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elle_reads's Reviews (446)
Instagram @elle_reads
BOOK REVIEW
[Ficciones] A collection of imaginary places peaking into our reality.
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WHAT I LIKED
Get ready to be a literary detective! Borges astounds with layers upon layers upon layers of sometimes fictional, sometimes true literary references. Some entire sections are reviews of fictional authors/places/essays. My brain loved the feeling of collecting all the pieces into one grand landscape! I felt I learned some great new vocabulary as well.
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WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
I understand Borges expects his readers to think through each sentence. Reading Borges wouldn’t be the same if there was an introduction, but I wish there was an afterword to each story in my edition so I could check my understanding. Get ready to read and reread and perhaps reread again. Borges makes a point to squeeze everything in as little space as possible.
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Ficciones (by Jorge Luis Borges) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️✨4.5/5
I think my rating will improve with each reread.
BOOK REVIEW
[Ficciones] A collection of imaginary places peaking into our reality.
//
WHAT I LIKED
Get ready to be a literary detective! Borges astounds with layers upon layers upon layers of sometimes fictional, sometimes true literary references. Some entire sections are reviews of fictional authors/places/essays. My brain loved the feeling of collecting all the pieces into one grand landscape! I felt I learned some great new vocabulary as well.
//
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
I understand Borges expects his readers to think through each sentence. Reading Borges wouldn’t be the same if there was an introduction, but I wish there was an afterword to each story in my edition so I could check my understanding. Get ready to read and reread and perhaps reread again. Borges makes a point to squeeze everything in as little space as possible.
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Ficciones (by Jorge Luis Borges) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️✨4.5/5
I think my rating will improve with each reread.
Instagram @elle_reads
BOOK REVIEW
[Death and the King’s Horseman] Based on a true events, a British officer interrupts a horseman of the Yoruba King's ritual suicide.
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WHAT I LIKED
Soyinka economically describes complex layers of ritual in Yoruba and Brittish society without the need for extensive background knowledge. Everything is grey. Everything is questioned. It is not a “clash of cultures.” Clash suggests some facet of equality. No. Truth holds colonialization’s exploitation of weakened cultures grasping for straws of justification. Soyinka's characters ask: what is one ritual suicide compared to the numberless deaths in the trenches? How are masked Yoruba dances any lesser human than a masked ball (could they even be more respectful than the British, who “borrow” ritual masks of death?)? How/when is one justified in their actions again another’s beliefs?
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WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Give more descriptions of the dances! The masks! The tangible! Death and the King’s Horseman is the only play Soyinka published before its performance. He was exiled at the time of publication. I researched productions of his play to further the tone of his production (because the words are already so moving).
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Death and the King’s Horseman (by Wole Soyinka) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️5/5
BOOK REVIEW
[Death and the King’s Horseman] Based on a true events, a British officer interrupts a horseman of the Yoruba King's ritual suicide.
//
WHAT I LIKED
Soyinka economically describes complex layers of ritual in Yoruba and Brittish society without the need for extensive background knowledge. Everything is grey. Everything is questioned. It is not a “clash of cultures.” Clash suggests some facet of equality. No. Truth holds colonialization’s exploitation of weakened cultures grasping for straws of justification. Soyinka's characters ask: what is one ritual suicide compared to the numberless deaths in the trenches? How are masked Yoruba dances any lesser human than a masked ball (could they even be more respectful than the British, who “borrow” ritual masks of death?)? How/when is one justified in their actions again another’s beliefs?
//
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Give more descriptions of the dances! The masks! The tangible! Death and the King’s Horseman is the only play Soyinka published before its performance. He was exiled at the time of publication. I researched productions of his play to further the tone of his production (because the words are already so moving).
//
Death and the King’s Horseman (by Wole Soyinka) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️5/5
BOOK REVIEW
[The Girl Who Became a Goddess] Theresa Fuller retells her childhood Malaysian and Chinese folktales with notes.
