It's a solid series for me. I read all 3 books in the span of 3 days and it was an enjoyable way to pass the time, even though I'm not a fan of books revolving around werewolves. I've never really cared for these mythical creatures. But I truly enjoy Maggie Stiefvater's writing and her characters just grow on me.
“Let It Snow” was all right for its genre, I suppose, but I just wasn't in the right state of mind for it.
The story that I enjoyed the most was Maureen Johnson's “Jubilee Express”. It had a few funny moments and a feel-good kind of vibe. I also liked the quirky characters. If I had read it when I was supposed to, during the Christmas holiday, I think I would've enjoyed it even more. The ending was eye-roll worthy, but I'll just let that go.
I could have done without Green's „A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle” and Myracle's „The Patron Saint Of Pigs”. The characters were these annoying, superficial, immature-even-for-their-age, little brats. And I couldn't be bothered to care for them. They just made me fell happy about not being a teenager anymore. Here's a sample:
Lady and gentleman, when my parents left Korea with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the considerable wealth they had amassed in the shipping business, they had a dream. They had a dream that one day amid the snowy hilltops of western North Carolina, their son would lose his virginity to a cheerleader in the woman's bathroom of a Waffle House just off the interstate. My parents have sacrificed so much for this dream! And that is why we must journey on, despite all trials and tribulations! Not for me and least of all for the poor cheerleader in question, but for my parents and indeed for all immigrants who came to his great nation in what they themselves could never have: CHEERLEADER SEX.
I don't want to feel this way around him. I want things to be normal. I want to be his friend, not another stupid girl holding out for something that will never happen.
I had avoided this book for over a year, despite all the glowing reviews, just because I despise aaanything French. And also because I did not like the old cover at all. Based on that cover I was expecting something very cheesy and just not for me. But, once I finally decided to let go of those facts and just start reading it, I could not put it down.
I get both the people that are extremely excited about it and the ones that were disappointed because the main characters were so incredibly flawed. To me, they just seemed real. Like I was actually following a real story. I also found them endearing, no matter how immature they were behaving. Because I get where they're coming from and why they behaved like that.
Anna, is one of the most relatable fictional character I have read. And perhaps even Étienne. I am totally opposed to leading someone on when you're in a relationship and not ending that relationship despite being in love with someone that's not your partner just because you are too scared to be alone, but I understand why a teenager with Étienne's self esteem issue would do that.
The way they handled their love and basically just any relationship with the people around them was obviously so wrong, on so many levels, but so natural at that age. I'm older now and I know better, but when you're a teenager that grew up in a family where one of the parents is such a dominant and controlling figure, life can be pretty confusing. And you end up doing questionable stupid things, like these two. They were just barely starting to learn about making decisions, take responsibility for their actions and just figure out what they want.
And even though, deep inside, I was hoping the plot would take a different course, in the end, I was not disappointed because what happened was actually more realistic than what I had in mind.
There was one point where there was so much drama, drama, drama that my enthusiasm was dying like deflated balloon. But then I though about the first serious crush I had and how the world seemed to be crumbling around me because he seemed to like me, but he didn't confess his feelings either. And then every other non-love related issues I had during that time seemed to be unbearable. Now, when I look back I can hardly understand how I could be such a silly, naive girl. But all that “drama” and all the things I used to overreact when I was younger were amongst the things that helped shape who I am.
I looove Stephanie Perkins' writing, and I especially enjoyed the cute humor. At one point my boyfriend was watching me amused because I was giggling like crazy from under the blanket, barely able hold on to my Kindle. Overall, this was a great book for me.
“But the people who mattered were the people you chose instead of the people who were yours by an accident of birth. Real family was heart as much as, if not more than, blood.”
It was not amazing, but it wasn't terrible either. There was potential, I liked the old, dying south atmosphere and the mysteries surrounding the three key families. Not a lot goes on throughout the entire book, which I didn't mind that much because it was still very readable, the author has a pleasant writing style, nonetheless, I was expecting something darker with more suspense and I was disappointed to find a watered down version of what was promised in the the synopsis.
Most of the characters are pretty cliché, but they didn't bother me too much, I kept reading hoping I will find an answer to the curse. Barrie is your run-of-the-mill bland, stubborn, impulsive special snowflake. She makes a lot of stupid decisions, of course, it took her forever to find out pretty obvious things. Eight was also very uninteresting and I couldn't care less about their “relationship”, I mostly sped through their romantic scenes together and pretended they were not a part of the story, Eight was there just to give Barrie a romantic interest. But I did enjoy the part with them finding out what happened to their great aunt and uncle.
