Lucille Ancrath

I gave this 4 stars because I think it should be in Young Adult and as such it is a fun read. But as Adult Fiction... nah. It reminds me a lot of Winter's Orbit in a sense that the world and story work on the surface, for the purpose of a fun, casual story, but if you think deeper for 5 minutes it absolutely falls apart. Again, as YA this is common and generally accepted at this point. But I personally don't think these books belong in Adult Fiction.

I see that a lot of people found this book scary and put it into the horror category, but to me it feels more like a mediocre slasher movie. There is a lot of gore described in great detail, but most of it just makes me question how it even happened. I'm also not a fan of Stephen's writing style in general.

If anyone has read H.P.Lovecraft's “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” they will know about a chase scene that happens in it. I found that whole story a lot creepier than this book, but the chase scene in particular, was in my opinion done a lot better by Lovecraft.

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Now, the thing that annoyed me during this whole reading experience is that this book could have been about any regular kind of white trash and with minimal changes, the plot would've stayed the same. Essentially, Native Americans could have very easily been “spared” the pointless bad light that this book shines on them.

For starters, The Only Good Indians doesn't actually have many good people in it. It focuses exclusively on a group of poor, fairly uneducated Native Americans driving beaten up trucks and wasting their lives away in bar fights. This might be a somewhat accurate representation of todays youth growing up in the reserves, but without the social commentary on why this is so, I feel like this book simply uses them as a sensation.There are no rituals here, besides one towards the end, that is only used as a convenient plot setting. There is no real folklore, there are no tattoos, no tales, these guys don't even follow their own clan rules. In fact, they don't seem to know much of anything related to their roots. Word “Indian” gets repeated a hundred times in this book, but besides protagonists thinking of themselves as such, there are no other indicators that they are.It's worth noting that the author himself is an Indian so I wonder why he chose to write this book the way he did. If anyone should be aware of both folklore and modern social problems, it should be him. And if anyone should feel the obligation to showcase the beautiful traditions and abilities of a certain group of people, it should be one of them.

Either way, I doubt that most Indians would like to be portrayed in this light. And I also doubt that the wider audience will gather anything positive or useful from this portrayal of Natives.

The Only Good Indians is a good monetization of author's roots, but one that, in my opinion, comes at a moral cost.

I wish it had a bit more world-building because I don't think most western people, including myself, have a very vivid knowledge of what 1300s China looked like. This also ties into Zhu's character. The whole philosophy of having one set faith isn't very familiar to me, so I wish it was explored from more angles.

I guess Asian readers have these same complaints when reading western books. But since this was written and published in the USA, I think improving these would have helped with clarity and immersion for the book's main audience.

I did like the characters and the slightly fanfiction-y tension between them. Also, the way men often put down women and their worth, in the passing, while talking about unrelated topics, was great.

As a causal, out-of-curiosity reader, I really just wanted to hear what the title says: How marijuana can improve your life. Unfortunately, this message got muddled by all the THC to CBD proportions that are constantly mentioned throughout this book.

The author clearly did a lot of research, which she quotes regularly (props for that), and knows what she is talking about. But perhaps the majority of this technical data should've been used to make another, more instructional book. I'm sure there are cannabis users out there who appreciate all the proportions, relations and mixes that author talks about, but for a non-smoker, it's overwhelming and unnecessary.

I found the later chaptes, specifically 8: ‘A powerful support for cancer treatment' and 9: ‘Easing the aging process' to be the most interesting. This is partially due to the fact that the author didn't mention THC-CBD as much and partially because these two chapters tell an actual human story and not just quote research. The author also makes it very clear that cannabis should be used as an aid and not as a “cure”.

My final thought on this and other nonfiction books is that for a book to read like a book and not like a thesis or a white paper it needs to tell a story. The only details I remember from The Little Book of Cannabis come from parts that told mini stories about baking, death, struggle with illness, etc. These stories help the reader connect the facts and data to real life and make them memorable. I wish the author focused more on these and less on technical data of compound proportions.

Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller spends the first 40 pages convincing readers that he is qualified to talk about branding. Considering that readers have (most likely) already purchased his book, I feel like this is a complete waste of time and paper.

The rest of the book is alright, but not great. It basically just tells you what his 7steps to making a good brand are and then expands on each step. But in my opinion, he should have polished up this process and made it clearer.

The way this book is set up, you need to follow a linear trail from one step to the next, when in reality most of the steps depend on each other. If your goals and products are clear, you're probably fine going one step at the time, but if you haven't quite figured yourself out, you start to realize that there is more to these steps then the author is saying. This is especially evident if you are one person trying to develop a personal brand - meaning you aren't an already established brand specializing in e.g. energy bars.

