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2020: Woof. I love McEwan, but this novel had so many weird characteristics that really bothered me that I can’t rate it higher than 3 / 5.
This book wants to go in so many different directions, and tries to deal with so many possibilities. The novel is set in an alternate version of 1980’s London, and it’s very disorienting, trying to reconcile references to events that didn’t occur and people that should have been dead. Was it set in this time period just so Turing could be considered feasibly aged? Very odd to be reading about leaving the EU in the 80’s, seems strange not to have just set the novel in present day. Also, if the technology had progressed as quickly as is claimed in this alt-history, there would definitely be social media around.
McEwan also lost me when he let his main character waffle when deciding whether to trust his partner that she had been raped. Not only did McEwan, only a couple of pages earlier, mention that Charlie wanted to marry Miranda, but the courts had even ruled in her favor. Why on earth was he even doubting that this happened? In this family, we believe victims. I ultimately liked where the plot went in an attempt to recover from this betrayal, but McEwan tried to make Adam out to be the villain in the end. I never got back on board to liking Charlie after this whole sequence.
A number of other frustrating inconsistencies kept popping up: I found it very hard to believe that this young woman, aged 22, who was still in school, wanted to adopt a five year old. NO WAY. I also found it unlikely that her rapist would have received three years in prison for a crime with no witnesses, when Brock Turner swindled his way into three months. Do I hate that I find that unbelievable? Yes. ALSO I do not believe this novel passes the Bechdel test. Unacceptable.
Ultimately, this book left me with an awful lot to mull over when I finished, especially in regards to right vs wrong, truth vs lies. I enjoyed the questions that McEwan brought up, but found his characters to be unlikable and unbelievable.
This book wants to go in so many different directions, and tries to deal with so many possibilities. The novel is set in an alternate version of 1980’s London, and it’s very disorienting, trying to reconcile references to events that didn’t occur and people that should have been dead. Was it set in this time period just so Turing could be considered feasibly aged? Very odd to be reading about leaving the EU in the 80’s, seems strange not to have just set the novel in present day. Also, if the technology had progressed as quickly as is claimed in this alt-history, there would definitely be social media around.
McEwan also lost me when he let his main character waffle when deciding whether to trust his partner that she had been raped. Not only did McEwan, only a couple of pages earlier, mention that Charlie wanted to marry Miranda, but the courts had even ruled in her favor. Why on earth was he even doubting that this happened? In this family, we believe victims. I ultimately liked where the plot went in an attempt to recover from this betrayal, but McEwan tried to make Adam out to be the villain in the end. I never got back on board to liking Charlie after this whole sequence.
A number of other frustrating inconsistencies kept popping up: I found it very hard to believe that this young woman, aged 22, who was still in school, wanted to adopt a five year old. NO WAY. I also found it unlikely that her rapist would have received three years in prison for a crime with no witnesses, when Brock Turner swindled his way into three months. Do I hate that I find that unbelievable? Yes. ALSO I do not believe this novel passes the Bechdel test. Unacceptable.
Ultimately, this book left me with an awful lot to mull over when I finished, especially in regards to right vs wrong, truth vs lies. I enjoyed the questions that McEwan brought up, but found his characters to be unlikable and unbelievable.
2020: A simple, fast read about the ups and downs of starting a business. I really enjoyed that Goldman & Nalebuff spoke about a lot of their failures as a business, as well as all of their successes. I mean, I’d expect nothing less from a company with “Honest” in the name, but it was still nice to see. This story is told through a graphic novel format, which worked for me, and helped to make the more complex business jargon very accessible. Would highly recommend for anyone not familiar with the world of start ups and MBAs. It also really made me crave some iced tea.
2020: The most striking takeaway for me from this memoir was how much work, time, and energy it takes in order to receive government assistance. It throws into sharp relief how the system fails people living in poverty in the United States, and how difficult it can be to climb out of a bad situation without a support system.
Sure, there were moments in this book where I disagreed with some of Land’s choices, and I thought most of the statements about poverty in America were under-researched. However, this is a memoir, and not meant to show exactly how poverty is for everyone - just for Land.
It was a pleasure to read about an area of the country (Skagit Valley, WA) where I have spent a significant amount of time and have fond memories of. It was difficult to see Land’s struggles there, but if anything, this book has convinced me I need to take a trip to Missoula.
Sure, there were moments in this book where I disagreed with some of Land’s choices, and I thought most of the statements about poverty in America were under-researched. However, this is a memoir, and not meant to show exactly how poverty is for everyone - just for Land.
It was a pleasure to read about an area of the country (Skagit Valley, WA) where I have spent a significant amount of time and have fond memories of. It was difficult to see Land’s struggles there, but if anything, this book has convinced me I need to take a trip to Missoula.
