Take a photo of a barcode or cover
pineconek's Reviews (816)
My heart grew three sizes.
Reasons this resonated with me:
- I too love being followed around by little companions I've pair-bonded with
- I too struggle with memory issues
Reasons this resonated with me:
- I too love being followed around by little companions I've pair-bonded with
- I too struggle with memory issues
I needed a few days to digest this one. Oh my gosh!!!
We have physics. We have philosophy. We have politics. And now we have mind games!!! I love some good mind games!! And we go into the future!! Finally!!!! I love the future!!!!!!
(Exclamation marks are necessary when reviewing this series tbh)
It took me a bit of time to get into this one as the first part of the book recapped previous events. HOWEVER. Around the 40% mark onwards I was completely hooked and couldn't stop. I have a great appreciation for morally gray choicest, nihilistic or selfish characters, and all that jazz that the author wove so beautifully against this scifi backdrop.
I don't want to say much about the actual plot because watching it unravel is a treat on itself. That said, if you liked the first book, you should read this one. And I can't wait to read the third.
4.5 stars rounded up. It feels wrong to round down given I'm shouting about this series from the metaphorical rooftops.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
We have physics. We have philosophy. We have politics. And now we have mind games!!! I love some good mind games!! And we go into the future!! Finally!!!! I love the future!!!!!!
(Exclamation marks are necessary when reviewing this series tbh)
It took me a bit of time to get into this one as the first part of the book recapped previous events. HOWEVER. Around the 40% mark onwards I was completely hooked and couldn't stop. I have a great appreciation for morally gray choicest, nihilistic or selfish characters, and all that jazz that the author wove so beautifully against this scifi backdrop.
I don't want to say much about the actual plot because watching it unravel is a treat on itself. That said, if you liked the first book, you should read this one. And I can't wait to read the third.
4.5 stars rounded up. It feels wrong to round down given I'm shouting about this series from the metaphorical rooftops.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Have I outgrown Brene Brown?
Possibly. I actually quite liked the forward to the book and the basic premise: Human beings are inherently flawed and we can love ourselves and each other anyway. Here are some nice values to remember and ways to cultivate self compassion.
I do however agree with what other low reviews have pointed out: the audience is very narrow. Brene's strength of relying on her own anecdotes slowly becomes her downfall. This book would have been infinitely more powerful if the research she alludes to was quoted directly and we got to hear stories of wholehearted living from people who aren't Brene. As such, it's not a bad book. It's just very narrow in its scope.
If you do pick this up, I recommend the audiobook read by the author. I enjoyed listening to her talk us through her story and encourage us to love ourselves more. Fluffy but wholesome, really.
2.5 stars rounded up.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
Possibly. I actually quite liked the forward to the book and the basic premise: Human beings are inherently flawed and we can love ourselves and each other anyway. Here are some nice values to remember and ways to cultivate self compassion.
I do however agree with what other low reviews have pointed out: the audience is very narrow. Brene's strength of relying on her own anecdotes slowly becomes her downfall. This book would have been infinitely more powerful if the research she alludes to was quoted directly and we got to hear stories of wholehearted living from people who aren't Brene. As such, it's not a bad book. It's just very narrow in its scope.
If you do pick this up, I recommend the audiobook read by the author. I enjoyed listening to her talk us through her story and encourage us to love ourselves more. Fluffy but wholesome, really.
2.5 stars rounded up.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
Reading this felt like being trapped in a Lynchian nightmare.
It's hard to review this book without spoiling it, and it's better to read it without knowing anything about it. So if you're curious about the book, stop reading the review and go find yourself a copy. It's slim but elusive.
All my thoughts are largely disjointed but here are some things I can't stop thinking about:
- while she likely doesn't exist at all, I'd love to read a short story from her perspective
- seriously, there is so much fodder for feminist analysis of this nightmare
- we love an unreliable narrator trapped in his own mind
- the layering!! The repetition!!!
- how many characters are in this book? One, two, five, a dozen? Who knows!!!! Not the narrator!!
- reading this feels like being trapped in a hall of funhouse mirrors and desperately needing to find the way out
Recommended if you enjoy haunting writing, novellas with interesting non-linear architecture, and can handle being trapped in the mind of a raging misogynist.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
It's hard to review this book without spoiling it, and it's better to read it without knowing anything about it. So if you're curious about the book, stop reading the review and go find yourself a copy. It's slim but elusive.
All my thoughts are largely disjointed but here are some things I can't stop thinking about:
- while she likely doesn't exist at all, I'd love to read a short story from her perspective
- seriously, there is so much fodder for feminist analysis of this nightmare
- we love an unreliable narrator trapped in his own mind
- the layering!! The repetition!!!
- how many characters are in this book? One, two, five, a dozen? Who knows!!!! Not the narrator!!
