Tag: book review
-
HP and TCOS by JKR
Rating: 4/5, good A.K.A. The Book Series That Won’t Die by She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I listened to Lily Simpson’s 10-hour long video critique of HP a while ago and I started to wonder what I would think of the books now. I recently reread Harold Bloom’s (much shorter) critique as well. As much as I think HP…
-
Why I Hate Eragon
Rating: 2/5, bad I read Eragon in freshman year of high school and I hated it. I think it’s so boring, trite, generic, formulaic, you get the idea. I read a digital sample of it recently and I hate it now equally as much as I did then. I hate the name “Eragon” – it’s…
-
Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the Israel/Palestine conflict, especially those looking for a place to start that isn’t too difficult!
-
Rules for Resistance
Rating: 4/5, good Rules for Resistance is a short (200-page) collection of essays by journalists and activists from different countries giving Americans advice on how to deal with Trump. It’s edited by David Cole and Melanie Wachtell Stinnett. It was interesting, but I don’t know if it was as instructive as I was hoping for.…
-
Zom-B by Darren Shan
Rating: 5/5, excellent My brother suggested I read and review this for his birthday. I downloaded it and went in with no other info, no other reviews, which I think was the way to go. The first half is very uncomfortable to read because the main character is pretty racist. It’s obviously pushing an anti-racist…
-
Gothikana by RuNyx
Rating: 3/5, average There’s a trend going around to look up “book” in the search bar on Tiktok and the one that comes up is supposed to describe you. I did that and got Gothikana by RuNyx. I was intrigued by the gothic theme and several passionate negative reviews I saw on YouTube. Gothikana is…
-
A History of Israel by Howard Sachar
Rating: 5/5, excellent This 1,000 page tome is a fantastic in-depth history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It took me about four years to read and a couple of months to review, but I think it was worth the effort. It’s fairly unbiased compared to other books I’ve looked into on Israel. It leans slightly pro-Israel,…
-
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
Rating: 4/5, good “Sometimes a man grows tired of carrying everything the world heaps upon his head. The shoulders sag, the spine bows cruelly, the muscles tremble with weariness. Hope of relief begins to die. And the man must decide whether to cast off his load or endure it until his neck snaps like a…
-
The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster
Rating: 4/5, good The back cover of The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster reads (at least the 2007 Penguin edition of the book first released in 1982): “’One day there is life… and then, suddenly, it happens there is death.’ So begins The Invention of Solitude, Paul Auster’s moving and personal meditation on fatherhood.…