Tag: books

Posted on

Restarted “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow”

Restarted Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow today and made it back to same point I bounced off the first time.

Three chapters in and I really dislike the book up to this point. College Sadie and the terrible professor is sooooo dumb and his dialog and personality are so transparently awful. I can’t tell at this point if the author Zevin is this clueless about relationships or if Sadie is about to turn into a non awful character any minute.

It doesn’t help how bad the video game stuff is early.

Calling Street Fighter etc “martial arts games” made me cringe. This is also how I feel watching any baseball or football fiction. It must really be hard writing about nerdy details in a way that doesn’t alienate people not intimately familiar with the concepts.

Posted on

The Codex (by Douglas Preston) – ★★½

The Codex

Ooof. Wasn’t awful but was certainly stilted/poorly written in spots. Not nearly as interesting or in my wheelhouse as the Lincoln Child books I’ve been reading. (Ironically, I’ve been catching up with all these old Preston and Child books while I wait for the first Preston & Child book Relic to be available on Libby.)

I think the voices/accents the reader uses in the audiobook likely made it even worse, but even for a book from 20 years ago this was pretty culturally incompetent. And it saved some of the worst racism for a totally unnecessary final coda that doubled down on bigotry and some of the worst language yet.

I read Preston’s Tyrannosaur Canyon on vacation ages ago and liked it, so despite struggling with this one I’m still eager to reread that and check out the rest of the Wyman Ford books. Hopefully they’re a little more fun and a lot less dated in their perspective.

Rating: 2.5 stars

? View my Goodreads review
? Buy The Codex on Amazon

Posted on

Disrupting the Game (by Reggie Fils-Aimé) – ★★½

A relatively thin personal memoir that tried too hard to be a business book and to cover every one of Fils-Aimé professional life events instead of going particularly deep on anything interesting. Considering the name, tagline, and cover art of the book more focus on Nintendo.

The behind the scenes moments with the late Satoru Iwata were the most interesting but Fils-Aimé memoir lacks much real introspection or insight into what was happening at Nintendo during his time there. 200 page book and only 7 pages or so are spent on the failure of the Wii U and the launch of the Switch.

He still seems just as proud of the Bigfoot Pizza as he does of his time at NOA, despite mentioning in the book that the pizza wasn’t very good and had to stop selling it relatively quickly because it was negatively impacting the overall sentiment of Pizza Hut’s pizza. But I guess it was a marketing success and that’s all he cares about?

I definitely already had opinions on hiring sales people as president/CEOs and nothing in this book really dissuaded me of that sentiment.

I only really know Reggie from his E3 stage presentations, and while this book makes him seem like a pretty decent person it also is written as if he thinks he is the smartest person ever and Nintendo would still be making the Ultra Hand and Love Testers if it wasn’t for him. I’m not sure if that’s really how he feels but the way the book is written frequently comes off that way.

I’m probably just not the target demographic for business dude memoirs and should be reading investigative journalism and history books instead of this.

Posted on

The Third Gate (by Lincoln Child) – ★★★

The Third Gate

First Jeremy Logan book where Jeremy Logan was actually the main character and so far the worst of the series. Both the general premise and the actual events in this book were the weakest so far (IMO), and even worse Logan himself is the least interesting main protagonist. There’s just not a lot of personality or backstory there despite the fact that he at least existed in two previous novels.

Spoiler warning
I found myself rolling my eyes several times at Logan’s statements/beliefs and the entire pseudoscience connection to the ancient world a lot harder to connect with then the good ol’ fashioned ancient aliens or mystical beasts tropes from the first two books. The direction this one took definitely has me a bit worried.

I’m flying through these audiobooks on Libby super fast so unless book 4 falls off a cliff I plan to keep going but hopefully the characters and mysteries of the next books in Child’s series are much stronger.

? View my Goodreads review
? Buy The Third Gate on Amazon

Posted on

The Lightning Thief (by Rick Riordan) – ★★★★

Percy Jackson 1 - The Lightning Thief

Rated this maybe a 2.5-star after my initial listen on Audible, but enjoyed it quite a bit more on this reread with the actual paperback.

My oldest kid is very into the entire Rick Riordan catalog but surprisingly never read the Percy Jackson books so I read this to her a little bit at a time at bedtime. (Seriously there’s more than 20 Riordan books and she’s read almost all of them except this main series for some reason.) Not sure if it was the audiobook’s fault or just the extra joy of reading with my kid but I found both the story and Riordan’s writing itself much more engrossing this time.

? View my Goodreads review
? Buy The Lightning Thief on Amazon

Posted on

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (by Theodora Goss) – ★★★★

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter book cover

Interesting premise and framing device support a pretty fun and intriguing story. The daughters/creations of classic literary characters (scientists and “monsters”) come together, become unlikely friends, and adventure and mystery solving ensue.

Not sure how much of the characters and their personalities come directly from their sources (I’m not super familiar with the source material), but they were all pretty interesting and meshed together well as a group. The way the characters interrupted the narrator and had side conversations was something I haven’t seen before and work really well for added color especially in audiobook format.

After checking reviews, I probably won’t keep going on with the series, but I enjoyed “Alchemist’s Daughter” a good bit and recommend it to anyone who finds the basic plot summary intriguing.

? View my Goodreads review
? Buy The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter on Amazon

Posted on

Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3) – ★★★

Joe Abercrombie's Last Argument of Kings

Definitely my least favorite in The First Law trilogy. I think in general I like Joe Abercrombie’s writing and world building but I don’t think I liked a single decision he made with the character direction in this conclusion to the trilogy. I don’t need everything to be wrapped up with a bow, but every single character is less likable by the end of this story and for the last book in a trilogy too many threads end without much of a conclusion.

I think Ninefingers’ arc was probably the least satisfying and the measly three female characters in either get short shrift or actively punished for just trying to exist.

Spoiler warning
Throughout the series, Sand dan Glokta is developed as pretty much evil incarnate, hideous on the inside and out, and you have Ardee West end up with him and act like she’s okay with it? And I’m not 100% confident Abercrombie is aware or sensitive enough to the fact that he’s condemning Queen Terez to a lifetime of being raped nightly by her husband Jezal dan Luthar, the rare character from this book I was actually growing to like.

Steven Pacey, who reads the book on Audible, is absolutely fantastic and his narration throughout the series goes a long way in really making the entire trilogy as engrossing as it was. Overall a disappointing enough end to the trilogy that I don’t plan to check out any of Abercrombie’s follow up books set in world of the First Law.

? View my Goodreads review
? Buy Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie on Amazon

Posted on

Lost in Time (by A.G. Riddle) – ★★

Book front cover for AG Riddle's Lost in Time

I’ve listened to a bunch of A.G. Riddle books and enjoyed and/or really liked them. This one I just don’t know. While being a page turner and generally entertaining, it had some real problems I just could not get over.

Spoiler filled book review continues...
Lost in Time misrepresents how death penalties, criminal deterrence, human nature, society, the justice system, and the Supreme Court work all at once. I’m not sure if this is trying to be propaganda for capital punishment or just a careless misstep in the pursuit of context for the story.

The book constantly states the prisoners the “worst of humanity” despite also being a story about the judgement of innocent man and never once mentions that others our heroes blink out of existence maybe just maybe might also have been unjustly accused.

(Also, time travel stories are hard. So many examples of “I can’t do anything different without destroying the universe” comments while constantly making a bunch of huge and small changes.)

? View Goodreads review
? Check out Lost in Time by AG Riddle on Amazon