- reading this feels like being trapped in a hall of funhouse mirrors and desperately needing to find the way out
Recommended if you enjoy haunting writing, novellas with interesting non-linear architecture, and can handle being trapped in the mind of a raging misogynist.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
"But mooooom, it's my turn to use cannibalism as the plot device"
The best part about this book is the cover. What a stellar cover.
I had such high hopes for this book. What adult woman doesn't have a complicated relationship with her mother?? What about her mother in law?? And mother figures she projects onto and is way more attached to than should be healthy??
(Ok I'm projecting)
I really expected to enjoy this but instead found all the narrative and plot choices tedious. The nonlinear narrative that opens up with the MIL's suicide described in a "I'm gonna make every sentence exquisite" kind of way truly backfired for me. I found myself distracted by reading and truly not caring about our main character.
Abigail was remarkably uninteresting in her narcissism, which is a strange sentence to say. She was incapable of empathizing with any of the other characters, casting them instead as extreme caricatures, but this meant that we also didn't get to actually experience these characters. We got the tiniest glimpses into the actions of Ralph the husband, Laura the dead MIL, Mrs Bondy the mother figures, and Janet the mother figures evil neglectful daughter.
The most interesting parts of the book were the contrasts between who these people truly were (shown in small details here and there, such as Janet having the codependency bible on her bedside table) and how Abby saw them... And they were so few and far between.
And there was no haunting. The basement and shower scenes were so familiar but similarly left me wanting. So here I was, 85% into the book, wanting Something... And we got some run-of-the-mill cannibalism.
I read a bunch of one star reviews of this before writing mine, and want to emphasize that this isn't a "eww this book was gross" review. I love me a gross book. What annoyed me most was that this book tried to be Chuck Palahniuk meets Sayaka Murata meets some weird commentary on mental health and family dynamics that pales with what I've seen done in modern horror by Paul Tremblay, or Grady Hendrix (controversial, I know), or even Stephen Graham Jones.
Anywayyyy. I don't love writing a long one star review after spending a week wrestling with a book I was desperate to enjoy. But I want to remember why I didn't enjoy it.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
The best part about this book is the cover. What a stellar cover.
I had such high hopes for this book. What adult woman doesn't have a complicated relationship with her mother?? What about her mother in law?? And mother figures she projects onto and is way more attached to than should be healthy??
(Ok I'm projecting)
I really expected to enjoy this but instead found all the narrative and plot choices tedious. The nonlinear narrative that opens up with the MIL's suicide described in a "I'm gonna make every sentence exquisite" kind of way truly backfired for me. I found myself distracted by reading and truly not caring about our main character.
Abigail was remarkably uninteresting in her narcissism, which is a strange sentence to say. She was incapable of empathizing with any of the other characters, casting them instead as extreme caricatures, but this meant that we also didn't get to actually experience these characters. We got the tiniest glimpses into the actions of Ralph the husband, Laura the dead MIL, Mrs Bondy the mother figures, and Janet the mother figures evil neglectful daughter.
The most interesting parts of the book were the contrasts between who these people truly were (shown in small details here and there, such as Janet having the codependency bible on her bedside table) and how Abby saw them... And they were so few and far between.
And there was no haunting. The basement and shower scenes were so familiar but similarly left me wanting. So here I was, 85% into the book, wanting Something... And we got some run-of-the-mill cannibalism.
I read a bunch of one star reviews of this before writing mine, and want to emphasize that this isn't a "eww this book was gross" review. I love me a gross book. What annoyed me most was that this book tried to be Chuck Palahniuk meets Sayaka Murata meets some weird commentary on mental health and family dynamics that pales with what I've seen done in modern horror by Paul Tremblay, or Grady Hendrix (controversial, I know), or even Stephen Graham Jones.
Anywayyyy. I don't love writing a long one star review after spending a week wrestling with a book I was desperate to enjoy. But I want to remember why I didn't enjoy it.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
Eat your heart out, Kazuo Ishiguro.
Niche conspiracy theory: this novel isn't popular or easily accessible in the west because it is suppressed by the publishers of Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun. I joke, I joke, but if you love those amazing books... You'll be a fan of this one.
Membranes follows an esthetician named Momo in the year 2100. Momo lives under the sea (the earth is on fire), has a painful relationship with her estranged mother and long-lost childhood friend Andy, and has an even more complex with MacroHard (Microsoft's main competitor).
Tackling solitude, surveillance, gender, sexuality, climate change, capitalism, totalitarian regimes, capitalist totalitarian regimes, medical experimentation, posthumanism, transhumanism, organ harvesting, medical ethics, AI, and-did-i-mention-surveillance, this novel is ridiculously ambitious. It's nearly 30 years old now and reads fresh. I had the pleasure of reading the French translation, but I suspect the English one is equally well-written.