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WHAT I LIKED
I loved loved LOVED Theresa’s balance of retold story, original story notes, and reflection on the importance of folktales. The environment in which a folktale in told is nearly (if not just) as important as the folktale itself! A story told over a cowboy fire is much different than one told in the haunting shade of a banana tree. The cultural context Fuller accords each folktale is not often seen. It truly makes them come alive to all audiences!
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WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Honestly, I just wanted more stories.
[The Girl Who Became a Goddess] Theresa Fuller retells her childhood Malaysian and Chinese folktales with notes.
//
WHAT I LIKED
I loved loved LOVED Theresa’s balance of retold story, original story notes, and reflection on the importance of folktales. The environment in which a folktale in told is nearly (if not just) as important as the folktale itself! A story told over a cowboy fire is much different than one told in the haunting shade of a banana tree. The cultural context Fuller accords each folktale is not often seen. It truly makes them come alive to all audiences!
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WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Honestly, I just wanted more stories.
I really didn't enjoy this collection. The word choice was mediocre. There really wasn't a tone that will help me remember these poems in the future. I'm a fan of modern poetry, but this collection was even missing the umph of Lang Leav or Rupi Kaur.
Like
- grey area of good and bad
- contemporary social commentary through "superheroes"
- role of media/journalist/talk show hosts in politics
Dislike
- want to see part of the story through younger resonants eyes
- (maybe a lil preachy?)
- grey area of good and bad
- contemporary social commentary through "superheroes"
- role of media/journalist/talk show hosts in politics
Dislike
- want to see part of the story through younger resonants eyes
- (maybe a lil preachy?)
(Instagram @elle_reads)
BOOK REVIEW
[Lanny] Village voices change a young boys life.
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WHAT I LIKED
Who said what? Is that line is important? Is there a clue to the ending somewhere in these little whispers? Am I crazy paranoid or a genius? Where is the line between truth and lie? How do rumors gain power? These are the questions Porter’s Lanny raises.
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Porter is a master of anticipation. He utilizes different changes between character perspectives to convey overall pacing and tone. At the start, I found certain writing strategies meaninglessly quirky. Then the little quirks grew into the entire plot. (You should be really proud of this paragraph’s spoiler free content. It was difficult.)
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WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
The writing give readers an intimate peek into the character’s motivations while still keeping them at an arm's length. The characters are more made of symbols, icons, or cliches then real blood and bone. While this choice gave the writing an overall mysterious tone, it was difficult to fully connect with such characters. I felt like I was viewing the story through a murky looking glass. I understand this was a purposeful choice by the writer, but I’m less likely to reread Lanny for it.
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Lanny (by Max Porter) ⚡️⚡️⚡️✨3.5/5
BOOK REVIEW
[Lanny] Village voices change a young boys life.
//
WHAT I LIKED
Who said what? Is that line is important? Is there a clue to the ending somewhere in these little whispers? Am I crazy paranoid or a genius? Where is the line between truth and lie? How do rumors gain power? These are the questions Porter’s Lanny raises.
//
Porter is a master of anticipation. He utilizes different changes between character perspectives to convey overall pacing and tone. At the start, I found certain writing strategies meaninglessly quirky. Then the little quirks grew into the entire plot. (You should be really proud of this paragraph’s spoiler free content. It was difficult.)
//
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
The writing give readers an intimate peek into the character’s motivations while still keeping them at an arm's length. The characters are more made of symbols, icons, or cliches then real blood and bone. While this choice gave the writing an overall mysterious tone, it was difficult to fully connect with such characters. I felt like I was viewing the story through a murky looking glass. I understand this was a purposeful choice by the writer, but I’m less likely to reread Lanny for it.
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Lanny (by Max Porter) ⚡️⚡️⚡️✨3.5/5
(Instagram @elle_reads)
BOOK REVIEW
[The Scarlet Letter] Hester Prynne wears ‘A’ for adultery and other things.
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WHAT I LIKED
My favorite part of The Scarlet Letter is weird witch Mistress Hibbins adding her 3 cents here and there to bring people to the Black Man. Not the most important part, but my favorite nonetheless.
