midnight or Spaceman of Bohemia, because it's a journey of self-discovery rather than a grand space adventure. It might be telling that it sometimes reminded me more of my nonfiction reading: Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe* and The Traveler's Guide to Space: For One-Way Settlers and Round-Trip Tourists. Another reason I was interested in this book was because I'm always fascinated by the experiences of participants in real-life Mars simulations. It definitely satisfied me on that account! The author was inspired by the Mars 500 mission in Moscow. There's also the HI-SEAS project in Hawaii; the fourth crew disembarked in August 2016 and the fifth crew's mission should be ending soon. "Who are these people that can withstand such a trip, the danger, the risk, the isolation, the pressure? What can these people teach us? Because if we— the species—might eventually do something like move to another planet, it would be better if we made a few improvements on ourselves first, if possible." The chapters alternate between seven characters. The three astronauts chosen for the mission were selected to perfectly complement each other, "a kind of dream team, a trio whose individual temperaments, skills, and experience would combine in such a way as to be able to withstand the most challenging and dangerous expedition in the history of humankind." The astronauts are never content to stand still and are always wanting to push the limits of exploration. They love their families, but they can't resist the call to the unknown. The Astronauts • Helen (53yo, USA) is experienced, tenacious, and reserved. She's driven by a fear of being left behind. The end of her career coming up, but she isn't ready to hang up her helmet just yet: "She is too young to watch herself be surpassed, and too old to be this hungry. She thinks she is too young to give up her dreams, and too old to want them this much. But she is both too young and too old, possibly, to change herself. And how many years left on Earth?" One of the most tragic things about Helen is that another person decided how her daughter would see her. Eventually, it would become how she saw herself. • Sergei (45yo, Russia) is straightforward and pessimistic, with some antisocial tendencies. He presents himself like the man he wishes he was and is motivated by the urge to prove his father wrong. • Yoshi (37yo, Japan) is thoughtful, professional, and likable. He's the most adaptable and easygoing of the group, but he's also prone to bouts of melancholy. Intense focus on what was happening in the present eclipsed all else, but things do not disappear during an eclipse, only disappear from view. The effects of isolation and confinement on the astronauts is what I came for, but it was their relationships with their families that ended up being the most intriguing. The Prime team is aware that the astronauts are very careful about how they present themselves, so they believe the family members might provide them with better insight. Yoshi's wife Madoka observes that the tightly controlled conditions of the simulation are actually less extreme than everyday life on Earth. The astronauts have each other, but the family members are all dealing with some form of isolation as they deal with being left behind. Prime Space team & the Families: • Luke is a member of the observation team. The "Obbers" monitor the astronauts for signs of psychological distress. • Mireille is Helen's daughter. She's vulnerable and emotional, which she channels into her acting. Her whole life has been overshadowed by her mother's career. She resents mother for repeatedly putting her career first. She doesn't want her mother's story to define her life and she wishes that she didn't need to be loved so much. Her nickname is Meeps, which made me feel irrationally irritated! • Madoka is Yoshi's eccentric wife and a sales operative for a company that manufactures robotic caregivers. Over the years, she has become a "kind of ancillary tool to the Voyages of Yoshi." Her marriage to Yoshi looks strong to the outside world, but it's actually hollow at the core. She's relieved when he goes away for long periods of time because it's exhausting to keep up the pretense of being Yoshi's "awesome" wife. • Dimitri is Sergei's sixteen-year-old son. He feels inadequate next to his father and brother. He's gay but isn't ready to admit it to himself or anyone else. There's so much value in getting the family members' perspectives, but there was too much activity on Earth. Madoka's story is the most refined, so she was my favorite. One thing I really liked about the astronaut chapters was their interactions with each other. The family members operated more like independent satellites. I know that's the point, but it made those chapters less interesting for me. My favorite section involving the families was the prelaunch dinner when Madoka and Mireille both engaged in a bit of play acting. “Why shouldn’t we feel awe? In front of a beautiful painting we do not ask ourselves is it real? We know that it is not real. It is a painting. But we can still be filled with awe at its beauty.” My reading experience mirrored some of the characters' experiences. This book really messed with my own sense of a reality! I felt awed by the enormity of space when I read Good, Morning Midnight, even though it was fiction. The characters were actually experiencing outer space, so I felt like I was too. The characters in The Wanderers were in a simulation, so that altered my experience. BUT THEN, paranoia sets in. One of the astronauts sees a glitch that makes them suspect they might actually be in space. With a real launch and a simulated launch occuring at the same time it was always a possibility, but that was the first real clue that something shady might be going on. A switch flipped in me; should I have been reading it differently the whole time? The glitch isn't the point; it's how the astronauts, and perhaps the reader, react to it. To orbit the earth is not to be shot up to some magical zone where there is no gravity, but to be shot up in such a trajectory that your subsequent fall means you won't hit anything; you will persistently and permanently miss the Earth and circle around it. To have done this is to understand the persistence and permanence of falling and to understand that what is true does not always feel like what is true. The word planet comes from the ancient Greek word for wanderer. The planets "move in relation to each other and the stars, but they don't wander all over." You can't see all of a planet or moon at once, and in some cases, you'll never see all their faces. Similarly, the characters are only partially visible to each other. Everyone in this book is putting up a facade, concealing parts of themselves from each other, and even from themselves. Being the person they think they're supposed to be prevents their relationships from being as fulfilling as they could be. The avoidance of feeling or causing pain puts a wall between these characters. Yoshi will not just be pretending that he is going to Mars, he will be pretending to be the most perfect person to go to Mars, and maybe he is, almost without question, he is, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have to pretend to be what he really is, because aren’t we all pretending to be who we really are? To some extent, all of these characters live in self-created artificial environments. So between the simulation and the characters' facades, what's real? It's complicated! I'm reminded of Madoka reflecting on the contradictions in her marriage. She acknowledges that the outside perception of her marriage as solid has some truth to it, but the hollow reality of her marriage is also true. At one point, Helen becomes so used to her altered self in the outside simulations that her real self looks fake. Some of the characters realize that they've spent much of their lives reacting to situations that they've dreamed up; both Yoshi and Mireille mention being affected by conversations and situations that only occurred in their heads. Regardless of what's actually happened, all the emotions and reactions awakened by their experiences are very real. On a personal level, the events of this book reminded me of dreams. Every once in a while, I'll wake up irritated with my husband because of something he did in my dream. It's completely irrational, but it felt so real at the time! And like Mireille, I've sometimes worked myself up over an argument that I've acted out in my head. (Letter from Yoshi to Madoka) Pluto and Charon show each other only one face, never turning away. ... In astronomy, we use the word barycenter to describe the center of mass between two orbiting objects. Our Luna is smaller than Earth, and so the barycenter of Earth and Luna is on Earth, deep within it, actually. Because Charon is so large, and its gravitational influence so great, the barycenter of Pluto and Charon lies outside Pluto. Strictly speaking, Charon does not orbit Pluto, nor Pluto, Charon. They rotate around a barycenter between them. Looking only at one piece of each other. .... I have come to believe that I have loved you incorrectly. I have been orbiting a dream I cannot touch. I only know one of your faces. It is not that I didn’t want to know another face, it is that I loved that one so powerfully. Maybe I did not wish to know. There is a possibility that you are like Luna, and you see all my faces while I see only one of yours. But, forgive me, I do not think this is true. I think we are mutually locked. Perhaps this is what it means to be married. Perhaps this is what it means to be married to me. I saw a little of you, and thought it was everything. I understand that I was wrong. You don't have to travel to space to experience the unknown. In their isolation, these characters are forced to confront long-buried demons. They can no longer avoid seeing the obvious in order to protect themselves. Helen insists on not changing or feeling too much on the simulation so that she can feel or change more during the real trip to Mars, but the change is unavoidable. As much as they fight it, they'll all be irrevocably altered by their experience. The Wanderers is a quiet novel without much of a plot, but it provides many thought-provoking ideas to explore. OTHER: * "For a mistake that measured 1/50th the width of a human hair, a two billion-dollar telescope was almost lost." - More details about this incident is available here (#4 on the list). Mike Massimino talks about another incident with the Hubble Telescope in his book Spaceman, which is one of my favorite memoirs ever. His thoughts during the stressful situation made me laugh, even though I know it wasn't very funny at the time: "This would be my legacy. My children and grandchildren would read in their classrooms: We might have known if there was life on other planets, but Gabby and Daniel’s dad broke the Hubble." * The Madoka/robotic caretaker sections reminded me of two excellent short stories I read recently. They are both available online: Tongtong's Summer by Xia Jia (included in Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation compiled by Ken Liu) and Saying Goodbye to Yang (included in Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein) * Speaking of eclipses, the total solar eclipse is coming up on August 21, 2017! We're only getting the 67% version here in Houston. :( ________________ I received this book for free from Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available now! ...more |
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Mar 07, 2017
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Mar 14, 2017
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Dec 01, 2016
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Hardcover
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0804141290
| 9780804141291
| 3.83
| 31,297
| Oct 06, 2016
| Oct 11, 2016
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really liked it
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Notes are private!
