kaadie's reviews
173 reviews

My toxic trait is loving (slightly) problematic romance. 

Sapiens was an informative read and I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book. I am not a fan of non-fiction and this book unfortunately had a few of the typical negative attributes of that genre. It was dry and read like a textbook. The writing didn't flow very nicely with frequent tangents. These are personal preference and do not reflect the ability of the writer, I just wasn't a fan. 

The Burning Chambers was a conflicting read. On the one had I really loved the characters and setting. The Joubert family is lovely and Minou and Piet's love story is quite heart warming. However on the other hand the plot was somewhat lacking for me. I found the story slow and predictable, which is an unfortunate combination. I was also perpetually frustrated by the characters reticence to confide in one another about things they suspected or had learnt. For example:

Bernard refusing to tell Minou about her origins, Minou not telling Piet about her knowledge of Devereux, Michel refusing to speak to Minou etc.

I did not like the fact that the author used these pockets of silence as means of forwarding the story since the characters were unaware and thus blundered into easily prevented pitfalls 30 pages later. What was also frustrating were the characters naivety:

Piet's faith in Vidal and McCone, Alis leaving with Blanche, Minou and her interactions with her Toulouse family members

. It was annoying. 

Overall I had a lackluster reading experience.

I don't like space and I don't like survivor stories because they both stress me out, but I really enjoyed this book. Mark Watney is an engaging and funny character whose levity makes the life-threatening circumstances much more digestible. All of the science was well explained so that someone with absolutely no idea what they were talking about (I.e. me) could easily follow. 

I just really enjoyed the read. I was stressing for the character but it was well balanced with occasional triumphs and it kept me eagerly reading the next pages to see if Mark survived. 

Meh. This book delivered what it promised. Someone was murdered and someone else figured out the how, why and when. 

This book for me was mid. Not bad, not amazing. The main plot, catching Jack the Ripper, was engaging enough and the killer was written with a fair amount of nuance. I found it hard to follow some of the action scenes. The descriptions of stuff in general were sometimes convoluted and overly verbose and ironically not very descriptive. There was some offensive content like the (completely needless) use of the k-word and mentions of blackface. I thought they were carelessly tossed in and added no real value to the narrative. The gore and horror aspect of the novel was well achieved, particularly in regards to body horror. The serial killer as always is a crazed misogynist. Some nuanced commentary would have been nice I suppose but ultimately that is neither the aim nor the purpose of this novel. Overall, a perfectly acceptable read (the genre isn't really my thing).

Meh, is all I can say. I found the plot predictable, the characters grating and the pacing slow. Overall I just really didn't like the book. Not my thing whatsoever. 

You find out a bit more about the cabal and what/who Tom really is. However, the revelations aren't anything I hadn't guessed already so it wasn't exceptionally thrilling. The scene in the cave was quite action packed though. 

The one caveat I will give in regards to my overall impression of the book is that this book was published in 2003 and I am reading it almost 20 years later. This time lapse I think, lessens the impact of the so-called "visionary" insights into feminism, sexism and masculinity. While much is still the same in regards to gender politics, things have still changed over the years and the topics covered in this book are definitely more widely discussed, if not yet accepted. 

However, despite this I did still encounter other problems with the book. First and foremost I found the language to be very provocative and on many occasions accusatory. Whatever the author's intentions, it seemed to be that she was was levying a lot of blame at female feminist feet and inadvertently excusing male transgressions as reactions to feminist oversight. All throughout the book the author failed to provide applicable examples to empower both men and women (and any gender in between) to help bridge the gap between masculinity and being human. Perhaps the books only purpose was to simply introduce the concept and establish it as a discussion point. However I think this is short-sighted and particularly frustrating because majority of what was said in the book was repetitive. Much of the book was simply the author reiterating what had been previously covered and I found some of her analysis to be a bit reductive. The author also tended to make broad generalizations about many things in the book, gender based violence, feminists, parents, mental health, etc. 

Overall I found the book to be a long and frustrating read, with the occasional interesting insight peppered here and there. I wouldn't recommend this book because I feel it is dated and that the author maligns female trauma and pain in order to highlight male suffering (as a result of the patriarchy). In addition, no workable advice or insight was provided for the way forward (for any gender). Perhaps back in 2003 this was an impactful read but personally I think the author, like all of the feminists she criticized in her book, has a blinkered and problematic take on what it means to be a holistic and realistic feminist. 

I enjoyed this volume quite a bit. In this installment you finally begin to understand who Tom is and why everyone is trying to kill him. There are still a lot of questions but the answers are potentially sumptuous. Once again I am eager to see what happens next.