Reviews and Comments

At first, it was pretty funny satire. But the depression of the main characters gets to be depressing on its own and the book gets progressively darker and less entertaining through the end. I'm not really sure what was being conveyed by the end.

A re-read. I really love this series. The universe Leckie has created is inventive, but also clearly a reflection of our own. A menacing external threat, a mysterious internal threat, and a completely inventive and intriguing narrator. If it had a space battle, it might be one of my most favorite sci-fi books ever.

This is one of the most psychoactive books I have read in some time. A mother thinks maybe she's becoming a dog? And then just kind of leans into it. As a father who is the primary caregiver at home, I resonated with the main character's angst, her conflicts with career ambitions and parenting, her rage and her love. But, as a father instead of a mother, I was able to embody another kind of experience, one that helped me connect more with my wife and other friends who are mothers. The mother in this book is also an artist and the key parts of the book are meditations on the point of art and what it can do. Additionally, this book is a debut novel and in that sense it kicked my ass! Wake up and make art! (it told me).

This book was amazing. Lots of genre innovation for a memoir (repetition of key phrases and scenes, a device where the author imagines her imploding marriage as a play written by her husband years ago, etc.). The author sometimes seems angry with the readers for wanting to know the awful details of the story of her cruel husband and his kind of wacky decision to just take off on her and her kids. But in other places just really beautifully captures her pain and her growth. And doesn't justify one with the other or say it all happened for a reason or that they're better off even though it was difficult.

First, this novel has some pretty titillating stories in it, so it gets the blood pumping. But also the cultural context of the novel is fascinating, a really interesting look into the honor culture of this ethnic group in diaspora london. The main character is kind of snoozer, but she's that way to elicit different interesting reactions from everyone else. And the variety of stories throughout the novel, from the stories the women generate to those of the various side characters, are totally fascinating.

This book tells the story of a marriage, for the first half, from the man's POV and in the second half, from the woman's. The first half is ok, kind of a wild adventure but the second half is straight up nuts and kind of recasts the whole first half in an amazingly compelling way. Like reading a totally different book.

Picked this up because the NYT review was so effusive, noting that for a debut book it was incredible and exciting to imagine where the author can go from here. I didn't vibe with it as strongly as the Golem and the Genie (another great debut), but the story was pretty gripping and I was with it each step of the way. Ultimately, the focus on blood throughout was kind of off-putting and it makes for a less than interesting magical system. And I didn't really strongly connect with any of the characters or their emotional lives. But this was well-written, well-plotted, and a good story.

Pretty nice detective novel with some cool sci-fi elements about long life. Some interesting brutal fight scenes as well, including one where the main guy shoves his fist in his opponents mouth, cutting off his air supply.

This book was ok, but did drag a bit. There were some clever observations on the beauty industry and the desire to link spiritual letting go with a resulting beautiful glow. Also a critique of "selling out" in the wellness space. But the main character had a kind of tragic arc that was distasteful.

Wow this was long. It took awhile to get into all the varied narratives and POV characters, I was reading this book from end of December in and out but took breaks for other books. Overall, scared the pants off me about upcoming climate challenges. By the end, I was hooked on all the narratives and invested in the characters and even wanted more book to get more complete endings for some of them.

Wow, I liked this book. Felt like the narrator captured a bunch of familiar marital patterns. Some weird tonal periods where the book went from emotionally wrenching and engaging to almost academic analysis of algorithms to show how a lonely old man got hooked on facebook hate. Overall, affecting and engaging and insightful.

This book was kind of lyrical and throughout it's hard to say one knows what is going on, but also it's kind of breezy in ways so it doesn't really matter. Some hard stuff goes down, but it always seems kind of dreamy or breezy. It's set in a south asian imaginary place, so it feels pretty foreign throughout, and also a magical realism kind of place as well. Overall, not a bad book, but pretty far out of the genres I'm used to and the kinds of stories I'm engaged in.

Just as good as the previous book. I especially love the narrator of these two audiobooks, his voice is rich and it makes the small Irish town feel homey and menacing in equal parts. I especially like the way the characters relate through love but twisted up and blocked and hard to communicate, but eventually they find a way. The pace is nice and leisurely, allowing me to really soak into the setting and the vibe, which I enjoyed a good deal.

This was largely enjoyable, although the turn from Murderbot feeling alienated from everyone to Murderbot feeling cringey about how much its humans care for it is a little less engaging. This story largely focused on Murderbot's trauma response to Network Effect - Martha Wells and its relationship with ART and the humans. Didn't really play out any of the threads about alien contamination from Network Effect, which is feeling like kind of a big tease at this point.