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Oct 07, 2016
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Oct 14, 2016
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Aug 17, 2016
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Hardcover
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0670026336
| 9780670026333
| 3.97
| 76,035
| Oct 04, 2016
| Oct 04, 2016
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really liked it
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Antoinette Conway had always dreamed of being on the murder squad, but she's burnt out after two years of unchallenging domestic cases and merciless h
Antoinette Conway had always dreamed of being on the murder squad, but she's burnt out after two years of unchallenging domestic cases and merciless harassment from her own squad mates. One morning, the gaffer hands her and her partner Stephen Moran the case of twenty-six-year-old murder victim Aislinn Murray. There's outside pressure to charge the victim's boyfriend and wrap up the case quickly, but not all the pieces are fitting together. It has all the attributes of a lover's spat gone wrong, but there is very little physical evidence, the victim's best friend alludes to the possibility secret relationship, and Conway recognizes the victim from somewhere. Could this be the big case Conway and Moran have been waiting for? What-if-maybe crap is for weak people. It belongs to the ones who don’t have the strength to make actual situations go their way, so they have to hide away in daydreams where they can play at controlling what comes next. And that makes them even weaker. Every what-if is a gift to anyone who’s looking for a hold on you, and that means us. If a guy’s whole head is in reality, then reality is the only route we can take to get to him. If he’s letting his mind prance off down dozens of twisty hypothetical fairy tales, every one of those is a crack we can use to prize him open. The Trespasser, the sixth in the Dublin Murder Squad series, is my first Tana French novel. It's probably not ideal to read them out of order and I know that detectives Conway and Moran also appear in The Secret Place. However, it worked as a standalone. I didn't ever feel lost or like I'd missed out on anything. Now I need to go back and read these in order for an even richer experience! This book felt more on the literary side than many of the mysteries I've read lately. There are no wasted characters and everyone has a complete personality. Even the less important characters have little quirks that make them easy to remember; one floater has an annoying (and slightly hilarious) habit of recording every single detail during an interview. I did have to take more breaks than usual while reading. It's so dense with detail and it felt like I was following the case in real-time. When Conway and Moran weren't making progress, neither was I! It's the kind of mystery that you settle into and enjoy the ride, rather than a page turner. The pace did pick up around the 2/3s of the way through. The truth is, if you don’t exist without someone else, you don’t exist at all. It was a bit of a relief to read a book with one perspective and a linear timeline! This story is told from the perspective of Detective Antoinette Conway. She's sarcastic and jaded. She's always on the defensive because she's so used to putting up with abuse from her squad. She's convinced they're trying to drive her off the squad and she remains hyper-vigilant, always ready for the next attack. Conway's paranoia, plus the history with her dad, add an interesting layer to this mystery. Conway has a hardened shell, but every once and a while she lets us see a glimpse of the wide-eyed detective she once was. There's a part where she reveals her daydreams about her and her partner's future: "Once or twice— more— I caught myself daydreaming like a sappy teenager about our future together: about someday when we would get the decent cases, the genius plans we’d dream up to trap the cunning psychos, the interrogations that would go down in squad history. Big tough Conway going all misty-eyed; how the lads would have laughed." It's such a simple dream and in the context of all her tough talk, it made me develop a real soft spot for her. She still has a spark of love for her job and I really wanted her to get her big break and some relief from the bullying! You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that’s built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that. Conway's partner Stephen Moran is a likable people-pleaser who is still able to dream big. Unsurprisingly, his interrogation technique is "Nice Boy Next Door." While Conway is resigned to the Aislinn Murray case being like one of their usual domestic cases, Moran convinces her that there may be more to the case. The partnership between Conway and Moran works because they have completely opposite personalities and they balance each other out so well. Their non-verbal communication makes it seem like they have their own secret language. My favorite parts were the suspect interviews, because I loved the back and forth between the detectives as they tried to manipulate the suspects into submission. As much as I loved the partnership between Conway and Moran, the interviews Conway did with Detective Breslin were my favorites. I loved the dynamic between their "Cool Girl" and "Chief Jock" techniques. The thing about daydreams is that they don’t last. One brush up against reality, and that’s the end of them. This book is about the consequences of manipulating other people's lives by creating scripts for them to live through and getting caught up in stories we create for ourselves. Even Conway, who despises people who live in a fantasy world, has conjured up stories of her own and tries to uphold a certain image. The Trespasser is an interesting story from beginning to end with fascinating characters. It's detailed in a way that made me feel like part of the squad and like I was invested in the outcome. I regret putting off this series for so long, but I'm so happy I have five more of these to read! ______________________________ I received this book for free from Penguin Random House First to Read in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The publication date is October 4, 2016. ...more |
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none
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1
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Sep 08, 2016
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Sep 22, 2016
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Aug 17, 2016
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Hardcover
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0143129201
| 9780143129202
| 3.84
| 22,240
| Oct 04, 2016
| Oct 04, 2016
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really liked it
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Comedian Phoebe Robinson addresses race, gender, and pop culture in this collection of eleven humorous essays. Robinson is the creator and one of the
Comedian Phoebe Robinson addresses race, gender, and pop culture in this collection of eleven humorous essays. Robinson is the creator and one of the hosts of the 2 Dope Queens podcast. She also has a series on YouTube called Woke Bae. I'm behind the times and had never encountered her work before! The foreword is written by 2 Dope Queens cohost and Daily Show correspondent Jessica Williams, which is what made me interested in this book. It's not the typical celebrity memoir that I could breeze through in a few hours, but it's entertaining and thought-provoking. The kind of growth required to move past race is nearly impossible to achieve because racism is rooted in the foundation of America. … Without awareness or acknowledgment of how these things have left a permanent stain on our country, then no amount of blind hope is going to remedy the erosion that race and racism have done to this country. Robinson writes about her experiences as a black woman, both in and out of the entertainment industry. Some of the issues she covers are America's uncomfortable relationship with black hair, the evolution of her attitude towards her own hair, being the black friend, Hollywood casting, microaggressions, coded language, and the angry black woman myth. She reveals the subtle ways that racism and sexism are ingrained in modern culture. These are all serious topics, but the book is not an academic treatise. She tackles all the issues with her unique brand of humor. Even though I have zero comedic timing, I was able to enjoy the print version because her writing voice is so distinctive. However, I would've opted for the audio book if given the chance. The writing style is conversational. You can get a good sense of her writing by visiting her blog, Blaria. She uses a lot of hashtags and modern slang ("#WayHarshTai", "ridic.edu"). Every paragraph is packed with pop culture references. Best part? I actually recognized 95% of them, which is rare for me! If you came of age in the late 90s/early 00s and have a deep appreciation of The West Wing and Shonda Rhimes's productions, you should definitely be in the clear! She had my interest clinched with mentions '99 Ricky Martin and Kids Incorporated. I do get a little bored when I'm not as invested in the people or shows mentioned, like the "Ranking Members of U2 in the Order of Whom I Want to Sleep With" section of "My Nine Favorite Guilty Pleasures". I was most interested in her personal experiences that diverged from my own, so my mind would start drifting off when it veered away from those topics. While not all of the book resonated with me personally, she struck a perfect balance between light and heavy subject matter. Explaining your life to a world that doesn't care to listen is often more draining than living in it. There's something for everyone in this book. Many readers will be able to directly relate to Robinson's experiences. For others, there are important lessons: being aware that racism still exists in a variety of ways and to not dismiss someone else's experience simply because it isn't your own or it's too uncomfortable to deal with. Two of the anecdotes were especially memorable for me: the director who called Robinson "uppity" and the classmate who wrote creative fiction about a romance between a slave and a slave owner's daughter. Instead of learning and gaining a more well-rounded viewpoint, these two immediately put their defenses up and completely flipped out when confronted. (Coincidently, I read these chapters when White Fragility Training was making the rounds on Facebook.) Despite the seriousness and importance of the topics addressed, it's one of the rare books that has actually made me laugh out loud. It's also one of the few celebrity memoirs that made me think, even weeks after I read the last page. If you are interested in further exploring the topics addressed in this book, you might be interested in: • Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (pub. date 11/15/16) - This one is about coming of age in South Africa from a male point of view, but there is a lot of overlap with themes. (Humor/Nonfiction) • Citizen by Claudia Rankine - Especially the sections on microaggressions and Serena Williams. (Nonfiction) • We Love You Charlie Freeman - Charlotte's chapters/Enrolling in an predominately white school/Coded language. (Fiction) ______________________ I received this book for free from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The publication date is October 4, 2016. ...more |
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Aug 22, 2016
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Aug 23, 2016
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Aug 09, 2016
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Paperback
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1101991631
| 9781101991633
| 3.78
| 8,078
| Aug 02, 2016
| Aug 02, 2016
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liked it
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3.5 Stars. A story revolving around an unhealthy friendship. The chapters alternate between Heather's perspective as a teenager and Edie's perspective
3.5 Stars. A story revolving around an unhealthy friendship. The chapters alternate between Heather's perspective as a teenager and Edie's perspective as an adult. A traumatic event destroyed their friendship, but seventeen years later Heather reinserts herself into Edie's life. “I’ll look after you. Don’t worry. I’ll always look after you.” After (33 years old):Edie is shocked when Heather shows up at her door. The past trauma they shared comes rushing back to her. What could Heather possibly want after what happened between them? She quickly dismisses Heather, but Heather arrived in London at a vulnerable time in Edie's life. After Edie gives birth, she is hit hard by postpartum depression, which is further compounded by resurfacing memories. Heather seizes this opportunity to worm her way back into Edie's life and take control. Before (16 years old): Heather zeroes in on Edie the moment she sees her. Heather has always been an outsider, even in her own family. She is different from her classmates and is constantly bullied. When she sees the beautiful new girl registering for school, she sees the chance to finally have a friend. Soon after their friendship develops, Edie becomes infatuated with an older boy, Connor. Heather is jealous when she sees her one chance at friendship begin to drift away. She sees it as her duty to protect Edie from Connor. "You don’t know, do you, when you’re a kid, how hard it is being a grown-up? All you want is to be a grown-up too. I thought I’d be so much better at it than [my mom] was, and now that I am one, I realize how stupid that was.” Watching Edie reminded me of I Let You Go —not in the super twisty sense, but the writing style and the domestic drama/suspense split. I was more engaged with the Before chapters leading up to the mysterious event than I was with the After chapters that constantly allude to the event. The After chapters focus heavily on Edie's pregnancy and struggles with postpartum depression. Edie's PPD is empathetically handled, but I really wanted to get back to Heather! Edie occasionally thinks about the past, but she isn't able to tell the reader what happened that day since she isn't ready to deal with it. Heather's creepy obsessiveness is the star of the Before chapters. Heather has strict parents who resent her for something that happened to her younger sister. They expect her to study hard and go to medical school. Heather's dedication to her schoolwork is pushed aside when Edie, a rebel and talented artist, becomes her main priority. Heather latches on to Edie at the first sign of affection and Edie relishes in the feeling of being idolized. Both girls showed a lot of promise in high school and I was desperate to know what happened to lead them to their sad present-day circumstances. He never speaks about her, but you can somehow see the memory of her there still, in his eyes and his smile, the way they do remain a part of us, those people who have hurt us very deeply or whom we have hurt, never letting us go, not entirely. I appreciated the evenness of the story. Forced romances are my least favorite part of suspense novels, but the potential for romance in this book was gradual and made sense. There were no moments that felt completely out of left field. The characters weren't overly memorable (especially the after version of Edie) and it was sometimes too easy to put down, but it did make me feel something. It was really sad in a way that I didn't expect! This story is a good reminder that situations and relationships are sometimes more complex than they first appear. Recommended for those looking for a good book to read on a rainy day. ______________________________ I received this book for free from Penguin Random House First to Read in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The publication date is August 2, 2016. ...more |
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1
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Jul 18, 2016
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Jul 23, 2016
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Jun 28, 2016
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Hardcover
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1101904224
| 9781101904220
| 4.12
| 337,282
| Jul 26, 2016
| Jul 26, 2016
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really liked it
