peripetia's reviews
535 reviews

There are a couple reasons why I'm dnf'ing this at like 5%. 

First, I just don't think this book is for me. I don't relate. I am not interested enough.

Second, I am becoming increasingly annoyed with the use of "we" and "our society" and other words like that. What do you mean? You obviously do not mean the population of the world but you also do not specify if you're referring to the USA or Western countries (it's obvious that these are the primary target groups). Also, it just feels to me like the "we" and "society" are often the author's Twitter/X echo chamber. This is a general complaint of mine but it did annoy me with this book as well.

Third, I found her use of "science" insufferable. Granted, listening to the audiobook I had no idea if she used any references, but the pseudoscience she parades stands on very skinny legs. I absolutely loathe people using evopsych armchair bullshit theorizing to argue that your specific cultural practice is somehow an evolutionary survival mechanism. The rest of the science thus far has been concepts of popular psychology. I just can't deal with this.

Fourth, the title sounds interesting but the book seems to be more a memoir than research-based non-fiction literature.

Montell is an extremely popular writer and I can see why. Just... not for me.

I just could not bring myself to care about this book. This can be because the audiobook narrator's delivery was so flat that it made the protagonist like she has no personality or emotions. I often got quite distracted because I was so bored and I probably missed some important stuff, but again, could not bring myself to care.

I also have a problem with the class/privilege theme but that's a whole other thing that I'm not going to get into. 

This was a very good read. It's been a while already since I finished it, but I've kept thinking about what I want to say about it. Surprisingly, not much.

First, I often found the main character/narrator insufferable with her horoscopes and travelling to Asia to be enlightened, but I would like to assume this was intentional. The fact that she doesn't want children was relatable, but she was obnoxious about it.

Second, the actual topic and theme of the book was explored well, thoroughly, and from multiple points of view. This is the main reason why this book is 4 stars for me.

It did slip to being a bit preachy sometimes and I found the superficial acknowledgment of privilege to be just annoying. Still, great book.

This book is absolute nonsense garbage and should never have been written. The author/motivational speaker does not have enough substance for his point to fill an entire book. His basic underlying message is fine if not completely obvious, but his arguments, especially his "scientific" explanations, are so fucking stupid.

In fact, the reason why I speed-read this book is because it was so funny. The funniness was not intentional though.

This book is the worst kind of 2009 hype capitalism. Companies are not trying to make money but whatever means necessary, no sir, they are on a valiant and noble MISSION - or at least they should be. The author constantly connects Apple, Harley-Davidson, and Dr. Martin Luther King to illustrate his point. His hard-on for Apple is probably the clearest message this book has, in addition to the WHY instead of the WHAT and the HOW, words that are spelled with capital letters just to maximize the insufferability of the book, I assume.

This book is pointless, stupid, and ridiculous. That's the review in a nutshell. Avoid by all means necessary unless you want a good laugh and can stand second-hand embarrassment well.

I think I'm over the 50% mark already but this book just doesn't hold my interest. It's not what I was expecting - partly due to my own misunderstandings - and I just don't want to read any more Holocaust/Second World War enterntainment. The writing is mediocre and it's just the heavy subject matter that makes it seem good, since it inevitably makes you feel something.

I really enjoyed this book. It's unique, it's interesting, I liked how it was written, and although some say in their reviews that the plot is weak, I liked it. I didn't have a problem with it, but I get the critique.

Good urban fantasy is hard to come by, and it's a genre that I like in general. The South African setting was a nice change of scenery as well.

The book also discusses different difficult themes from class to drug addiction. Definitely would recommend.

P.S. started th book as audio and I did not like the narrator. Or, to be fair, I don't think he voice suited the character, so I switched to physical. This was a good idea because I would have missed a lot of the language. 

 I'm quite conflicted about my review again.

On one hand, as a novel this is not very strong. The story is a fictionalized but typical trajectory of a Korean woman. The story revolves around the main character kind of loosely while the author focuses on context. The characters are not really characters but vessels to illustrate a point. The story includes telling, not showing, even through citing statistrics. Nothing is resolved. The writing style makes sense after the final part, sure.

