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afreen7's reviews
1201 reviews
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
4.0
Such an awesome book. Anyone who has any remote interest in science or the weirdness of our universe should read this and then head straight over to the xkcd website!
The cool thing about this is that even if you're not interested in the question or the answer itself, there's always some new fact or concept to learn. You always get some mind boggling or unbelievable information out of reading each answer.
And to top it off the illustrations are hilarious and make it so fun to read along with making it easier to understand concepts.
And as a geneticist, I found that this book had one of the most informative and understandable way of explaining heredity!
The cool thing about this is that even if you're not interested in the question or the answer itself, there's always some new fact or concept to learn. You always get some mind boggling or unbelievable information out of reading each answer.
And to top it off the illustrations are hilarious and make it so fun to read along with making it easier to understand concepts.
And as a geneticist, I found that this book had one of the most informative and understandable way of explaining heredity!
The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
3.0
Rating: 3.5
When you take another person’s life, it changes you. It doesn't just change how you look at the world or how you see yourself. It alters you to the core, your DNA. All the things I had once believed about myself, about my inherent decency-I didn’t have the same foothold on them as I once had.
This book went full throttle from the very first sentence that I read. It was so fast paced that I was even willing to ignore flaws, factual errors and the utter incredulousness of the whole scenario that the protagonist had gotten herself into.
Our protagonist—let’s call her Jane Doe for now—has baggage even before the novel begins and the accidental death of her husband sends her fleeing from her current life, which seems almost paranoid at first but then the story begins to unravel in the form of letters and flashbacks.
I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing of this book. Despite its flaws (the deceptively easy looking break-ins and identity thefts, and Jane Doe’s ability of going undetected for so long) the book was un-put-downable and I didn’t mind ignoring them for the sake of finding out what happened next. And Lutz provided interesting titbits of information on human behavior which was actually interesting to read.
The characters-some of them I liked but some of them I couldn’t understand at all. Jane Doe was almost sociopathic, a little selfish, resourceful, has a weird but self-justified moral compass, and seriously questionable taste in men. On the one hand she has no problem accepting an invite home from the very glib and suspicious Dominic but utterly destroyed this other guy she meets on the run, at a bar, who acted exactly the same. Other than that I enjoyed her characterization mostly.
And combine her with Blue and we have a whacked out version of ‘Thelma and Louise’. Together they were enigmatic, again weird but I still couldn’t stop reading. They are two sides of the same coin. Jane Doe has the same evil streak inside her that Blue is able to show on the surface.
And after everything is done we get the entire picture…which was half predictable and half shocking and not enough. But there were some gaps to the story.
Don’t get me started on Ryan who doesn’t fully accept his mistake and blames Nora when he clearly was at fault. I didn’t get him at all.
And is it really that easy stealing and assuming a different identity and killing people without consequence?
But the good thing is that the story keeps you engaged. You don’t notice anything amiss while you’re literally being dragged around the country at breakneck speeds by a sociopath.
When you take another person’s life, it changes you. It doesn't just change how you look at the world or how you see yourself. It alters you to the core, your DNA. All the things I had once believed about myself, about my inherent decency-I didn’t have the same foothold on them as I once had.
This book went full throttle from the very first sentence that I read. It was so fast paced that I was even willing to ignore flaws, factual errors and the utter incredulousness of the whole scenario that the protagonist had gotten herself into.
Our protagonist—let’s call her Jane Doe for now—has baggage even before the novel begins and the accidental death of her husband sends her fleeing from her current life, which seems almost paranoid at first but then the story begins to unravel in the form of letters and flashbacks.
I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing of this book. Despite its flaws (the deceptively easy looking break-ins and identity thefts, and Jane Doe’s ability of going undetected for so long) the book was un-put-downable and I didn’t mind ignoring them for the sake of finding out what happened next. And Lutz provided interesting titbits of information on human behavior which was actually interesting to read.