The mythology aspect could have been great, but I feel like the research was done poorly, therefore the result was a hodge-podge of mythological components borrowed from different cultures that did not make a lot of sense together.
All in all, it was an okay read, however not good enough to make me want to continue with the rest of the series any time soon.
The main characters were very likable but everything else was a mess. Barely anything made any sense.
I feel like Cinderella sitting in the middle of the road with a pumpkin and a couple of mice, while Prince Charming charges off to rescue some other chick.
Just your run-of-the-mill angel book. We add one average yet not so average girl who finds out she's part human, part mystical creature, one mysterious mission and one predictable and irritating love triangle. We mix them together with a side of lame plot and sappy romance and voila: angel book!
Eh, the writing was all right but I'm not masochistic enough to go on with this series. I'll have to satisfy my curiosity by reading spoilers about the next books.
I'd hardly consider this a thriller. The suspense was not very well crafted. But the writing was not terrible, therefore the book wasn't that bad, not until it was revealed who the killer was. One of the most ridiculous endings ever...
The book was on a good path, I was pretty curious about what came next even if I didn't care that much about the the characters which were kind of one-dimensional. But then I got to the final stage of the plot. To me, it felt that the author was like „Hmm, I'm tired of all this writing, I need to give this a crazy-yet-boring-at-the-same-time twist and wrap it up really quickly so I can go back to my TV.”
“There's a word for it," she told me, "in French, for when you have a lingering impression of something having passed by. Sillage. I always think of it when a firework explodes and lights up the smoke from the ones before it."
Well, I'm disappointed. This book tried so hard to be meaningful, but the execution just fell flat. I liked the overall message and the ending, in particular, however I was much too detached from the actual plot and characters throughout almost the entire the book.
Ezra, the lead, was all right at times, quite self-absorbed and kinda boring other times, but the rest of the characters were decidedly shallow and stereotypical; they all fit too neatly into boxes: the “mean-girls” clique made up of dump blond cheerleaders, douchey, stupid jocks that torment pseudo hipster nerds with chic hobbies and Ezra's “lady friend” - the embodiment of the ultimate Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. This was not a happy mix and frankly, their interactions just bored me, in a “been there, done that, bought the T-shirt” kind of way.
Like I said, I didn't mind Ezra too much (yet the author could have done so much more with his character), I liked the writing, the beginning was very promising, but then Cassidy (Manic Pixie Dreamgirl multiplied by a million)came into the picture and ruined the book. I felt no chemistry between her and Ezra. Her demeanor was so irritating and tiresome and so were all her quirks and all those hints about her mysterious, tragic past.
Since we're at the tragic past, I saw that “twist” coming miles away, hence another reason why this book had zero impact on me. Even after my suspicions were confirmed, I couldn't bring myself to care for her. And nothing seemed genuine. It felt like a unnecessary plot device that exists just to amp up the drama. I was happy that at least they didn't get back together.
When you look at fainted stars, you'll notice that they often appear brighter from the corner of your eye. Averted vision, we call it.Same with the answers you seek, you won't find them by staring until your eyes fall out.They'll come when you're look somewhere else.
First read: May 2014Second read: August 2021I suppose it's true that you should re-read one of your favorite books to get out of a reading slump. It wasn't as impactful as the first time but that's to be expected as I read it a long time ago and my tastes were a bit different back then. I didn't remember the main character being this unlikeable, I did wonder for a little while why I liked it so much back then but, at the same time, I re-read it in one sitting and I was able to truly disconnect and get immersed in a story for the first time in a long while. I guess I'm still counting this one as a favorite.
I love the artwork but one of the conflicts brought up was solved much too swiftly and it relied on the “white savior” trope which was a total buzzkill. I know it probably came from a good place but the topic is way too complex to be dealt with in that manner and in a 200 pages graphic novel.
Ikigai is seen as the convergence of four primary elements:What you love (your passion)What the world needs (your mission)What you are good at (your vocation)What you can get paid for (your profession)This was a mess. Surface level, vague information that you can Google under 5 minutes and still learn more than this book has to offer.
How can this claim to be about Japanese culture when it barely delves into it? The way this was put together makes it look like the authors looked up "longevity in Okinawa" on Wikipedia and then found some other random facts from around the world to fill in the rest of the pages (for some reason they thought it's a good idea to dedicate space for discussing yoga, tai chi, Viktor's Frankl and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in a book about that's supposedly about the "secrets" of the Japanese culture).