On the other hand, reading this book in context is what makes it so powerful. This book could be non-fiction, but it has a bigger impact like this. Women can relate to it. They can feel the yes, exactly, this is what it's like. This fictional account is more true than non-fiction. It fills you with rage and sadness more than statistics ever could.

So, even though I feel this is a 3,5 starts kind of book, I'm rounding it up to 4. 

Sisältö oli todella mielenkiintoista, mutta rakenteen puolesta ei oikein toiminut. 

This was a massive disappointment for me. I remember loving Tram Car 015, so now I'm wondering whether I was reading less critically back then or if this novel just does not work.

My problems with this book are mainly the writing, the plot, and characters. Since the beginning of the book I felt like I had seen this movie 100 times. The plot, if you take out the cool worlddbuilding, is thoroughly unoriginal and uninspired.

The simple plot also moves forward at a snail's pace, and the book is at least twice as long as it should have been. It's full of tropes, such as her getting a new partner BUT SHE ONLY WORKS ALONE and then after a stupid and unnecessary conflict they become besties.

The main character's main characteristic is her obsession with her clothes. They were cool, for sure, but she was much more preoccupied with her suits than her job. I didn't mind the suits, even if it doesn't make sense that she would be exempt from wearing a uniform. It's just that she should have focused more on other things.

She also doesn't seem like a very competent police officer. People literally chase after her to hand her key pieces of information. She does very little investigating and when she does it, it's almost half-hearted. Sometimes it takes her ages to come to an obvious conclusion, sometimes she just invents something that is of course right.

She also brings her lover to fight the criminal. That is, a civilian. Beating up suspects with the blessing of the police. How does that make sense?

The story tries to be self-aware at one point, making a joke about villains making their villain-speeches - which the villain then does. This, of course, includes a we're not so different, you an I, followed by I'm nothing like you. (“No, really. I do mean it. We’re alike in a way.”; “I’m not like you.”). The villain also laughs maniacally ("A long silence followed, only broken by [villain's] slow laughter. It grew louder as [villain] basked in [their] triumph.")

I hated the writing also on the sentence level. Clark writes unbearably short sentences, like he could only come up with two words at a time and couldn't be bothered to tie them into a full sentence. Not only that, all the characters also speak in this exact same way, so I don't think it's a stylistic choice. (Also he used a lot of exclamation marks! In the narration! Like in a children's book!)

I don't want to spoil the book too much, but here are a couple examples:
The abandoned  blunderbuss. Out of ammunition. But still useful.
Next paragraph, He never saw it coming. Had likely thought her dead. Or incapacitated. His mistake.

I appreciated how much Clark incorporated Egyptian culture, society, and specifically Egyptian Arabic in the book. Sometimes it was a little bit too much and made it hard to understand what was going on. For example,
They wore full-length black kaftans with red tarbooshes. Seated on the modish moss-green divan were three women, each dressed in a black sebleh and wrapped in a milaya lef. Their faces were hidden behind matching bur’a, though their heads were strangely uncovered.

It's nice that he took into account the fact that in Egyptian Arabic the letter usually translliterated as q or kh is not pronounced, but writing burqa instead of bur'a could have made at least this part more understandable. I also don't understand the point of characters sometimes saying aywa. That just means yes. Why can't you write yes?

I guess that's most of my complaints. I could go through the book page by page and find something to criticize, but maybe it's better for everyone if I don't. I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone, except for the ones that are 90% interested in world-building and 10% interested in good writing.

This books tells an interesting story but not in an interesting way. We are fully in the head of the main character, but don't really get a look into her inner life. Malinche or Malintzin was at one point probably the most powerful woman in what is now Mexico, but instead of showing her intelligence and power, she drifts around from situation to situation passively.

Instead of showing us the development of Malinche's character, the author tells us constantly what she is feeling, but Malinche herself remains an empty vessel. 

Still, the story was very interesting, so I don't regret reading it.

I did not enjoy the audiobook, though. The narrator hired for this project is, for whatever reason, a Cuban who can't pronounce important words, like Quetzalcoatl or Nahuatl. Her melodramatic reading also started to feel jarring. Lastly, I don't know if it was the recording or what, but her wet mouth sounds... I got used to it, but it was not great.