Eduardo Santiago

DNF, p.113. Religious fanatics; prophets; complex intrigue and plotting, deception and ruses. State-sanctioned mass executions. Abusive casteism. That’s just not what I need in July 2024. Maybe, if humankind survives the election, I’ll try again next year. Beautiful writing tho, descriptive and flowing. Occasional stunning moments of insight about humans and the systems we build.

Astonishing, powerful, gripping, and increasingly more so on all counts as the book went on. The pacing, for one, is phenomenal: started off intriguing, then kept developing, gradually, mercilessly. I felt more absorbed with each chapter. It's not so much the what—we know there’s going to be bad shit, or, more precisely, we know there was a lot of bad shit and some of it is going to get shown to us—no, it's the how: how do good people live with those memories? How do they live, day after day, with monsters?

The first-person narrator is a gem. Honorable, hardworking, capable, and deeply moral. I kept thinking of him as an embodiment of Stoic ideals, wondering if Forna has read Epictetus and Seneca. (Did I say "him"? Yes: Forna writes a completely believable male protagonist, with access to his rawest feelings and motivations. How can she do that?) (Okay, maybe a touch more sensitive than most males, but not impossibly so.) The rest of the characters are... well, they’re props. Lovable or despicable despite their lack of depth; this isn’t their story.

TW for cruelty, violence, heartbreak and suffering galore. Highly, highly recommended regardless.

Do you ever wonder, when looking at combat photos, about the person behind the lens? Addario provides a riveting, sobering account of her journey from ambitious young cub to seasoned and scarred veteran. Deeply personal, sensitive, and moving.

Combat is bad enough, but that life entails much more hardship. Disrespect, abuse, humiliations. Having to be civil to subhuman vermin such as Talibanis or Israeli soldiers. Seeing her work censored or filtered by cowardly editors. Relationships are nearly impossible to nourish; she frankly recounts her discoveries and setbacks and, finally, great fortune. And the brutal impact of seeing endless suffering. Despite all this, her huge heart comes through in her writing. I’m really sorry I missed her talk at SFILF. And I will never again look at war reporting the same way.

Wow wow wow. “Mirrored Heavens is the culmination of a dream,” Roanhorse writes in her end Acknowledgments. An amazing and exquisite and satisfying one, and I’m so ashamed to have doubted that she would finish the series. This is a worthy finale to a powerful epic.

Also brutal. So much intrigue, plotting, treachery, betrayal, cruelty and death. And kindness and love and complexity. Roanhorse kept me on my toes, played with my sympathies and my heart. What I most admire about her is that when she writes about gods she makes them truly, utterly incomprehensible. <i>That is how gods should be to us!</i> By understanding that, she creates a world that is fascinating and, more importantly, fair. Not in the justice sense; I mean in the sense of not cheating. Nobody is all good or all evil or simple. Evil things happen, as do good things, and some people try their best to swing things one way or the other, and ... well, the story is a good one, rich and fulfilling all the way to the last page.

Warning: like with Fevered Star, Roanhorse makes no allowances for readers who might not remember every detail of the first two books. So, reread them or prepare for a rocky ride.

Intense; a helluva ride. At times impenetrable, then shifting eerily to what felt like vignettes from my own lived experience and sometimes even innermost thoughts. Mostly somewhere in between. Early on I started thinking of it—with apologies to Milan Kundera—as The Unbearable Heaviness of Being and it stuck, felt more and more appropriate as I kept reading, and I mention it not to discourage you but to prepare you: Shapland’s neuroses are weighty. I needed frequent breaks to digest or sometimes just breathe. (Maybe she’d find mine equally weighty. Let’s not find out.)

Five long essays, each with a central theme and many tangents. Toxins, pollution, environmental racism, health (Los Alamos figures prominently in this first chapter, a curious serendipity given my having read 109 East Palace immediately beforehand). Fear, racism, moving through the world as a woman. Consumerism. Self-awareness and mindfulness. And, most interesting to me, the cultural obsession with having babies. Yes, she goes there, explores it from all sorts of directions, bluntly and with some perspectives that were new to me—possibly because I’m male, although I think it might be that I am less tolerant of fools than she is.

Shapland impressed me at this year’s Santa Fe Literary Festival; her stage conversation showed great vulnerability and wisdom. Her writing reinforces my impression of her as a remarkable person, insightful and gifted. Even despite the incomprehensible parts (mostly cultural references I’m too old for) and despite her annoying fretting about the opinions of others (she’s young, I think and hope she’ll grow out of it), this is a phenomenal book that I’m going to be recommending loudly to my friends. Even those with (wonderful! amazing! and I mean it!) children.