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Unsettling sci-fi thriller No one tells you it’s all about to change, to be taken away. There’s no proximity alert, no indication that you’re standiUnsettling sci-fi thriller No one tells you it’s all about to change, to be taken away. There’s no proximity alert, no indication that you’re standing on the precipice. And maybe that’s what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you’re least expecting. No time to flinch or brace. Jason Dessen is a professor/atomic physicist with a comfortable family life. He adores his wife and fourteen-year-old son, though he sometimes wonders how different his life would've been if Daniela hadn't gotten pregnant. While walking back home one night, Jason is abducted and drugged. He wakes up in a strange place surrounded by unfamiliar people who claim to know him and have been anticipating his return. Is he stuck in a dream or was his family life the dream? Jason attempts to figure out who these people are and what they want from him, as he desperately tries to fight his way back to a family that he's not even sure still exists. What if all the pieces of belief and memory that comprise who I am—my profession, Daniela, my son—are nothing but a tragic misfiring in that gray matter between my ears? Will I keep fighting to be the man I think I am? Or will I disown him and everything he loves, and step into the skin of the person this world would like for me to be? This is a book where it's impossible to discuss too much of the plot without spoiling the whole thing, so I'm going to write about all the other aspects. Blake Crouch is a novelist and a screenwriter. The story is fast-paced and the action plays out cinematically. It reads like a script, which makes it hard not think, "I'll go to sleep after one more sentence!" I value my sleep, but during the last half I stayed up past midnight and then woke up at 4am to finish it! First-person present perspective was the perfect choice for this story. The odds Jason faces seem insurmountable and I wasn't sure how the story was going to turn out. Even if I were to assume a happy ending, I had no clue how he was going to get there! Experimental physics—hell, all of science—is about solving problems. However, you can’t solve them all at once. There’s always a larger, overarching question—the big target. But if you obsess on the sheer enormity of it, you lose focus. Books of this nature are always going to be "mind-fuckingly weird," but the author does a great job of explaining what's going on in a clear and concise way. It did make my head hurt a little, mostly because the whole premise is unnerving, but I was able to grasp the concepts enough to enjoy the story. It isn't overly science-y. It's mostly about relationships, choices, and identity. The heart of the story is the love Jason has for his family. Am I still the same man at the most fundamental level? And what is that level? If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me? My favorite parts involved the doors and I could have spent all day in that section! I also liked seeing how Jason worked his way through his problems. Jason is a likable everyman and I was rooting for him to find his way back to his family. My only complaint is that I would've liked to get to know his son Charlie more. Jason's devotion to his wife was refreshing, but his son felt like an afterthought. What a miracle it is to have people to come home to every day. To be loved. To be expected. I thought I appreciated every moment, but sitting here in the cold, I know I took it all for granted. And how could I not? Until everything topples, we have no idea what we actually have, how precariously and perfectly it all hangs together. What makes us who we are? If you had the opportunity to go back and make different choices, would you? It will hard to take anything in my life for granted after reading Dark Matter! It's a book that I would recommend for reluctant readers, as well as those looking for a fun and exciting book that's a little bit challenging. Even though I've already read this, I'm going to get the audiobook so my husband to listen to it. I know he'll love it! We watch a lot of movies in this genre and I still enjoyed it. I think it will appeal to readers of Ready Player One, The Martian, and The Library at Mount Char. Some of the more trippy parts reminded me of Maybe in Another Life, The Adjustment Bureau (movie), and Interstellar (movie), but it's also very different! There's something horribly lonely about a place that's almost home. ______________________________________ I received this book for free from Penguin Random House First to Read in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The publication date is July 26, 2016. ...more |
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none
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1
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Jul 06, 2016
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Jul 10, 2016
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Jun 02, 2016
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Hardcover
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0735221081
| 9780735221086
| 3.81
| 447,104
| Jul 14, 2016
| Aug 23, 2016
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really liked it
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Anne and Marco Conti have plans to attend a dinner party next door, but the babysitter cancels at the last minute and their neighbor is demanding a ch
Anne and Marco Conti have plans to attend a dinner party next door, but the babysitter cancels at the last minute and their neighbor is demanding a child-free evening. Against Anne's better judgment, Marco convinces her to leave their six-month-old baby at home. They'll take the baby monitor and check on her every half hour. Everything will be fine! But when they return home, the front door is ajar. They race upstairs to the crib and it's empty! The baby is too young to escape the crib by herself, so who broke into their house and took her? [Anne] is filled with rage, but she is careful not to show it. She has had a lot of practice feeling anger without showing it. She dissembles. Isn’t that what everyone does? Everyone is faking it, all of them pretending to be something they’re not. the whole world is built on lies and deceit. I read this book way too fast to think about it very critically. I didn't rate this four stars because it was groundbreaking or for any well-developed characters. I rated it four stars because I had so much fun reading it! When I put my e-reader down to go to bed, it was calling to me from the nightstand: "WE MUST FIND BABY CORA!" It reminded me of my school years, when I would race through multiple library books every week and be completely enthralled by all of them. It's not always easy to recapture that feeling as an adult, so I appreciate any book that can make that happen. I was doubtful it would maintain momentum after we discover the basics of what happened halfway through (and I pretty much figured out the rest of the story from there), but the tension was well-sustained. There's much more to the story! Through the voice of an omniscient narrator, we get a glimpse into the minds of many of the characters. The emotionally detached, present tense narration made me feel even more anxious. Here is a link to the first chapter on the author's page, so you can get a sense of the writing style. (I did have a few issues while reading, but those appear to be fixed in the finished version.) The primary characters are Anne, Marco, and Detective Rasbach. Even though I got to read everyone's thoughts, I still wasn't sure who to trust. Marco feels pressure because he is the one who came up with the idea to leave the baby at home and he was the last one to see her. He knows that Anne's wealthy parents are counting this as yet another strike against him. Anne's postpartum depression put her under suspicion and she can't even trust her own memories. Detective Rasbach knows the parents are usually involved in cases like this, but he also knows not to expect anything. Everyone is on his suspect list! [image] There were a couple things at the end that bothered me. The detective's revelations at the end didn't feel earned and I didn't like how one of the minor characters ended up being tied in. But that last page totally put an evil smile on my face, which subsequently made me feel like a terrible person! This book was a lot of fun. It's a great cure for a reading slump! ______________________________ I received this book for free from Penguin Random House First to Read in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The publication date is August 23, 2016. ...more |
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none
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1
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Jul 23, 2016
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Jul 25, 2016
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Jun 01, 2016
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Hardcover
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1101994886
| 9781101994887
| 3.83
| 6,555
| Oct 11, 2016
| Oct 11, 2016
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really liked it
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Sarah is in the middle of an existential crisis. She stops going to school and spends her days visiting abandoned structures in Philadelphia. An event
Sarah is in the middle of an existential crisis. She stops going to school and spends her days visiting abandoned structures in Philadelphia. An event at an art show triggered her crisis, but she actually started falling apart a long time ago. The key to unlocking the cause of her disillusionment may be confronting the events of a family vacation to Mexico when she was ten-years-old. Her older brother Bruce hasn't talked to the family in the six years since then. She can't remember what happened and her parents refuse to talk about it. Here’s what I think. I think we’re really smart when we’re young. Ten-year-old Sarah is smarter than I am because I’m six years older. Twenty-three-year-old Sarah is dumber than me because I’m sixteen. Someone somewhere was way older and richer and dumber than all of us and paid forty-five million dollars for a bunch of dots. I think this kind of smart isn’t something they can measure with tests. I think it’s like being psychic or being holy. If I could be anyone for the rest of my life, I would be a little kid. (Sarah) Sarah was an aspiring artist and I loved how that part of her life is integrated into the story, especially the concept of a tornado as something that is one thing on the outside, but another thing on the inside. Sarah is at a point in her life where adults are constantly asking her about her future, but she hasn't even dealt with her past. She's unable to stay in the present, which is where the future and past Sarahs come in. Versions of Sarah at different stages in life materialize to help her process her trauma. Ten-year-old Sarah is still a happy kid and the memories of the vacation are still fresh for her. Twenty-three-year-old Sarah can barely remember being sixteen and thinks sixteen-year-old Sarah is silly and dramatic. Sixteen-year-old Sarah looks up to forty-year-old Sarah who is the most self-assured. What surprised me is that these Sarahs aren't hallucinations; other people can see them. The older people get, the less they can do about things. They seem to be stuck. They seem to be glue. (Sarah) Sarah's mom Helen gets to tell her side of the story. Helen's chapters help illuminate parts that Sarah doesn't understand. Helen's story shows how easy it is to get stuck in a bad situation and how hard it is to see in the middle of a storm.* It also shows how attempts to make things better can actually make them worse. Likewise, sometimes making things worse can make them better. There are also flashbacks to the family vacation. Everything seems relatively normal at first, but there are clear indications that there is something stirring under the surface. ("Can’t you just pretend to have a good time?” “Why pretend? Aren’t we doing enough pretending as it is?") Between her mother's chapters and the day-by-day reveal of the trip to Mexico, we get a clearer picture of why Sarah is so depressed. But now it’s been so long that if I bring it up, I’ll look like a girl who can’t let go of things. Teenage girls always have to let go of things. If we bring up anything, people say we’re bitches who can’t just drop it. (Sarah) I identified with twenty-three-year-old Sarah at first, because I didn't know if would be interested in sixteen-year-old Sarah for the entire book! Like the protagonist in We Are the Ants, Sarah is depressed and expresses repetitive thoughts. She has received so many (unintentionally) damaging messages from trusted adults, that she now feels very little control over her life. She wants to disappear and is no longer interested in the hobbies she used to love. Sarah knows that "breaking your brain is the same as breaking your arm", but she still feels shame about her situation. Sarah initially sees her problems as too small to bother anyone with, but she learns that her problems do matter. She doesn't have to be strong and deal with it alone. It's refreshing that romance was not part of this book. Sarah's potential recovery has to come from within herself with the support of her family. Here’s why I like making things. I like making things because when I was born, everything I was born into was already made for me. Art let me surround myself with something different. Something new. Something real. Something that was mine. I don’t know if this means I could also be a competent architect. Or a car mechanic. Or a carpenter. I just like constructing new things that are real. I believe this is a side effect of growing from seed in soil made of lies. I believe this is a side effect of being born into ruins—this need for construction. (Sarah) Still Life with Tornado deals with mental health, the many forms of abuse, and family issues. Sarah's story is much darker than mine, but I could relate to the disillusionment that springs from a confusing parental situation that's never directly addressed. I loved the concept of different Sarahs, the way art played a part in the story, and Sarah's realizations at the end. If you liked We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson, you might be interested in this book. You can't change people with love. It doesn't work that way. (Helen) * I was reminded of a quote from Cruel Beautiful World: "You don't know what you're seeing sometimes, when you see it .....You don't know how bad it can get." _____________ I received this book for free from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available for purchase. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Oct 05, 2016
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Oct 06, 2016
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May 26, 2016
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Hardcover
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110190612X
| 9781101906125
| 3.94
| 6,566
| Jun 30, 2016
| Jul 05, 2016
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really liked it
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Survival/revenge/redemption + tough-talkin', knife-wieldin' heroine + post-apocalyptic setting + a strong female friendship. "The Wolf Road is an inti
Survival/revenge/redemption + tough-talkin', knife-wieldin' heroine + post-apocalyptic setting + a strong female friendship. "The Wolf Road is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape—told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity." "Way I reckon it, men killed more wolves than wolves ever killed men. I know who I’m more afraid of.” Elka is orphaned when she is seven years old and taken in by a reclusive man living in the woods. She affectionately calls him Trapper and he teaches her how to survive in the wild. A decade later she visits a nearby town and finds a wanted poster featuring Trapper's distinctive tattooed face. Her entire worldview is shattered; the man she'd built up in her head "as some kind a’ god" unforgivable crimes. She may be his next target now that she knows the truth. She goes on the run in hopes of finding the parents who abandoned her to mine for gold in the far north town of Halveston. But the more distance she gets from Trapper, the more she starts remembering the events of their life together. She starts seeing these moments in a different light and wonders if she shares some of the blame for his crimes. What follows is a tale of revenge and second chances, as Elka faces the brutal, unpredictable conditions of the wild and the even more dangerous threats from the "civilized" world. I couldn’t unravel all them strands, all them lies and feelings what got knotted up over the years. Any lie can turn to truth if you believe it long enough. Seventeen-year-old Elka received very little education in anything except survival and is illiterate. She is a straight talker and speaks with somewhat of a cowboy dialect. The story takes place mostly in the woods, but the towns she encounters have a strong Wild West feel. There's good mix of quiet moments and action. It has a lot of violence and gore. Hunting is an integral part of Elka's survival and she goes into great detail about the trapping and preparation of animals for food. There is also stomach-turning brutality against humans. The setting is post-apocalyptic North America, but the specific details of the event that led to humans living in such dire conditions remain vague. The details have been verbally passed down through generations and it sounds like it might have something to do with the Cold War. The big event is called by many different names (the Fall, the Reformation, Rapture, the Damn Stupid) and it occurred around the time Elka's grandmother was a baby. The story doesn't really have much to do with "the Damn Stupid," except for the way people wasted their blank slate. It is more about Elka's physical and mental journey. I really admired Elka's strength and independence. I don’t much like roads. Roads is some other man’s path that people follow no question. All my life I lived by rules of the forest and rules of myself. One a’ them rules is don’t go trusting another man’s path. No matter if that’s a real one trodden into dirt or all them twists and turns his life has taken. People do it, they do what their mommies and daddies did, they make them same mistakes, they have them same joys and hurts, they just repeating. Trees don’t grow exactly where their momma is; ain’t no room, ain’t enough light and water so they end up wilting and dying off. It’s the same with us humans, though you wouldn’t know it to look at them most a’ the time. Ranches and stores are passed father to son, momma to girl, but there ain’t no room for it. Son tries to run things like he wants, father ain’t having none of it, they start feuding and soon that family ain’t no more. The book begins with a bang! The first chapter shows Elka confronting Trapper, which is actually what the entire story leads up to. Knowing some of the end events did not lessen the tension for me. The confrontation captured my attention immediately, but it holds so much more emotional weight once the whole story is revealed. Despite the knowledge of Trapper's crimes, the relationship between him and Elka and her wide-eyed admiration of him is very sweet. (I never thought I would find a story about a salmon's eye endearing!) The rest of the book details the events that led to the confrontation. After Elka goes on the run, it is impossible to shake the feeling that Trapper is lurking nearby. She battles unpredictable elements in the woods. While Elka is very resourceful in the wild, she's naive when it comes to people. She spent a decade in an isolated cabin with Trapper, under strict instructions not to communicate with anyone. Despite her better instincts, she is a little too trusting at the beginning of her journey and gets into a few vulnerable situations. She also has the added stress of being chased by law enforcement, who think she is an accessory to Trapper's crimes. Memories ain’t no one’s friend. They show you all the good things you had, all the good things you lost, and don’t let you forget all the bad shit in between Elka spends much of the beginning surviving on her own, but she starts to interact with a wider variety of people about a third of the way through. My favorite part is when Penelope enters Elka's life. Penelope is prissy and not made for living in the wild, but she has survival skills that Elka doesn't: she can read, has medical knowledge, and is very beautiful. Elka has an adversarial attitude towards Penelope at first and is reluctant to befriend her, but a strong bond develops over time. Their differences make their interactions interesting and sometimes hilarious. I would love to read a book solely about them living in the woods together! "Monsters ain’t real ’cept in kids’ imaginations, under the beds, in the closets. We live in a world a’ men and there ain’t no good come out of tellin’ them they monsters. Makes ’em think they ain't done nothing' wrong, that it's their nature and they can’t do nothin’ to change that. Callin’ ’em a monster makes ’em somethin’ different from the rest of us, but they ain’t. They just men, flesh and bone and blood. Bad’uns, truth, but men all the same…Nothin’ a man can do can make him stop bein’ a man.” The Wolf Road explores the nature of evil as Elka comes to grips with the part she might have played in Trapper's crimes. Elka learns that the past doesn't have to doom your future and that maybe having a "pack" isn't so bad. This book has a similar feel to The Dog Stars and Vengeance Road, so if you liked those books I definitely recommend you check this one out. It really quenched my thirst for danger and adventure! (Which I only want to experience from the comfort of my own living room!) There was never a dull moment and I was engaged from beginning to end. Elka is a captivating character that I will never forget. Life is life and you got to live it in the here-now not the back then. An excerpt is available on Penguin Random House's website. __________________________ Thank you to Penguin Random House First to Read for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on July 5, 2016. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jun 13, 2016
