andy

This book is quite anxiety inducing and a real page turner. It keeps the reader on their toes for most of the time, but the writing feels somewhat artificial, lacking the authenticity of real conversations among people. Apart from May, the other characters feel one dimensional, Jem seems solely preoccupied with money worries, while the kids come across as creepier and more annoying versions of typical tweens. The naming of the gadgets also feels out of place and kind of unfitting -Bunnies and Hum? The ending feels rather abrupt considering the high-stakes plot buildup.
overall, I appreciated the critique of the hyperconsumerist push of the media industries and the rampant spread of misinformation, as well as the commentary on the attention economy. These are important topics that deserve more attention.
P.S. The blurb does an excellent job of attracting readers, I must say.

Overall, I would rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Thanks to Simon Element and NetGalley for providing me with the ARC.

This book felt like a morbid tale with all of the gloomy atmosphere, and the hostility among all the characters and above all it felt like an allegory of the narrator Charles Marlow's individual psychological descent. rather than being fiercely anti-colonial, this book has painted a picture of deeply flawed individuals some of them are full of greed, some want power, and some want adventure in the sense of being able to partake in a journey to the darkest part of the world but all of they had something in common which is their sense and humanity has become dark and dim. the main theme is not how congo has tuned itself from the upstream of progress but how the “civilised” people have traded their so-called civility to feel superiority and economically privileged with any means be it violence or manipulation. Now we get what exactly is this heart of darkness. Our protagonist here is called Marlow, who has proclaimed himself curious by nature so he came to explore the mysterious Africa, where colonizers plundered and made the continent a raw material provider. he is certainly not likeable in fact his thoughtlessness and lack of morality don't make him a cartoonish villain but it does portray that he is not bothered with anything at all. he doesn't care. his ambivalency was certainly a quality which at first made me very confused but ultimately we can see in this allegory there are no heroes, we do have many antagonists and some characters who were merely treated like a symbol (the cannibals, Curtz's mistress., his fiancee)

I quite liked it, although I like stylistic language, Conrad's prose was too much for me sometimes. 3.5 stars out of 5.

This book has some very important facts on one of the most overlooked bodily functions ‘sleep'. Although the title is a bit misleading and some claims didn't have any proper references, the book itself is quite an info dense on how sleep affects us, how important it is to maintain proper sleep etiquette, and how broad the spectrum is on the effects of low-quality/high-quality sleep. His book essentially debunked most of the claims some people make on how sleep is a waste of time/sleep is for the weak. This book has its critics and I found this follow-up article about it which captured the whole fiasco https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/11/18/is-matthew-walkers-why-we-sleep-riddled-with-scientific-and-factual-errors/

3.75 stars/5 stars.
p.s- the last two chapters were unnecessary.

A book with ‘small' in its title tackled some big subjects at its core. The book's narrative is not chronologically smooth some even can say it's disjointed and confusing but for me, it was near perfect although I a few times got confused on the timeline It didn't make any impact on my experience cause the events and memories that Roy has written are most memorable not only for the individual characters but the way they're presented in, I would say it becomes somewhat memorable to the reader too. The prose was excellent, I just loved the metaphors she used and her humour. for me, the prose is a big thing for a book and this book has the perfect pH level for that. Neither too descriptive like some of the old classics nor too simple and bare-boned. Roy addressed so many sociological, cultural, and religious aspects here, sometimes the negative part. Even with All of this, her book didn't feel too saturated to the point of being careless and it didn't feel like somebody read a bunch of articles of societal and religious hypocrisy and dumped them at the same place.
I accept that some of the middle portions seemed rather mundane to the whole story that's why it doesn't become a 4.25 star read.
some might say that I enjoyed it more cause I'm pretty familiar with the political and social structure of that time, of Indian society but I think anyone who has a little knowledge about the political situation of that time along with keen observation and introspective thinking would be easily able to understand it pretty clearly.
so parts can be pretty triggering to some, but it was;t too gory in my opinion do check the trigger warnings before that. Otherwise, I am pretty sure I will recommend it pretty much to anyone who is looking for a realistic literary fiction book. It took me only 4 days even though I was only reading it on my breaks.
p.s- Now I understand why the hype and why it became a booker winner