This rating is on me. I was obviously expecting too much from a book that's obviously (now in hindsight) just a marketing ploy to get some cash. You slap on an eye candy cover, add some buzzwords like "secrets", "Japanese culture", "happy life" and viola, instant hit. I guess I can see how it could be useful...for people who have never ever read about this topic.
For those still interested in this because they want to know the "secrets" of the centenarians, here you go: they take it easy while still staying active, exercise moderately, eat until 80% full and mainly veggies. There, I just saved you money. You're welcome.
“Remember that if you don't prioritize your life someone else will.”
It started out very well and I felt the author made some good points but it became redundant fast. The ideas and anecdotes got too repetitive. It just didn't have enough to stand on for 260 pages.
After reading a review on it I couldn't wait to get my hands on this fast enough (delivered to my Kindle in a second, how convenient was this?). Despite having faced very different struggles from the author and not having gotten quite at the level she got with self-help (never spent money on it other than buying books), I still found her account very engaging and quite hilarious. I love self-deprecating humor. The book does end tipping the scale a bit in favor of self-help which irked me a bit because I did want to see it completely ripped apart (despite being guilty myself of consuming “inspirational” content...or maybe it's precisely because of that.). All in all, good stuff.
Am început-o cu gândul că o să citesc vreo 10 pagini, pentru început, dar n-am putut lăsa din mână cartea până n-am ajuns la ultima pagină. Deși n-am copilărit în anii 80' și nu am locuit la bloc decât pentru scurt timp, lumea descrisă de Mara Wagner mi-a părut atât de familiară încât ar fi putut la fel de bine să fie și experiența mea.
“How did one not obsess over something wonderful? How did one like something a reasonable amount?”
The overall story was enjoyable and sweet even despite being predictable and having some of my least liked tropes: insta-love and miscommunication. Let me elaborate.
Firstly, the representation was great, Stella and Micheal made a cute couple and I liked how the gender norms were reversed here, Sella was the rich one working in a STEM field and Michael was the artist struggling with paying the bills.
But they were gaga over each other way too soon, I wasn't even midway through the book when they were thinking about falling in love. No. You guys just fell in lust. And there was too much of the devil's tango if you know what I mean. At first, it was fine, definitely better than that Sarah J. Mass cringefest (I think I actually saw her promote this book somewhere haha), however I thought this would be more of a chick-lit romance with “some” steam and there was definitely more than “some”.
It's refreshing to see a protagonist from the spectrum in this scenario because it's important to acknowledge that someone with this disorder can be just as much of a sexual being as anyone, but, for me, this was explored a little too much and it overshadowed the story and it got really repetitive fast. At one point they were touching ever other page and I was rolling my eyes thinking Can you guys not do this right now please? Your family is in the next room. By that point I was ready for the story to wrap up.
The ending was not by favorite either. I can't stand when people don't use their words and assume what you're thinking and make a choice for you. Please, no. Tell me how you feel and we'll take it from here. And they did exactly that, they assumed how the other felt and it got messy. But there's a happy end, don't worry.
I truly hoped I would like this, but it didn't happen. I immensely enjoy post-apocalyptic scenarios, but it would be nice if the plots of these books wouldn't be regurgitations of the same elements over and over again. I'm getting really tired of the “saving the younger sibling” device. Could it be someone else for a change? Like the mother or the father, the twin sibling, the best friend, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the favorite maths teacher etc.? Maybe then I would stop having the feeling that I'm reading the same book over and over again.
Another overused trope in this type of books is making the government/the army the main enemy, even though the world is falling apart for completely different reasons. Why does it always have to be this evil entity doing random things of cruelty for no reason whatsoever?
In this instance, most of the world's population has been wiped out by a mega-deadly virus and yet they can afford to go on and shoot people just because they refuse to leave their homes and go to shelters. Apparently the end of the world is the perfect time for the military personnel to start despising their fellow humans and calling them rats. Why on earth would they want to do that? Martial law, martial law, but when human beings are a such a rare sighting, why would they to contribute to the extinction of the human race? What is the point of being a ruler if you have no one to rule over?
Also, are we really supposed to believe that they concocted an extremely powerful virus, for biological warfare, in Savannah, Georgia of all places? And that no one knows how this virus got out of the lab. It seems there was vaccine too, but no word gets out about it either because it was all quickly wasted on a few billionaires? Really?
