books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

“What can we learn from Hegel about Donald Trump and his liberal critics? Quite a lot, surprisingly.”

The thesis of this collection of essays was that ideology has changed. We’re no longer deceived by ideology—we know politicians are bought by lobbyists, we know most of them are narcissistic clowns, we know companies exploit people and the planet… and yet, ideology still functions. Keeping power in the hands of the few. Hence, a thief in broad daylight. So what do we do?

This collection of essays was typically Žižek: it combined movie analysis, commentary about political events in tons of countries, personal anecdotes, and philosophy—mostly Hegel. I'm more of a Hegel scholar myself, so I'm always impressed at how Žižek interprets Hegel without falling into the usual analytical or marxist interpretation traps.

No contemporary philosopher gets at the heart of the problem the way Žižek does. If only he would also explain what the solution is, that’d be even better.

“In his preface to Animal Farm, George Orwell wrote that if liberty means anything it is ‘the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ This is what the decaffeinated protester never does; he gives his audience what it wants to hear.”

This book was about how we know there’s at least one crisis that would require a global collective response on the horizon—global warming, a rogue country acquiring nuclear weapons, or the way capitalism ravages certain countries like in the Congo. And yet, we live as if none of these big crises are going to actually happen. But why?

This collection of essays was typically Žižek: it combined movie analysis, commentary about political events in tons of countries, personal anecdotes, and philosophy—mostly Hegel. I'm more of a Hegel scholar myself, so I'm always impressed at how Žižek interprets Hegel without falling into the usual analytical or marxist interpretation traps.

No contemporary philosopher gets at the heart of the problem the way Žižek does. If only he would also explain what the solution is, that’d be even better.

I’m just here for how awkward these two virgins were. It was a lot 😂

We had:
- crash landed human ladies who’ve seen surviving with not a ton
- a hunky alien who felt like he didn’t deserve her
- kissing practice

I’m really invested in the survival of these human ladies in this series—they are definitely roughing it. How is this going to work out?

Romeo and Juliet, plus fated mates, plus they’re both augmented human assassins in space?

The premise was excellent. And the writing was great too.

It just had two themes that—at this super super specific moment—I wasn’t feeling.
First, I’ve read too much Žižek in the past week to love a story about corporate fat-cats being nepotistic oligarchs (which both MCs were). And then second, the baddies were an army of human—but inhuman—psycho assassins, when all I’ve been thinking about is Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” (aka bad guys are just regular people).

Sometimes, the philosophy nonfiction I’m reading poisons my brain and stops me from enjoying otherwise enjoyable books. That’s very much a me-thing and probably won’t effect anyone else 😅

What I did love, though, was that this audiobook was on KU. I didn’t even know that was a thing!

So informative. So easy to understand. I expected this to be full of information about the history and politics of Palestine. And it was.

But there were also a bunch of things I didn’t expect:

✨ I didn’t expect this book to have such an “inside scoop". From his grandfather, the mayor of Jerusalem, corresponding with Theodor Herzl, the author of Der Judenstaat and father of Zionism (we got some on-page evidence that Herzl lied to Palestinian leaders about the colonial nature of his Zionist project); to his father working for the UN; to the author himself being present at the Oslo II Accord’s negotiations, almost dying when Israel bombed Lebanon, meeting with key figures like Yasser Arafat… it was firsthand accounts all the way.

✨ I didn’t expect the ideological roots of Israel to date back so far. Naïvely, I’ve always thought of Israel as a post-WWII, post-Holocaust entity. But its roots are in the Jewish Colonization Association. It was important for me to learn about the colonial nature of Israel’s relationship to Palestine, not as a loaded buzzword, but in this meticulously researched way. Especially, how the colonial relationship has gotten stronger, not weaker, throughout history and continues today.

✨ I did not expect to feel this much déjà vu while reading. What’s going on in Gaza right now and the accompanying media firestorm felt so unprecedented, to me. Except, an event almost exactly like this, discussed and justified by politicians and journalists with exactly the same language, has occurred at least once a decade since the 1940s. I was grateful for the context (like, insisting on Israel’s right to self-defense? Happens every time, it’s for legal reasons) but also, I needed to understand how un-unprecedented (precedented?) todays events really are.

