Book reviews from a former gifted kid

I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't really get into it. It's written from multiple changing POVs, but it didn't do it well. It was really confusing and made it hard to tell what was actually happening in the story. A lot of book felt like the plot and cohesion was discarded in favor of the writing style.

It was really interesting the way that WHORL was described. It's hard to just invent a new psychedelic with new effects without it being done horribly, but it was actually done pretty well in this story. The closest thing that I can think of that might be similar to WHORL is a benadryl trip, which are notoriously unpleasant but sufficiently numbing.

The ending of the book didn't make sense and I'm still not really sure what happened. It felt anticlimactic, like nothing really happened and nothing changed. And honestly, the book was kind of hard to get through at all.

2/5 stars

I really loved this book and my only complaint was that it was so short it left me wanting more. There isn't much to say about it other than it was really, really interesting. It was well written and the drawings added so much great context to the way things were described and the things that I was reading.

There were some human evolutions whose entire life was nothing but suffering, and there were other's whose entire life was nothing but hedonistic pleasure. There were so many different things that were explored in terms of how hostile planets might change the way that things evolve and it was all done really well.

5/5 stars

I liked this book even though it wasn't great. This was the first Steven King book that I've read, and I don't really know if I like his writing style yet or not. The book was a quick read, but I did find myself having to reread certain passages over and over again to understand what they were saying.

The actual story was kind of lacking. It takes place almost entirely in a single classroom, and not much actually happens. Most of the story is the kids just having a conversation with the kid that's holding them hostage in the room. The emotions don't feel real or deep in the book, and its hard to like any of the characters since none of them feel particularly well rounded.

It was also written in a bizarre way that makes school shooting seem almost justified and reasonable. It absolutely down-plays the trauma, fear, anxiety, and seriousness of the situation, and even the characters being held hostage barely see it as something serious and dangerous. Steven King has even confessed to regretting writing the book after it was found in the homes or lockers of multiple real life school shooters, though he did clarify that the book didn't make them do it and sick and hurt kids made their own choices. It felt weirdly like a slice of life story, like it was just another day.

I might be too old to really enjoy this one, because it did read more like a YA novel than something for adults.

3/5 stars

Both of these books were an easy, quick read. I made my way through it, horrified, in a single session. They were the kind of books that, despite knowing the ending, you just can't put them down for a single second. Both books were extremely well written, though I preferred Animal Farm personally.

I read Animal Farm first, so I'll talk about it first. I loved this book, though I'm not sure it had the effect on me that Orwell intended. In the beginning of the book, when the animals had first taken over the farm and were working together, their new society worked exactly the way that it should. It's no secret that I'm an anarchist communist, so the beginning of the book was my ideal world. Laws set and maintained strictly by the people affected by them, and the concept of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" executed perfectly. The book showed me that true communism/anarchy would work. The problem in the book was that they allowed leaders to take over, and once they allowed those hierarchies to form, they just got stronger and stronger until the other animals on the farm were being oppressed again. Orwell intended for this book to be about the dangers of communism, but all I took from the story was the dangers of capitalism.

I also loved 1984, but less for its themes and more for the actual story. The picture that was painted of this dystopian all-controlling government was horrifying. It was horrifying to look between that book and the things currently happening in the US. The way the government is trying to ban tiktok, police trans and queer bodies out of existence, states trying to ban masks in public again despite the fact that covid is not even close to over, the bans on abortion and birth control, all the horrific limitations on bodily autonomy, personal freedom, and the right to try to find happiness are all heading towards a dystopian society much like that from the book. My initial review after reading it was short: "If I weren't already an anarchist, this book would have been the only thing I needed to radicalize me." That feels even more true now than when I read the book. I've been watching America's slow descent into fascism for years now, trapped on the inside, and this book was a huge reminder that it is everyone's responsibility to fight against it.

