No reason, just interested!
Mine are:
1. Back When We Were Grown Ups by Anne Tyler — A breezy but sometimes existential book about family and growing old. Some irritating characters for sure, but I generally thought it was very true to life, sweet without being saccharine, and fairly moving towards the end. 7/10
2. Beloved by Toni Morrison — Monumental fiction, just an utter powerhouse of writing. It strikes this incredible balance of horror and beauty through characters that you just want to weep for. So, so, so good. 10/10
3. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse — Way too convinced of its own earth-shattering wisdom while failing to offer much of a coherent philosophy at all. Like a less shit The Alchemist. 3/10
4. A Shining by Jon Fosse — Nowhere near Fosse’s best, and far from the most interesting attempt at death in the first person that I’ve read. Not a bad read by any stretch, but there’s just very little to it. 5/10
5. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi — A book that somewhat clumsy combines memoir with history, sociology, and literary criticism, but the individual parts are all pretty excellent. There’s a lot of knowledge packed in here. 8/10
by RokanPohan
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1. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. 4/5. Beginning was good. Ending was good. Middle was a bit rough and was weak in terms of bridging the gap. Overall fun.
2. Anathem by Neal Stephenson. 5/5. Outstanding. Immersion factor off the charts. Loved every bit.
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. 4/5. Heartbreaking ending. Really sad and gloomy.
4. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. 3/5. Fantastically well written and loved the MC. However ending felt like a cop out and fell flat.
5. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. 5/5. Phenomenal in every aspect. Highly recommend.
Tea Set and Match and Royal Tea Service – books 2 and 3 of the Tea Princess Chronicles by Casey Blair. Fun cozy fantasy trilogy revolving around tea. Rated 3 and 4, respectively.
Dressed to Kill by Crown Fall – a litrpg about a seamstress that I was happy to find on KU after it was pulled from RR. Decent but I wasn’t particularly sold on the ending and it needed more work with the characters, I think. 3.5/5 and will read the next one.
When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker – first foray into romantasy. Loved the worldbuilding, wasn’t very keen on the FMC or the romance part itself lol. 3/5 but will read the next one.
Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker – read for research, enjoyed it. Had a really cool anecdote about Jurassic Park in the beginning. 4/5
1. The Black House by Peter May (The Lewis Trilogy)
2. The Lewis Man by Peter May (The Lewis Trilogy)
3. The Chessmen by Peter May (The Lewis trilogy
4. A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman
5. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
All of them were a 5/5 reads for me.
Guards! Guards! – well I think it’s finally time to admit to myself I just don’t get Terry Pratchett. At least I finished this one even if I dragged my feet with it for two weeks What Moves the Dead – absolute banger, could have been 100 pages longer and I would have been on board. Definitely plan to check out the sequel Before the Coffee Gets Cold – doesn’t do anything super special but my god does it feel good to read romance stories without them being all about sex. You get a free good noodle star on the house for that The Percy Jackson Series – they’re fine, get kind of worse as they go along I feel like I was really on autopilot for the back half of the series Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead – it’s not bad but if it were any longer I’m not sure I would have finished it