Mechanical writing, heavily foreshadowed plot, and multiple povs made this book highly soporific. Only one character had the right motive, making the twist less shocking. After falling asleep for the 8th time while reading, and abut 75% in, just skipped to the wiki summary.
4.5 stars. A fitting ending that perhaps drug the plot a little bit further than the apex, but overall the series was extremely satisfying.
3.5 stars, great setting, solid writing. Somewhat disappointing characters and a predictable plot.
surprisingly good, game of thrones + mulan + traitor baru thrown into one. Good setting.
Took a bit to get started, but a worthwhile long walk of a book in the end.
**Offending the Culture Gods in Reassimilation ** A stressed lesbian medium fights gods, ghosts, gangsters, and grandmas in 21st century Penang. * In a book about feeling alienated, I feel seen. First is the difficulty when trying to re-assimilate into a foreign culture, especially when that culture is your own. The look Aku gave her was familiar. Jess had seen it at different points points from, Mom, Dad, Coco, and their friends. It was a look of realization that here was an alien to whom even the most basic things, even the things everyone understood, would have to be explained. * Then the basic desire to find people that have shared context. * It was just nice to hang out with somebody that was her age, somebody that was more like her than her parents. Jess could guess what kind of restaurant Shang went to, what he did for fun, what he watched on Netflix. * Sure I didn’t grow up with Asian parents (* Mom would kill her if she got murdered here, she thought. * ) but some feelings are universal. I appreciated the focus on filial relationships, and the visceral setting. Plot twists weren’t entirely predictable, and to the detriment of my sleep schedule, I finished the book in one sitting. Recommended.
End of the World was Boring The fall of man was multidimensional. Ancestral primates fell out of the trees, then they fell from plant eating to meat eating then they fell from instinct into reason and thus into technology… Then they fell from a joyous life in the moment to an anxious contemplation of the vanished past and the distant future. Dystopia is the easiest form of societal criticism for mediocre writing. Take the flaws of a society, dial them up and add societal repercussions, and voila! You’ve created a dystopian world. Unfortunately this is like trying to build an airplane by scaling up a dragonfly 100x, without a nuanced understanding or at least thesis on the underlying causes of current societal ills it’s easy for a dystopia to feel cardboard. ...
politics by a non politician who becomes a politician fed up with politics. good read
**No Lasting Impression ** It’s harder than expected to write a review of Islington after a few months. I certainly remember the main characters, but like paint after too much mixing, all the characters have bled together into a brown shade of grim determination. With sufficient time travel and interwoven plots, it’s difficult to even tell the books apart. Much of the book is rereading the same story from a new vantage in time, with the reader adding pieces to previous knowledge, rather than navigating a new plot. The extended sequences in a purgatory-like time capsule were my favorite part of the book, if only to escape the steadfast drumbeat of sacrifice, speeches, and pontifications on free will. Overall passable, but didn’t leave an impression. ...
**Origami Permutations on Wealth ** Origami was never about the finished product. For me, it was the act of folding, taking an inert shape and transforming it into something unrecognizable, and doing so through crisp folds neatly executed. The Chosen and the Beautiful feels like Origami. Nghi Vo takes the story and material of Great Gatsby but folds it differently, with just enough wrinkles to keep a reader spellbound. Rather than tell the story from the perspective of the cardboard cutout Nick, Vo focuses on Jordan Baker: queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers. Vo captures the spirit of cultural unease lyrically: Being a guest suited me […] and as I went along I was turning into a marvelous mimic. I copied the Featherstone’s polished manners, the Banner’s midatlantic accent, and the Wilkens easy command of those they deemed their social inferiors, which was to say, everyone. I learned the trick of simply assuming I was welcome wherever I went, and for the most part, I was. I was clever enough to know that it was my exotic looks and faintly tragic history that made me such an attractive curiosity. ...