The actual story was excellent and perfectly written. I could feel the way the character started to finally feel comfortable, the small shred of happiness that he finally had for the first time in his life. I could feel the anxiety that he would finally be caught. I could feel the fear of being constantly watched. And there was a point, right near the end, where I was almost convinced that there would be a happy ending. I knew, of course, that there wouldn't, that it would end in tragedy, but Orwell wrote it so well that a small part of me really believed that it would end happy. It made it that much worse when I actually read the end.

Animal Farm 4.5/5 stars

1984 4/5 stars

American Psycho is a gorey but kind of boring book. It starts slow and reading the beginning felt a little bit unbearable. There were times before things really started that I thought about adding to my DNF list, but I'm really glad that I stuck with it. The first few chapters are just boring. Nothing happens. Bateman goes to lunch and makes dinner reservations and has sex with different women and describes in painstaking detail all the different luxury clothing brands that everyone is wearing. All I could think was "does anyone actually care about any of this?".

The murders start to pick up in the first quarter or half of the book, but they're kind of boring in the beginning too. Stabs somebody, slits somebodies throat. Whatever.

Towards the later half of the book, the murders start getting more and more frequent and elaborate. There's a scene where he decapitates a woman and then fucks the decapitated head, written in detail. Which is one thing this book never lacks, is detail, usually mindnumbing monotonous details about what people are wearing or eating or random chapters about musicians that don't really feel like they belong in the same book. But the murders, gore and guts and all, are written with exactly the same amount of detail as all the boring stuff, and, the murders at least, are well written and interesting.

As the book progresses, and Bateman's drug use gets worse, you can really see his deterioration. Things that he was worried about in the beginning, things like getting caught or trying not to kill people that were close to him, start to not matter anymore. He shoots someone in broad daylight in front of a cop. He mixes up the names of the restaurant that he's currently in. His anxiety spirals. It's hard to tell what's real and what's only real to him. It's written surprisingly well and really reflects the way that it feels to spiral into a psychotic episode, to lose touch with reality.

The multi-way phone conversation chapter where they do nothing but talk about dinner reservations for what feels like years sucked. Probably my least favorite chapter in the entire book. It was un-fucking-bearable. But even that chapter, though meant to be confusing, shows exactly where his mind is at and how out of touch he is.

Most of the book was just boring. Nothing. Filler. Dinner reservations and conversations about how to style clothes and sex with women he doesn't care about and business meetings and renting and returning vhs tapes and weird tangents that seem both out of character and like they should be in a different book and the longest run-on sentences ever written. But it was okay, and worth it to get to the murders and panic attacks.

Not sure why he was obsessed with Trump, seems like a guy like that would think that he was stupid and ugly. Even if it was written before Trump was (openly at least) the raging bigoted cunt that he is today with an orange spray tan.

It ends completely unceremoniously with nothing happening. The guy doesn't die or get arrested or kill himself, he doesn't change. It just ends. I know that the point, I understand the deep themes and satire. I know why it was written the way that it was. I just think that maybe I didn't need 400 pages of nothing to tell me that rich people are bad. Has the vibes of like white men that do acid once and then learn that empathy is good.

I probably won't ever read it again, but I am glad I finished it.

3/5 stars

Unwind is a super dystopian book following a few different kids who were sent to be unwound by their parents. Unwinding means that all of their organs are harvested and transplanted into other people so that the children never technically die and the book raises interesting questions about souls, life, and morality.

One of the scenes in the book is several of the kids talking about what happens to their souls if their bodies are completely separated into hundreds of pieces, and if they could ever die or go to an afterlife if those pieces of their body are still technically alive.

It was really well written to help convey the feelings and horror that those kids are going through, and there are both likeable and unlikable protagonists. It's easy to understand and doesn't focus a lot on the world building, technology, or history of the world that its set in, and instead focuses on the inner dialogues and feelings of kids that are sent to be unwound. It really fucks with your head and makes you think about right and wrong.

I think its the perfect mix of world building and emotion driven, and I'm so excited to read the rest of the series.