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Jun 22, 2016
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May 11, 2016
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Hardcover
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045147421X
| 9780451474216
| 3.66
| 2,871
| Jun 28, 2016
| Jun 21, 2016
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liked it
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Jenna Barton and her best friend Celia had plans to meet at a local park at midnight, but Jenna was delayed by an incident at home. When she arrives f
Jenna Barton and her best friend Celia had plans to meet at a local park at midnight, but Jenna was delayed by an incident at home. When she arrives fifteen minutes late, Celia is nowhere to be found. Three months later, Celia is still missing. The only clue is a single diamond earring found at the park, inspiring the media to nickname Celia the "Diamond Mom." While Jenna is struggling with immense guilt over her best friend's disappearance, her fifteen-year-old son Jared is in the throes of first love with Tabitha, the mysterious new girl in town. Tabitha lives under unusually strict rules and is reluctant to discuss her family life. Tabitha abruptly disappears and Jared is heartbroken. Where is Celia? Is she alive or dead? Where is Tabitha and why is her father so overprotective? She wanted something to end, something to conclude. And nothing seemed to be. Doors kept opening, leading to more long hallways and doors. She didn't know where she was in all of it. The story alternates between Jenna's and Jared's perspectives. Their storylines eventually become connected. One of my favorite parts of the book was the fickleness of the media. "The media giveth and the media taketh away." Jenna becomes the target of a Nancy Grace type after she makes an important reporter angry. Jenna has been a regular presence in the media surrounding the case, but she tries to protect her son from the media circus. While Jenna is dealing with everything that comes with being close to tragedy, she is also dealing with the everyday struggles of being a single mom to a teenage boy. She tries to figure out how to communicate with her son without pushing him away and she frequently fails. Jared is an average teenager who just wants to be left alone. He is fixated on his new girlfriend. We are all so vulnerable, she realized. We all dance on the knife's edge. One push, and we are over. Even someone like Celia. The wrong place at the wrong time and you become a statistic, one of the many missing, their faces fading into the past with every day that went by. The opening was really strong! Jenna is on the scene at a local barn where bones have been found and they are potentially Celia's remains. The tension in that scene is palpable, but it dropped off substantially after Chapter 3. Overall, not much happened. Jenna drinks a little too much, spends time on sleuthing message boards, and reconnects with her missing best friend's husband. Celia's husband has a standoffish disposition and seems to be hiding something. Jared's parts are more of a YA love story. Jared is extremely protective of Tabitha and creeps around the town trying to figure out her situation. "We're all kind of living in a swirl. It's like one of those snow globes you have at Christmas. Except this is real, and it's been shaken up and a bunch of bad stuff keeps blowing past our faces." I prefer suspense novels led by journalists or the police. I tend to get aggravated by civilians repeatedly involving themselves in cases and putting themselves in unnecessary danger. When Jenna and her son aren't at home, they are both are constantly running off to question or confront suspicious people without informing anyone. Jenna is a hands-off parent. She gives Jared instructions, but she shrugs it off when he ignores them. She has an I-admire-his-spirit attitude about it all. Her passiveness made it difficult for me to be concerned about Jared when he repeatedly gets himself in dangerous situations. While I did care about the mother/son relationship, I didn't care about their relationships with the outside characters. Jenna has a good friend/co-worker who basically just serves as a sounding board for Jenna. Tabitha barely speaks and her relationship with Jared is 99% lust, so I didn't care about their intense connection and I wasn't overly invested in her fate. We don't get to know Celia and she sounds awful from what we do know, so I didn't care much about her fate either. The ending is really abrupt. We find out what happened to Celia and Tabitha and then it just ends, no wind-down. Jenna placed her head in her hands. She wished she could remain in that position long enough--not looking, not seeing--that the problems around her would be resolved in some favorable and benevolent manner. But she knew they wouldn't be. She wasn't a little kid who could play hide-and-seek until somebody else--somebody older and more capable--shouted the all-clear. Even when I feel 'meh' about a suspense novel, I usually still enjoy them while I reading them. Since She Went Away wasn't super memorable, but it was an entertaining way to spend a few hours. I would read another David Bell book on a lazy afternoon. People drove or walked by places where unspeakable and awful events happened all the time. A spot where someone dropped dead of a heart attack. A place where one lover told another he or she was leaving. Those spots weren't marked. Nobody knew. Life went on. ------------------------------------ I received this book for free from NAL & First to Read in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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May 26, 2016
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May 31, 2016
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May 04, 2016
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Paperback
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0448493969
| 9780448493961
| 3.91
| 14,666
| May 16, 2017
| May 16, 2017
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None
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Notes are private!
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none
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0
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not set
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not set
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Apr 04, 2016
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Hardcover
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110190514X
| 9781101905142
| 3.63
| 3,293
| Sep 22, 2011
| Jul 12, 2016
|
it was ok
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(2.5 Stars) It didn't stir any strong emotions in me, but it was an extremely quick read. A part-time employee at a video shop receives an invoice for (2.5 Stars) It didn't stir any strong emotions in me, but it was an extremely quick read. A part-time employee at a video shop receives an invoice for 5,700,000 kronor (≃671,635 US Dollars) from World Resources Distribution. Surely it must be a mistake, so he calls the company to inquire about the absurd bill. WRD informs him that it is the debt he owes based on his 'Experienced Happiness' score (E.H.). Every attempt he makes to lower the score just makes the situation worse! There is nothing special about his life; he works a low-paying job, doesn't have many possessions, has a very small social circle, and spends most of his time at home. How did such an unambitious person with an ordinary life get such a large bill? How is he going to get out of this situation that he can't afford? Life was just so good, somehow. It was perfectly natural that it should be expensive. It was a very easy read! There are few words per page and it's filled with dialogue. It's a little over 200 pages and took me about 2 hours to read. (The audiobook is 3 hours and 28 minutes.) It felt like a magazine article converted into a fictional story. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a short story or if the story and characters were more fleshed out. Not everything about the premise and the agency made sense to me, so it required some suspension of disbelief. I did enjoy the over-the-phone relationship that develops between the unnamed protagonist and a representative for WRD, as well as the details about the interior workings of the bureaucratic agency. "Think about it like this: when you go to the cinema— one day you might see a comedy, the next a tear-jerker. The experience isn’t any the less valid as a result. It all gives E. H. points, you see. You know as well as I do that pain isn’t a universally negative emotion, don’t you?” I said nothing. “We wouldn’t want to eat nothing but sweet things . . . just as little as we’d want to avoid all adversity. In fact, there has to be a degree of adversity for us to appreciate our blessings." The Invoice is 100% about the message. It explores that nature of happiness and the life-enriching value of enjoying the little things and going with the flow. Happiness doesn't always come from the places one would think and it's impossible to make comparisons based on outward appearances. A successful life comes in many forms. The writing style and the emphasis on message reminded me of Hector and the Search For Happiness. It's charming and the end was very sweet, but it didn't do much for me on an emotional level. I bounced between 2 and 3 stars, but in the end I felt it was just okay. It would work really well as a light-hearted read between emotionally difficult books or while traveling. _______________________________ Thank you to Penguin Random House First to Read for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on July 12, 2016. ...more |
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none
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1
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Jun 22, 2016
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Jun 23, 2016
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Mar 08, 2016
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Hardcover
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1101875593
| 9781101875599
| 3.70
| 10,973
| Mar 08, 2016
| Mar 08, 2016
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it was ok
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Atmospheric character portraits, with a touch of the supernatural. Well-constructed setting and interesting insights, but dry, plodding story. The tAtmospheric character portraits, with a touch of the supernatural. Well-constructed setting and interesting insights, but dry, plodding story. The trick to hiding something, she’d told him once, is to put it right out in plain sight. 1979; Chosen, New York. The Pratts are eating dinner when there is a knock on the door. It is their neighbor George Clare with Franny, his toddler daughter. When he came home from work, he found his wife Catherine in bed with an ax to the head. George says he was at work all day and Franny is the only one who could have seen what happened. I was really excited about this book because it had some of my favorite elements: psychopaths, a complicated marriage, and a creepy farm. In the end, it just wasn't for me. You think you’re free until someone comes along and reminds you that you’re not. I'm starting with my negatives this time, because many of them are style based: • There are no quotation marks. While I was usually able to get used to this after a few pages of reading, many times it ruined my chances for immersion. I would either (a) lose my place in long strings of brief dialogue or (b) realize "Oh wait! They are talking again!" when dialogue restarted in the midst of a paragraph. • It is very slowly paced. The first third is detailed set-up and character introduction. After the initial chapter with Catherine Clare's death, we immediately go back in time and meet the Hales. I wasn't truly interested until the paths of the Hale boys and Catherine Clare cross at page 100. It was the first time I felt tension in the story. Even after my interest was piqued, there were many long paragraphs of description and introspection that I found myself skimming over, just to maintain momentum. What kept me reading were reviews saying that it became more of a thriller halfway through, but I never felt a sustained level of tension. • This is really more of a character study, rather than a crime novel or a mystery. I was hoping for something more climatic when the big event happened, but instead it just fizzled. There is not much in the way of an actual investigation. Sheriff Lawton is supposedly consumed with the case, but many key things are missed ((view spoiler)[no real questioning of the Hale boys, heart box (hide spoiler)]). • I thought the characters were dull and I never took to any of them, love or hate. • The ending was too tidy in the unimportant aspects. ((view spoiler)[marriage, new DA (hide spoiler)]) If you looked at anything long enough it would start to become something else, or even completely undefined, and no matter what it was, you thought about it differently than you had before, and usually it was less important. The positives: • I am a sucker for stories about marriages behind closed doors! About halfway through, we start getting a clearer picture of the Clare's marriage through their perspectives and the perspectives of others. Catherine knows something is off with George and her marriage, but she is too close to see the full picture. There are a ton of POVs (maybe too many) in this book, and I most enjoyed the ones that gave an outsider view of the Clare's marriage. • The setting of Chosen, NY and life in a small farming town felt extremely realistic. • Beautiful writing. • Very introspective and insightful. Maybe killing comes naturally to people, an instinct nobody likes to admit, a survival reflex inherited from our Neanderthal cousins. So maybe it’s the other stuff, the good manners that supposedly make us human, that are the real aberrations. All Things Cease to Appear is a novel where characters settle and where the past bleeds into the present. This book would be most enjoyable if you are in the mood for a slow-build character study. Brundage writes really beautifully and this is an ambitious novel that has interesting things to say about human nature. The aspects I found dull might make a more immersive experience for someone else. It’s a quote by George Inness: Beauty depends on the unseen, the visible upon the invisible. That's been with me since graduate school. I received this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Feb 28, 2016
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Mar 06, 2016
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Feb 28, 2016
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Hardcover
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0803740484
| 9780803740488
| 3.25
| 14,827
| Mar 22, 2016
| Mar 22, 2016
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really liked it
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3.75 Stars Strange and magical coming-of-age story constructed like a fairy tale. I don't think these characters will stick with me, but I loved the a