What got on my nerves the most was the dad. He didn't even bother to tell his kids what was going on. He just thought that if he disappeared, they will be safe. No letter, no word about why they should hide from the military or why he has to go away. Then we find out he was the doctor that created the virus(tun-tun-tun-tun) but he didn't think it was a good idea to share this with anyone, so they could use his knowledge to, you know, save the planet. Then, when his son ended up with him in the camp he didn't bother to find a way to send a note to his daughter and tell her to stop running around risking her life to save her brother because he is safe and sound. Oh, the amount of plot-holes in this books...
Nothing good about the the characters either, they are all utterly unrealistic and unlikable. The girl drools over a hunky redneck army deserter just after her brother has been kidnapped and taken to who-knows-where. The deserter guy, Brooks, becomes loyal to her, a girl he just met, risks his life for her repeatedly just because and then they fall in love in a matter of days.wave of nausea Also, his comrades are these “outstanding” guys that became deserters because they have principles and they didn't want to harm innocent people, yet they torture Briggs then plan tie up and torture a sixteen year old girl to get her to spill where she keeps all her food. Doesn't matter if she starves to death after they steal her supply, that is if they don't kill her first. How is that any better that shooting people?
The only pro of this book, is that it's action packed and a quick read.
Bruce Wayne's parents get killed and he goes to Tibet or whatever, and Superman is an alien, and Spiderman had that radioactive spider. Me? I kissed a janitor in the school bathroom.
I've added this to my I'm-ashamed-I-read-this list.
I'm failing to see how this is Nobel prize worthy. Maybe the beauty of this story was lost in translation or maybe I'm just too repulsed by the narrator to care about the lyrical prose and the symbolism. I am so happy to have not been born in Japan, especially in that period. Why this is described as a love story is beyond me.
We have Shimamura, a wealthy, bland, married man who travels to a hot spring so he can spend some of his money on treating women like objects because he needs to release his energy. We never get a sense of who he really is, he never thinks about his family. Most of his thoughts are dedicated to describing in painful details the women he interacts with in the town. The two women, Komako and Yoko, are desirable and lovable to him because he thinks they're young and pure, have the perfect skin and their voice reflects this purity and not because of who they are. Who they are is not important. What's important is their appearance. I've encountered this theme, of a submissive female character making an appearance just so she can inflate the ego of a pretentious, boring, aging man, so many times in famous award winning books that I find the prospect of reading another similar book very off-putting.
I'm pretty sure this was not the author's intention, and everything was supposed to be about Shimamura, but the predominant feeling after reading this book is actually sadness. Sadness for Komako and her condition. Her mood swings, peculiar thought process, alcohol abuse and bursts of anger portray a truly broken young woman who's not at piece with the fact that she's a geisha; a lonely woman you yearns for genuine affection, intimacy and does not know how to ask for it.
Overall I found the book monotonous and pointless.
The book is really beautiful: the cover, the illustrations, and the formatting. Kakutani, the former chief book critic of The New York Times, presents a list of books that were amongst the most influential for her. There were plenty on her list that I already wanted to read and I enjoyed her summaries of them but unfortunately, I wasn't convinced to pick up most of what wasn't already on my list.
“His soul might be a sun. I've never met anyone who had the sun for a soul.”
Wow, I wouldn't want to belong to this family. They're all incredibly messed up and in dire need of therapy. Both Noah and Jude were so horrible to each other that I found it very hard to empathize with them when they were hurting. All those secrets, all those lies and misunderstandings, I just don't see how one could do all that to someone they truly care about.
However, I did like Noah's POV much better that Jude's, probably due to Brian's appearance. Noah and Brian's relationship was the best part of the book. I couldn't possibly care less for Jude, especially Jude and Oscar.
The writing wasn't bad but there wasn't much of a plot, we're mostly dealing with bursts of emotion. The drama was incessant. And it felt forced. Basically most of the problems were caused by the severe lack of communication between the characters which doesn't work well simply because there wasn't a good reason for trying to hide so much from one another. This is a plot device I dislike profoundly.
“He's twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”
An apt sequel. I enjoyed getting back to the inhabitants of Beartown and it was a satisfactory wrap-up to the story.
Osho used to be all the rage for me 10 years back but now, I'm not sure how I feel about him, especially what I've learned after “Wild Wild Country”. Can you separate art from its artist, in this case a teacher from their actions? This particular compilation of his speeches wasn't that compelling to me. While there were some good lines in there and some of his teaching are still valid, most of it felt either obvious or questionable. Recently, I've bought quite a lot of these books in moment of “Look at all these new pretty editions of Osho books, I should get them all.” But after heaving read this one I am slightly regretting it. I will give them a try though.