booksoversecondbreakfast's Reviews (79)

I feel so conflicted about this book! On one hand, I loved it overall, but on the other hand, I disliked much of it.

This book has an amazing, well-thought out, invigorating plot, for the most part. It's so interesting, and with the exception of the slower middle half of the book, it was a real page-turner. That middle part was kind of rough though. I'm not kidding when I say this took me a few years to get through. I wanted to persevere through this book because I liked the story, but the middle part just dragged on and on, and I put it down and then picked up several times the past few years. Once I got passed the middle part, however, I was back glued to the book.

I loved that this revolved around the trope of a historian-type figuring uncovering the truth about something that happened in the past, and I liked that it actually used time travel too. Stephen King, as he always does, successfully worked horror into the story as well, and I thought it was very well done in an understated kind of way. I didn't love the ending, but it was okay, and I was just happy to find out how it ended.

This book's romance was lacking, in my opinion. The book used the 'not like other girls' and 'man teaches woman what good sex is', and I really dislike those tropes. I feel like the romance could have written so much better than it was, but it wasn't the main plot that drew me in anyways.

Overall, I enjoyed it, felt 'meh' towards some aspects of the story, and will keep the book around in my personal library. Will I read it again? Not sure, but maybe someday.

It has an interesting point but it all just seems to unattainable and like it was written for a prototypical well-off white nuclear family. It felt like it wasn't for me and all of my family and all of our neurodivergency, disabilities, and complications. The writing doesn't capture my experience and takes a lot for granted. I also didn't like how it had lots of instruction for Christians and used a lot to explain things about God, but it didn't really quote scripture. All in all, I can see what it was going for, but it stressed me out to read it, so I DNF'd it.

Such an interesting book! When I picked it up, I didn't expect it to pretty much be a history of probability and statistics, and it initially bummed me out upon realizing that, but I ended up really loving it!
Mlodinov is such an amazing story teller, sprinkling interesting little anecdotes throughout the book to keep the reader engaged.
The stories of mathematicians and statisticians he shared made me feel so inspired. It made me feel like there are still so many amazing things left to be discovered in the mathematical sciences, and I found that encouraging.
I found this book so quote-worthy, and a wonderfully charming historical account of the statistical sciences that's accessible to any readers interested in the topic. I will definitely be keeping a copy for myself to read again in the future, and I will highly recommend it to my science and math loving friends.

I almost DNFed this book. It's a book for high schoolers about high schoolers, and since I'm nearing my thirties, it didn't seem like this book was for me. The writing felt too simplistic and not deep enough. It felt too childish. But I gave it a bit more of a chance when I realized more about what he was going through. I learned of the experiences and pain that contributed to Charlie's simplistic view of his day-to-day teenage life. And then book began to make so much more sense, and I began to see its beauty. I saw my own story and pains reflected in Charlie's and could see the experiences I shared decades ago as a teen reflected in Charlie's. This book captures the effects of Charlie's source of pain so well - better than I've ever experienced in a book, and I was feel so grateful to get to read such a beautiful story capturing and empathizing with that pain. I read this book in the form of an audiobook, and this will definitely be a book I'll be purchasing a physical copy of to read over and over in the future.

And to any young person reading this, who relates to the pain experienced in this story, I just wanted to pile on and remind you that there really is light at the end of the tunnel. What used to haunt you will lose its ability to hold you down. And you will be okay.