nadia's Reviews (587)

What a life Maggie O'Farrell has lived! This memoir was at times an edge-of-the-seat page-turner and at others a more meditative, reflective piece. It's definitely one that gets you thinking about mortality, risk, and living life to the fullest. And Maggie's writing is so great — I'm looking forward to trying some of her fiction now.

I did not expect this classic to turn into a page-turner, but I found myself intrigued from the very beginning and there's a lot of tension running throughout this short book!

If you found the themes of Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half interesting , then this is definitely one for you. There's lots to unpack and discuss, and I recommend episode 200 of The Stacks Pod if you'd like to delve deeper!

A great book to read in a day, that'll leave a lasting impact.

What a wild, worldwide tour this was! A super entertaining, informative, varied, and shocking overview of a group of lady serial killers throughout history. And we're really talking about 'throughout' here, as we went from the 14th century to more recent times. I also enjoyed getting a glimpse into criminal proceedings from all these different times and places.

The narrative voice Tori Telfer employed was engaging and also injected some humour, but sometimes the occasional levity of it did make me take pause and be like: wait, this really happened? It was almost narrated too 'plainly' at times, if that makes any sense...

This isn't to say that Tori wasn't taking the stories seriously or disrespecting the victims. Far from it. In fact, I really appreciated the discussion around the perceptions and double standards surrounding criminals who are women.

I took so many notes while reading this book! It was packed with tips and tricks and I loved the mix of information with personal stories from the author's real-life experience with the FBI.

I know that probably 95%+ of the people the author has interacted with during his real-life negotiations were men, but it's obvious this book is for a wider audience, and so it was mildly annoying that nearly everything was related to a 'he', 'him', or 'guy'.

On that, while I was fascinated by the stories, I would have  appreciated a few more detailed examples/walkthroughs of more of the day-to-day scenarios a typical reader would encounter.

All in all though, a great book, and the best I've read so far this year. Definitely make sure whichever edition you read has the One Sheet appendix attached!

Super fun! Got a little mixed up at times at what exactly was meant to be happening and why regarding some of the sci fi elements, but pretty sure it all straightened out in my head at the end. Given the subject matter, Crouch did a good job in structure and scope.

After having read Dark Matter not too long ago and really enjoying that (more than this one), I'm looking forward to getting to Crouch's Wayward Pines books soon!

I don’t know whether it was the timing of me listening to this (and mostly listening when I was tired), or the structure of the book itself, or the Texas focus, but I really struggled to connect with it and stay focused, which is surprising to me given the subject matter.

Notwithstanding, this book is deeply researched and packed with information, and I’m realising that I love informative books that weave in memoirs/personal stories.

If you want to know more about the history of slavery, Juneteenth, and the state of Texas in relation to these, this book is a must read. 

The narration of the audiobook by Karen Chilton is great also!

This was a fun, easy read! Some of the ways certain things/plot points were described felt too simplistic, slightly heavy handed, or awkward. I do wonder though, especially with references to any of the tech stuff, if it felt that way because I'm technical, but to the average non-technical reader it wouldn't come off as completely find!

A big part of me eventually giving this book 4 stars is to do with me having read it knowing nothing of its subject matter - a combo of me not reading the blurb or the publisher’s letter in the beginning pages and me not knowing certain details about a particular part of history… 

I went into it with such high hopes, after having uncharacteristically filled out the form to receive an ARC, because I remember enjoying We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves several years ago.

However for a lot of it, I felt it was rather slow and I didn’t get what the point was.

By the end, everything made sense!

Every time I read a new memoir, especially because I've only been reading them for a couple years now, I always have the: wow, you really don't need to know anything about a person to enjoy their memoir. Which sounds like: "duh, think about random stories or fiction books, of course you don't need to know the person in advance..." but this was another great example of that. Ashley is a great writer and listening to her read this deeply personal memoir was a fantastic experience!

Quite the page-turner and I was surprised by how hooked I got at times! There's a little bit of everything in this one and a typically complex topic is explained really well! Great for those looking for a fast-paced, thriller-style read with a little bit of a sci-fi challenge mixed in!