Brian
Well written, fast(ish) paced YA thriller, with a somewhat generic heroine and an even more typical cliffhanger ending.
Nagyon jól indult, meg is lepődtem, hogy mennyire gördülékeny és vicces, aztán a közepe táján megtört a lendület. Onnantól se gördülékeny, se vicces nem volt, csak emberek szaladgáltak össze-vissza, különösebb cél nélkül. A vége meg teljesen szétesett.
A “hangos regény” verzió nem rossz egyébként, de Szervét Tibor felírhatta volna magának, hogy melyik nevet hogy ejti, mert néha így, máskor meg máshogy sikerült.
A personal yet very accessible take on depression, bipolar and eating disorders, and other topics we usually don't want to talk about due to the shame and stigmas associated with them. These cartoons seem to be the perfect medium to provide digestible sized looks on life with mental illness
Although it's mostly a “picture-y” book, I think the strongest parts were the essays. I think it's because I don't care for the art style at all, and apart from a very select few pages I found them distracting. I mean I can appreciate the message, but not the form. Which is perfectly okay, by the way. Not everything has to be black or white.
This novella is a well written, 4th wall breaking genre parody, best enjoyed by writers and people who know comic book and story tropes. I'm not sure the average reader would get the full experience, because there's no real plot or characters—although there are some good puns and jokes, so maybe give it a try?
It started very well but went south somewhere in the middle... The main problem was the benefit of hindsight on the POV's part. First I thought it was an error, but it turned out to be conceptual, which only made it worse because it didn't fit with the story's structure, and made the main character look dumb. I don't mind stupid characters, but when she's clueless and making excuses for herself? No, thanks.
MINOR SPOILER
And then there's the bit at the end, where she says: “I promised Navy that this testimony would be as honest as I can make it.” WHAT TESTIMONY? I don't remember this whole thing being a testimony.
I think Jessica Meats is a talented writer, way better than average on a sentence level, but she needs a talented editor to catch these things.
(Source: Netgalley)
I have no idea who Jess Kimball Leslie is. I got this book on the strength of the title and the cover typography. But after reading it I can safely say, I don't really want to know who is Jess Kimball Leslie. Maybe it's the classic tale of expectations vs. reality, but I thought I'm going to get a bunch of interesting essays about the intersection of technology and personal life. Instead, I got a bunch of not very interesting personal essays about. . . something, I guess? Her voice is mediocre and indistinguishable from any random blogger on any random blog.
Most of the time the focus is way off, there's just too much tangential rambling going on. I lost my interest completely in the middle of the Gawker piece, but I'm stupid so I read on. Good news? It did not get any worse than that. I know, because I kept reading. Don't ask.
(source: netgalley)
It's strange that in this one being gay was treated with such prejudice, and it was pretty much equated with being a pedophile, while the previous ones didn't lay on the homophobia this thick.
I appreciate that this book exists. The first half was more interesting than the second.
So at this point there's nothing “special” about Davenport, just an average cop, who just gets lucky when it comes to solving a case... Still, it had a good pacing, so whatever, I guess.
Almost 4 stars.
The casual -phobias and -isms are still there, but it was so much better than the previous one.
Having the occasional scenes from the victim's perspective was a good choice, it definetely elevated the whole thing for me.
I have one gripe, though... Where's the cleverness on Davenport's part? Where's the anger? He used to be known for his mind, his web of contacts and his ruthlessness, but he's not not really using any of these feats anymore...
2/5
Even if you don't consider the casual homophobia and mysogyny, this was boring. The villain was very flat, and the investigation boring. Connell could've been an interesting character due to her unique circumstances, but Sandford failed to deliver with her big time.
This book is infuriating. The nicely crafted atmosphere and compelling story are suffocated by very typical and annoying YA tropes and plot devices.
Quintessential 90s police procedural, with all the racism, misogynism, and homophobia certain people swear was okay back then, because they were “different times”.
What I appreciate in this is that Sandford doesn't try to sand off the edges, Davenport is not the “one good cop”, he's probably the worst of them. It's fashionable to say that these days you couldn't publish a book like this, but the whole Davenport series was re-released starting in 2018, so it's obviously not true. But you definitely need to put away the modern sensibilities to read it.
I don't like Lundy :(
SPOILER
There was so much emphasis on the true names, but I guess that was just a red herring.
I'd like to congratulate everyone who participated in selling this book, because they did a fantastic job. The cover is really good, and the marketing copy makes it sound really interesting. But it's not.
This is a 400+ pages novel that should have been a 100- pages novella. The first half is just boring, but the second half graduates to tedious and annoying. The plot is repetitive, and the characters are so flat they might be crepes (plain, with no toppings). And they are also annoying. Their relationship makes no sense, and this is a typical example where we should care for them, simply because they are the characters in the book.
The “romance” is laughable at best, and it might be LGBT by definition, but it's like calling a cheeseburger vegetable because of the onion slice in it.
The first time you think “where is this going?” is the point where you should stop reading, because this is going nowhere. Seriously, there's no light at the end of the tunnel. If you want to finish it just to see how it ends, do not bother. There's nothing at the end. It just stops.
I rarely give a book worse than 3 stars because I always appreciate the effort (and I try to choose books I'll like), but in this case, I had to. If you want more specifics, read the other 1 star reviews, pretty much everything they mention is valid.
SPOILER: caving suit that has the facilities to amputate limbs within the suit? GTFO.
There are interesting thoughts in it, even important ones, but it is a bit too shallow and aimless.
Mark Manson had worked so hard on turning this barely-a-blog-post amount of useful material into a book that you can still smell the sweat, even five years later.
The main takeaways are that the author us had copious amounts of meaningless sex, all around the world, and that he prefers Russian rudeness to the fake American niceties? I'm not sure.
As others had said, there are some casual misogyny and homophobia, just for good measure.
Voltak vele kisebb gondjaim, de összességében nézve nagyon színvonalas fantasy regény, mindenképpen megéri elolvasni.