This book explained how complicit western governments, particularly the US, have been in all this. It explained how annoyingly ‘in bad faith’ Israel’s leaders have negotiated peace every dang time. All the nitty gritty.

I think it’s an essential read. And the audiobook was great.

This book was stupid 🤣

And I mean stupid in the best way possible.

An alien mission on earth, we had to save the planet, our assassin alien hero was SO DUMB, he needed a pretend wife because why not? And oops, turns out she was his fated mate. Also, these aliens were really pale until they got horny, then they became tomato red. And the ‘playing the ridiculous redness off as a sunburn to random human strangers’ was a joke I never got tired of.

Just a silly three hour Ruby Dixon audiobook. No regrets.

This is now my favourite holiday novella of all time. I wish there was a one-liner or crowd pleasing trope I could mention that would make everyone run out and read this. I’ve been creeping on other people’s reviews because like—how are we supposed to express just how excellent this book was?

I haven’t found a good answer. It was just… extremely well-written? Low-angst yet somehow so emotional. Sweetly festive yet swoony as heck.

So, incoherent list time:
❄️ This hero! Part Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, part Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes—he was the asocial grumpy neurodivergent guy of my dreams.
❄️ Our heroine was so lovely—the perfect combination of heart and flake.
❄️ Kissing lessons + intense autistic student = swoon. It’s a law of the universe.
❄️ So much mutual pining—playful pining in her internal monologue and intense pining in his internal monologue… something about switching between these two POVs was making my heart grow three sizes.

I don’t know what it says about me that I think this guy is the swooniest Felicity Niven hero (because he was weird lol)—but I stand by my choice.

Also, if you haven’t read from this author before, this is a great place to start. It’s a stand-alone and the events occur before the main series.

There were moments when this felt like some of my favourite childhood friends to lovers second chance romance books, but set in 802 (!!)—which I love even more. The first book in this series was excellent. I enjoy this author’s characters, love the medieval setting, and I’ve liked how her plots ebb and flow.

But—there was a subtle yet thoroughgoing reason why this second book didn’t work for me.

I’ve noticed that I have two very strict mental categories for second chance romances. I want them to either be:
❄️ lighthearted and sweet, or
❄️ angsty and ripping my heart out

And this book was just neither fish nor fowl.

It had a lot of lighthearted features—like, family and friend cameos from book one, a heroine who healed cute animals, a good boi hero, and very little holding them apart. But it also had a lot of angsty features—like, tense interactions, adventure-danger, and a villainous love triangle.

I ended up reading this story kind of wrong? I wanted it to fit into one of my second chance categories so bad that I mentally downgraded half of the story (the lighthearted half, because you know I’m trash-for-angst). And then whenever it was a cute animal or sweet family moment part, I’d be bored? Even though those scenes weren’t inherently boring?

Why am I like this?

I received this book as an arc and the thoughts are all my own.

A Ruby Dixon beauty and the beast retelling!

Ngl, my decision to pick up this little 2 hour audiobook was directly influenced by some year-end GR goal panic (it’s okay, I’m less panicked now). I enjoyed it more than this three star rating suggests. There was a curse, he was a beast, she wore a blindfold, they fell in (insta)love, the curse was broken.

I had a good time—it was just too short to get a super high rating from me. Okay, maybe if there’d been more explicit beast-banging, then it could have gotten a higher rating too 😆

I'm impressed with how much I enjoyed this. Ngl, the theme of this book was one of those universally disliked tropes: the heroine overheard something and jumped to grumpy (second chance requiring) conclusions instead of asking the hero about it.

But the fact that I read this in a day and am still giving it four stars despite such an annoying trope shows how good everything else about it was.

The characters were fun, their flaws and internal monologues compelling. Love a snowed-in second chance romance. And it was festive, in a jaded rake kind of way.