Tom L

It was fine. Maybe I'm just in a cynical place, but the story felt pretty predictable, and there was too much made of a romance that had only begun, and seemed incredibly one-sided.

But the story really was fun, and I blew through the book. So if you're looking for something quick and fun without over-thinking, then this is it. 

While the story is incredibly engrossing, Finna surprised me by continuing to help me adopt using “their” when referring to sexual identification. The story started off in “Ikea” and gave me very little hope for an enjoyable read. Just as the protagonist grew through the story, so did the interest and depth.

Worth picking up, and I may read again.

I went into this knowing very little about the story. I even forgot about Kat writing for Lumberjanes (a series I liked initially, then fell off over time). The story immediately grabbed my attention and kept me thinking about the story between breaks.

The realism of the characters drew me in instantly. Throughout the entire story, the characters all had their own unique and deep personalities, and they seemed like people I would have been friends with in school. The body shapes fit with normal people, and the gender expressiveness was incredible. I can't get the faces out of my mind.

Generally this was nothing like what I expected, and more than I could have hoped for. Definitely one of my favorite books.

This book is actually two different topics and authors. It is primarily a reissue in English and edited to make more readable some letters from Brother Lawrence, a monk from the 17th century world known for practicing holding God in his every thought every minute of the day. In itself this is a great asset and has helped me already begin to see the value in keeping God in mind every moment of every day.

To help this process the book leads with letters written by Frank Laubach in 1970 on how practicing His presence can be a reality. It discusses Frank's own experience in keeping God in mind every moment of the day, as well as some practical pitfalls and practices which can help us through the process.

This book has changed my life and remains on the shelf within easy reach for reference and re-reading.

I've previously read [book: Death By Meeting] by [author: Patrick Lencioni]. I really connect with his ability to tell an engaging story which communicates the point. He then spends the last third of this book describing the four principals and how to put them into practice within the organization.

The four disciplines of a healthy organization are:
1. Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team
2. Create Organizational Clarity
3. Over-Communicate Organizational Clarity
4. Reinforce Organizational Clarity Through Human Systems

While there is a very big focus on executive teams and high level managers, this book can be used for leaders who are putting together smaller teams. The truth is that at every level of the organization there need to be teams who understand the values and are comfortable with each-other.

I especially appreciated Patrick's explanation of how to define clarity and communicating vision and mission. I also appreciated his focus on how important a healthy organization is, even more important than higher revenue and large clients.
I also appreciated that there were a few concrete examples provides as well as questions to help us define our own answers and to model our organization.

This is definitely a great read for anyone who manages teams of people or defines the direction of an organization.

I went into this book looking for an engaging Science Fiction story with multiple interesting story lines which touch on one-another and comprise a while story.

I ended up with a somewhat disjointed story that never seemed to find closure. there were a lot of different characters that I found unmemorable and, consequently, hard to differentiate between. There also seemed to be clear visualizations in the authors mind which I couldn't capture in my own.

Most frustrating was the final description of humanity. I had a hard time understanding exactly what had happened, even after a re-read of certain sections, and the closing seemed to be quickly composed. A final coda is included to describe the lives of each of the main characters and explain the current state of humanity, but this still remained elusive to me and I've come away not really understanding, or even wanting to understand, the authors premise.

If the story had been more engaging I could have overlooked the confused closing. I'm also sure there are many other people who would find the story interesting, it simply didn't hold my attention and seemed to push too much against hard science without explaining how things have happened nor how events will end.