I remember reading this in high school and look back on it with fondness, which certainly cannot be said of everything I read in high school. In fact,I remember reading this in high school and look back on it with fondness, which certainly cannot be said of everything I read in high school. In fact, I would even read it again, given time and opportunity....more
**spoiler alert** I didn't really know what to expect when I settled in to read Fahrenheit 451. I knew about the book burning and suspected a moral of**spoiler alert** I didn't really know what to expect when I settled in to read Fahrenheit 451. I knew about the book burning and suspected a moral of "Censorship is bad!!!"
I did not expect an atomic apocalypse and millions of people losing touch with the real world because of their relationships with their TV families.
It's a warning story that has stood the test of time - and is even coming true. People with their souls locked up in their computers, phones, games, etc....
Maybe it's time for the world to read this book again......more
While this ended up being absolutely nothing that I expected, I did enjoy reading it and feel like I've filled in yet another hole in my modern literaWhile this ended up being absolutely nothing that I expected, I did enjoy reading it and feel like I've filled in yet another hole in my modern literature education.
Living in Japan, all of the Japanese references and phrases had a tendancy to knock me out of the book world when they came around, but I did eventually get over it (when the setting left Japan...).
It was interesting reading the book in 2009, so long after it was written and so, SO long after so many others have used its genius as inspiration for their own masterworks - The Matrix being a huge one, of course.
Though Neuromancer was really the first work of its genre (cyber sci-fi), it retains its futuristic feel and kept me turning pages, unlike some others which have lost their appeal as their predicted futures have failed to come true. (It's 2010, now... where IS my flying car, anyway?!)...more
In a very, very rare occurrance... if you've seen the movie, you've read the book.
This is the first Anne Rice book I've successfully read from cover tIn a very, very rare occurrance... if you've seen the movie, you've read the book.
This is the first Anne Rice book I've successfully read from cover to cover. I tried to read The Witching Hour a dozen years ago and failed. I tried to read the book about the castrati (I've forgotten the title, even though a friend just told me last week).
I was never able to finish any of them. And I remember why.
Rice's writing takes a certain perserverance to push through. Paragraph-long sentences, page-long paragraphs, no chapter breaks... reading Rice is a trial of endurance and stamina.
One that I don't know I'll undertake again. However, I do feel like I've filled in a hole that was missing from my pop literary canon repertoire, and for that, I am thankful!...more
This book has been compared to The Little Prince and I can see why. The quest. The human 'types' introduced in the story. Life lessons learned.
For theThis book has been compared to The Little Prince and I can see why. The quest. The human 'types' introduced in the story. Life lessons learned.
For these reasons, I really enjoyed it. I often cite The Little Prince as my favorite book of all time and The Alchemist, while quite different in a lot of ways, does a good job of exploring the same kinds of themes.
It's an all-around feel good tale and if it doesn't make you want to chase after your life's treasure, then it's possible that nothing will....more
I admit that I came to this series far too late in life. It was on the piles of recommended reading lists I received from the gifted and enrichment prI admit that I came to this series far too late in life. It was on the piles of recommended reading lists I received from the gifted and enrichment programs when I was in elementary school and several people would bring it up in book discussions with me, just knowing that it must be something I had read.
I hadn't.
Reading it for the first time, much closer to the 30-year marker of my life than the 10, I found myself unimpressed. I liked the story and the idea - even the essay about scientific fact included after the story in the edition I read. What I didn't like is exactly why it took me half a dozen tries to get through the Chronicles of Narnia. The God talk. The near-constant religious overtone that I could see in everything after the first mention of Jesus. A Wrinkle in Time goes even a step further down the path of religion than Narnia does because it actually includes quotes from scripture.
Had I read it when I was 10, and far less cynical than now, I'm sure I would have been enchanted and in love with the story - chomping at the bit to read the rest of the series. As it is, I will probably read the rest some day, but I'm content to wait until the books fall into my lap or I can borrow them from someone. I won't be buying them.
With all of that out of the way, I would like to say that, for its time, the overall plot was mind-bogglingly innovative and well-explained. I'm sure the kids of the 1960s were enthralled, and rightly so....more
The first two times I tried to read this book, I failed... and failed hard. I got caught up in the politics at the beginning of the novel and just letThe first two times I tried to read this book, I failed... and failed hard. I got caught up in the politics at the beginning of the novel and just let it fall to the side of my to-read pile.
My advice? Don't let that happen to you. Once the book got going, it rolled along at a fast pace.
Although a lot happened throughout the book in the way of action, adventure, and information gathering, I somehow still don't feel like much... HAPPENED.
I believe that the reward for reading this book will be reading its partners in the trilogy.
There was nothing WRONG with The Golden Compass. It was really quite engaging while I was reading it (hence the four stars), but now that I've finished it, I'm left with a bit of a "meh" feeling about it, because my thinking is not "Oh, that was a good book," but rather, "I wonder what's next?"...more
I don't feel qualified to write a review of this book.
This is the kind of thing that people write academic articles about. Papers. Theses. (In fact, aI don't feel qualified to write a review of this book.
This is the kind of thing that people write academic articles about. Papers. Theses. (In fact, a girl in my senior seminar class DID write her thesis on Atwood's books.)
All I can say is that the story is compelling and if I thought about it too much, it terrified me.
I hated the style. The stream-of-consciousness bugged the crap out of me and the lack of information that we would have had in a third person, omniscient tale was disappointing. The world is so interesting (in a completely f*cked up way), but we don't get a very clear picture of it from Offred's scattered telling.