Because of this, I feel like this book is one giant brochure made specifically for brands. A CEO would see this and go “Hey this guy knows what he is doing, let's set up a meeting with his branding company” (which Miller clearly advertises on every second page). But then somehow ‘Building a Story Brand' also became a bestseller? And a bunch of entrepreneurs have read it? And now artists and Instagram pet moms are reading it and his audience is no longer just companies.

Did Miller intend this from the start? Because if so, this really isn't a great book. My recommendation to potential readers is to go online and find a good summary instead of spending money on what is essentially a bloated blog post.

I found all of these to be drier than a vacuum cleaner. Ideas themselves are good but the way he writes is a mix of 1800s Frankenstein and 2000s white paper on social economics written by an AI. The only story that has stuck with me in a positive way is The Great Silence, but I've heard that one a long time ago on Curio.

In theory, I should love this, but it annoys me in the same way the Murderbot series does. It tries to be relatable with obstacles the main character faces, but then it also ignores the long but necessary process of struggling to overcome said obstacles.

For example, Dex (they) face an interesting challenge at the start of the book, but then there's a time jump and suddenly they're a master of this new, complicated skill. Why? What's the point of skipping this? At the end of the book, they have a mini breakdown, but it feels shallow because we never got to see them struggle, fear and evolve. We recognize the words they're saying as something we relate to, but we don't feel them with our heart because we didn't get to bond over our struggles at the start of the book. I get that the author wanted to write a cozy, feel good book, but come on...

As others have said, beautiful art, but the choice to start comic seemingly mid-way through the story was bad. It literally feels like u were late to the theater and came in 45 minutes into the movie. I had to check 3 times to make sure I'm reading the first volume because it felt like I was missing some prior information.

This ‘almost a memoir' is funny and charming and very real at times, but also kind of distant. It can honestly feel like playing a story driven video game, but skipping half the cutsceens. Lane glazes over parts of her life that are probably painful to remember, but because of this we are left in the dark on why some things are the way they are. I bet she could write another 500 page ‘Memoir Part 2' about all the things that were left out in this one.

Despite this, I really enjoyed it. I've listened to an audiobook version read by the author herself and it was a great audio experience.

PS, for those who are wondering if this is a self help book, it isn't. I wouldn't even classyify it as that type of memoir that leaves you empowered and motivated. How to Be Alone is simply a witty, feel good, but also sad and confused, but then good again book about one girls journey through life.

I think I like this one more than A Dead Djinn in Cairo. Probably because it packs a simpler story in a longer format. There's way less info dumping and the writing style over all feels more... comfortable, perhaps? There are still some amateurish moments throughout, but I don't think it breaks emersion or anything like that.

I don't know... it has ups and downs. I like the fancy language in general, but since this is a very contemporary story I feel like staying grounded and having more focus would've helped the script. But then again, if you like more dreamy, loosely sewn together stories, you'll probably enjoy this more than I do.

This follows Kim from when she's a little girl to adulthood and talks about all the social issues Korean women had (have) to deal with. Essentially, it will give you the context and background for a lot of current issues.

And in case anyone is wondering, I wouldn't call it feminist at all. The book is a bit dry and in a way a compilation of everything wrong with the society, but not at all untrue. As I was reading it, I recognized most of these issues, since they're also prevalent where I'm from.

mild spoiler about the cause of the main conflict - no details

I love the idea of this book - terraforming, time travel, science, hostile environment - it's all the things I'm interested in. But what annoys me to no end is that the main conflict is caused by a scientist failing to follow basic procedure.

Now I know some people won't care about this stuff and will consequently enjoy this novella way more than I have. But I'm tired of reading stories about top tier, hand-picked, veteran scientists who somehow disregard orders on a whim - even though that will most likely compromise their research. This simply isn't realistic and doesn't happen nearly enough in real life to be the main cause of conflict in so many books. Yes, human error is normal, but when the most basic “come back, put on the gloves” types of orders get ignored only because the story needs a conflict, that's just laziness on the writers part.

As a side note, I had the same problem with Planetfall (not a spoiler) where half the conflict stemmed from people magically not agreeing upon basics before going to space to form a colony. Things like “if someone attacks us, do we kill them or stun them?” are agreed upon BEFORE the mission. (If you like this novella you should read Planetfall too).

Other than that, Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach is pretty cool, though I think it would benefit from another 100 pages or so. There's a lot of scientific jargon and concepts in here that just don't have the time to fully sink in. More pages would also add more depth to the main character's inner dialogue, which would make her relationship with Kiki even better.

But other than all of that, I did like it, it has a good backbone and I'd read a sequel.