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belgaer's reviews
70 reviews
Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
emotional
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn
adventurous
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This book was such a delightful romp that discussed serious topics like censorship and authoritarian governments, but did it through a pretty ridiculous lens of letters being made illegal. I very much appreciated it. What was not mentioned, however, is my personal favorite pangram: Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow. No proper nouns, the sentence makes sense, and it sounds way cooler than the foxy-dog sentence.
A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
You can tell this book was written during the Cold War. Canticle paints a grim picture of humanity’s future, but a creative one. The setting is well written and the idea that humanity is doomed to cycles of self-destruction and “Simplification” is a chilling one. The low rating is because it didn’t suit my (completely objective and unbiased) personal tastes; post-apocalyptic books are not really my favorite, and it was overall too dark for me to really enjoy it all that much. While the monastery was a fantastically interesting setting, there were some elements of the text’s ‘50s Catholic morality that I found questionable.
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
5.0
This book was eye-opening, particularly as someone who was too young to understand what was happening during Katrina. It told the story of the hurricane and the chaos, violence, and human rights abuses that followed, which is a big topic to cover, but told it in a very personal way, specific to Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun’s experiences. It was very moving.
Dune by Frank Herbert
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The world of this book and it’s epic scale deserves 5 stars, but the ending somewhat ruined it for me. No spoilers, but it felt very anticlimactic. Also, I found it a bit difficult to keep track of all the fantasy-Arabic terms.
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
dark
informative
slow-paced
5.0
The Philosopher at the End of the Universe: Philosophy Explained Through Science Fiction Films by Mark Rowlands
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
The presentation of the subject was funny, but crude at times. The philosophy itself was mildly interesting, if slightly navel-gaze-y.
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I read this cover to cover in a few hours sitting on the beach. It was really genuinely informative and taught me a lot about the role of libraries in the modern age.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This book gets all the stars in the world from me. The found family of the Wayfarer crew, the adventure through space, the characters, and the sheer richness of the world it’s set in make this one of my all-time favorites.