The characters-some of them I liked but some of them I couldn’t understand at all. Jane Doe was almost sociopathic, a little selfish, resourceful, has a weird but self-justified moral compass, and seriously questionable taste in men. On the one hand she has no problem accepting an invite home from the very glib and suspicious Dominic but utterly destroyed this other guy she meets on the run, at a bar, who acted exactly the same. Other than that I enjoyed her characterization mostly.
And combine her with Blue and we have a whacked out version of ‘Thelma and Louise’. Together they were enigmatic, again weird but I still couldn’t stop reading. They are two sides of the same coin. Jane Doe has the same evil streak inside her that Blue is able to show on the surface.
And after everything is done we get the entire picture…which was half predictable and half shocking and not enough. But there were some gaps to the story.
Spoiler
I am pretty sure that getting proven innocent for one murder and flirting with the police officer who discovered your actual first murder, is not going to entitle you to a get out of jail free card. Not to mention going on the run, being wanted for years, breaking and entering etc. etc. maybe when the officer happens to be Dominic.Don’t get me started on Ryan who doesn’t fully accept his mistake and blames Nora when he clearly was at fault. I didn’t get him at all.
And is it really that easy stealing and assuming a different identity and killing people without consequence?
But the good thing is that the story keeps you engaged. You don’t notice anything amiss while you’re literally being dragged around the country at breakneck speeds by a sociopath.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4.0
This book was empowering. I Am not gonna use the word 'enlightening' because racism is something everyone should already be aware of. It isn't a new concept.
But coming from the viewpoint of a POC father writing to his son, telling him all of his ideals, experiences and beliefs was certainly a different way of hearing about the topic.
I liked his comparison of being black then and now and what it meant to different generations- the danger that persisted not only at the hands of the whites but also on the streets; his writing on slavery and how no act of peace or progress will ever erase the sacrifice of even a single life lost, was undeniably the truth.
“You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this.”
Coates was so brutally honest about his views, that it was almost refreshing to read about the injustice done without the safeguards used by a lot of people so as to not arouse 'controversies'. Especially his use of the word 'bodies' enforced the reality.
“But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”
But despite his repeated message that non-violence is not a guaranteed solution to abolishing racism, he counters it by saying that there is a time and place for everything.
But coming from the viewpoint of a POC father writing to his son, telling him all of his ideals, experiences and beliefs was certainly a different way of hearing about the topic.
I liked his comparison of being black then and now and what it meant to different generations- the danger that persisted not only at the hands of the whites but also on the streets; his writing on slavery and how no act of peace or progress will ever erase the sacrifice of even a single life lost, was undeniably the truth.
“You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this.”
Coates was so brutally honest about his views, that it was almost refreshing to read about the injustice done without the safeguards used by a lot of people so as to not arouse 'controversies'. Especially his use of the word 'bodies' enforced the reality.
“But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”
But despite his repeated message that non-violence is not a guaranteed solution to abolishing racism, he counters it by saying that there is a time and place for everything.
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
4.0
Missing girls had a way of working their way into someone’s head. You couldn’t help but see them in everyone – how temporary and fragile we might be. One moment here, and the next, nothing more than a photo staring from a storefront window.
I’ll admit it my whole judgement of this book hinged on whether the unique way of storytelling involved in it would be a success or a failure.
The story begins with Nicolette Farrell coming back to her hometown Cooley Ridge after 10 years to settle her family’s business and tie up loose ends. But when a young girl goes missing Nic’s life is put into turmoil because this also brings up the unsolved disappearance of Nic’s Best friend Corinne which caused Nic to abandon her town in the first place.
Other than the prologue, which sets up the story and the epilogue, the events of the fifteen days since the disappearance of Annaliese is told in reverse. This was what intrigued me into reading this book. Because if this was a gimmick to sell the book it could’ve have gone so horribly wrong; mystery thrillers are traditionally meant to build up to the reveal as time passes.
The wonderful reason why the reverse storytelling works is because it's meant not to actually reveal the ‘killer’ but to reveal the real nature of each of the characters in Cooley ridge. The story told in the normal sequence of events would still have the reveal but less macabre than these characters deserve. The writer insists the reader to understand that not everyone is who they seem to be; that everyone in Cooley ridge had a monster inside them making them do things.