2020: I blasted through this novel in one day - it was so cute and SO FUNNY and had so many characters that I was cheering for. I absolutely loved this progressive alternate universe in which the President of the United States is a divorced & remarried lady Democrat from TEXAS. I love that her son is a proud Texan and an (eventual) out & proud bi liberal, because I usually give Texans a hard time, and this book makes me want to party in Austin.
The pop culture references are ON POINT and so timely. When the two of them got matching kimonos embroidered with Hoe Dameron and Prince Buttercup?! #iykyk Also, when June wants to be a journalist, a cross between Rebecca Traister and Roxane Gay!? How perfect!
I was positively melting reading them quote Hamilton’s letters to each other. McQuiston is obviously extremely well read herself, and she does a great job of inserting a ton of knowledge about history into this story. I hope the ending to the 2020 election has a very similar vibe to the one portrayed in this book.
The pop culture references are ON POINT and so timely. When the two of them got matching kimonos embroidered with Hoe Dameron and Prince Buttercup?! #iykyk Also, when June wants to be a journalist, a cross between Rebecca Traister and Roxane Gay!? How perfect!
I was positively melting reading them quote Hamilton’s letters to each other. McQuiston is obviously extremely well read herself, and she does a great job of inserting a ton of knowledge about history into this story. I hope the ending to the 2020 election has a very similar vibe to the one portrayed in this book.
2020: This was such a good book. I had it recommended to me by two of my best friends, and it’s immediately going to the top of my “you gotta read this” list. Add it to your TBR now!
I absolutely loved Gottlieb’s candor and frankness throughout this book. Even though she sees this human fallibility everyday in her work as a therapist, she is the first one to admit that she makes the same choices and the same mistakes, because guess what: we are all human. Very interesting to hear from someone who has seen both sides of it.
All of the stories in the book are powerful and will hit you in different ways, but I was particularly struck by John’s. I was so over him after the first couple of chapters; his arrogance and unwillingness to be honest was infuriating, and I was cheering for Gottlieb to dump him. But his complete 180, and everything that was revealed after her phone call, urging him to come back to her office, was incredible. Gottlieb told his story in such a manner that I was completely taken by surprise, and cannot believe I ever disliked him as much as I did.
I loved her referencing thinkers and writers who I have not spent much time with since college (Frankl, Maslow, Kübler-Ross, Erikson, just to name a few) and I cannot wait to revisit them now. She also talks about my all time favorite psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi, who I had to wait for the second to last chapter to finally made an appearance, but I’m so happy he did.
I did cry a lot during this book, but they were all happy tears. I’m sure Julie would be happy that I have takeaways from her story. I don’t think I’ve ever cheered for a character to succeed harder than I was rooting for Rita. Thank you to Gottlieb for sharing some of their wisdom with us.
I absolutely loved Gottlieb’s candor and frankness throughout this book. Even though she sees this human fallibility everyday in her work as a therapist, she is the first one to admit that she makes the same choices and the same mistakes, because guess what: we are all human. Very interesting to hear from someone who has seen both sides of it.
All of the stories in the book are powerful and will hit you in different ways, but I was particularly struck by John’s. I was so over him after the first couple of chapters; his arrogance and unwillingness to be honest was infuriating, and I was cheering for Gottlieb to dump him. But his complete 180, and everything that was revealed after her phone call, urging him to come back to her office, was incredible. Gottlieb told his story in such a manner that I was completely taken by surprise, and cannot believe I ever disliked him as much as I did.
I loved her referencing thinkers and writers who I have not spent much time with since college (Frankl, Maslow, Kübler-Ross, Erikson, just to name a few) and I cannot wait to revisit them now. She also talks about my all time favorite psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi, who I had to wait for the second to last chapter to finally made an appearance, but I’m so happy he did.
I did cry a lot during this book, but they were all happy tears. I’m sure Julie would be happy that I have takeaways from her story. I don’t think I’ve ever cheered for a character to succeed harder than I was rooting for Rita. Thank you to Gottlieb for sharing some of their wisdom with us.
2020: WOW so much has changed since 2005. That's the biggest takeaway I have from this book. This book is a memoir / civics lesson / Obama's presidential platform / random thoughts. It was not as biographical as Dreams from My Father, which I enjoyed more. Michelle Obama's Becoming is also about ten times better than this rambling.
I don't know enough about all of Obama's policies to know if this was a manifesto that turned into his platform to run for president, but it was fascinating to hear him reference and criticize past presidents' before he knew that he would become one of them. I imagine that many of his thoughts and perspectives have changed since then; he makes the case that liberals should view conservatives wanting free access to guns to be the same way liberals want free access to libraries. I simply CANNOT stand for that.
