eggjuices's reviews
138 reviews

Yikes! I cannot comprehend the hype for this book. 
The characters are so insufferable and annoying. I loved the concept of a “romance” or love story about the love of friendships - that’s something that really resonates with me personally. It’s too bad these so-called “friends” aren’t on speaking terms for the vast majority of this novel’s length. 
I finished this out of spite. The writing is fine, though cringy at times, and the excessive use of needlessly complex words was pretentious but tolerable. The story itself was frustrating and boring. Glad it’s over! 

I have little to say on this because it was really just so good. I flew through it in about 2 days, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Super engaging and really thought provoking. My favourite so far of Butler!

This was really fantastic. I loved Coates’ writing, it was really engaging which I sometimes struggle with in a non fiction. 

I resonated with so much of this book, the segment regarding book banning was really interesting and I found myself nodding along or sometimes thinking about the subject in a more thoughtful way. 

Of course, the final segment focusing on Palestine is the most impactful. I also read The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine last month, and while Coates is not attempting to ‘educate’ on this subject, I found he did a really great job giving background and covering the topic from a welcomed perspective. 

I would recommend this to anyone !! 

4.75 boarding on 5 stars because I am unnecessarily picky and will always find a reason to not give something 5 stars …. but this was incredible. 

So sad. Exceptionally painful. I would have liked to have read this faster but there were moments where I had to put it down. There are the obvious parallels to today that many before me have recognized, but it really made the book so challenging to work through. Thinking about the genocide in Gaza, the rise of Trump and new age MAGA fascism…. even the uncertain relationship between US and Canada that I am currently experiencing. It is all so real and so horrifying. 

I love the women in this novel. I feel so much pain for them - even Aunt Evelyn as horrible as her actions were. Mrs Roth and Mrs Wishnow are such wonderful mothers, and I appreciate how even through the child’s eyes we could still see their hurt and their pain, and how they tried to protect their children from it all as much as they could. Also poor Seldon!! I love how much Philip hated him so unnecessarily hahaha, Roth did a great job portraying the childhood experience of having a friend who you hate for no reason. 

“How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.” 

Christmas 2023 gift from Rachel, finally getting around to reading it. 

This was great! But also frustrating!! Wang Lung sucks majorly. And yet….. i empathize with him. The story was sad, and I think a great criticism of the pursuit of wealth and power. Loved watching Wang Lung’s personality and outlook change dramatically as his life station improved. This is why he sucks !!!! O Lan was awesome and she deserved more.  

I am teetering between 3.75 and 4 stars on this. I have conflicting feelings but overall this is a great book.

Firstly, I need to address the length. I borrowed this from the library through Libby and this is the “extended edition,” clocking in at over 2,000 pages based on my font settings. I’m not sure if this length is really earned, but at the same time I struggle with how I personally would have broken things up. The story is really well maintained and I can’t really see any point where a break would make sense for a Pt. 1 / Pt. 2 scenario.

Part of the reasoning behind the book being so long is that there are just so many characters to keep track of. Between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” and anyone falling in between there are so many names flying around at several points I had to refer to a (spoiler free) character sheet in order to keep track of it all. I think the character list could have been whittled down and the core of the story would have remained the same. BUT AGAIN! Conflicted as it also does really help to flesh out the world. 

The actual plot was great, though of course I have nitpicks, particularly with the women (Steve I need you to just. Stop everything you are doing with your women characters and start over.) I definitely found myself more invested with the activities of the “good guy” grouping, which is likely intentional, but it made reading through the Las Vegas sections a bit of a chore at times. 

Despite the length, I was overall very invested in the story progression and enjoyed my time with the book. After writing this all out I’m going to stick to a 4 star on this. It was great. 

Sadly I did not love this! 
I am having a hard time figuring out why this didn’t work for me. I felt drawn to the concept - languages are cool! Space is cool! But for some reason this was a miss for me. I found the plot kind of confusing and all over the place, and the main character is certainly entering Mary Sue territory at times. Thankfully this was a short read, but just didn’t really do much for me unfortunately

This was a really comprehensive breakdown of the long, long history of the war. The middle kind of dragged a little bit for me and I was getting confused with the various names and locations. The final sections covering the most recent developments (by the standards of when the book was published) was great and I appreciated the conclusion section well. I also really connected with the author weaving in his personal experiences with general historical info. Made it more engaging as a non-fiction read. 

Yes this is worth all of the hype. Really beautifully written and of course heartbreaking. Loved it

Easy read, predictable at times, but some of the twists were surprising to me. Nothing revolutionary but I had fun with it and it held my attention well. Decent thriller!