5/5 stars

This was a really well written and beginner friendly book, but it does get a bit theological in some places. While reading it, I could feel how passionate and in love with Judaism Sarah is, and the way she talks about her life and experience is beautiful.

The book is definitely not a call to conversion, but she does assume that the audience is people thinking about converting, people who are already in their conversion, and Jews. (And non-jewish partners dating or married to Jewish ones!) That said, I would recommend this book to anyone on a religious or spiritual journey of their own, regardless of what religion that is. I think the book offers great insight and a great guide to understanding and finding meaning and love in religion. The book offers a lot of good questions to ask yourself and other people to help you understand things you feel a little better.

I personally found a lot of comfort in this book, and it was easy for me to read without getting frustrated. The use of Hebrew or Yiddish is pretty minimal, and almost always has an english translation when it is used. The book also flows really well. I really enjoyed reading it.

Read: June 10th 2022

Honest review

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was both very informative and very digestible.

It was largely focused on people who choose to convert to Judaism because they are in love with someone Jewish or married to someone Jewish, and it did feel a little alienating to me personally because my conversion is something I'm undergoing completely on my own, without any Jewish friends or family to stand behind me if I fall. That said, it does focus on conversion as a whole and the importance of finding and making a Jewish community of your own.

It's a great book to start your journey to conversion, regardless of whether thats influenced by a significant other or not, and introduces the basics of many aspects of Jewish life such as the process of conversion, a mikvah, Jewish holidays, and some very basic Hebrew words that are used by virtually all Jews, including those who don't speak Hebrew at all functionally. It also includes a few of the Jewish blessings written in Hebrew, phonetically English Hebrew, and english.

The book is also very clear about stances of supporting queer people and queer Jewish experiences, especially for something written in 1997. There are several instances that the author mentions including queer Jews and queer jews-by-choice, even if some of the things are phrases heteronormatively for simplicity.

It seems so clear reading the book that the author is deeply deeply in love with being Jewish, and encouraging people to explore Judaism even without the intention to convert. The author talks to the reader like a close friend, and invites you in like a guest with welcoming arms.

Honest Review

The book is broken into both sections and chapters, and the first section was by far the best, and in my opinion, the only one worth reading. The first section is very autobiographical, and tells Dan Barker’s story. It gives great insight into the way that fundamentalist religious people think and what they feel, as well as why he decided that atheism was a better fit in his own life.

This book had potential and I started reading it because I’m in my own journey of religious deconstruction. I was thoroughly disappointed with the book and message before I was even half way through with reading it, and it was so awful that trying to finish it felt like swimming through quick sand. I couldn't manage it.

After the first section, the book devolved into a pretentious, stuck up, judgmental book, written by someone who thinks he’s the smartest man on earth - no doubt the kind of man whose entire personality is both mansplaining and playing the devils advocate. Its 356 pages of “ I don’t believe in God because I can’t prove God exists, and anyone who believes in God is delusional and wasting their entire life on some made up bullshit” reiterated 500 different times in the kind of language that only a college philosophy professor could enjoy. The book might be worth reading if he hadn’t made the same point over and over and over again for hundreds of pages, but it wasn’t. 

There is an entire chapter in the book dedicating to nitpicking the literal definitions of words, which is used as proof to him that God cannot exist. Regardless of whether or not God exists, how annoying do you have to be to write an entire chapter in a book dedicated solely to nitpicking the definitions of words to better make your point? Its one of the biggest examples of “I think I’m smarter than everyone else in the world” in this book. 

If you’re looking for a book that’s hundreds of pages of a white man claiming to be better, smarter, and more logical than everyone else just because he decided to be an atheist, this sure is the book for you. Dan barker is the kind of atheist that makes other atheists want to run him over with a car, and the kind of atheist that makes religious people even more confident in their beliefs because of the fear that becoming an atheist puts you in the same group as that guy. 

This is the worst book that I have ever read to date, and yes, I am including mandatory highschool reading in this statement.