pocketbard's reviews
523 reviews

An excellent book, that comes to me at a particularly relevant time both for my personal life and the world at large. The idea behind the book is that some conflict is necessary and even good – the sort of conflict that allows us to air grievances and then move forward together. But sometimes conflict can become self-perpetuating, intractable, stuck in “us vs. them.” The sort of conflict you feel you can’t get out of, even if you want to. This, according to Ripley, is “high conflict.” It can be as small-scale as a divorce proceeding or as large scale as a generational civil war. And it can be incredibly difficult to get out of, sometimes requiring people to hit rock bottom or otherwise suffer. The best way to get out of high conflict is to prevent it from happening in the first place, and Ripley gives some tangible, practical suggestions for how to do so, nicely summarized in the appendix. They all make sense when you think about them, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy or instinctive. Things like active listening, avoiding oversimplification and embracing curiosity, taking time away from the conflict, and avoiding the people who perpetuate it (who Ripley calls “fire starters”). This is definitely one of the books I’m going to reference a lot moving forward, I can tell. 

If I weren’t reading this for my book club, I’d probably have put it down relatively early. The first few chapters are so full of info-dumps that I was turning the pages, just hoping that SOMETHING would happen. Thankfully, the book does pick up around the 25% mark, which is good. The story gets reasonably compelling and I was curious about the various mysteries. That said, I didn’t really like either of the two main characters (I was much more interested in all the side-characters and occasional POV characters like Zizou and Apama), and I didn’t feel like there was much character development at all over the course of the story. In the end, I enjoyed the read, but not enough to bother reading the rest of the series, most likely. 

February 2025 reread: A longer book than the earlier novellas, but still good. I said in my review of Witch King that Wells does best as a novella writer, not a novel writer, but Network Effect is highly enjoyable. Like Witch King, it’s mostly based around a central question (notably: what happened to ART’s humans and how do we get them back?), but the answer is complex enough to hold up the plot of a novel. I’d forgotten how much of this book takes place on ships – for some reason I had in my head that more of it took place on the planet. But it’s really nice to see the whole gang together; the developing relationship between MurderBot, ART, and the various humans; and the fun twists and turns and fight scenes. MurderBot continues to be my Sanctuary Moon. 

February 2025 reread: A murder mystery on Preservation Station! While the main crew make some cameos here and there, for the most part MurderBot is working with a new team and learning how to interact with yet more humans. (Grudgingly but ultimately effectively.) I really love MurderBot’s slow character growth through the various books, and how it keeps finding new and creative ways to use its surroundings. And, of course, all the sarcastic internal monologues. I love them so very much. 

This one took me a while to get through. I had to read it in bits and pieces, because it was very emotionally affecting for me – especially now, at a time when it is pertinent to both the global situation and my personal life. Defy is about how we can move from our default state of compliance (in which we go along with what is expected of us, even if we feel uneasy about it) to one of conscious consent (a “true yes”) or defiance (a “true no”). At its core, defiance (or consent) means living in accordance with our true values, of being fully ourselves. Sah makes the case that not all defiance needs to be big, flashy, and headline-making. Even small acts – like saying “no” to an unethical request or pushing back against a bigoted slur – can have big ripple effects. Moreover, Sah makes the case that you don’t need to be brave or superhuman to defy (though in some cases, you might); you just need to practice. Little acts of defiance (living in accordance with your true values) will make it easier to do it again. I found this book both timely and inspiring, and I recommend it. 

One of the Penric books on the more serious side of the spectrum. I wouldn’t say that it was bad, but it definitely had fewer lighthearted moments than some of the previous stories, since the whole plot revolves around a plague of unknown origin, and Penric’s increasing deterioration as he attempts to save everyone. (Before it’s ultimately resolved with a happy ending.)

I’m a big fan of the Heath brothers’ work, and Reset is no exception. While Switch (one of their previous books) was primarily about personal change, Reset is more about organizational change. While it can be applied to personal growth, it’s really more for businesses, teams, and similar groups. It aims to help these organizations get moving when they feel stuck, focusing on how they can find and leverage small changes that get big results. (Heath calls this “finding leverage points” and “restacking resources.”) I thought the examples were interesting and the chapter summaries were especially useful. As someone who’s going through a period of transition at my own job, I hope I can put some of Heath’s principles into practice in the coming months. 

The DNF status of this book isn’t a slight against Crichton – Jurassic Park is a good book and I’m sure that under other circumstances, I’d have enjoyed it. But it was a book for a book club meeting that I wasn’t sure I would be able to attend, and beyond that it’s a very tense, stressful book that I was trying to read at a time when my life was already tense and stressful. I decided I didn’t need to give myself MORE stress on top of what I was already experiencing, and allowed myself to put this one down after only 15%. Maybe one day I’ll come back to it. 

An informative, useful book. Edmans attempts to show us the danger in statements like “studies show that…” Do they? How do we know? How can we avoid falling for misinformation or disinformation? He begins the book with a warning against two cognitive biases: confirmation bias and black-and-white thinking. He then goes through a lengthy process of explaining how to climb the “ladder of misinference,” showing how to go from statement, to fact, to evidence, to proof. (Or, rather, NOT to proof, since it’s very hard to definitively “prove” most things outside of a hard science context.) He ends with some ideas of what we can do as individuals, organizations, and societies in order to better evaluate information and make better decisions. I especially liked the quick-reference checklist in the appendix. To be clear: none of this is groundbreaking methodology. But it’s neatly laid out in one place and an excellent primer for how to evaluate claims you encounter in your everyday life, whether in a Facebook post, a news segment, a self-help book, or a water-cooler argument. 

This was an odd one, since it wasn’t actually set in the Scholomance for the most part, but in the wider wizard world. I’m not sure I liked the change. Part of me wishes that we’d had a first trilogy set in the Scholomance, and then a second set in the world outside, but admittedly I don’t think Novik could have told the story she was aiming to tell with that structure. I thought El went back to being a somewhat one-note character (she is ALWAYS ANGRY), and also I started to get seriously frustrated with the pages-long internal monologues as El sorted through her feelings, ruminated on Orion, or tried to figure out (usually incorrectly) what other people were thinking or planning. I think my favourite character was the no-nonsense and practical Liesel, who could figure out the most efficient path forward, nod, and get on with it, in a way most of the other characters in the book could not. For all my quibbles with El, the wizard world is evocative, I enjoyed seeing the various enclaves, and I appreciated how everything pulled together in the ending.