It's a "no plot just vibes" book that reminded me most of Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, and I was left feeling similarly after finishing both of these novels: impressed and terrifyingly empty. I enjoyed-but-didnt-love my reading experience, yet the book wormed its way into my thoughts and I hope it continues to do so.
Recommended if you love speculative fiction that explores the nuances of what makes a human being, enjoy books that peel characters and situations layer by layer (can we start calling these "onion books"?), and can get your hands on a copy (good luck!!).
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
Niche conspiracy theory: this novel isn't popular or easily accessible in the west because it is suppressed by the publishers of Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun. I joke, I joke, but if you love those amazing books... You'll be a fan of this one.
Membranes follows an esthetician named Momo in the year 2100. Momo lives under the sea (the earth is on fire), has a painful relationship with her estranged mother and long-lost childhood friend Andy, and has an even more complex with MacroHard (Microsoft's main competitor).
Tackling solitude, surveillance, gender, sexuality, climate change, capitalism, totalitarian regimes, capitalist totalitarian regimes, medical experimentation, posthumanism, transhumanism, organ harvesting, medical ethics, AI, and-did-i-mention-surveillance, this novel is ridiculously ambitious. It's nearly 30 years old now and reads fresh. I had the pleasure of reading the French translation, but I suspect the English one is equally well-written.
It's a "no plot just vibes" book that reminded me most of Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, and I was left feeling similarly after finishing both of these novels: impressed and terrifyingly empty. I enjoyed-but-didnt-love my reading experience, yet the book wormed its way into my thoughts and I hope it continues to do so.
Recommended if you love speculative fiction that explores the nuances of what makes a human being, enjoy books that peel characters and situations layer by layer (can we start calling these "onion books"?), and can get your hands on a copy (good luck!!).
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
Unrelenting algorithms
Food stripped of nutrition
Constant notifications
Outrage drives recommendations
Feeling like your brain is fried
Constants tweets of genocides
Solve it with a 4 day work week
But don't forget your snapchat streak
We didn't start the fire....
(Only we did, and it's climate change, and it's literally all tied together).
I hope you enjoyed my little song at least half as much as I enjoyed listening to this book. Both inspiring and terrifying, Johann paints a grim portrait of the 2020s and what's to come. He experiments upon himself with a 3 month detox, talks to scientists studying attention from all perspectives (think nutrition, pollution, ADHD, persuasive technology, economics), and calls on us all for a revolution.
Because when the average adult is distracted every 3 minutes, we can't tackle the actual real issues. We can't find ourselves in a state of flow to enjoy life, connect with others, and reach out creative potentials. We can't think complexly about problems and their multi-faceted solutions. And given the general state of things...that's far from ideal.
And let's not get started on how badly we're screwing up the youths (am I still a fellow youth?). The whole "silicon valley giants don't let their kids near the tech they work on" is a thing for a reason.
Highly recommended, but especially if you are interested in how multiple factors can converge to facilitate the frightening modern phenomenon of extreme inattention, are frustrated with your inability to step away from your phone, are crippled by feelings of unfulfilment, etc etc... And are all right with there not being any immediate easy answers. The audiobook is stellar and I hope you read it soon so that we (and the big collective We) can talk about it.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
Food stripped of nutrition
Constant notifications
Outrage drives recommendations
Feeling like your brain is fried
Constants tweets of genocides
Solve it with a 4 day work week
But don't forget your snapchat streak
We didn't start the fire....
(Only we did, and it's climate change, and it's literally all tied together).
I hope you enjoyed my little song at least half as much as I enjoyed listening to this book. Both inspiring and terrifying, Johann paints a grim portrait of the 2020s and what's to come. He experiments upon himself with a 3 month detox, talks to scientists studying attention from all perspectives (think nutrition, pollution, ADHD, persuasive technology, economics), and calls on us all for a revolution.
Because when the average adult is distracted every 3 minutes, we can't tackle the actual real issues. We can't find ourselves in a state of flow to enjoy life, connect with others, and reach out creative potentials. We can't think complexly about problems and their multi-faceted solutions. And given the general state of things...that's far from ideal.
And let's not get started on how badly we're screwing up the youths (am I still a fellow youth?). The whole "silicon valley giants don't let their kids near the tech they work on" is a thing for a reason.
Highly recommended, but especially if you are interested in how multiple factors can converge to facilitate the frightening modern phenomenon of extreme inattention, are frustrated with your inability to step away from your phone, are crippled by feelings of unfulfilment, etc etc... And are all right with there not being any immediate easy answers. The audiobook is stellar and I hope you read it soon so that we (and the big collective We) can talk about it.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/CQjXPtxuYVo
More of the same BUT the same is very good.
Four stories, largely familiar if you've read the previous tome, but with some new tender nuances to make you shed a lil tear. Recommended if you're feeling sentimental.