3.75 Stars Strange and magical coming-of-age story constructed like a fairy tale. I don't think these characters will stick with me, but I loved the atmosphere and I am so excited to read anything this author publishes. Every story needs a hero. Every story needs a villain. Every story needs a secret. ... What really happened? Someone knows. Someone is lying. "All the strangest stories are true.” Wink Poppy Midnight moves at a brisk pace and it can easily be read in one sitting. I selected this book because of the stunning cover that sets the mood perfectly and the comparison to We Were Liars. The two books are more similar in atmosphere than they are in storyline. There is an unsettling darkness lurking beneath the story. It has a timeless quality. It feels like a fairy tale and it makes constant reference to them throughout the story. Almost every character has a unique name (Wink, Poppy, Midnight, Bee, Hops, Leaf, etc.), which adds to the magic. It seems like there is something supernatural going on the entire time, but part of the fun was that I never could be certain of it! We were like the three Fates, weaving the story together, threads of gold, red, and midnight blue. There would be wolves and tricks and lies and cunning and vengeance in our story. I would make sure of it. The setting is dreamlike and magical. There are farmhouses, woods, a dangerous river, potentially haunted houses, and an albino stag. The perspective alternates rapidly between Wink, Poppy, and Midnight. Perspective changes are clearly marked by name. Wink is an eccentric, mysterious girl who loves fairy tales and wants her life to be like one. Her dad wandered off, her mom is a fortune teller and she has six siblings. Poppy is a cruel, manipulative queen bee, who lives to be the center of attention. "I never cried, not even as a baby. My parents said it was because I was such a sweet little angel, but my parents are fools. I never cried because there are only two reasons people cry, one is empathy and the other is self-pity, and I never had any of either." She is really mean, but I love how unapologetic she is. (She reminded me a little of Amma in Sharp Objects.) Midnight is a boy with a big heart who is caught in between the two girls. After his mother, a writer, runs off to France with his brother, Midnight and his father move into a creaky old house across from Wink's farmhouse. He hopes the distance from Poppy will loosen her grip on him. Poppy has no intention of letting him go and she is enraged when Midnight's attention shifts to Wink. Wink is determined to make Midnight play the part of the Hero in a fairy tale of her own making. Poppy is the obvious Villain and it is the Hero's job to defeat the Villain. But the tagline says "Someone is lying," so nothing is as it seems. “There’s a monster in the shape of a beautiful woman. She kills people. Children, old people, everyone. She tries to kill the girl that Thief loves. He fights the monster, and he kills her, because he’s the hero. There is a great victory. And a descent into darkness. There are clues and riddles to solve, and trials of strength and wit. There’s redemption, and consequences, and ever after.” Wink, Poppy, and Midnight are all trying to find their place in the world. This story demonstrates that people can't be reduced to an archetype and that life is enough as it is. There is so much beauty in the smallness of life. Wink Poppy Midnight a great read for a chilly evening when you are looking for a little magic and whimsy in your life. (The quotes below are theme related. I don't consider them spoilers, but I tagged them because they appear near the end. Tread carefully!) (view spoiler)[ Wink wasn’t a villain. She wasn’t a hero. People aren’t just one thing. They never, ever are. Wink was flesh and blood. She was bad. And she was good. She was real.(hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[ "I used to think that I needed to be part of a story, a big story, one with trials and villains and temptations and rewards. That’s how I would conquer it, conquer death.” She sighed again, and nestled closer into me. “All that matters, in the end, is the little things. The way Mim says my name to wake me up in the morning. The way Bee’s hand feels in mine. The way the sun cast my shadow across the yard yesterday. The way your cheeks flush when we kiss. The smell of hay and the taste of strawberries and the feel of fresh black dirt between my toes. This is what matters, Midnight."(hide spoiler)] I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This book debuts on March 22, 2016. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Feb 24, 2016
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Feb 25, 2016
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Feb 24, 2016
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Hardcover
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1101987499
| 9781101987490
| 4.05
| 120,195
| Nov 06, 2014
| May 03, 2016
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really liked it
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3.5 Stars. Suspense novel with a gradual build-up and some shocking moments. Vague keywords for anyone who might be sensitive to certain issues that f
3.5 Stars. Suspense novel with a gradual build-up and some shocking moments. Vague keywords for anyone who might be sensitive to certain issues that frequently appear in suspense novels: (view spoiler)[domestic abuse, rape (hide spoiler)] (The spoiler-tagged text in this review is all vague/non-critical and no more than I have already seen posted elsewhere, but it is all stuff I would have rather not had on my mind while reading!) On a rainy afternoon in Bristol, a mother lets go of her five-year-old son's hand and he runs into the street. A speeding car hits and kills him. The callous driver quickly drives away from the scene. Visibility was low and there is very little evidence. I Let You Go is about the hunt for the driver and a woman consumed by the grief caused by the accident and the loss of her child. The grief I feel is so physical it seems impossible that I am still living; that my heart continues to beat when it has been wrenched apart. I want to fix an image of him in my head, but all I can see when I close my eyes is his body, still and lifeless in my arms. I let him go, and I will never forgive myself for that. Part One felt more like women's fiction than a suspense novel. The story starts out slowly, but it was the kind of slow I like. Woman dealing with a traumatic incident and starting a new life near a chilly beach, complete with rocky cliffs? SOLD! In Part One, the police have very little to go on and are desperately searching for clues. The lead detective also has some domestic drama; his work has taken a toll on his marriage and his son is having issues at school. The lead investigator's chapters alternate with Jenna Gray's chapters. Jenna is traumatized by the accident and has fled to an isolated coastal community in Wales to grieve and start a new life. (view spoiler)[I loved Patrick the veterinarian! (hide spoiler)] And the photos of the son I loved with an intensity that seemed impossible. Precious photographs. So few for someone so loved. Such a small impact on the world, yet the very center of my own. Part Two is when the plot kicks into high gear and it starts feeling more like a thriller. I gasped! (view spoiler)[The transition into Part Two was the most shocking part of the book for me! I had to go back and read the first few chapters to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped over something. I was so mad at myself because I had questioned specific things, but I just came up with an excuse for them. I quibbled over Jenna thinking Patrick said "Don’t open the doors, whatever you do," when he actually said, "Whatever you do, don’t open the doors too quickly." and I didn't see that twist coming? It was one of the more fun twists I have experienced recently! In Part Two we are also introduced to the terrifying character of Ian. His parts are written using second person POV and it made me feel extra uncomfortable during his chapters. Ian is a total sociopath and he chilled me to the bone from his very first sentence. I really got a sense of the isolation and manipulation involved with domestic abuse and why it is so hard for a woman to reveal their problems to a trusted loved one or to escape the situation. (hide spoiler)] I see the look on his face [...] I used to tell myself it was contrition—although he never once apologized—but now I realize it was fear. Fear that I would see him for the man he really is. Fear that I would stop needing him. The parts I didn't like: • Young, hard-working recruit is totally open to the advances of her middle-aged married boss. Just once I'd like the young woman to be like, "Ew, no," but I guess that isn't much of a story. (view spoiler)[The married man did learn that his wife was a human being with feelings and opinions too, so there's that. (hide spoiler)] • (view spoiler)[There was a lot of disturbing domestic violence in this book, but something about the last scene of violence made me feel guilty for "watching." (hide spoiler)] • (view spoiler)[The last twist was extremely far-fetched, like a twist for the sake of having a twist. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I have the absurd urge to tell him that I’m not like the usual occupants of his court. That I grew up in a house like his, and that I went to university; held dinner parties; had friends. That I was once confident and outgoing. That before last year I had never broken the law, and that what happened was a terrible mistake. But his eyes are disinterested and I realize he doesn’t care who I am, or how many dinner parties I have held. I’m just another criminal through his doors; no different from any other. I feel my identity being stripped away from me once more. (hide spoiler)] Despite the subject matter, the writing style is really pleasant and I was really captivated by this book. At first I Let You Go reminded me of What She Knew (woman makes split second decision that results in a traumatic incident for her child), but it quickly became its own unique story. It also covers a much longer period of time. I recommend this book for those who are fans of both suspense novels and women's fiction. "They’ll put everything straight,” he says. “It’ll be like it never happened.” I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This title will be released by Berkely/Penguin on May 3, 2016. ...more |
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Mar 13, 2016
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Mar 19, 2016
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Feb 22, 2016
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Hardcover
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1101990260
| 9781101990261
| 3.50
| 99,624
| Jan 14, 2016
| Feb 16, 2016
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it was ok
| Everyone was very kind and trying to stop me from seeing his body, but I couldn’t tell them I was glad he was gone. No more of his nonsense. 2.5 St Everyone was very kind and trying to stop me from seeing his body, but I couldn’t tell them I was glad he was gone. No more of his nonsense. 2.5 Stars Glen Taylor is out shopping with his wife Jean when he suddenly falls in front of a moving bus and is instantly killed. Bystanders comfort Jean, but truthfully she is relieved. The police and media are eager to talk to Jean after her husband's death, but it turns out this isn't the first time Jean has crossed paths with these people. For three years, her husband had been the main suspect in a very public kidnapping case. Was Glen guilty or was he a victim himself? Was his death an accident or murder? No one wanted to know us now. They just wanted to know about us. This book deals with crimes against children, but it is not graphic. It was really more about the secrets in a marriage and news media sensationalism than the crime itself. The clearly labeled chapters alternate between: • The Widow - Jean Taylor. • The Detective - DI Bob Sparkes, a dedicated detective who becomes obsessed with the case. • The Reporter - Kate Waters, a charismatic investigative reporter who uses emotional manipulation to score coveted interviews. • Plus, a few cameos from some of the supporting characters. It also goes back and forth in time in two sections: the events following two-year-old Bella Elliot's disappearance on October 2, 2006 and the events following Gene's death on May 14, 2010. And then there he was. Glen Taylor. He looks like the bloke next door was Sparkes’s first thought. But then monsters rarely look the part. You hope you’ll be able to see the evil shining out of them—it would make police work a damned sight easier, he often said. But evil was a slippery substance, glimpsed only occasionally and all the more horrifying for that, he knew. As facts are revealed, we learn that Jean and Glen's relationship does not resemble a typical modern marriage. There is a strong stereotypical 1950s vibe. I kept picturing Jean as much older, even though she is in her late thirties. Glen is controlling and manipulative. Jean is submissive and comes across as a bit dull. She stands by her husband, even as the circumstantial evidence mounts against him. Their relationship was interesting and the book explores the mental hoops Jean has to jump through to continue to defend Glen in public and to remain committed to her marriage. A marked difference begins to develop between Jean's public face and her private life, as she struggles to reconcile the new information with the man she thought she knew. I do love every time Jean says "no more of his nonsense" and I have been overusing variations of that phrase ever since I read this book! I think I know, but really, I don’t know anything about this man that I’ve lived with all these years. He’s a stranger, but we’re bound together tighter than we’ve ever been. He knows me. He knows my weakness…I know that I caused all this trouble with my obsession. The Widow was entertaining enough on a surface level, but I was never really excited about it. Everything between the first and last chapter felt so slow. I've grown really impatient with books where there is a slow leak of information from an informed character. The constant switching between characters and time periods add to that frustration. The Widow's chapters were actually my least favorite, because of the dithering about revealing more information. I felt the same way about The Reporter's chapters when the focus was on Jean. The Detective's chapters were my favorite because that was when the story felt like it was moving forward. I liked The Reporter's chapters best when the focus was on the media manipulations of their interview subjects and readers. It was journalism at its most powerful, hammering home the message with a mallet, inciting reaction, and the readers responded. The comment sections on the website were filled with unthinking, screaming vitriol, foulmouthed opinion, and calls for the death penalty to be reinstated. “The usual nutters,” the news editor summed up in morning conference. “But lots of them.” “Let’s show a bit of respect for our readers,” the editor said. And they all laughed. If you like this book, you might also be interested in What She Knew. I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ...more |
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Feb 12, 2016
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Feb 15, 2016
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Feb 12, 2016
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Hardcover
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1101903147
| 9781101903148
| 3.43
| 678
| Feb 16, 2016
| Feb 16, 2016
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really liked it
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Haunting novel rooted in a political reality. I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This title will be rele
Haunting novel rooted in a political reality. I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This title will be released February 16, 2016. Draw yourself a straight line, walk backwards on it to erase your footsteps and you will trip and crack your skull. Straddle the two sides of a stream and you will unhinge your hips. Be unstable as waters and you will not excel. The Utu family live a comfortable life in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. One day in 1995, their 17-year-old son Paul goes to visit a neighbor and disappears without a trace. His younger brother Ajie was the last person who saw him and is burdened with the guilt that he doesn't have any information that will help find his brother. Ajie begins to recall past events to try to come to an understanding of the situation and pinpoint the exact moment where everything went wrong for his family. The events of the present were set into motion long before the Utu children even existed. The publisher summary is misleading. I was expecting a Nigerian Everything I Never Told You. This novel is subtle and even more character driven. It has a starting point and an ending point, but the bulk of the book is a series of recollections. Mostly told in flashbacks before Paul's went missing, the vignettes portray a tender portrait of family life against the backdrop of growing political unrest. While the shadow of Paul's disappearance lurks in the background and adds a new emotional weight to seemingly unrelated events, it is not at the forefront. The publisher calls this a "tale that moves seamlessly back and forth through time." I wouldn't say seamless because sometimes the story would switch gears abruptly. That didn't hurt my understanding of the book, but I had difficulty placing a few of the individual flashbacks on a timeline. Like the pendulum on their parlour wall, they swung to both ends of dread and hope, but generally stayed in balance: no hysterical outbursts, no screaming and pounding the walls for answers, no silent bitter tears that soaked up the pillow when you lifted your head in the morning. There was just stillness. Something quiet crept about the house, made you feel a sudden chill and sprayed your arms and neck with unexpected goose rash. It is really beautifully written. I loved the depiction of the Utu family, each member a fully-drawn character. Benedict, the justice-minded patriarch, reminded me a little of To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch. Ajie, the character through which we observe most events, is independent-minded and strong-willed. He idolizes his big brother Paul and has a conflicted relationship with his big sister Bibi. The most touching part of this book was Ile's masterful portrayal of the complicated love between siblings as they navigate growing up together. They fight fiercely, but they also love fiercely. They have a shared history and unique bond that can not be replicated. The following passage really resonated with me: Before the beginning of his memory, which was to say from the beginning of this life, there had always been the three of them. Paul and Bibi were the first people he saw, the first he touched. Everything he resented and liked, everything he knew, thought and felt, his smile and the angry pounding in his veins were all from them, and now, for the first time, taking notice of this made him feel incredibly lonely. The sort of lonely feeling that Bibi would have been tempted to slap out of him. Just the kind of thing that would have made Paul look at him in his usual bemused way and say, 'My friend, what are you saying? Please be serious'. But he sensed it that night, it hung about the room, the feeling that things may not always be like this, that they would one day grow up and live across town from each other like Ma and her cousin Aunty Julie or even die like all of Bendic's siblings whom he hardly ever spoke of. Paul turned around in his bed, the distant drumming had stopped, and mumbled something in his sleep, and Ajie was sure he could hear Bibi softly breathing from the room next door. My husband worked in Nigeria during our engagement and the first few years of our marriage, so I am always interested in books set there. I had already read a few books from Nigerian authors and paid special attention to news from there. I think a basic knowledge of 20th century Nigeria really increased the impact the book had on me. This novel deals with the human cost of political conflict and greed, as well as the impact the actions of the past have on the present. If you pick up this novel expecting a plot heavy suspense novel or whodunit, you will probably be disappointed. This quiet novel will be most enjoyable for contemporary literature fans interested in Nigeria and those who like slice-of-life family stories. Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if they do they must cling to it and not let themselves be ambushed and have it taken from them. ------ All quotes are taken from an uncorrected manuscript and aren’t final. Please refer to a finished copy. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 12, 2016