Exquisite. This is the human side of the Manhattan Project: the personalities of those who made it happen, the relationships, sacrifices, conflicts, logistics, and connections. Conant is by no means objective: she shows great warmth toward the heroes—McKibbin, Oppenheimer (J. Robert), Groves—and contempt for the villains—Teller, Oppenheimer (Kitty), and, later, McCarthy and Strauss. She seems to believe that women are people (!), so she frequently includes stories of professionals and wives and WACs and others. All of this adds up to a lovely and sensitive work.

If you want to read only one book on this part of history, and you care more about human elements than technical/scientific aspects, this is probably the book you want. And for those of us on the Hill, who already know most of the basics, this should be required reading.

A bit of a stretch, then increasingly so, well into preposterous and beyond. The main characters are Mary Sues, the villains cartoonish, the situations more and more hokey. Which makes the tension nonexistent because—not a spoiler—the reader knows that the heroes will miraculously escape this predicament and the next. It would probably work better as a movie than it did as a book, and I bet that was the hope. (If they do make it a movie, they should get Sydney Greenstreet to play the small role that’s perfect for him. I would totally watch that.)

Anyhow, fun for a change of pace. Noble heroes, imaginative albeit contrived story elements. I’ll probably stick to Preston’s nonfiction in future: that’s much more my thing.

Even in a post-2016 world, where we see new disgusting lows almost daily, the horrors documented in this book are appalling. Monstrous in scale, in cruelty, in shamelessness and just pure evil. Also some good, in the form of one helluva decent FBI agent, Tom White: his story—before, during, and after the Osage assignment—is one of nobility and honor. Not quite enough to balance out the monsters, but enough to leave me feeling some gratitude.

Grann shows tremendous respect toward the Osage. His research is exhaustive, and he is careful to remain within the boundaries of fact (with clearly identified moments of conjecture). This rigor sometimes makes for repetition or dryness, but it’s absolutely the right and responsible thing to do: the book is more trustworthy that way, its impact more powerful.

By page 30 I was strongly motivated to DNF; kept going because of the reviews. I regret continuing.

Narrated first-person by an affectless middle-aged man, completely dissociated from the events he relates, passively moving from one situation to the next but with no agency or engagement. You know those people who love to tell you their dreams? “And then this happened and then this and then I got in a car except it became a plane and then ...”? Like that, for two hundred pages. I’m not the kind of person who loves listening to dreams, so I found it increasingly tedious and even more so once I figured out what was going on. (The “twist” at the end is no such thing, it was telegraphed early and became increasingly obvious.)

Binyam is fiercely smart: there are snippets of insight, cultural criticism, awareness of self-awareness that delighted me ... but briefly, and too rarely. This was too long, drawn out and rambling. I will optimistically seek out her shorter publications.

So. Much. Trauma.

Everyone in this book is so wounded. So many ways to be abused; so many ways to cope. So much suffering. My heart goes out to Figueroa.

I’m going to punt on writing any sort of review and on assigning any stars. It’s too complicated. On the whole the book didn’t work for me—too many fantastical elements, too much bleakness—but I kept reading, felt drawn in, and am glad to have done so. I just don’t think I got everything out of it that the author intended.

Delightful and rewarding for the heart, the senses, and the brain: Garvin understands them all. The book hit so many of my buttons: grief; injustice; (mis)communicating; caring; belonging; responsibility; the joy of curiosity. The characters were complex, the villains despicable, their relationships growing ever more nuanced as the book developed. They all felt real. The science felt real, as did Frankie’s love of learning. The writing was evocative, rich in a way that my more visualizationally gifted friends might love; even I found myself closing my eyes at times and trying to see, hear, and feel.

Although the main storyline takes place in 1998, some of the zeitgeist felt anachronistic, more like 1978; I’d like to know if you felt that too. Some of the events are emotionally manipulative, especially near the end, ... and I was totally OK with it. I left the book feeling thoughtful and satisfied.

Not what I was expecting but wonderful regardless. Thought-provoking essays, mostly disconnected from each other, about humans and our connections with animals. Some are broad, some (Keiko) highly specific. Some relate to her own life, some not in the least. Most are essay length, the last 20% are short vignettes.

Orlean’s style is intriguing: she has a complex relationship with animals, is fascinated by them, gets attached, but she also manages to deromanticize then in her writing. Much of what she writes is uncomfortable, because much of what humans do to animals is uncomfortable. So is pretty much any aspect of any being’s life. I found myself thinking hard.

