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![Helen Hoang: The Kiss Quotient [Paperback] Helen Hoang (Paperback, Corvus)](https://bookwyrm-social.sfo3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/covers/3421c3c1-236e-4474-a9de-122105705655.jpeg)
Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of …
Very much "the chosen one goes to magic high school". But fun.
Interesting, empathic, fun, not mind-blowing.
Engaging and direct, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace is the guidebook for anyone who …
A book on writing useful and stylish text. Written in a stylish and useful manner.
Cannot overstate the density of helpful content and lack of fluff. Pleasure.
"A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in …
As an erotica, it's ok.
As a book with a neurodivergent protagonist, it's ok.
As an exploration of Asian-American culture, it's ok.
Some icky stuff. Sexual assault is not a peccadillo only to be used as a setup to show how cool your boyfriend is. Boundless jealousy, feeling of ownership and violence fantasies should maybe not just hang around uncommented.
Most of all, I'm interested in the political future of this book. The Kiss Quotient can definitely be read as the "lesbians just need some good dick" spiel applied to ace people. Let's see.
BLUE REMEMBERED EARTH is the first volume in a monumental trilogy tracing the Akinya family …
I'm surprisingly disappointed by this.
I have the general feeling that Reynolds got lost in researching and implementing sci-fi concepts in incredible detail, at the cost of everything else: Story, characters, dialogue, suspense. Some examples:
The high-level story is a kind of scavenger hunt setup that feels very linear, like a quest in a mid-tier RPG. Without spoiling details, it also seems to turns out to be 100% pointless unless I'm missing something.
The two main characters feel incredibly bland, and while they are supposed to be polar opposites in their personal beliefs, you could literally swap their positions and the book wouldn't change. An even worse offender is Jumai, a side character: She's an high-tech salvage expert, an ex of the male lead, and has a bit of an identity crisis. How is this intriguing setup used? She opens one security door (that may as well have not existed …
I'm surprisingly disappointed by this.
I have the general feeling that Reynolds got lost in researching and implementing sci-fi concepts in incredible detail, at the cost of everything else: Story, characters, dialogue, suspense. Some examples:
The high-level story is a kind of scavenger hunt setup that feels very linear, like a quest in a mid-tier RPG. Without spoiling details, it also seems to turns out to be 100% pointless unless I'm missing something.
The two main characters feel incredibly bland, and while they are supposed to be polar opposites in their personal beliefs, you could literally swap their positions and the book wouldn't change. An even worse offender is Jumai, a side character: She's an high-tech salvage expert, an ex of the male lead, and has a bit of an identity crisis. How is this intriguing setup used? She opens one security door (that may as well have not existed as far as the story goes) and has some wholesome small talk with the protagonist. That's it.
The Pans are an important faction in the book. Again without going into spoilers, they are a mysterious, Atlantis-esque, biohacking political power. Interesting! However, below the patina of surface inventions, they could literally be any other organization ever: Umbrella Corp, the Catholic Church, Havard University, the government of Belgium, you name it. In fact, they are two other powerful and rich factions in the book (the Akinya family and Plexus) which feel exactly the same.
The book is not actually lacking pain, terror, grief, injury and death. However, Reynolds seems to go to great pains to have all of these scenes happen either literally off-stage or to describe them in the riveting style of Wikipedia World News. That generates the unfortunate feeling that nothing happens for 85% of the book.
Overall, while I can recommend the author, I cannot recommend this book.
Does a decent job teaching you what it sets out to teach you.
Definitely has a problem with global coherence, with random chapters that are sometimes surprising, sometimes dull, sometimes outdated and sometimes vague.
In the end, I cannot ignore that the book teaches you to produce more of that vile, pseudo-personal corporate bullshit that the internet is already filled with to the brim .
first 30% of the book is the author smelling his own farts. after we get over these 100 pages of over-lyrical antarctica poetry, the actual story is as gritty as it is good.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience …
expected a decent how-to guide. got that, and and a surprisingly solid philosophy of life itself.
Natsuki isn't like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She …
excellent, raw, uncensored portrait of things and characters. a bit too out there towards the end, to the point where it lost a bit of its seriousness.
when people say "book that should've been a blog post", this is what they're talking about
"Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so-called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the …
We insist on setting up an opposition between concepts of success and failure, but this notion is unhelpful and can …
In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance—beset by newly emerging …