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Jan 14, 2016
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Jan 12, 2016
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Hardcover
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0553448188
| 9780553448184
| 3.60
| 121,597
| Oct 30, 2007
| Feb 02, 2016
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really liked it
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Challenging, surreal, character-driven novel with dark psychological themes and powerful imagery. In this three-part story, the author explores the ri
Challenging, surreal, character-driven novel with dark psychological themes and powerful imagery. In this three-part story, the author explores the ripple effect of an act of rebellion in an authoritarian environment through the conflicts in a single family. Deeply unsettling. At times, it felt like a horror novel rooted in a dream-like reality. Translated into English from the original Korean. I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This title will be released on February 2, 2016. Blood and flesh, all those butchered bodies are scattered in every nook and cranny, and though the physical remnants were excreted, their lives still stick stubbornly to my insides. Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life, until one day she throws out all the animal products in the kitchen and declares herself a vegetarian. She offers little explanation for her change in eating habits, except that she had a haunting dream. A simple act becomes an extraordinary act of rebellion in a culture where conformity is expected and admired. Gentle scolding turns into violence, as her family attempts to impose their will on Yeong-hye. She refuses to abdicate her newly found bodily autonomy, much to the annoyance of those around her. What follows is a descent into madness and a complete loss of self, while the family ties completely disintegrate. Time was a wave, almost cruel in its relentlessness as it whisked her life downstream, a life which she had to constantly strain to keep from breaking apart. The book is short in length (192 pages) and is a quick read, but the subject matter is extremely heavy. I was glad for the short length because it is difficult to read along as Yeong-hye endures invasive transgressions against her body, (view spoiler)[even when there is very little physical body left. (hide spoiler)] The book touches on many issues that will be sensitive for some readers (vague keywords follow): (view spoiler)[marital rape, child abuse, eating disorders, animal abuse, and mental illness. (hide spoiler)] Life is such a strange thing, she thinks, once she has stopped laughing. Even after certain things have happened to them, no matter how awful the experience, people still go on eating and drinking, going to the toilet and washing themselves – living, in other words. And sometimes they even laugh out loud. And they probably have these same thoughts, too, and when they do it must make them cheerlessly recall all the sadness they’d briefly managed to forget. The central character, Yeong-hye, is shown primarily through the eyes of her family, but there are some italicized sections that give insight into her thoughts. There are three acts from three points of view: her husband, her brother-in-law and her sister (In-hye). (view spoiler)[The men in her life view Yeong-hye as an object who is supposed to play a specific role. Her father is an authoritarian who uses violence to maintain order. Her repressed husband sees her as a submissive wife with no discernible personality or interests outside of him. ("And so it was only natural that I would marry the most run-of-the-mill woman in the world. As for women who were pretty, intelligent, strikingly sensual, the daughters of rich families – they would only ever have served to disrupt my carefully ordered existence.") Her brother-in-law develops a creepy sexual obsession with her and sees her as a blank canvas on which to project his sexual desires. ("Her calm acceptance of all these things made her seem to him something sacred. Whether human, animal or plant, she could not be called a ‘person’, but then she wasn’t exactly some feral creature either – more like a mysterious being with qualities of both.") She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She’d been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she’d never even known they were there. Yeong-hye's actions have a huge ripple effect on her family, though much of that has to do with their rigid mindset and disproportionate reaction which pushes her further into isolation and madness. More lines are crossed as the novel continues and the family bonds almost completely disappear. It is clear why traditionalists maintain such a stronghold on rules and customs, as the rebellion shines a light on the possibilities and lights a spark in others. The saddest part is In-hye's section. In-hye realizes she never took the time to understand her sister or truly listen to her. She reflects on how her own self-absorption and survival mechanisms have impacted her sister and she experiences guilt over the potential she had to prevent Yeong-hye's complete break from reality. She begins to see herself in her sister and recognizes how tenuous her own grasp to reality is. How much relentless abuse can one person absorb before they snap? ("If her husband and Yeong-hye hadn’t smashed through all the boundaries, if everything hadn’t splintered apart, then perhaps she was the one who would have broken down, and if she’d let that happen, if she’d let go of the thread, she might never have found it again.") (hide spoiler)] Knowledge of Korean culture would be helpful and add another layer to the novel, but many of the themes are universal. At times, passages about the destruction of the body from Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates came rushing back to me: “…racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth…You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body." and "To awaken [the oppressors] is to reveal that they are an empire of humans and, like all empires of humans, are built on the destruction of the body. It is to stain their nobility, to make them vulnerable, fallible, breakable humans.” It’s your body, you can treat it however you please. The only area where you’re free to do just as you like. And even that doesn’t turn out how you wanted. This is not a book I could recommend to everyone. I am certain that I do not have a full understanding of this book and I am still trying to process what I read. I didn't enjoy it in the traditional sense, but it left me with a lot to think about. I recommend having a few palette-cleanser books on hand to read after this one! ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jan 02, 2016
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Jan 05, 2016
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Jan 02, 2016
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Hardcover
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1594206856
| 9781594206856
| 3.44
| 7,350
| Jan 14, 2016
| Jan 19, 2016
|
really liked it
| “We’re old enough not to care what our parents think, but somehow we do,” Paul admitted, philosophically.“That’s for sure. ” “Because they allowed “We’re old enough not to care what our parents think, but somehow we do,” Paul admitted, philosophically.“That’s for sure. ” “Because they allowed us to exist. ” She had once concluded everyone on earth was a servant to the previous generation—born from the body’s factory for entertainment and use. A life could be spent like an apology—to prove you had been worth it.3.75 Stars. As quirky as you would expect, given the cover! Part ruminations on marriage and family and part statement on materialism, consumerism, and the military-industrial complex, The Portable Veblen's strength is its complicated, memorable characters. I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. It will be released on January 19, 2016. I love squirrels. This little guy has permanent residency on my desk: [image] So I had to read this book! Veblen, 30, is filled with anxieties and neuroses, primarily induced by her narcissistic, hypochondriac mother. She was never really close with her father, who is now institutionalized. She is now a secretary who does translation work on-the-side as a hobby. Like her namesake, the real-life Thorstein Veblen, she detests consumerism and materialism. She is happy with her small life and cozy little home, which she renovated herself. When she agrees to marry her boyfriend Paul, the engagement brings many deep-seated issues to the surface. Oh, and she talks to squirrels. Paul, 34, was raised in a hippy commune. He resents his parents for his unconventional childhood and for favoring his developmentally disabled brother. Paul is now a neurologist and is dedicated to carving out a life completely separate from the one he grew up in. He finally reaches the success he has been chasing when he develops a revolutionary tool that will minimize the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury in war zones. Success isn't so sweet though because he ends up in a complicated relationship with the pharmaceutical industry and the military-industrial complex. His desire for a traditional middle-class life also causes complications in his relationship with Veblen. “Have you read Marriage: Dead or Alive?” Veblen said no.“It’s the magnum opus of Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig. He says marriage is a continuous inevitable confrontation that can be resolved only through death. ”I grew really fond of the characters. I could really relate to many of Veblen's personality quirks, especially being hyperaware of her own flaws and her need to maintain an equilibrium. ("I feel like I’m not allowed to be bothered. ” “Not allowed?” “It’s like I’m under pressure from some higher source to remain calm or neutral, to prevent something terrible from happening.") Veblen has a rich inner life and she overanalyzes everything, which is a source of much of the humor. I really loved the pride she took in her cozy little home and her empathy for all living creatures. Paul is hard to like at first, but as his family history is revealed, his motivations and actions become understandable. Then she snapped out of it, and they laughed about it, and she came to understand that this recognition of otherness would occur over and over until death they did part, that she couldn’t despair every time it occurred, and that anyway, Paul wasn’t a dictator like her mother…yet it was clear that your choice of mate would shape the rest of your life in ways you couldn’t begin to know. One by one, things he didn’t like would be jettisoned. First squirrels, then turkey meatballs, then corn, then—what next? Marriage could be a continuing exercise in disappearances.There is so much going on in this book. It addresses so many issues and I don't feel like everything 100% meshed together, at least on first reading. It almost seems like two books. A week after reading, what sticks with me most is the character portraits, the couple interactions, and the family dynamics. The military-industrial complex/pharmaceutical sections are already starting to fade from my memory, although it did create an ethical dilemma for Paul and ramifications on Paul's and Veblen's relationship. The mood of the military sections felt a little different too, a little more absurd. There are also a few random, irrelevant pictures featured throughout the book, mostly to up the quirk factor. They didn't really add much for me and the decision to include them didn't seem fully committed since they were few and far between. She started to run, feeling the warmth of the sun and the rub of the grass under her soles, remembering how running used to make her pretend to be Mighty Mouse, shouting, “Here I come to save the day!” and later on, Maria singing, “The hills are alive ... ” and then thinking it very strange that she could not run across grass without pretending to be someone other than herself, for even now she found herself in search of something to think when running across grass.The Portable Veblen is partially about the impact our childhoods have on us, the break for independence, and discovering your own identity outside of your family. Veblen really struggles with tying herself to another person, especially when she is still inextricably intertwined with her mother. She is fearful about what she will have to give up when she gets married. Veblen eventually realizes she can have a relationship with her mother, without being an extension of her. Likewise, she can get married without losing herself and her ideals. Paul realizes that he doesn't have to be the complete opposite of his family to be his own person. ‘If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your crapola, then you deserve it. ’ Paul and Veblen, I think you’ll understand me when I say that we’ll always be here for you, but that your own crapola is where it’s at…"I had fun reading this novel. The writing was pleasant and the pages flew by. It may have run a little long, but I was sad when it ended. After the story ends, there are appendices that serve as "Where are they now?" chapters. It was a really cute way to end it and it suited the mood of the book. It is the perfect book for when you are in the mood for a weird, cozy, funny, heartfelt book, with a bit of whimsy. According to Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig, the Swiss analyst and author of Marriage: Dead or Alive, a wedding is more than a party or a legality. It’s no less than a boxing ring, two people facing off, acknowledging their separate identities rather than their union, in the company of all the people who lay claim to them. A wedding is the time and place to recognize the full clutch of the past in the negotiation of a shared future."...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Dec 17, 2015
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Jan 2016
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Dec 17, 2015
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
014312658X
| 9780143126584
| 3.35
| 746
| 2013
| Jan 12, 2016
|
really liked it
