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pineconek's Reviews (816)
File under: something I would have loved about a decade ago.
The icepick surgeon is a collection of chapters taking us through terrible things done by scientists in the past few centuries. We move chronologically through time and touch on some of the big ones (grave robbing, lobotomies) and things I hadn't heard much about (Edison's electricity stuff and rivalry with Tesla, some cold war spy stuff around project Manhattan, among others). While somewhat disjointed and relying a bit heavily on "if you want to know more, come listen to my podcast!", this was overall and entertaining read.
Recommended if you want to read a book that sounds like a podcast (I'm sure the audiobook would have been a good experience), like grisly tales of dark history, and don't mind people being glib about terrible things.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
The icepick surgeon is a collection of chapters taking us through terrible things done by scientists in the past few centuries. We move chronologically through time and touch on some of the big ones (grave robbing, lobotomies) and things I hadn't heard much about (Edison's electricity stuff and rivalry with Tesla, some cold war spy stuff around project Manhattan, among others). While somewhat disjointed and relying a bit heavily on "if you want to know more, come listen to my podcast!", this was overall and entertaining read.
Recommended if you want to read a book that sounds like a podcast (I'm sure the audiobook would have been a good experience), like grisly tales of dark history, and don't mind people being glib about terrible things.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
I really appreciate Junji Ito's afterword to this. It has big "I started making it, had a breakdown, bon appetit" energy.
This volume has 4 shortish stories written in 2020. The bleakness of the pandemic permeates the stories brilliantly. They are delightfully creepy, unique, understated, and absolutely addictive to read. I read this in one sitting and I think I'm now officially on a mission to read all of junji ito's work tbh.
Recommended if youve ever wanted to cry forever, have religious trauma, and wonder if you're capable of doing terrible things while asleep. Niche? Quite. Excellent? Very.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
This volume has 4 shortish stories written in 2020. The bleakness of the pandemic permeates the stories brilliantly. They are delightfully creepy, unique, understated, and absolutely addictive to read. I read this in one sitting and I think I'm now officially on a mission to read all of junji ito's work tbh.
Recommended if youve ever wanted to cry forever, have religious trauma, and wonder if you're capable of doing terrible things while asleep. Niche? Quite. Excellent? Very.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
A book that makes me want to shout from the rooftops about how much I love fiction.
This was so good. As someone with only a cursory understanding of deaf culture, I was fully engrossed in the novel from the very beginning. The characters were complex and flawed and showcased different aspects of being deaf (or hearing in a deaf world). I rooted and ached for the characters and feel like I also learned so much about their world. I loved the little interludes included in the book about deaf history and mythology (such as the concept of "eyeth") and overall just feel enriched having read this book. This memorable novel not only tugged at my heart strings but also left me wanting to learn more.
A special note: I was recommended the audiobook which was a unique way to experience this story. The sounds of the author signing at certain parts of the book (when characters sign to each other) was a brilliant artistic choice.
Recommended highly, but especially if you want a primer into modern deaf culture, enjoy complicated family dynamics, and love angsty teens who sometimes just want to blow something up.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
This was so good. As someone with only a cursory understanding of deaf culture, I was fully engrossed in the novel from the very beginning. The characters were complex and flawed and showcased different aspects of being deaf (or hearing in a deaf world). I rooted and ached for the characters and feel like I also learned so much about their world. I loved the little interludes included in the book about deaf history and mythology (such as the concept of "eyeth") and overall just feel enriched having read this book. This memorable novel not only tugged at my heart strings but also left me wanting to learn more.
A special note: I was recommended the audiobook which was a unique way to experience this story. The sounds of the author signing at certain parts of the book (when characters sign to each other) was a brilliant artistic choice.
Recommended highly, but especially if you want a primer into modern deaf culture, enjoy complicated family dynamics, and love angsty teens who sometimes just want to blow something up.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
Sometimes I just want to read a fairytale for adults.
Sometimes I want to read about a lonely widow who misses her husband and mysteriously dead son. Who passes her nights cleaning the local aquarium and befriending the clever octopus. Who has a budding romance with the local grocery store owner. Who does her daily crossword and catches up if she falls behind.
Sometimes I want to read about the thirty year old guy who doesn't fit in with society. Who buys a dilapidated camper van on his way to find his bio dad. Who romances the local paddle board store owner. Who is mildly terrified of the octopus.