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Get ready to choose a few of Hawthorne’s plethora of symbols to follow throughout this book. His elegant prose and consistently sympathetic narrator delve to the core of humanity.
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WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
This book makes me want to pick up other books. It’s not for one sitting. This is the fourth time The Scarlet Letter has graced my TBR list, and my most enjoyable readthrough was the summer I read a single chapter per day. I couldn’t take my time this read. I wanted to finish before planning my 11th grade unit. These chapters need room to breathe.
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The Scarlet Letter (by Nathaniel Hawthorne) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️4/5
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BOOK REVIEW
[The Scarlet Letter] Hester Prynne wears ‘A’ for adultery and other things.
//
WHAT I LIKED
My favorite part of The Scarlet Letter is weird witch Mistress Hibbins adding her 3 cents here and there to bring people to the Black Man. Not the most important part, but my favorite nonetheless.
//
Get ready to choose a few of Hawthorne’s plethora of symbols to follow throughout this book. His elegant prose and consistently sympathetic narrator delve to the core of humanity.
//
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
This book makes me want to pick up other books. It’s not for one sitting. This is the fourth time The Scarlet Letter has graced my TBR list, and my most enjoyable readthrough was the summer I read a single chapter per day. I couldn’t take my time this read. I wanted to finish before planning my 11th grade unit. These chapters need room to breathe.
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The Scarlet Letter (by Nathaniel Hawthorne) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️4/5
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Randy Pausch's last testimony to the greater world and his family is a collection of lessons from his journey from childhood to computer professor and Disney Imagineer. The text was very accessible. Unpopular opinion: I didn't really like this book. It is suitable for its purpose, but I must admit I wouldn't have finished it if it wasn't required. ⚡⚡ 2/5
(Instagram @elle_reads)
BOOK REVIEW
[Educated] A girl fights to know the world outside her family’s separatist bunker.
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WHAT I LIKED
Composed of short flashes of Tara Westover’s life strung together into a perilous narrative, each ‘short’ is a step of Westover’s journey into the land of knowledge freely given with the expectation that one critiques each word for their own self-invention. Our morals are built on what we know of the world. Westover’s world once came from the mouth of a paranoid man. Educated is a story of the threat of ignorance.
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I appreciated that select memories had asterisks at the end of the section to denote other people’s memory of the event. Westover talks about the discrepancies in more detail in her afterword.
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WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
The writing formula is repetitive. Each short follows the pattern: context, event, reflection, and optional follow-up. The language connecting these sections is often repeated - many “in that moment” “then I realized” bits of language.
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I read this book in a day. It is a suspenseful story of reflection, but perhaps a little difficult to connect to the greater human experience. It is a great observation of this particular experience, but I don’t see it becoming a classic. I didn't have to work hard to understand the story. It invited me to ski along the events.
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Educated (by Tara Westover) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️4/5
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BOOK REVIEW
[Educated] A girl fights to know the world outside her family’s separatist bunker.
//
WHAT I LIKED
Composed of short flashes of Tara Westover’s life strung together into a perilous narrative, each ‘short’ is a step of Westover’s journey into the land of knowledge freely given with the expectation that one critiques each word for their own self-invention. Our morals are built on what we know of the world. Westover’s world once came from the mouth of a paranoid man. Educated is a story of the threat of ignorance.
//
I appreciated that select memories had asterisks at the end of the section to denote other people’s memory of the event. Westover talks about the discrepancies in more detail in her afterword.
//
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
The writing formula is repetitive. Each short follows the pattern: context, event, reflection, and optional follow-up. The language connecting these sections is often repeated - many “in that moment” “then I realized” bits of language.
//
I read this book in a day. It is a suspenseful story of reflection, but perhaps a little difficult to connect to the greater human experience. It is a great observation of this particular experience, but I don’t see it becoming a classic. I didn't have to work hard to understand the story. It invited me to ski along the events.
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Educated (by Tara Westover) ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️4/5
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