Design and inclusion are two of my hot-button favorite topics, so I was really eager to read this... and therefore really disappointed by it. This is a book for activists and community builders and extroverts, not for engineers or what I think of as designers. Even after realizing that I still couldn't get into the book. The tone felt patronizing, Mister Rogersy. Content was poorly edited and awkward to read. Physically, the pages were stiff; hard to flip. I expected much better design.

Unrated, because I’m clearly not the target audience. I want to think that maybe there’s good material here for someone else.

Riveting. Exquisite writing, masterful pacing, memorable characters.

In a recent interview with Dr. Laurie Santos, Malcolm Gladwell unconvincingly argues against journey-is-the-destination thinking. About halfway through this book, when it became increasingly obvious how it was going to end and how we were going to get there, I found myself remembering that interview with amusement because there was no way I was leaving this delicious journey. (To be fair, Gladwell’s focus was narrow and unrelated to reading).

Three narratives: one first-person, two third-person, an intriguing and effective choice that slowly starts to make sense as we learn how the protagonists’ stories are connected. Many story elements reminded me of Susanna Clarke—the nature of the magic, the complexity and depth of the main characters. Dark, in different ways. Hart’s voice is unique, though. I was hooked early, and devoured the book in one weekend.

For a brief while this was on my dont-bother list; I am grateful to A. for insisting that I try and for suggesting that I read with attention.

Another installment in the ever-popular Poor Life Choices series, but with a twist: the author is self-aware. Sometimes a little too much so: her childhood reminiscences have more emotional depth than I can really buy. Sometimes I let it go, sometimes not so much, but this is a powerful book regardless. Part memoir, part history lesson, part ethnography, and one hundred percent filled with grace. Taffa is not gentle: not with colonizers, nor her family, nor herself. Throughout the book she expresses her childhood anger over shitty situations: at those who caused them and at those who perpetuate them. She doesn’t sugarcoat the violence, rage, helplessness she grew up seeing, or the systemic bigotry and humiliations she experienced everywhere she lived. She is candid about her childhood selfishnesses, in a way that demonstrates remarkable forgiveness toward herself and others. And in the end, this is not a spoiler, she makes good with her life.

It’s a complex book. The Taffa who wrote this is in her fifties, still (justifiably!) angry but now wise enough to focus her energy. This is a book for all of us in the Southwest, may we learn to see and prevent injustices.

It Does Not Work That Way. None of it works that way! Not the technical stuff (the cryptography was particularly embarrassing). Nor the human-motivation stuff nor the relationships nor just anything. And it just kept annoying me more and more. There was one person to care about, maybe two, but even they were cardboard.

I’m betting this was written as a screenplay. Whiz-bang descriptions of computer animations and complicated artwork and stuff that has nothing to do with anything.

A mixed bag of short stories: hit or miss, but the hits were exceptional and even the medium ones were breathtaking. I find myself still thinking about them days later. Every story was wildly unique, the unifying element her voice. Distinct and powerful, with a sublime gift for understatement. The situations Oliver writes about are horrifying beyond anything you or I have ever dealt with; the calm with which her characters handle them compels the reader to really think about them. What lifetime of abuse makes someone take suffering in stride? How do they find strength and courage?

The first third alternated between annoying and compelling. Then something flipped inside me: the more farfetched the story became, the more immersed I got in it and the more I came to love it. I think it’s because my expectations weren’t well suited to the book: although the content is harsh and sobering, the presentation is more yarn than epic. Everett was channeling Twain. With the right expectations I think you, too, will love this.

Ugh. What an irksome, aggravating, wonderful and beautiful book. I can’t say it was always a joy to read, but it always gave me joy to keep reading, and I know that makes no sense but in many ways neither does the book so nyah.

A lot of my hot buttons in this one: handwavey, superpowerful, how-convenient magic, with completely unexplained rules and equally unexplained inconsistencies. Soul-hurting lookism, where everyone is just so damn attractive. Appalling cruelty. Multiple forms of the amnesia gimmick (the Project Hail Mary and Seven Moons of Maali Almeida type, where protagonists start out not remembering the vitally important and you-might-think-memorable events that led to their predicaments; and also the You Will Forget This Ever Happened mesmerism stuff, both equally cheesy). And, sigh, the one character I related to—the one with the strong moral code and sense of responsibility, who is skeptical and wary of the magical elements, who simply tries to be invisible and do some good—is derided almost nonstop, called boring and more, not just by other character in dialog but even in the author’s own narrative voice.

But.