And always, and I mean always, do I want to read about a smart octopus that's gonna change everyone's lives forever. Saccharine? Of course. Lovely? Yes.
I really enjoyed the journey of this novel, that I'm sure will make for a great indie film someday (soon, I hope). Recommended if you're in a feel-good mood, don't mind a predictable plot, and are looking for some found family vibes.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
Sometimes I want to read about a lonely widow who misses her husband and mysteriously dead son. Who passes her nights cleaning the local aquarium and befriending the clever octopus. Who has a budding romance with the local grocery store owner. Who does her daily crossword and catches up if she falls behind.
Sometimes I want to read about the thirty year old guy who doesn't fit in with society. Who buys a dilapidated camper van on his way to find his bio dad. Who romances the local paddle board store owner. Who is mildly terrified of the octopus.
And always, and I mean always, do I want to read about a smart octopus that's gonna change everyone's lives forever. Saccharine? Of course. Lovely? Yes.
I really enjoyed the journey of this novel, that I'm sure will make for a great indie film someday (soon, I hope). Recommended if you're in a feel-good mood, don't mind a predictable plot, and are looking for some found family vibes.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
I literally made a YouTube video predicting this would be a five star book.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Why I considered giving this book five stars: the concept is really neat. Clifi has really grown on me in recent years, and I love watching the past echo in the present. I was charmed by the descriptive and detailed writing that depicted some really cool and memorable images of Jaguars and caves.
Why I considered giving this book four stars: the above, but I started noticing things that felt off to me and took me out of the story. I stopped being able to tell certain characters apart, only realizing later that there was "the character with an X in their name" and "the character with a J in their name" and that's how I was meant to keep track of which soul was which...but....
Why I considered giving it three stars: all the characters felt interchangeable past a certain point in the book and my investment in them nosedived completely. Things were getting somewhat repetitive. And, as many low reviews have said, the focus instead was on very bizarre sex and conversations about sex that were surprisingly boring. That and the futuristic social structure that was presented as utopian but read like a posthumanist nightmare. Which got me thinking...
Why I considered giving it two stars: the entire futuristic plotline turned incoherent quickly, and the social structures made very little sense. In fact, the more I thought about anything in this book, the less sense it made. The future world is centered around a religion that promotes isolation (don't spend more than 9 consecutive days with the same people), a focus on panopticism, where everyone has all sets of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and uses spanish-derived words for relating to each other...but with "x" endings (hermanix, ninx, carnalix). Whether you agree or disagree with the modern use of "Latinx" in the current discourse is beside the point, as these linguistic choices made me think I was reading Asterix the Gaul. It was also inconsistent with the fact that everyone used she/her pronouns (this was explicitly stated in text multiple times) in honour of "st Leah", our main character from the present day timeline. Speaking of...
Why I'm giving this book one star: one actual star for this book. One star. Because everything just fell apart at the end. The more I thought about the coherence of the plot, the less sense it made. The entire plot presumes reincarnated twin souls are interested in a 19 year old Belizean/mayan-american who disappears in a cave. A whole religion is founded around this idea and the late night scribbles of her tourguide, a religion that persists throughout the following millenniums climate crisis, post humanistic nomadic but futuristic world... Why?
The more I think about the coherence of anything in this novel, the more things fall apart. And that's setting aside the copious amounts of glorified self harm and twincest present. I'm left with frustration.
And so here I am, giving this book one actual star. I stuck it out so you don't have to.
I somehow expressed even more thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Why I considered giving this book five stars: the concept is really neat. Clifi has really grown on me in recent years, and I love watching the past echo in the present. I was charmed by the descriptive and detailed writing that depicted some really cool and memorable images of Jaguars and caves.
Why I considered giving this book four stars: the above, but I started noticing things that felt off to me and took me out of the story. I stopped being able to tell certain characters apart, only realizing later that there was "the character with an X in their name" and "the character with a J in their name" and that's how I was meant to keep track of which soul was which...but....
Why I considered giving it three stars: all the characters felt interchangeable past a certain point in the book and my investment in them nosedived completely. Things were getting somewhat repetitive. And, as many low reviews have said, the focus instead was on very bizarre sex and conversations about sex that were surprisingly boring. That and the futuristic social structure that was presented as utopian but read like a posthumanist nightmare. Which got me thinking...