“I have to tell it This way, in pieces. I have to work my way up to it. Work my way Back to it. I have to show you the beautiful things before I get to the ugly.”
At first, I was very sceptical about this approach. The story read more like a literary fiction than a crime novel but the build-up was worth it and changed my view entirely. The paragraph at the very beginning addressed to the reader rings so true.
You will be spellbound. You will not be able to stop reading. Because you have to know what happened to those missing girls and because you have to know if Megan Miranda can pull off this stunningly original narrative feat.
As for the characters, almost everyone especially the main gang – Nic, Daniel, Corinne, Tyler, Jackson, Bailey are as unreliable as they are realistic. If at the beginning, you thought the narrator was stable and reliable you would easily start doubting her halfway through the book. Miranda also drops very clever subtle hints and foreshadowing that makes the experience of reading the book a second time much better. The ambience of the town and the woods is so beautifully woven in with the events that it feels so befitting and like its actually happening. The reverse storytelling requires the reader’s utmost attention, like pressing a refresh button at the end of each day but with clues leading to even darker territories as the character’s reveal more and more depressing truths about the town and also themselves. In the end, the sign of an interesting mystery novel would be having the reader read it again despite the lack of the surprise at the end.
Thank you Simon & Schuster for providing a copy of this book.
I’ll admit it my whole judgement of this book hinged on whether the unique way of storytelling involved in it would be a success or a failure.
The story begins with Nicolette Farrell coming back to her hometown Cooley Ridge after 10 years to settle her family’s business and tie up loose ends. But when a young girl goes missing Nic’s life is put into turmoil because this also brings up the unsolved disappearance of Nic’s Best friend Corinne which caused Nic to abandon her town in the first place.
Other than the prologue, which sets up the story and the epilogue, the events of the fifteen days since the disappearance of Annaliese is told in reverse. This was what intrigued me into reading this book. Because if this was a gimmick to sell the book it could’ve have gone so horribly wrong; mystery thrillers are traditionally meant to build up to the reveal as time passes.
The wonderful reason why the reverse storytelling works is because it's meant not to actually reveal the ‘killer’ but to reveal the real nature of each of the characters in Cooley ridge. The story told in the normal sequence of events would still have the reveal but less macabre than these characters deserve. The writer insists the reader to understand that not everyone is who they seem to be; that everyone in Cooley ridge had a monster inside them making them do things.
“I have to tell it This way, in pieces. I have to work my way up to it. Work my way Back to it. I have to show you the beautiful things before I get to the ugly.”
At first, I was very sceptical about this approach. The story read more like a literary fiction than a crime novel but the build-up was worth it and changed my view entirely. The paragraph at the very beginning addressed to the reader rings so true.
You will be spellbound. You will not be able to stop reading. Because you have to know what happened to those missing girls and because you have to know if Megan Miranda can pull off this stunningly original narrative feat.
As for the characters, almost everyone especially the main gang – Nic, Daniel, Corinne, Tyler, Jackson, Bailey are as unreliable as they are realistic. If at the beginning, you thought the narrator was stable and reliable you would easily start doubting her halfway through the book. Miranda also drops very clever subtle hints and foreshadowing that makes the experience of reading the book a second time much better. The ambience of the town and the woods is so beautifully woven in with the events that it feels so befitting and like its actually happening. The reverse storytelling requires the reader’s utmost attention, like pressing a refresh button at the end of each day but with clues leading to even darker territories as the character’s reveal more and more depressing truths about the town and also themselves. In the end, the sign of an interesting mystery novel would be having the reader read it again despite the lack of the surprise at the end.
Thank you Simon & Schuster for providing a copy of this book.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5.0
Getting this book is literally one of the best decisions I ever made. The illustrations are so gorgeous that I couldn't stop staring at them. And of course re-reading harry potter after such a long time was so much fun !