Being a very description and details kind of person (I love Stephen King, so yeah, pages of description? No problem.) and the complete and utter lack in The Handmaid's Tale was a big downfall.
But, I am willing to give more Atwood a try. Blind Assassin is supposed to be headed my way from BookMooch.
(I've intentionally omitted the word "dystopia" - and any variation thereof - from this review. It's used so much in talking about this book, I assume that the novel is thoroughly sick of seeing itself described as such.)...more
Everything that can be said about this masterpiece has surely already been said. I'll just add that I absolutely LOVED it.Everything that can be said about this masterpiece has surely already been said. I'll just add that I absolutely LOVED it....more
I'm having trouble trying to figure out what to say about this book. I loved it. I loved almost everything about it (with the exception of Clare's sevI'm having trouble trying to figure out what to say about this book. I loved it. I loved almost everything about it (with the exception of Clare's several pages of "baby rabies").
For a first novel, The Time Traveler's Wife is quite amazing. Niffenegger manages the complications of time travel quite easily. As I read it, I never felt confused or frustrated by the time changes or Henry's constant displacement / foreknowledge / confused ignorance / etc.
This is not a sci-fi book, although it has the time travel element. It is first and foremost a love story... or more accurately, a love-conquers-all-things story.
Though it's hard to tell how anyone would react to meeting or being a truly Chronologically Displaced Person, I think Niffenegger did a fantastic job of writing the situations realistically. I don't feel as if a single second was wasted in her use of time itself as a main player.
I expected tears to be falling as I made it to the bittersweet end, but a 500-page week-long romp through a time traveling romance is apparently not enough for me to become emotionally involved enough to cry. (Four months and thousands of pages, a la King's Dark Tower series, sure, I cried like a baby.)
She chose, perhaps, the only way to end a story such as this one... perfectly. And at just the right time....more
4/19/17 update: I appreciate that so many people have "liked" this review and/or commented on it, whether we agree or not. Please know that I will not4/19/17 update: I appreciate that so many people have "liked" this review and/or commented on it, whether we agree or not. Please know that I will not be interacting with any comments as I remember almost nothing about this novel other than the repulsion I felt toward it. I cannot add anything worthwhile to a discussion or engage in any intelligent discourse unless I read it again.... which I think we all know I am not going to do. That being said, anyone using the comments section to make a personal attack on my character or ability as a reader (a decade ago, mind you), will have their comment deleted. Kindly agree to disagree and move along.
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A seemingly unending stream of word vomit.
I can think of no other way to describe this thing.
I really, really despised almost everything about The Corrections. I finished it solely so that I could write a horrible review and have it be valid.
At no single point before the last 10 pages of this 566-page monster did I feel a shred of sympathy with any of the characters. There were several moments where I thought Franzen would have been better off writing dialogue-for-the-average-Joe instead of the trumped up and out of place Dawson's Creek-esque vocabulary in almost every human interaction. His insistence on using the "25-cent word" at every turn made reading the story choppy at best... aggravating and unenjoyable.
I also couldn't help but see the author in a lot of his characters' worst personality traits. Annoying hipster-lecher I'm-better-than-capitalism-but-still-depend-on-it Chip. Whiny too-good-for-anyone Gary. Ungrateful I'm-a-bitch-but-require-all-your-love-and-attention Denise. The parents? Alfred is the only one for whom I felt any sympathy and that didn't happen until the last dregs of the book... and I think maybe even then it was a knee-jerk reaction at being so close to the book being over. Enid's issues rubbed me the wrong way for many reasons, not the least of which being that I could see my own mother in her... which means, I suppose, that Enid was probably the most well-represented character in the novel.
The secondary characters were almost entirely a sorry lot with personalities to the extreme in any number of directions - too smart, too stupid, too needy, too plain, too EVERYTHING.
I know that I'll never understand the praise this book received from critics and readers... and I'm ok with that. I do wish, however, that I could meet some of the people who relate it so easily to real life. Meeting them, perhaps, would truly terrify me....more
I was really unsure about this book at first. I don't have a very good history with award-winning novels (see: scathing review of The Corrections). InI was really unsure about this book at first. I don't have a very good history with award-winning novels (see: scathing review of The Corrections). In general, I end up in the "I don't get it" camp.
But, happily, with Middlesex, I eventually got it!
By the end of this fantastic fake of a memoir, I was ready to give it five stars, but I had to remember my struggle through the first 100 pages or so (20% of the novel's girth). Again, by the end, I understood the necessity and the relevance of the slow-moving deep recounting of family history, but when I was reading those 100 pages not knowing what would come later, I found it really difficult to push through.
I guess that the birth of our main character was really the point of the book where it really started to pick up the pace for me, so if anyone else is struggling with the opening, I urge you to press on.
Some of the scenes of Callie/Cal's life experiences are so realistically portrayed that I found myself examining the cover art, critic's comments, and the author's biography looking for hints as to how he could know so much about such a unique situation and from a (mostly) female point of view. My confusion about that issue speaks highly of Eugenides skills as a writer. Middlesex is an amazing trompe l'oeil triumph - fiction as reality. Someone else's reality as fiction.
Fantastic. Truly fantastic. And fully deserving of every award it received! (High praise from this chick!)...more
I really enjoyed this book once I was finished with it. Throughout most of it, I was really worried that somewhere along the line, there would be a coI really enjoyed this book once I was finished with it. Throughout most of it, I was really worried that somewhere along the line, there would be a cop-out. Little angers me more in a story than when the author chooses to end on a cop-out instead of just taking a chance on the ending that SHOULD be there.
Unlike the masses, I wasn't moved to tears by this book, but it was a really interesting and pretty enjoyable read....more
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