Why I considered giving it two stars: the entire futuristic plotline turned incoherent quickly, and the social structures made very little sense. In fact, the more I thought about anything in this book, the less sense it made. The future world is centered around a religion that promotes isolation (don't spend more than 9 consecutive days with the same people), a focus on panopticism, where everyone has all sets of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and uses spanish-derived words for relating to each other...but with "x" endings (hermanix, ninx, carnalix). Whether you agree or disagree with the modern use of "Latinx" in the current discourse is beside the point, as these linguistic choices made me think I was reading Asterix the Gaul. It was also inconsistent with the fact that everyone used she/her pronouns (this was explicitly stated in text multiple times) in honour of "st Leah", our main character from the present day timeline. Speaking of...
Why I'm giving this book one star: one actual star for this book. One star. Because everything just fell apart at the end. The more I thought about the coherence of the plot, the less sense it made. The entire plot presumes reincarnated twin souls are interested in a 19 year old Belizean/mayan-american who disappears in a cave. A whole religion is founded around this idea and the late night scribbles of her tourguide, a religion that persists throughout the following millenniums climate crisis, post humanistic nomadic but futuristic world... Why?
The more I think about the coherence of anything in this novel, the more things fall apart. And that's setting aside the copious amounts of glorified self harm and twincest present. I'm left with frustration.
And so here I am, giving this book one actual star. I stuck it out so you don't have to.
I somehow expressed even more thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
I love Ed Yong, I love microbes, I love Ed Yong talking about microbes.
This is a fantastic primer into how microbes interact with what we typically think of as the natural world. Ed's writing is, as always, beautifully accessible while painting nuanced pictures of what we currently do and don't know. I wish I'd read this book before starting my PhD, because it would have provided me with such a stronger foundation into gut microbiota, vertical and horizontal transmission of microbes, the importance of metabolic capacity of the microbiome (i.e. Who's there vs what are they doing) and probably saved me many headaches. Reading it post PhD while recovering from the flu, I got to experience so much joy at the sheer possibilities and beauty of science and learn about fascinating quirks of the natural world.
Recommended highly if you want to know more about microbes, want to marvel at the natural world, and love science.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
This is a fantastic primer into how microbes interact with what we typically think of as the natural world. Ed's writing is, as always, beautifully accessible while painting nuanced pictures of what we currently do and don't know. I wish I'd read this book before starting my PhD, because it would have provided me with such a stronger foundation into gut microbiota, vertical and horizontal transmission of microbes, the importance of metabolic capacity of the microbiome (i.e. Who's there vs what are they doing) and probably saved me many headaches. Reading it post PhD while recovering from the flu, I got to experience so much joy at the sheer possibilities and beauty of science and learn about fascinating quirks of the natural world.
Recommended highly if you want to know more about microbes, want to marvel at the natural world, and love science.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
Things I love: road trips, characters who used to be close and are now awkwardly reconnecting, and the history of cremation.
Things I don't really care for: hostage situations, caricature villains, a monkey for the sake of a monkey.
Ashes is a beautifully illustrated road trip graphic novel that contains both elements I'm into and things that grind my gears. As much as I enjoyed the single-page interludes that were somewhat off-topic, I found they made some portions of the plot more difficult to follow and far less emotionally impactful than I'd hoped for. While this book and I didn't really click, I think it would resonate with readers who enjoy having a circus monkey and two bearded villains named smirnov among their humorous cast of characters.
Recommended if you're into road-trip stories, love beautiful art, and want to explore cremation through humour.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
Things I don't really care for: hostage situations, caricature villains, a monkey for the sake of a monkey.
Ashes is a beautifully illustrated road trip graphic novel that contains both elements I'm into and things that grind my gears. As much as I enjoyed the single-page interludes that were somewhat off-topic, I found they made some portions of the plot more difficult to follow and far less emotionally impactful than I'd hoped for. While this book and I didn't really click, I think it would resonate with readers who enjoy having a circus monkey and two bearded villains named smirnov among their humorous cast of characters.
Recommended if you're into road-trip stories, love beautiful art, and want to explore cremation through humour.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
A Sally Rooney-style story about video game developers.
It's difficult to rate a book that elicits a lot of emotion and keeps me up late finishing it but that didn't hit a unanimous "heck yeah".