But, dammit, the author herself is in on it. The characters themselves get irritated at the magic. They vent frustration over the cruelty, and draw frustrated but reasonable parallels to the random cruelties of natural forces. They invent workarounds for their amnesia. Every time you think Link is being sloppy or lazy, she gently winks and lets you in on the joke. But it’s not a farce; not even close. It’s exquisitely smart. Much more importantly, Link understands kindness. She really, really understands it. And cruelty, and love. And she doesn’t overdo any of them nor does she get preachy. Partway through I realized that, magical gimmicks aside, this is purely a book about choices and seeing and caring. It really is a book about loving. And I could go on for hours more, but just go read it.

Book bans. Racism, xenophobia, misogyny. Strong, violent, omnipresent police. Lapel flags and loyalty tests. The world of this book is a r*p*bl*c*n’s wet dream. The kind we might see if you don’t vote.

The first half of the book, Part I, was a bit of a slog. A too-heavy mix of Orwell and Havel, each extreme almost cartoonish in their cruelty and heroism respectively. I almost DNF'ed... but kept going and am really glad I did: parts II and III are where Ng gets her voice. Beautiful language, captivating story, and serious heart.

VOTE.

DNF, p.99. I found it horrifying. The adults are violent and cruel. Maybe they’re meant to be cartoonishly so? Not to me: I found them repellent, even sickening. Had to put the book down many times; then each time after continuing the violence only got worse. I'm sorry I kept on as long as I did.

The first-person narrator, a twelve-year-old girl alternating between her present self (1971) and herself at nine, comes off as affectless. Mostly just trying to disassociate from her abusive situation. Her numbing strategies are soulcrushing.

Plot twist: I found myself growing angry as I read. In a book that is in every possible way entirely about love. Why are some people such meddling busybodies? How DARE they prescribe a one-size-fits-all lifestyle, and hurt those who don’t fit in? I’m looking right at you, churches. Fuck you all.

Anyhow. This is a lovely book that, in a better world, would not be necessary. Each chapter is a portrait of real people in what some neurotics (see above) would call unconventional relationships. Each is intimate, sometimes bordering on uncomfortably so. Necessary, given the nature of the book. Some of the relationships come off as beautiful, some less so (to me). Some ended in heartbreak; others will one day; but every single one of them has led to growth & happiness & rewards for all involved. That’s what it’s about. That’s why we put ourselves out there and risk our hearts, “conventionally” or not.

The final chapter has great, thought-inducing material on government-sanctioned relationships: marriage, domestic partnership, a really cool legal framework in Colorado that I need to learn more about, for granting specific and distinct financial/medical end-of-life designations possibly to different people. Marriage is obviously an antiquated and idiotic institution, what surprised me is just how harmful it really can be. Worth reading for this chapter alone.

Well researched and referenced. Compassionately written, although it’s very clear that Cohen is young. This is probably a good book for younger people. Us olds, we either understand it already or we never will. It is my great fortune, a blessing, that I only hang out with people who do.

Wowwwww. Painful and powerful. Furious and tender and oh so familiar to anyone living in the Western US. This is a novel only in the loosest sense—objectively speaking it’s a collection of vignettes, written in different voices, centering around one massive wildfire and its effects on a small Colorado town—but it’s damned cohesive, and effective, and beautiful.

Pritchett is an impressive writer, evoking a roller coaster of emotions in each short chapter. She starts off strong, with that horrific anxious tension of an approaching fire, and she gets it right: I really felt it from the first two pages. In subsequent chapters she gets the helpless rage, the numbness, humor, bitterness, loss, desire for connection, and even, in a couple of chapters written first-person from the perspective of loser piece-of-shits, lets us see and almost empathize with said losers. She has tremendous heart and compassion, much more than I do. (I will never forgive anyone who lights a campfire in dry conditions).

This is a smart book. Scientifically literate. Respectful of Indigenous perspectives. Well informed on fire behavior, ecology, suppression. Intelligent, well-read characters. But above all it’s a deeply human book. It’s also one I’m glad to have read in February: it would be much too stressful in May.

An unexpectedly well-rounded medley of astronomy, cartography, and history. Informative in a way that I think will stick with me: along with descriptions of cosmological phenomena, Natarajan explains how and why we know what we do. The who and the when. What did they notice in the skies? What questions did those observations raise, how did they go about searching for answers, what technologies did they have available to them, and—most discouraging—what personality conflicts hindered them?

I long for an updated edition. The book was published in 2014, which you’d think is fairly recent but it really isn’t. In particular, just a few months after publication, LIGO recorded observations that confirmed some of her predictions. It was fun, and inspiring, to see what Natarajan has been up to in these last ten years.