| It’s not just loud noises that accompany disasters, little sounds do, too, and even silence.An intriguing, multi-layered mystery with a fascinatin It’s not just loud noises that accompany disasters, little sounds do, too, and even silence.An intriguing, multi-layered mystery with a fascinating historical context. I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This title will be released on January 12, 2016. Lisandra is found dead on the sidewalk outside the window of her sixth-floor apartment and her husband Vittorio is the main suspect. He is a psychoanalyst and one of his patients, Eva Maria, agrees to help find clues to prove his innocence. Eva Maria, who is experiencing immense grief over the disappearance of her daughter a few years prior during The Dirty War, becomes obsessed with solving the mystery and providing justice for Vittorio and Lisandra. The Case of Lisandra P. is based on a true story and takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina in August 1987. It is translated from the original French by Alison Anderson. Falling out of love is progressive. Before you no longer love, you love less. And less again, then no more at all. But it’s not something you are aware of. Falling out of love. A relationship gone lukewarm, humdrum, pragmatic, everyday, utilitarian and habit-worn, and you don’t even think it through because you don’t think about it at all.The publisher recommends this book to fans of The Girl on the Train and The Silent Wife. I did really like those books and they were fun to read, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend The Case of Lisandra P. to all the fans of those two books. There is an element of domestic drama that is comparable, but that certainly isn't the whole story or the main draw to this book. Most of the popular thrillers have an easy-breezy writing style which compels you to keep turning the pages, but this one is more literary with a deliberate pace. It took me quite a few pages to get into the writer's style. The style actually reminded me a little more of Saramago than of Hawkins or Harrison, because of the insight into the human mind, the way the immediate story was tied to a greater context, the way the author was able to write little actions as intriguing, and the breathless way in which it is written. The format is untraditional and almost collage-like. The main story was interspersed with Vittorio's session transcripts, lists, stream of consciousness, and even sheet music at one point. There is not much in the way of transitions and the story changes directions very quickly. Monstrosity never thinks it is monstrous; it always finds reasons within itself to behave as it does—acts of torture become acts of justice, or even honor.The part that makes this book most interesting is the setting. It takes place four years after the end of "The Dirty War", an event I didn't know anything about. The descriptions of the atrocities committed are intensely disturbing: people disappearing without a trace, people being tossed from planes to destroy the evidence of torture, and children being stolen and given to families sympathetic to the junta. The lack of justice for the victims is appalling. One of the more unsettling parts of the book is a transcript of Vittorio's session with Miguel, where Miguel describes the torture he received while imprisoned by the military junta. The acknowledgments mention that the section owes much to the real-life testimony of Miguel Ángel Estrella. Impunity imposes impossible cohabitation on murderers and their victims; it exacerbates suspicion and hatred. In the deepest recesses of the soul. In that secret place where bile gathers and accumulates. The heart of a volcano. In that hiding place where the most violent anger lurks, the anger that ravages everything when it erupts. Because it will not fail to erupt. In the light, perhaps, of another historical context, but it will erupt.This is not a mystery where what actually occurred is obvious, but it is not out-of-the-blue in a gimmicky GOTCHA! way. (view spoiler)[I did start to get an inkling of what was to come with the list of phobias and a long monologue with shades of Anna Karenina, but the conclusion is impossible to guess in its entirety. (hide spoiler)] There are strong parallels between the tragic events of Lisandra's life and historical context of the book: the strong and powerful imposing their will over the weak and the powerful getting away without punishment (despite mountains of evidence) while the oppressed suffer the worst repercussions. There were some sections that ran a little too long for me because characters would get really repetitive in these big, blocky paragraphs that would go on for pages and I was just ready for the story to move forward. Overall, it was an intriguing mystery with a fascinating setting. Memories are free. They play with us. They get fainter, they expand, they retract, they avoid us or strike like lightning. Once life gives birth to them, they become the masters of life. They are time’s foot soldiers, driving us mad. Without memories we would be free. Memory is time’s bad fairy. No memory brings true joy, serenity. Regret, remorse—memories are like so many dissonant little bells clanging inside us. And the more life goes on, the more the little music of memories rings false. You think you are your own self, but you’re nothing but your memories....more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 09, 2015
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Dec 17, 2015
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Dec 09, 2015
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Paperback
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0143128213
| 9780143128212
| 3.55
| 4,242
| Mar 2006
| Jan 26, 2016
|
liked it
| We shape the world in our own measure, and that soothes us. Under the apparent chaos, maybe there really is order in the universe. However, it cert We shape the world in our own measure, and that soothes us. Under the apparent chaos, maybe there really is order in the universe. However, it certainly won’t be our order.2.5 Stars Samuel, a lecturer in German Studies, wakes up on New Year's Day expecting the start of another lonely, unexciting year, same as all the years before. But this year, a stray cat paws at his door and starts a chain of events that changes the way that Samuel approaches life. Love in Lowercase is written by Spanish author Francesc Miralles and has been translated into English by Julie Wark. I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This work will be released on January 26, 2016. Science depresses me. It’s a terrible thing to be a bunch of atoms waiting to be disassembled. I find no consolation in knowing that they’ll recombine to form a pile of manure or, if I’m lucky, a patch of mushrooms.I selected this book because the cover immediately made me think of The Rosie Project. That was the intended effect because it is described as a "romantic comedy for language lovers and fans of The Rosie Project." There are similarities between the two, but Love in Lowercase is a much quieter and philosophical novel. We all start dying the day we’re born, but there are lots of rebirths along the way.Both books have a light atmosphere and eccentric characters. Both Samuel and Don are lonely and seeking human connection. That is where the similarities end for me. Samuel is a logical, intelligent and slightly awkward man. He has a few personality quirks, but it is not full-blown Asperger's like Don. The Rosie Project had over-the-top situations and was more laugh-out-loud funny, whereas Love in Lowercase is about one man's quiet little life and got a few smiles out of me. "Who's Hrabal?"This book has a lot of cultural name-dropping and many summaries of other books. The main character is an isolated intellectual, so books, foreign movies, and classical music are his main frames of reference. The author did a good job of summarizing the works and making it easy to relate them back to the plot, but it did venture into How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines territory too much for my tastes. My favorite book that Samuel reads is They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases, described as "an odd dictionary of expressions that exist in only one language." The title of this book actually comes from a term that Samuel coins. Samuel describes love in lowercase as "when some small act of kindness sets off a chain of events that comes around again in the form of multiplied love. Then, even if you want to return to where you started, it’s too late, because this love in lowercase has wiped away all traces of the path back to where you were before.” I am having a little bit of trouble attaching the term love in lowercase to the concept described above, but I understood the connection a little more when I read it rephrased in this way: "Sometimes love is hiding in the smallest characters." Thousands of candles can be lit by just one candle, and the life of that candle will not be shorter because of it. Happiness is never diminished by being shared.The cat was my favorite character! Mishima has so much personality and is a total scene-stealer when it appears. Samuel is an easy character to empathize with. He experiences frustrations and humiliations while becoming more open to relationships and experiences and I felt that pain with him. I did enjoy traveling around Barcelona with him, as he visits various shops and cafes. Someone once said that, when you fall in love, you’re not really in love with the person but with life through that person.I was really disappointed with who Samuel ended up with in the end. I got really attached to one of the characters who showed up in the beginning, even though she only appeared briefly! It was hard to cheer for the end result, because it seemed as if he was in love with the idea of the woman more than the actual woman. Let us be thankful, for if we have not learned a lot today, we have at least learned a little; and if we have not learned a little, we have at least not fallen ill; and if we have fallen ill, we have at least not died, and for this we are thankful.The book has a great message. It is about being open to new experiences and letting life in and about how the smallest actions can cause huge consequences. The number of cats I follow on Instagram has also gone up significantly since I read this book. If you like quiet books filled with cultural references and ruminations on the meaning of life and how to live, you will probably enjoy this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Dec 2015
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Dec 07, 2015
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Dec 01, 2015
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Paperback
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B015NTIXS8
| 3.64
| 12,641
| Jan 26, 2016
| Jan 26, 2016
|
really liked it
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“It’s hard to feel like you belong when you don’t know who you are, and it’s hard to know who you are when you don’t know where you come from.” Captiva “It’s hard to feel like you belong when you don’t know who you are, and it’s hard to know who you are when you don’t know where you come from.” Captivating young adult/coming-of-age/sci-fi/romance with an extremely relatable female lead and complex relationships. I received a copy of this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on January 26, 2016. Natalie is three months away from leaving her rural Kentucky hometown for Brown University, when she starts experiencing a brand new type of hallucination. Sometimes her entire town disappears and she finds herself standing in a field of buffalo. She is no stranger to odd visions. Since she was a little girl, she has been receiving late night visits from an apparition of a wise, old woman she has named Grandmother. After a three year absence, Grandmother briefly reappears and gives Natalie a cryptic message: "Three months to save him, Natalie." Shortly after she receives that confusing message, she meets a mysterious boy named Beau and it seems like he might be the answer to everything. I loved Natalie! She has a great sense of humor and is very self-aware. She is Native American and was adopted by a white family. The adoption and her heritage add a unique angle to the usual struggles of transitioning from high school to college. Natalie loves her family immensely, but sometimes she feels like an outsider. She struggles with wanting to fit in, but also wanting to find out who she really is and where she came from. I really liked the relationships Natalie had with all the other characters and it was great that she had solid relationships outside of the romantic relationship with Beau. Beau becomes an important part of her life, but he is not her entire life. She is close with her family and they are extremely supportive of her. There is an ex-boyfriend who she knows she doesn't want to be with romantically, but it is important to her that they maintain their friendship. There is a great best friend who who she has humorous conversations with and those conversations aren't all about the men in their lives. (I loved the scene in the garage before Megan left for college!) She is hurt deeply by another friend, but she handles it relatively maturely and they work their way through it. The relationship with Beau is sweet. There is an instant curiosity and attraction, but the relationship doesn't escalate too quickly. Some of my favorite parts of the book were Natalie's recollections of Grandmother's past visits. Grandmother tells Natalie ancient parables with Native American and biblical origins. It was a great way to help Natalie make sense of her world and show illustrate how stories unite us ("None of us is alone, Natalie. Her story is my story is your story.”). I also thought the author handled the sci-fi elements well. Stories with time travel and/or multiple dimensions can be complicated to understand and do make my head hurt a little, but the author simplified it enough where I got the gist of it. This would be a great book to read again, once you know what is going on! I do have trouble with first person, present tense in scenes that are less action-oriented or when the story starts drifting into the trivial. Natalie is extremely likable, so the perspective/tense choice only pulled me out of the story a few times. The ending was great and I love how the author brought the storytelling motif full circle. I read the last thirty pages twice and I liked the ending even more the second time. (view spoiler)[I was hoping for a little more of a 'gut-punch' a la The Butterfly Effect. Since the relationship with Beau was so new, I wish there were a few other reasons for the high stakes choices she made at the end. There was the Matt situation, but maybe if there was something that was going on with her family that helped her make her choices even more heart-wrenching and understandable (and actually I thought it was going that direction with her little brother). (hide spoiler)] The publisher describes The Love that Split the World as Friday Night Lights (LOVED!) meets The Time Traveler's Wife (loved the movie, book not so much). I think that sets the mood pretty accurately! This book includes so many complex issues and it spans several genres, but the author handles them so deftly that it never felt overwhelming. I could say so much more, but I don't want to spoil too much and I am trying not to pull too many quotes from the galley! This book was really enjoyable to read. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Nov 25, 2015
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Dec 2015
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Nov 25, 2015
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Kindle Edition
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1101874147
| 9781101874141
| 3.68
| 13,987
| Apr 22, 2015
| Nov 03, 2015
|
really liked it
|
Exploration into the meaning of art and the ephemeral nature of love + a satirical look at the business of art, with a colorful cast of characters and
Exploration into the meaning of art and the ephemeral nature of love + a satirical look at the business of art, with a colorful cast of characters and a relatable heroine. (I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review.) For someone else, it could be a great life: interesting, exciting and relatively free of worry. The problem is that it doesn’t happen to be the life I want. It isn’t the way I planned it. Somehow the scripts got muddled up. I, Annie, am supposed to be living in a little village outside Tavistock with the love of my life, running a company that we set up together. Somehow or other I got ejected out of my story halfway through and ended up in another person’s life; I don’t want to be here a second longer. I am too old, too scared for this existence. It’s meant for a younger, braver kind of person…the lonelier she got, the less adventurous she became.The Improbability of Love is written by Hannah Rothschild (yes, those Rothschilds), the current chair of the London National Gallery's Board of Trustees. She is very passionate about art and that is reflected in in her writing. She has written a few blog posts about her inspiration for this novel and you can find those at this link. Annie, a chef who is truly an artist when it comes to food, is down-on-her-luck and her life has veered way off course. She thought she was in a relationship with the love of her life. When she is unceremoniously dumped, she is forced to start over again in London. One afternoon she buys a quaint little painting in a junk shop, in hopes of impressing a new suitor. The suitor stands her up and the painting remains in her possession. Her innocent purchase of a valuable work of art (fictional piece, real painter) sets off a chain of events and puts her in the sights of a powerful art dealer who is desperate to repossess the painting and keep its tainted history a secret. I have noticed that the moment people become rich and achieve their earthly desires they enter a painful, spiritual vacuum. Few wealthy people turn to religion. What’s the point when it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven? Instead they often look to the soothing power of beauty. Art makes mortals feel closer to heaven…I once met a cynical painting by Courbet who said the rich bought art because they had run out of other things to spend their money on. A Corot claimed that it was copycat syndrome—just do as others do. Nothing drives men crazier than the inability to possess.The book begins at a London art auction, "the sale of the century." We are introduced to a colorful cast of bidders, each who have very different motivations for wanting to add The Improbability of Love to their assets. The prologue is overwhelming with all the character introductions, but I urge you to stick with it! The story actually begins six months before the auction, with Annie finding a painting in a junk shop. The bidders are slowly weaved into the story along the way, some with bigger parts than others. The bidders all have over-the-top personalities, but have just enough character to be endearing. The difference between a good and a great work of art was down to an almost indistinguishable series of largely unidentifiable factors: the élan of a brushstroke; the juxtaposition of colours; the collisions in a composition and an accidental stroke or two. Like a rolling stone gathering moss, a painting gathered history, comment and appreciation, all adding to its value. In its relatively short life, Annie’s little painting, all eighteen by twenty-four inches, had accrued so much admiration and history that it had become surrounded by a halo of accumulated desire, bumping its value up to dizzy heights.The writing was wordy and dense. There was an academic quality to it at times. I had to use my dictionary and Google Translate a little more than usual! For those reasons, I think people who aren't very interested in art history or culinary pursuits may have more trouble getting into this novel than those who do enjoy those topics. I was a Fine Arts major (one class away from an Art History minor) and I spend way too much time looking for new recipes to try, so this book was right up my alley. This book would have made an excellent