So here's what I didn't like: Sadie, while a major characters, felt fundamentally unfinished and I can't quite get a grasp of who she was as a character. This was highly contrasted with the depiction of Sam or even Marks, who had more detailed personal histories, pain points, insecurities, and relationships outside of the video game making trio. Sadie's main traits were being female, an excellent albeit often overlooked game designer, and making frankly terrible dating choices. Don't even get me started on Dov and all the other character's responses to Dov throughout the years. Sadie's inner world felt like it occured largely off screen (or, conversely, on only a series of literal screens). That said, none of this reads as unrealistic or incorrect for the time period...but it is frustrating.
I did really like the structure of the novel and the narration itself. The style and structure change over time to reflect different character's experiences through a lense of videogames, which I think was done amazingly in the Both Sides, the NPC, and Pioneers sections. I'm a casual gamer and found myself very drawn to the game designs and ideas, sometimes sad that I couldn't actually play some of the games described in the book.
While it succeeded for me as a book about games, it missed the mark as a book about friendship. The highs and lows were dizzying and left me rooting for the characters to find peace, ideally far from one another. A very clear pattern of a "big fight, silence, reconciliation by sweeping things under the rug" type cycle emerges and ultimately left me exhausted. And this is why I don't know how to rate the book - is this a realistic dynamic? It unfortunately can be. Is it one to aspire to? Ehhhhhhhhhhh
It's difficult to rate a book that elicits a lot of emotion and keeps me up late finishing it but that didn't hit a unanimous "heck yeah".
So here's what I didn't like: Sadie, while a major characters, felt fundamentally unfinished and I can't quite get a grasp of who she was as a character. This was highly contrasted with the depiction of Sam or even Marks, who had more detailed personal histories, pain points, insecurities, and relationships outside of the video game making trio. Sadie's main traits were being female, an excellent albeit often overlooked game designer, and making frankly terrible dating choices. Don't even get me started on Dov and all the other character's responses to Dov throughout the years. Sadie's inner world felt like it occured largely off screen (or, conversely, on only a series of literal screens). That said, none of this reads as unrealistic or incorrect for the time period...but it is frustrating.
I did really like the structure of the novel and the narration itself. The style and structure change over time to reflect different character's experiences through a lense of videogames, which I think was done amazingly in the Both Sides, the NPC, and Pioneers sections. I'm a casual gamer and found myself very drawn to the game designs and ideas, sometimes sad that I couldn't actually play some of the games described in the book.
While it succeeded for me as a book about games, it missed the mark as a book about friendship. The highs and lows were dizzying and left me rooting for the characters to find peace, ideally far from one another. A very clear pattern of a "big fight, silence, reconciliation by sweeping things under the rug" type cycle emerges and ultimately left me exhausted. And this is why I don't know how to rate the book - is this a realistic dynamic? It unfortunately can be. Is it one to aspire to? Ehhhhhhhhhhh
Reasons I loved this book:
- a small but memorable cast of characters
- the use of storytelling as coping with the human condition
- emotional intimacy and confessional late night conversations
- tenderness when discussing sensitive topics. So much tenderness
The premise of the book is pretty straightforward: a small group of terminally ill teenagers meet up at midnight and tell each other stories to pass the time as they wait for the inevitable. I really enjoyed the individual stories they told and the overall feel of this lil YA book. I can't wait to see how this gets adapted to the screen.
Recommended if you are interested in the upcoming television series, are interested in grief and mortality, and enjoy short stories framed by a bigger narrative.
- a small but memorable cast of characters
- the use of storytelling as coping with the human condition
- emotional intimacy and confessional late night conversations
- tenderness when discussing sensitive topics. So much tenderness
The premise of the book is pretty straightforward: a small group of terminally ill teenagers meet up at midnight and tell each other stories to pass the time as they wait for the inevitable. I really enjoyed the individual stories they told and the overall feel of this lil YA book. I can't wait to see how this gets adapted to the screen.
Recommended if you are interested in the upcoming television series, are interested in grief and mortality, and enjoy short stories framed by a bigger narrative.
That scratched my itch for a good time travel story now that Netflix's Dark is over. Wow. Absolutely stunning.
I'm always impressed when authors can craft a complicated story and deliver it in a simple way where the reader can follow things and be rewarded for doing so. Time travel love stories also make for wonderful subplots, and it was handled beautifully in this book. What a wonderful, thrilling read.
I'm always impressed when authors can craft a complicated story and deliver it in a simple way where the reader can follow things and be rewarded for doing so. Time travel love stories also make for wonderful subplots, and it was handled beautifully in this book. What a wonderful, thrilling read.