Reviews and Comments

Probably the best non-fiction book published this year. Deep insights into the mind, intelligence and personalities of animals, written with nuance and deep empathy.

Multiple streams of the second-generation immigrant experience, finding a place in the world and in partnership, experiencing the places in this country, historical anti-Asian racism and the vacuous craptacular of the tech/startup world, and Alexandra Chang manages to elegantly merge and intersplice them into a flow.

"the creative brain" looks at 7 myths of connection between brain and creativity in detail and reviews the scientific evidence. This us not to debunk the myth but to actually go through the research istory and tell us what the current state of scientific understanding is. It is a little academically dry, but it is excellently researched and written.

Disappointed. The writing was immaculate, addressing the plight of Native Americans in cities, Oakland was well represented, but it was sooo constructed. Too many characters, and not clear why, that also all are related or discover connections. Jumps too quickly between characters, and the story becomes very weird in the end.

Expository dialogue for most of the book. Some truly funny bits though.

I love Ottessa Moshfegh's writing, but this just didn't come together