boxcar's reviews
230 reviews

Good mystery, creepy vibes and Shirley Jackson has a real talent for writing about ostracization. Writes a good hateworthy character. Love the descriptions of the house and Uncle Julian's character, and the cryptic whims and cautions of Merricat. 

In awe. Heartrending and funny. Peers over the abyss into the depths of human suffering and jumps, but also doesn't. Quantum mechanics are introduced towards the end, and it changes the whole way I understand the book. The whole being and not being at once, diametrically opposing things that can't exist at once do, in fact, exist at once. Suicide, and bullying to an extent that surpasses any idea of bullying I had are written in the voice of a sixteen year old. Father daughter relationship that is frustrating, heartbreaking, all too real and

(thank god) resolved in a flourish of satisfaction and understanding that transcends the suffocating suffering and pain all at once

. The dual narrative of the schoolgirl journaling and the older woman reading it years later across the Pacific was fascinating, and comes together so masterfully. Alzheimers and memory and death and age and time and zen and family and culture clashing and war and exploitation and fear and climate and adolescence and stagnation in adulthood and love and fighting... all packed into one book with the skill and grace that I could only dream of. Each character was unique and real, I particularly liked Oliver's meandering diatribes on obscure topics that seem unnecessary and even rudely off topic that eventually, at his own cryptic pace and path reach a final point that is poignant, striking and opens up Ruth's conception and mind. Just freaking cool. Will come back to this. 

Also, I think Ozeki gave me the most understandable account of quantum states and superpositioning. I've watched videos and stuff and tried to understand, and she provided, in a novel that I had no idea would have anything about it, the best one. 

Very well written and well researched history of the Inca's fall. The horrors were not understated or ignored, and the battles and conflict were second to the sociopolitical nature of the Inca empire and the Spanish conquistadors. Given how what we know is from Spanish chronicles and perhaps some surviving Incan accounts, it makes sense that the archaeological discoveries are given plenty of space in the book, with Macchu Picchu looming large, as it does now despite its less important status when inhabited. I will say that the in depth descriptions of expeditions hundreds of years after the empire stood felt superfluous at points. I understand the necessity and the tying together of past and present, but it just wasn't necessarily what I was looking for in a story of the Incas. 

The best short story collection I've ever read, I think. Worth noting that I haven't read many. All of them are just the perfect length, they neither go on too long nor give their concepts too much space. However I can see thinking they're too long, but I don't think that's without reason for the length! I like a story that has exposition and isn't over in a flash. Her imagination is fantastic, and I love the fantastic plots and ideas interwoven with total realism. I just love the way she writes characters and describes settings, and there was a propulsion that I hardly find in books: I was entirely immersed into each story. I read the 340 pages in one sitting. 

Well researched and written with a masterful grasp of language. Grann provides a pretty robust account of the Wager's perilous misadventure and the castaways, along with heaps of context about imperial Britain and the War of Jenkin's Ear. Gripping tale. Not a fan of how many breaks there are, sometimes there is a dinkus per page (love that term). This sometimes makes for a very fragmented and herky jerky read. 

Extraordinarily well written. A full and captivating account of the enigmatic general, neither propping him up as a hero's hero nor denigrating him for his faults (of which there are many). Compelling prose and well portioned chapters--very very good. 

It felt so odd having COVID be mentioned in an Allende novel, lol. I really enjoyed the return to the del Valles, even if a different branch--I love when Allende is writing about her native Chile. Again, great characters and relationships. The focus on feminist ideals served the book well, and it's great to see empowerment become possible over the years this epic of a book spans. I also love the spotlight on domestic abuse, placing the main character in an abusive relationship that she can't seem to step away from. I think these relationships are prevalent in a lot of Allende's stories, but I haven't heard her call it what it is (though it's obviously implied).

More than her other stories, this one felt like it was rushing to get where it needed to be, if that makes sense. I didn't feel like it dwelt on any moments of significance. This gave it an exceedingly fast pace, which was nice; it also gave it a feeling of frivolity, the gut wrenching moments just didn't quite wrench like they should. That being said, it's still wonderfully emotional, sad, joyous and melancholy! Maybe the more of her I read the more I nitpick.  

Great telling of Cortes’ assault against the Aztecs. The brutality and human toll is made abundantly clear, and it is not a tale of good guys. Written very compellingly. Absolutely fascinating how an entire culture, the heavyweight of america and perhaps the biggest city in the world can be toppled in a few years. What a damn shame that the meeting of hitherto alien cultures and empires meant the end of one rather than the combination and development of two, together. Devastating, the numbers of human lives lost betrays any possible comprehension. 

I appreciated the author’s repeated noting of hypocrisy in the spaniard motivations and justification. Human sacrifice as the justification for torture, enslavement and massacre. Christianity as the supposed motivation to sin in such quantity and at such disgusting lengths. 

This is the first of Allende's books where the protagonist/main voice of the novel is a man (that I have read), and she gets into the masculine psyche pretty dang well, it didn't seem contrived or unnatural. Having read her memoir Paula, I recognized the striking similarities between Reeves and Allende's second husband. It was a cool aha! moment, mid way through the book. It was a slower and less enthralling read than most of her novels, but rewarding all the same. Love a good man going to therapy. It was hard to root for the protagonist and even harder to root against him. Once again, she has written complex and robust characters, a talent of hers that trumps the rest, in my opinion. Not my favorite of hers, but certainly nothing to scoff at.

Again, a great novel. I'm unsure how accurate it is historically, despite the assurance at the end. She often has protagonists of murky or even despicable morality, but this was especially tough. I struggle to relate to or empathize with conquistadors. From how the book is written, Allende certainly does not laud the conquistadors, but sometimes it seemed to border upon that, such is unavoidable when the narrator is the gubernator's wife, a conquistadora in her own, less brutal light. Yet, the story is fantastic and woven with the love/heartbreak that she writes so masterfully. On top of her usual prowess in romance and interpersonal narrative, the war and strategies of battle, the complete historical project and painting of a world so removed from the one I inhabit is a herculean task which she accomplishes: the book is both believable in being set in the 1500s and reads as fluidly and effortlessly as if Allende had somehow spent time in that era (I recognize this is more likely to be because I, too, have not lived in that era, so her story isn't compared against a scrupulous standard). Regardless of complete accuracy, this is one of those novels that you come away from having learned a good deal. I also love the emphasis she has placed on a historical woman whose rightful spot in history has been overshadowed by men, even if that spot in history isn't so commendable (surely more so than the men that colonized Chile, who treated fellow humans no better than swine). A complicated book, which is great, but the sense of adventure that seems to exist within its pages are hard to enjoy, so synonymous with some of the worst displays of inhumanity in history. I recognize that this is precisely a point of the novel: the "founders" of the countries of the Americas are complicated historical figures. They are at once responsible for much of the culture Allende and myself grew up in and are despicable figures who massacared entire populations. This book made me confront that incongruency: I wonder why she writes of the conquistadors as part of an entertaining story yet I live and claim a country founded upon cruelty no less condemnable. (There's an essay hiding here... best kind of book)