nadia's Reviews (587)

I was already a big fan of Viola Davis but this made me even more so! What an incredible woman!

I listened to this on audio and having Viola's voice fill my head as she told her story was something else.

I appreciated her sharing all sides of her story, including her difficult upbringing, the challenges that come with being a dark-skinned black woman in Hollywood, let alone choosing acting as a profession, and her journey in finding love, the latter of which got to me and had me sobbing at one point.

If anything, I was hoping for a lil’ more BTS scoops, especially on her work on HTGAWM, and also some more drama/goss, but I suspect that’s not Viola’s style!

Now I gotta go and watch everything Viola Davis has been in!

When I first heard about the concept of this book, I was intrigued!

I like going into books knowing as little as possible and so it didn’t start out how I was expecting and I thought I was in for disappointment, but then everything started to come together, and by the end all of the setup made sense.

I loved getting into the behind-the-scenes nitty-gritty parts to making a movie and the variety of characters and their back stories that were explored.

Some parts felt a little too slow, convenient, overdone, etc., but I guess that’s what happens with some movies. 😆

I also really appreciated the variety of story-telling techniques and forms, and the bonus material! That was fun!

If you like character-driven stories and movies, and are curious as to what goes into making Hollywood motion pictures, or just like behind-the-scenes-style stories in general, you should definitely give this book a go!

A super solid collection! I think I was intrigued by the premise of every single story, even if a few seemed to end far too abruptly for my liking. Nearly all of them seemed to end abruptly, actually, but for a lot of them that really worked! There was such a variety of characters and scenarios and I enjoyed the way some of the stories weaved in to one another via the characters! 

I'm so glad I've finally read this one and I really liked it. A very interesting experience to read it on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic and spot parallels to what we've just lived through. I appreciated the book's structure and alternating perspectives and felt immersed in both strands. Ling Ma's writing was great and succeeded in generating an ongoing eerie, unsettling atmosphere from the get-go.

If anything, I'd have been happier with a slightly longer book. For one, I wanted a little more exploration — more story — beyond the ending that we're left with, though what we were given did work and fit the vibe of the book. I guess I wanted more because the whole thing was working so well!

This was one of the oldest books on my TBR! The Big Short is one of my all-time faves and I really enjoyed The Undoing Project and Liar's Poker. I would say Michael Lewis is one of my fave nonfiction writers and I was excited to finally get into Moneyball, knowing that I wouldn't have to know much about the game itself to get something out of it.

And while that was certainly true, the book was a lot more technical than I was expecting, without enough of a breakdown for baseball newbies. I get this book was largely for a US audience, but I expected more in the way of explaining certain terms or a breakdown of the rules of the game. I managed to piece most of it together, but even by the end, I'd struggle to visualise certain plays, which impacted my understanding of the arguments being made or the reasoning being explained.

Ultimately, I found myself bored for decent chunks of it because I found that I just didn't care. Despite that, I loved the character stories throughout the book and just the general story of people going about things differently in an industry set in their ways to get better results. I'm always a fan of narratives like that, and I'd say that it's a credit to Michael Lewis in general that despite how little I cared for the baseball specifics I was always still interested to keep going and see how everything played out.

If you love baseball then this is a must-read I think. If you like sports in general, underdog stories, or data-based decision making, especially in places where it isn't typically used, or just stories of people going against the grain and trying to shake up an industry that doesn't welcome that behaviour, then this is also a book for you! But you might have to be patient and perhaps read up on the rules and common plays/strategies of baseball first if you're unfamiliar!

UPDATE: Was just looking through an old travel journal and saw that the one baseball game I've ever been to featured the Oakland A's! It was Oakland vs. the Houston Astros at the O.co Coliseum on April 25th 2015. Houston won 9-3. Cool!

I went into this book with such high hopes and I was a little concerned at the beginning — it felt too slow and it didn't grab me — but at some point I got immersed in it and came to the realisation that it was just so delightful and the writing wonderful.

The characters, the setting, the emotion, the sprinkles of humour, the history, the life lessons, and more!

A beautiful book!

(Warning: The book features spoilers for Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, and the film Casablanca. You'll get even more out of the book if you're familiar with the latter!)

A real solid, thought-provoking collection of stories. I appreciated the variety of topics introduced and the range of storytelling styles, especially with the last story. They really do raise a lot of philosophical, moral, and existential questions. A handful of them ended far too abruptly for my liking and I was left thinking: "Wait! That's it?!" A frustrating experience but the book wins points from me on account of the author's ingenuity.

I really liked this book, but I expected to LOVE it!

It started off super strong for me as well. But at some point, the pace slowed down, things got a teeny bit confusing, and I found that I wasn't always convinced of everyone's motivations, reasoning, and choices. Some things just didn't add up for me.

Maybe by the end of the trilogy everything will fit into place and I'll be like "ahhh okay, it all makes sense now", but I do know that this book is raved about in its own right.

And it was really good — but just didn't wow me, or have me fully invested, the way I thought I would be. I'll definitely pick up the next book in the trilogy, but I thought I wouldn't be able to wait!

I went into this knowing nothing about Debra Lee and the history of BET and I was very much into this memoir! I listened to it, and it's always great having the author narrate their story themselves.

What I especially liked about this book was the variety of stories told — from things relating to decisions made at BET to Debra Lee's life outside of work and Black culture. It's also always fascinating hearing about encounters with celebrities.

There was something refreshing about this romance! It had a more mature, realistic feel to others I've read, not that I've ready many!

I really liked the different structures Sittenfeld played with — it felt like three different novels in one, in a good way, to me — and I thought a lot of the dialogue between the characters just felt very real and raw.

With some of the characters' actions/decisions, especially the main character, I was torn between thinking "well, this exactly how real-life humans behave!!" and "this is kinda frustrating, c'mon now!", but overall, I think I was more with the former, and for that Sittenfeld did do a great job.

There were some times were I did get a little bored and wanted the action to hurry up a little. And it was a little tough to read, mainly because of a personal relationship thing I'm working through at the moment (Romantic Comedy was recommended to me after someone I'd just met heard about what I was going through and thought this would be a great comfort read. It was, on the whole, I think...but there were some real triggering things/things that coincidentally hit too close to home. They couldn't have known!), but ultimately the book left me feeling hopeful and I'm glad I read it!