zak_martell's Reviews (277)

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

It was good, but I’m not sure I fully grasped what it was trying to say.

The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher

Julian Baggini

3.5

challenging funny informative lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

Interesting thought experiments.

The Terror

Dan Simmons

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I’m someone with a long book phobia that I wanted to try to break.
Turns out I chose the perfect book for that task. Considering its length, this book felt impressively pacy.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Stephen King

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Some were great, all were at least good. Stephen King’s prose is unmatched.

The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy and Human Nature

Robert Greene

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing fast-paced

Great entry point into Robert Greene.

Flora & Jim

Bp Gregory

3.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Really enjoyable little book. Love Jim and Flora. What a journey packed into so few pages.

Murder Machine

Jerry Capeci, Gene Mustain

DID NOT FINISH: 16%

Not what I expected it to be.

Kill Someone

Luke Smitherd

3.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Fun premise. Could have been done differently. It felt quite lighthearted for my taste, but nothing wrong with it.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Steven Pressfield

4.0

hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Really fun little book.
Really motivating.

Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It

Richard Reeves

2.5

challenging emotional informative lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

Mostly some interesting thoughts, but they lost me with the intersectional talk. The chapter specifically speaking about black men in America felt out of place in a book that, despite being very US focused, seemed to be more broad.
There is also a chapter each for what both progressives and conservatives are doing to harm boys and men, but I found arguments in both chapters were lacking as some opinions were just stated as facts (such as something being a positive or negative thing) as if you already agree with the author.

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