Will I be continuing with the series? Yes but later, when my heart is feeling very heavy and sad and I want to ponder on the fleetingness and purity of our love for one another.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/sS8eromz-Ko
Four stories, largely familiar if you've read the previous tome, but with some new tender nuances to make you shed a lil tear. Recommended if you're feeling sentimental.
Will I be continuing with the series? Yes but later, when my heart is feeling very heavy and sad and I want to ponder on the fleetingness and purity of our love for one another.
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/sS8eromz-Ko
Nothing I love more than feeling like a book was written just for me.
Paul Tremblay continues to impress me. Here I thought the Cabin at the End of the World was stellar but this??? This!!!!!!!
Full but vague disclosure: religious fanaticism and psychosis are both things I grew up around. The family dynamic described in this book is painfully familiar (and realistic), especially as it's written from the perspective of a confused preteen. Holy guacafreakingmole.
Paul Tremblay also loves allusions. He makes them explicit - why not! The wallpaper in one room is yellow and is clearly referred to as such. Scenes early in the book feel ripped off from the exorcist, and he agrees. He introduces a minor character named Stephen Graham Jones by name, because why the heck not!!!
And of course, we have Merry the cat, Meredith, our childish narrator. If you've read your Shirley Jackson, you know how this story ends.
This book is going to live rent free in my head for a very long time. I want to annotate it for the references and foreshadowing alone because dang. Tremblay, I am buying what you're selling. Bring it on.
This is a five star book for me but probably won't be for everyone. However if you, like me, love using horror to explore painful family dynamics and mental illness, love blending classic and modern allusions, and can't get enough of playful unreliable narrators and stories told in a way that feels both serious and satirical.... Run, don't walk.
Head full of ghosts??? The ghosts live in my head rent free bro. (And yeah, I should probably talk about it in therapy)
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/7rhiwvWp9YY
Paul Tremblay continues to impress me. Here I thought the Cabin at the End of the World was stellar but this??? This!!!!!!!
Full but vague disclosure: religious fanaticism and psychosis are both things I grew up around. The family dynamic described in this book is painfully familiar (and realistic), especially as it's written from the perspective of a confused preteen. Holy guacafreakingmole.
Paul Tremblay also loves allusions. He makes them explicit - why not! The wallpaper in one room is yellow and is clearly referred to as such. Scenes early in the book feel ripped off from the exorcist, and he agrees. He introduces a minor character named Stephen Graham Jones by name, because why the heck not!!!
And of course, we have Merry the cat, Meredith, our childish narrator. If you've read your Shirley Jackson, you know how this story ends.
This book is going to live rent free in my head for a very long time. I want to annotate it for the references and foreshadowing alone because dang. Tremblay, I am buying what you're selling. Bring it on.
This is a five star book for me but probably won't be for everyone. However if you, like me, love using horror to explore painful family dynamics and mental illness, love blending classic and modern allusions, and can't get enough of playful unreliable narrators and stories told in a way that feels both serious and satirical.... Run, don't walk.
Head full of ghosts??? The ghosts live in my head rent free bro. (And yeah, I should probably talk about it in therapy)
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/7rhiwvWp9YY
My first foray into the romance genre: not great, not terrible, I am largely just whelmed.
I liked:
- the representation of chronic pain and fibromyalgia
- the cat
- finding out what tropes like grumpy/sunshine look like when they're played out
- ridiculous banter and over the top spicy scenes that had me chuckling
My gripes:
- Redford being designed for the female gaze: buff man who loves his mom but also paints and is sensitive and a little broken but also a generous lover and extremely attuned to our MC's needs. It was just A Lot
- Redford growled about 17 times too many in the book
Will I read more romance? Possibly only in audiobook. I didn't mind this being read to me while I focused on other things, but it truly is a "popcorn" read. 2.5 stars rounded up.
Recommended if you're looking for some saccharine romance with multiple steamy scenes, are annoyed with the rollercoaster of chronic illness, and don't mind characters who truly are caricatures (is that the point? Perhaps that's the point).
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/7rhiwvWp9YY
I liked:
- the representation of chronic pain and fibromyalgia
- the cat
- finding out what tropes like grumpy/sunshine look like when they're played out
- ridiculous banter and over the top spicy scenes that had me chuckling
My gripes:
- Redford being designed for the female gaze: buff man who loves his mom but also paints and is sensitive and a little broken but also a generous lover and extremely attuned to our MC's needs. It was just A Lot
- Redford growled about 17 times too many in the book
Will I read more romance? Possibly only in audiobook. I didn't mind this being read to me while I focused on other things, but it truly is a "popcorn" read. 2.5 stars rounded up.
Recommended if you're looking for some saccharine romance with multiple steamy scenes, are annoyed with the rollercoaster of chronic illness, and don't mind characters who truly are caricatures (is that the point? Perhaps that's the point).
More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/7rhiwvWp9YY