rickjones's Reviews (1.66k)

Bunny is a roaring, weird, and positively pretentious novel that I assume is about art and creation, but I'm not entirely sure. Despite how perplexing the novel's subject and rational are, I was continuously excited to return to it. Bunny's world is thick and gleaming with atmosphere and imagery, and its gorey humor and gutting tragedy were a treat to read. I look forward to the film adaption, and will seek out more of Awad's work. 

Mister Magic pleasantly surprised me with its themes about the exploitative and punishing manner in which many children are taught about religion. I assumed that the book would be a straightforward horror story, but welcomed White's implicit themes on the perils of escaping a cult that has seared its way into your childhood, no matter how little you remember the details. On its own, the horror element of the story is riveting and unique. I never wanted to put the book down, and adored its descriptions of the eerie, magical world the Circle of Friends inhibited as children. This is a novel both terrifying and uplifting, and I look forward to reading White's future works. 

Reinventing Reference is a highly academic book of essays that did not feel altogether useful in this day and age. Many of the worries or presumptions featured in the book that paper materials and reference interactions that can be answered through Google were going extinct have all but been proven false. I think this book, in trying to be thorough, tackled too many subjects and is not fully useful for public-facing workers in any area of the profession. I would be interested in reading an updated edition that offers perspectives on more current issues. Navigating political and health misinformation, employment resources, and web resources that are increasing built with artificial intelligence does not work as intended, are issues that I am asked about the most as a public library worker. I would not recommend this book for modern readers. 

The Sackett Brand is a mostly ridiculous novel of vengeance. The plot is so exaggerated with danger and familial tie-ins that it almost seemed comical. I will say that once again, the scenery and atmosphere that L'Amour described was the most rewarding part of my reading experience. I doubt I will read many more of L'Amour's works. 

Nightbitch is a story of pent-up frustration, wolfish hunger, and fierce love. Yoder's protagonist is complicated by her seemingly perfect surroundings and wrathful loneliness, and is a woman who is not altogether miserable or satisfied. She learns to lean in to her animal instincts and to revel in the wildness and brutality of raising a tiny human ripped from her own body and blood. This may be the book with the most amount of quotes I've ever highlighted. I adored Yoder's use of language and her protagonist's unfeigned self-expression. This is a layered, nuanced, and humorous tale of a woman asserting her power, one that ends with a triumphant understanding that underneath our civilities, we are animals with a natural and savage inclinations to love ourselves and our own. 

Chasing Shadows is a memoir of a riveting career led by a passionate interest in sharks, and an important cultural history that explains the varied human perceptions of sharks that have developed over the last half-century. The earlier chapters were much slower that the proceeding ones, yet I was interested in learning about Skomal's career trajectory and how he once gave up on his dream of studying white sharks, only for their numbers to explode in his own backyard. It's incredible knowing how much we've learned about white sharks over the years, and how little we still understand about their world. The details Skomal provides may bore those looking for a more adventurous story, but this book will remain a treasure for all white shark enthusiasts. 

This book is about as coherent as most people's social media feeds... it jumps between ideas, relates them to each other in often trite and nonsensical ways, and ultimately fails to both produce and answer its own hypothesis. Those with a more solid understanding of art movements may value the book more than I did. A few of the artists I was introduced to in the course of reading the book made it not a total waste of time, but I'm still mostly perplexed by what I just interacted with.

The Memory of Animals is a novel both terrifying and serene. It is gripping as a character study and a horror story of apocalyptic proportions, one with a central argument that flows throughout the novel before its answer drowns with despair: is it greater to live in captivity, or to die in unlimited freedom? The novel is likely an indirect response to the pandemic we have all lived through, and its central themes are heightened by our knowledge of the doom promised by denial of the seriousness of disease, resistance to quarantine, vaccine hesitancy, and delayed government response. Yet these themes are never too overt, which allows us to get lost inside Neffy's memories, especially the fierce love and life-altering tragedy she endured in an idyllic place. 

The Trench is just as unprobeable and bombastic as Alten's first novel, The Meg. The novel has trench-deep flaws, such as the simplistic characters, waves of misogyny and oversexualization of its female leads, and a ridiculous premise held up by watery science fiction reasoning. Yet the wild, pulpy quality of the story serves its purpose as an entertaining thrill ride. Each appearance of the prehistoric monsters is a treat, and I'm embarrassed to say that I probably will continue the series. 

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a riveting tale of natural history, even for those who are far from an expert on paleontology. Brusatte gives readers a rest from hard science with stories of the great personalities in his field, and vivid imaginings of what daily life must have been like in the age of the dinosaurs. This book was definitely a tough one for me to read, as I struggled with making sense of the physical sciences as a student. Yet Brusatte's passion is infectious and encouraging, providing a implied argument that anyone can learn to make sense of the dinosaur's extinct and outlandish world if they're willing to work for the knowledge.