required reading in my college classes, because it really brings the philosophical questions about art to life. What is art? What is the difference between good art and great art? What makes art valuable? What does art teach us about mankind and ourselves as individuals? What is it about a painted piece of canvas that can spark bidding wars and violence? Who do the great works really belong to? As we learn in The Improbability of Love, a piece of art is more than just its physical form; it carries a piece of each of its owners with it. My little theory is that at the heart of all human anxiety is the fear of loneliness. It starts with their expulsion from the womb and ends with a hole in the ground. In between it’s just a desperate struggle to stave off separation anxiety using any kind of gratification—love, sex, shopping, drink, you name it. My composition is about the fleeting, transformative respite over aloneness that love offers despite the cold certainty that this reprieve is only transitory.Much like the painting, the book deals with the transient, and sometimes cruel, nature of love. All the characters are somewhat broken due to the fickleness of love: Evie who fell apart after her husband's death, Annie who is just going through the motions after Desmond left her, Jesse whose love for Annie seems destined to remain unrequited, Rebecca Winkleman who is in an nontraditional marriage with a man who she doesn't want to live without, Memling Winkleman whose passion for a woman could put an end to the art dealing empire he worked so hard to create. It also handles familial love, particularly that between a child and a parent: Annie's enduring love for her alcoholic mom who constantly disappoints her ("Annie’s urge to care and protect her mother is as strong as Evie’s need to self-obliterate."), as well as Rachel's compulsive need to please to her father ("He was a monster, but he was her monster, an inextricable part of her past, present and future.") If I tell you that the man's face is composed of only seven strokes of a brush you'll laugh and remonstrate that this can't be so; but that is why my master is a genius and why his star is still in the firmament of great artists nearly three hundred years after his death. He understands the alchemy of red and pink and pearly white. More importantly, he understands mankind, and he can, like great artists, translate our innermost joy and fear into something tangible.This wasn't a novel I raced through, but one that I had to put down every once an a while and let simmer. The story is mostly written in third person omniscient (the narrator slipping seamlessly through each character's life), but there are occasional first person views from the painting itself. It even talks to other paintings when it gets the chance! I was put off by this at first, but it was actually pretty neat. It was an interesting perspective through which to view the paintings history. Imagine all the crazy stories artwork could tell if they were sentient! I really liked the direction the novel took, once we found out the secrets that were hiding in the painting's provenance. Discovering the mystery of the painting's history, despite the lengths taken to keep it a secret, was really exciting. I was really disappointed when I realized there were only a few more pages left at that point! The book was little heavy on the set-up and a little light on the wrap-up. Don’t be shocked by this apparent self-reverence. As you know, my canvas is covered with the brushstrokes of a genius and overlaid with centuries of desire, love and avarice. Each of my owners added an intangible but indelible stratum: the first was my master’s outpourings; the second was his friend Julienne’s fraternal affection and these two were followed by the admiration of the great and the downright ugly; even young Annie added a little bit of magic. These layers of appreciation, though invisible to the human eye, are detectable to those with particular powers of intuition and sensitivityThis is one of those book where the more I think about it, the more I like it. If you have some time and you are really interested in fine art and culinary art, I'd recommend this book. If you liked the subject matter of this novel, you might want to check out the movie Woman in Gold. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Sep 2015
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Sep 30, 2015
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Sep 01, 2015
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Hardcover
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0385348371
| 9780385348379
| 3.65
| 973
| Apr 21, 2015
| Oct 13, 2015
|
really liked it
| "You are not so singular in your suspicions that you know but little. The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anx "You are not so singular in your suspicions that you know but little. The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. . . . Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough."I have always loved the preceding John Adams quote, written in a letter to his granddaughter Caroline. I struggle with feeling that I know less as time goes on, especially when it seems that most everyone around me is so certain about everything! Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing by Jamie Holmes appealed to me because of its premise: it is not about what you know, but how you handle what you don't know. This book is surprisingly short! It ends on page 232 (72%) and the remainder of the pages are endnotes. Nonsense deals exclusively with the topics of ambiguity and uncertainty. It has a similar feel to books by Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point), Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational) and Steven Levitt/Stephen J. Dubner (Freakonomics), in that it uses case studies and experiments from a wide variety of fields to justify its thesis. Throughout the book, the author provides possible solutions to counteract our intrinsic need to avoid ambiguity. Let's say for example, you see a white crow. At first you're a little surprised. You peer at the bird with heightened attention, and then eventually you switch into the more domineering mind state that making decisions requires. You can assimilate the experience and decide the bird is a dove. Or you can accommodate it and recognize that albino crows exist. The rub, as Proulx's collaborator Steve Heine told me, is that "assimilation is so often incomplete." We act as if we’re sure the bird is a dove, but the feeling that it’s not is still there in the unconscious, leaving us trapped in a similar middle ground as the doomsday believers were, stuck between assuming we’ve understood and sensing we haven’t. One way we respond to these lingering anxieties is by finding comfort in our social groups and passionately emphasizing our ideals. Proulx and Inzlicht called this reaction affirmation. Affirmation is the intensification of beliefs, whatever those beliefs might be, in response to a perceived threat.The book is divided three parts The first part is about how the human brain responds to uncertainty. This section was really interesting because of the experiments showing that humans automatically seek order after being exposed to randomness, even when they are not consciously aware of the exposure. Not only did the test subjects find patterns more effectively after seeing incorrectly colored playing cards, their political positions intensified. When the world is less predictable, people are more likely to jump to conclusions or entrench their existing views. That’s the problem with striving for certainty or making rashly informed judgments of trust to escape from ambiguity. Urgently fixating on certainty is our defense mechanism against the unknown and unstable. However, what we need in turbulent times is adaptability and calculated reevaluation.Part 2 explores the hazards of denying ambiguity. The author uses the 1993 Waco Siege as an example of how confusing natural ambivalence with duplicity can end in avoidable tragedy. He also discussed how highly sensitive tests that doctors overutilize for quick closure may actually create bad and/or unnecessary outcomes for patients. "Openness to outside influences and the frequency of travel abroad, he found, was correlated with simultaneous gains in achievements in business and religion. Most strikingly, he also discovered that the more diversity there was in Japanese society, the more creative the society was two generations later in the areas of medicine, fiction, poetry, and painting. Diversity can be painful initially, it seems, but it pays off decades later. While at first most immigrants occupy a marginal position in society, as Simonton explained, “after a generation or two not only do they become integrated but their culture becomes part of the ‘melting pot’—as we start eating pizza or chow mein."Part 3 highlights how embracing ambiguity can be asset. My main takeaways from this chapter were that it is important to investigate your successes as well as your failures and that deconstructing objects to their most form can lead to great ingenuity. Nonsense is definitely relevant to today's world. The need to reconcile ambiguity is probably one of the driving forces behind the growing divisiveness in the United States, which seems to get more heightened as the 24-hour news cycle and the internet makes the world feel more chaotic. On a lighter note, it also might explain the intense emotions during the white/gold or blue/black dress debacle! Like any book of this nature, it is not a complete picture and it relies heavily on anecdotes. However, it does provide yet another lens with which to see the world and makes one much more comfortable with the concept of uncertainty. It made me view the contentious arguments that erupt on social media in a different light and has made me more reflective over my own knee-jerk reactions. It is a fun and quick read and I think it would be a useful book for everyone to read. For Chekhov, morality lay not in our relationships with what we know, but how admirably we deal with what we don't…It’s a morality distinct from IQ and common notions of confidence or self-control. Chekhov showed that not knowing doesn’t leave us without a compass, in some relativist nether land. Owning our uncertainty makes us kinder, more creative, and more alive…"It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense,” [Anton Chekhov] once wrote. “Only fools and charlatans think they know and understand everything . . . and if an artist decides to declare that he understands nothing of what he sees—this in itself constitutes a considerable clarity in the realm of thought, and a great step forward.” I received this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Aug 28, 2015
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Sep 2015
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Aug 31, 2015
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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3.61
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not set
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May 09, 2018
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4.06
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not set
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Aug 01, 2017
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3.91
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not set
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Jul 14, 2017
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3.84
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liked it
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Jul 07, 2017
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May 23, 2017
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4.05
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really liked it
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Jul 11, 2017
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May 23, 2017
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4.09
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liked it
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Sep 06, 2017
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Mar 24, 2017
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3.55
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really liked it
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Mar 14, 2017
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Dec 01, 2016
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3.83
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really liked it
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Oct 14, 2016
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Aug 17, 2016
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3.97
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really liked it
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Sep 22, 2016
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Aug 17, 2016
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3.84
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really liked it
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Aug 23, 2016
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Aug 09, 2016
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3.78
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liked it
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Jul 23, 2016
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Jun 28, 2016
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4.12
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really liked it
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Jul 10, 2016
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Jun 02, 2016
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3.81
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really liked it
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Jul 25, 2016
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Jun 01, 2016
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3.83
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really liked it
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Oct 06, 2016
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May 26, 2016
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3.94
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really liked it
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Jun 22, 2016
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May 11, 2016
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3.66
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liked it
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May 31, 2016
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May 04, 2016
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3.91
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not set
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Apr 04, 2016
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3.63
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it was ok
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Jun 23, 2016
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Mar 08, 2016
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3.70
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it was ok
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Mar 06, 2016
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Feb 28, 2016
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3.25
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really liked it
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Feb 25, 2016
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Feb 24, 2016
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4.05
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really liked it
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Mar 19, 2016
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Feb 22, 2016
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3.50
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it was ok
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Feb 15, 2016
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Feb 12, 2016
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3.43
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really liked it
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Jan 14, 2016
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Jan 12, 2016
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3.60
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really liked it
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Jan 05, 2016
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Jan 02, 2016
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3.44
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really liked it
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Jan 2016
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Dec 17, 2015
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3.35
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really liked it
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Dec 17, 2015
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Dec 09, 2015
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3.55
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liked it
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Dec 07, 2015
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Dec 01, 2015
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3.64
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really liked it
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Dec 2015
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Nov 25, 2015
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3.68
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really liked it
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Sep 30, 2015
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Sep 01, 2015
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3.65
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really liked it
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Sep 2015
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Aug 31, 2015
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