emmacb's reviews
176 reviews

I can't pick out anything specific that I like or dislike this book. I'm rating it highly more just because I can tell it will stay with me for a while - it's the sort of book which is very clearly allegorical, but the exact symbolism has enough room for your own interpretation and consideration.

Good, quick read with a bit for your brain to chew on too!

I really do like this book! Have read it before but wanted to reread it.. May have to make it a Christmas reading tradition, though I'm a bit late this year!

This book made me feel very feminist. Unsurprisingly. What's cool is how it manages to address, with humour and a straightforward, unembellished honesty the historical limitations to women writing, and how they continue to haunt us today as we struggle to catch up.
What's more, it managed to do this without really talking down about men, just stating Woolf's observations about male attitudes and advantages and giving a certain amount of evidence - the lecture/essay format by necessity limits the breadth of this evidence or it would be dull to listen to for sure!
Would definitely recommend this book. Im never usually someone to highlight passages in books, but I made a fair few notes from this one. :)

This book took me a long time to read, and with good reason - it is heavy stuff. Elkins still manages to keep the book engaging though, communicating fact after brutal fact without becoming too dry.

It is brutal though. I had to take a bit of time after reading this book to collect my thoughts about it into something more coherent.

Overall, I would say this book has me feeling more scorn than ever for British patriotism. Not the kind where someone is simply proud of where they from, but the more toxic kind where people see Great Britain as somehow superior to other countries. This book shows that is simply not true, especially when combined with other historical accounts of colonialism it shows that we have our dark patches in history like any other country, and that those patches are very dark indeed.

The very fact that camps like those described in the books could even be considered so soon after the Nazi concentration camps of World War Two is hard to believe. The terrifying level of coverup and national apathy surrounding the Kenyan situation left me feeling cold. It makes me wonder about what could be going on in the world now, what terrible things we might be reading about in another 50 years time that are happening right now.

Overall, a historically important, well-written and thought-provoking read.

This book was a welcome relief after wading through an interesting but intense history book before it!
It is simply written, but the characters manage to capture your interest and sympathies very quickly. The different elements of the story are well woven together, but Finnerty manages not to make it feel gimmicky. Rather, it is a nice depiction of how our own lives weave connections with the people around us without necessarily ever meeting.
I think my favourite thing about this story is how every character feels so round. They all have their good sides but equally they all have their flaws.

This book was beautiful in the kind of way that makes me want to reread it soon so I can properly appreciate it. The language was so poetic but whilst I was pushing through to get the story I probably missed a fair bit of it!
In the foreword and afterword Bradbury discusses how this book was written along with changes he made to future versions in other media, which I found really interesting. For starters it's good to know more about what happened to Clarice. Beyond that though, when he talks about how he wrote the book - it's the kind of book that you can honestly tell was written in flurries of inspiration from the almost stream-of-consciousness-like style, but it also shows Bradbury's lifelong love of literature in its style and rhythm. I didn't recognise most of the quotes included in this book but I hope one day I will!

I have to admit, despite having studied Japanese at uni, I just can't quite get into kooky Japanese literature like this.. like, I'm all for a slightly funky metaphor but I prefer my metaphors with a bit more context... I don't know, it was all a bit too obscure for me I think!
There were occasional bits of nice language, but even then they were negatively balanced by irritating descriptions of women.

A very easy read - took less than 24 hours to get through it!
Vaguely interesting, but I won't be running out to recommend it to everyone. A good book to read if you just want something simple and easy to follow!

I made the mistake of reading some reviews of this book when midway through it. These reviews rightly pointed out that Harari's conclusions are not always based on particularly solid backgrounds, and that they can occasionally seem a little one-sided or shallow.
The positive of reading these reviews was that they helped me to read the rest of the book with a more critical eye. The downside was they stole some of the enjoyment and wonder that I experienced when first reading this book.
And this is a book which brings you wonder when you read it. The concept of 'modern myths' fascinated me, as did the interpretations of some elements of our modern life. Harari introduces big concepts and puts them into easy-to-understand terms. Perhaps too simplistic sometimes, which is where the criticism comes in!
Overall, I would describe this book as an excellent springboard into learning more about not just our history, but what it is that makes us human. You can use this book to identify topics which fascinate you, think about them in a new way and then maybe read other books to deepen or further your knowledge from there.

This is one of my first forrays into reading poetry. I therefore feel like I would benefit from coming back to this book in the future when I am a bit wider read. However, I enjoyed this collection and - regardless of knowing poetry or not - still had several quiet moments where I could just sit and let the words and feel of a poem sink in.