Just kinda whatever. I'm sure a more educated person could find problematic elements of the analysis, but for a really quick introduction to Islamic history I think it's alright.

[3.75] Technically only read half, but it was the half required for my evolution of language class, so I'll consider it finished. Plus, half is still like 300 pages, so yeah, I'll say it still counts.

This book was assigned to function as the class textbook, but I'm not convinced it is a good TEXTBOOK. I think it's a decent book in general, but as a textbook I think it has some issues. It doesn't really have that textbook neutrality to it. Fitch clearly has an argument he's making about the evolution of language. He is undoubtedly an expert in the field, and I applaud his skillset both in the discipline and in his ability to compile it all in a single book. But I take issue with the fact that he often provides proof for his argument by citing his own studies. It just really irked me whenever I saw his own name in a parenthetical citation.

I started reading this for the No Dumb Question's Podcast Book Club on my commute home yesterday. I literally could not stop. Some books are just captivating, and this is one of them. Without a doubt, this is my favorite book I've read this year. Even though there's still more than half of the year left, I don't think anything else I read this year is going to top it. Seriously, go read it. More people need to know how awful the death penalty is.

Somewhat difficult to get through because of some personal traumatic experiences with death. A little less than three years ago, a very good friend of mine collapsed into my arms in a sudden seizure. He "lived" for a few more days in a coma, but unfortunately never woke up. We knew he wasn't feeling well, we thought it was just his cancer therapies draining his energy. But it turns out it was a blood clot forming in his brain, forming right as we sat there and watched YouTube videos, a movie, and played video games. Even to this day, I think about the "what ifs." What if we payed better attention? What if we suggested he go to the doctor/hospital? What if he told us more about how he was really feeling? What if, what if, what if... More in the vein of this book, what if we knew that would be the day he would fall into a coma/die? Is that what we would have done? Is there one final thing he would have wanted to do? What would have been my final goodbye to him?

These are the types of questions Adam Silvera begs us to consider in his YA fiction book "They Both Die at the End."

Spoiler

Mateo and Rufus are total strangers up until they get their Deathcast alert. They find each other on the Last Friend app to live out their final hours, and ultimately fall in love. While their one-day romance isn't necessarily the most believable,

it's a cute story despite the unfortunate circumstances of their fate.

There are two things I like about this book. First, Silvera builds on this last day premise by including what I'll call "disparate stories" periodically. These are chapters from characters that are not directly involved in the main Mateo/Rufus storyline but play roles in the sidelines, and further develop the world. Secondly, while this book is no doubt about death in many ways, the moment Mateo and Rufus' death occurs is quick. One moment these characters we've grown to love are there, the next they're not. That's the sad reality of death sometimes. On that grim note, fin.

Ugh, so bad. Really surprised at the solid 4.0 this book has. The main character has nothing going for him except for the fact that he's a genius with perfect memory, and boy does the author LOVE to remind you. Dude, I get it, the title of the book is Memory Man. You don't need to mention that he has an infallible memory every few seconds. Also, I get it, you made the character morbidly obese, I don't need reminding.

There's a lot of hella problematic shit in here too. He conflates sexual orientation and gender identity. The big reveal of an intersex villain serves not to give representation to diverse bodies, but rather it further demonizes them. There was no reason for it other than to have the gimmick of "ohhh my lawd the bad person is a woman dressed as a man aaaaahhh"

Just bad. Kinda racist, really stereotypical characters, too many genre tropes, and unduly repetitive. I'm confused why this book is so well-perceived.

This is an absolutely stellar memoir. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about why I call Jehovah's Witnesses a cult. Essentially, this is is the publicly accessible version of "Crisis of Conscience" by Ray Franz; Franz did a great job but his book is (in my opinion) more oriented to former Witnesses. Scorah does a good job of briefly explaining why Jehovah's Witnesses do or do not do certain things, but "Leaving the Witness" is not heavy on the structural and theological analysis of Jehovah's Witnesses in the same way CoC was.

She's just sharing her experience as a Pioneer in China, and how over the course of a few years and with the help of an internet stranger she was gently nudged into realizing her circumstances. All it took was one "worldly" person with a kind heart to show her that the world was not as bad as it seems. Speaking for myself personally, I know that if I didn't have associations with people outside of my congregation, I would still be there. I'd be a sad, lonely person, forcing myself deeper and deeper into the closet.

Spoiler

I might have ended up like Dale, the disfellowshipped Gay man in Scorah's congregation who hanged himself.

Books like this are highly personal to me, and make me reflect on my own experiences as a former Jehovah's Witness.

I have a friend (or maybe had a friend is a better way of saying it) that I grew up with; our families went on little vacations together nearly every year, we were at their house for dinner almost once a week, they came to our apartment to swim in our pool on hot summer days. In fact, there was a brief period of time where I might have said him and his brother were my only friends. He got married almost two years ago, and my Mom and I weren't invited. My Mom is only inactive and I have never expressed my doubts to friends in the Hall; neither of us are disfellowshipped. A few months after their marriage, my Mom was in town and wanted to surprise them at their house. I managed to pull my friend to the side and finally five years after starting this journey I came out to him. It was like I was 16 again: I lost the words, there was a big lump in my throat, and I feared this vengeful God. My friend looked so sad and so confused when I told him. When we said goodbye, he (surprisingly) gave me a hug, but I think it truly was a goodbye hug. I don't know when or if I'll see this friend again. I hope that one day we can reminisce about the times we pretended to be spaceship captains in his backyard, or that one time we terrified a couple walking their dog down the street by hiding a walkie-talkie in the shrubs, and making it screech when they passed by. But perhaps most of all, I hope that one day we can share with one another how we realized we had to exit this religion and find a new life.

Linguistics has long been a big interest of mine, especially linguistic anthropology. It was one of the first classes I ever took in college, and it hooked me in immediately. Now I'm #blessed to be studying anthropology in one of the best programs in the world. Whenever I do interviews for ethnographic assignments, I always cringe at how my voice/language sounds. Nothing makes you more aware and self-conscious of how you sound than listening to recordings of yourself. One of the big ways I speak and understand the world, like many younger people, has been through the internet. The internet has woven it's way into the fabric of everyday life for millions if not billions of people. This book does a great job of taking internet language seriously without brushing it off as stupid or irrelevant. Whether you're a citizen of the internet or staunch technophobe, there's still something to be gained from this book!

In popular media, time travel is often under the umbrella of science fiction. That is not so for D.O.D.O., if it weren't for witches and their magic -- a center point in the fantasy genre -- there would be no time travel in the world Stephenson created. It's sort of an interesting blend of scientific analysis of fantastical magic. I think that's a fairly interesting approach to the premise of time travel which has been done for well over 100 years.

That being said, the book has a number of issues. The book is initially written from the perspective of Melisande Stokes, but as D.O.D.O establishes itself the book tells the story via emails, texts and IMs, D.O.D.O PSAs, sitreps, diary entries, and more from other people. While somewhat interesting to read what these people are experiencing, this also has the unfortunate drawback of removing any sense of consistent voice that developed throughout the first third or so of the book. Additionally, it's not always clear what purpose many of these supplemental entries serves. I often found myself asking "What's happening? Why is it happening? Is this important?" Far too frequently, there was no good reason for an entry.

Super duper cute. An LGBTQ+ story that isn't terribly sad nor do the characters die; it's surprisingly rare to find in queer fiction. Overall, it's got really well-developed characters and just enough narrative drama to push along the character-driven nature of the story.