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itzami's reviews
110 reviews
Os crimes do Bispo by S.S. Van Dine
3.0
It's not great. It's not bad. It's just another mystery novel.
To be absolutely frank, most of the book doesn't actually explore and investigate the murder. It just keeps adding more and more details that seem to only exist to fill pages.
I'm not a fan of books where you're able to find the culprit before or even at the same time as the main character and, sadly, this is one of those cases.
Compared to other mystery novels, this book doesn't add much to anything, which is a pity.
To be absolutely frank, most of the book doesn't actually explore and investigate the murder. It just keeps adding more and more details that seem to only exist to fill pages.
I'm not a fan of books where you're able to find the culprit before or even at the same time as the main character and, sadly, this is one of those cases.
Compared to other mystery novels, this book doesn't add much to anything, which is a pity.
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Eker
2.0
If you're interested in this book to know the 'secret recipe' for being rich, you'll be extremely disappointed.
While the premise of the book is very good (change your way of thinking to be able to see things differently), it overextends it by going through the 'positive thinking' and 'the universe is not against you'. If you can look past that, it has some great insights and will most probably change your life in a good way (and that's all we can ask about, really).
However... My bad score for this book lands on the fact that:
- the good points could be listed on a 10-minute read instead of 212 pages
- the premise on why I should listen to Harv is because he has seminars about being rich
- most of the book is about changing your habits and way of thinking but rephrased in different ways
The book gets salvaged by:
- several insight moments (that means, you end up seeing a lot of stuff written that you might have thought but never really stopped to take a closer look at it)
- offers a different point of view that some people might not be used to
I feel bad for giving this book a bad score because it's pretty much against what Harv 'teaches' and some of his stuff is pretty much accurate but I feel like there are better books out there with more complete information and with a clear learning path
While the premise of the book is very good (change your way of thinking to be able to see things differently), it overextends it by going through the 'positive thinking' and 'the universe is not against you'. If you can look past that, it has some great insights and will most probably change your life in a good way (and that's all we can ask about, really).
However... My bad score for this book lands on the fact that:
- the good points could be listed on a 10-minute read instead of 212 pages
- the premise on why I should listen to Harv is because he has seminars about being rich
- most of the book is about changing your habits and way of thinking but rephrased in different ways
The book gets salvaged by:
- several insight moments (that means, you end up seeing a lot of stuff written that you might have thought but never really stopped to take a closer look at it)
- offers a different point of view that some people might not be used to
I feel bad for giving this book a bad score because it's pretty much against what Harv 'teaches' and some of his stuff is pretty much accurate but I feel like there are better books out there with more complete information and with a clear learning path
Vivenda Calamidade by Ellery Queen
4.0
It is a well-written murder mystery that pretty much has everything that you would expect from the genre.
Descriptive and easy to read, you go from one page to another without noticing.
There are times, tho, where you don't really know which character is speaking since the dialogues don't have cues to it, but, other than that, entertaining.
Descriptive and easy to read, you go from one page to another without noticing.
There are times, tho, where you don't really know which character is speaking since the dialogues don't have cues to it, but, other than that, entertaining.
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
2.0
The active voice of the book is Keiko, a character that doesn't understand many social cues.
This ends up being the book's demise because:
- it doesn't allow itself to be the critique to conformity that it wants to be (because Keiko doesn't fully understand what this means)
- Keiko's personality is waved off as being 'quirky' (which is not and should be treated as such)
- it tries to make a commentary on work culture (and how you get praised for disregarding your personal life), but, again, since we're reading from a non-neurotypical character point of view, it never presents itself as something bad
There's not much to say about the book. There is no plot and it's incredibly mundane (not in a good way).
The convenience store scenario ends up being the most interesting part because it showcases the neatly organized products, the Chorei routine, and a bit of Japan's work culture.
Maybe it just wasn't the book for me
This ends up being the book's demise because:
- it doesn't allow itself to be the critique to conformity that it wants to be (because Keiko doesn't fully understand what this means)
- Keiko's personality is waved off as being 'quirky' (which is not and should be treated as such)
- it tries to make a commentary on work culture (and how you get praised for disregarding your personal life), but, again, since we're reading from a non-neurotypical character point of view, it never presents itself as something bad
There's not much to say about the book. There is no plot and it's incredibly mundane (not in a good way).
The convenience store scenario ends up being the most interesting part because it showcases the neatly organized products, the Chorei routine, and a bit of Japan's work culture.
Maybe it just wasn't the book for me
Neuromancer by William Gibson
4.0
Once I finished 'Neuromancer' I went to my phone and Googled 'Neuromancer is confusing' and I started seeing what people were saying about it.
I was ready to give this book a bad rating because I couldn't understand most of it but then it struck me: the story is being told from Case's (the main character) POV and that means that I wasn't going to get a deep description of everything around him (technologies, jargon and so on) because he was already familiar with it. That ended up intriguing me...
I'm used to having a character tell me everything I need to know about a scene but that's not very realistic. The characters wouldn't end up hovering over every single detail because they would be familiar with most of it and that's what makes Neuromancer different.
Neuromancer throws you right at the thick of it and expects you to just go with it. You learn as you go. There are expressions and words that you'll never know what they are but that's what's great about Science Fiction: you can create your own ideas based on what the author wrote!
The book doesn't get 5 stars from me because it does what I wrote above TOO WELL. I had a hard time grasping what was going around me and I finished the book feeling confused and disoriented...
But I also had the feeling of wanting to read it again just so I could better understand its world!
And that means that it was a fantastic book!
I was ready to give this book a bad rating because I couldn't understand most of it but then it struck me: the story is being told from Case's (the main character) POV and that means that I wasn't going to get a deep description of everything around him (technologies, jargon and so on) because he was already familiar with it. That ended up intriguing me...
I'm used to having a character tell me everything I need to know about a scene but that's not very realistic. The characters wouldn't end up hovering over every single detail because they would be familiar with most of it and that's what makes Neuromancer different.
Neuromancer throws you right at the thick of it and expects you to just go with it. You learn as you go. There are expressions and words that you'll never know what they are but that's what's great about Science Fiction: you can create your own ideas based on what the author wrote!
The book doesn't get 5 stars from me because it does what I wrote above TOO WELL. I had a hard time grasping what was going around me and I finished the book feeling confused and disoriented...
But I also had the feeling of wanting to read it again just so I could better understand its world!
And that means that it was a fantastic book!
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
3.0
Major takeaway from the book for me is: “You don’t control what happens to you but you control how you feel about it and what you do about it”.
The book might offer some interesting insights for someone who hasn’t read about personal development via other means, but for me it felt empty, with too many examples to make a point, and, overall, not very interesting
The book might offer some interesting insights for someone who hasn’t read about personal development via other means, but for me it felt empty, with too many examples to make a point, and, overall, not very interesting