Obama makes a compelling argument for keeping religion out of policy-making, while acknowledging how difficult it is to leave your own personal experiences outside of your policies. He spends an entire chapter bemoaning how far we have to go towards racial equity in this country, but I can't help but to think that he would view us in a worse spot currently with Trump in office. There's a great, final feminist "how to be a father" lesson at the end of the book, which is a nice touch, but it's nowhere near as good as Michelle's version in Becoming. Honestly, at this point, just go read that.
I don't know enough about all of Obama's policies to know if this was a manifesto that turned into his platform to run for president, but it was fascinating to hear him reference and criticize past presidents' before he knew that he would become one of them. I imagine that many of his thoughts and perspectives have changed since then; he makes the case that liberals should view conservatives wanting free access to guns to be the same way liberals want free access to libraries. I simply CANNOT stand for that.
Obama makes a compelling argument for keeping religion out of policy-making, while acknowledging how difficult it is to leave your own personal experiences outside of your policies. He spends an entire chapter bemoaning how far we have to go towards racial equity in this country, but I can't help but to think that he would view us in a worse spot currently with Trump in office. There's a great, final feminist "how to be a father" lesson at the end of the book, which is a nice touch, but it's nowhere near as good as Michelle's version in Becoming. Honestly, at this point, just go read that.
2020: Overall blah for my first foray into Murakami's extensive collection. I've had 1Q84 sitting on my shelf for a while now, and I'm looking forward to diving in, but I think Infinite Jest is going to be my quarantine book of choice.
Somehow, every woman that Toru comes across wants to sleep with him, and enjoys his company more than their own boyfriends. EVERY ONE OF THEM, including the 19-years-his-senior caretaker of his dead best friend's ex-girlfriend (!!). It's pretty preposterous in my opinion, in addition to it being pretty statistically impossible that so many people connected to each other commit suicide (here's looking at you, Jeffrey Eugenides).
I find it hard to believe that this is meant to be the book that propelled Murakami into stardom. I have no interest in mobbing him after finishing this novel, but I am not so defeated that I'm not going to pick up another one of his books. The writing was lovely, the plot very boring, and the conflict improbable. This book's number one redeeming quality is that it is the source of one of my all time favorite quotes.
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading you can only think what everyone else is thinking." - Haruki Murakami
Somehow, every woman that Toru comes across wants to sleep with him, and enjoys his company more than their own boyfriends. EVERY ONE OF THEM, including the 19-years-his-senior caretaker of his dead best friend's ex-girlfriend (!!). It's pretty preposterous in my opinion, in addition to it being pretty statistically impossible that so many people connected to each other commit suicide (here's looking at you, Jeffrey Eugenides).
I find it hard to believe that this is meant to be the book that propelled Murakami into stardom. I have no interest in mobbing him after finishing this novel, but I am not so defeated that I'm not going to pick up another one of his books. The writing was lovely, the plot very boring, and the conflict improbable. This book's number one redeeming quality is that it is the source of one of my all time favorite quotes.
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading you can only think what everyone else is thinking." - Haruki Murakami
2020: A valuable and thorough resource for anyone looking to be able to speak about race and racism today, and in particular, anyone who grew up benefiting from racist institutions (looking at you, white people).
This book is not as "beginner" level as I thought it might be; I thought perhaps her publishers would want Oluo to spend more time catering to white folks, arguably her target audience. But Oluo cuts her readers NO slack, and wants you to be on board from the get-go as she goes deep into the heart of the matter. She wastes no time in expressing how serious and important these discussions are to have - because they are! Next steps for me include getting my father to read this book.
I was SO pleased to hear that it was Bahni Turpin narrating once again! This is my fifth (!) book narrated by her that I've had the pleasure of listening to, and I cannot wait to find my next one. Give that woman all the awards please.
Honestly, don't listen to a word I say, just go read all of Oluo's.
This book is not as "beginner" level as I thought it might be; I thought perhaps her publishers would want Oluo to spend more time catering to white folks, arguably her target audience. But Oluo cuts her readers NO slack, and wants you to be on board from the get-go as she goes deep into the heart of the matter. She wastes no time in expressing how serious and important these discussions are to have - because they are! Next steps for me include getting my father to read this book.
I was SO pleased to hear that it was Bahni Turpin narrating once again! This is my fifth (!) book narrated by her that I've had the pleasure of listening to, and I cannot wait to find my next one. Give that woman all the awards please.
Honestly, don't listen to a word I say, just go read all of Oluo's.
2020: You KNOW that I love Phillip Pullman, but this was just too short to do anything for me. A nice subtle nod to Malcolm in here, and perhaps once there are more books from the La Belle Sauvage series, I will understand more of the foreshadowing in this book. Otherwise... it's cute.
