koberreads's reviews
99 reviews

Choujin X, Vol. 3 by Sui Ishida

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challenging dark reflective sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Finally it gotten dark

Choujin X, Vol. 2 by Sui Ishida

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adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Well written panels and awesome adventure

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Fit for those who want a dream-like surreal love triangle romance (Mixed with a woman falling in love with another woman.) that explores the complexities of what could be possibly love identity, and loneliness. Despite all the oddness, unexpected sexually charge scenes and unclear mind fuck shit happening in his stories, somehow a great number of people still keep coming back to him, I am one of them (new people still picking up his book) maybe because despite all the imperfections of his writings, his writings will almost always make you feel like the characters are human. You feel oddly human whenever you read his odd shit

Fit for those as well for people okay with open ended endings and what is describe in the content warnings

Murakami describes loneliness better than love and identity in this book. He shares his experiences of loneliness while at the same time letting you ponder and conclude for yourself what love and identity are because he never explains it clearly here, he just challenges you to think about it.

And yes, he also hopes you might visit the islands of Greece sometime since he did so, and it is undoubtedly lovely place

Last part of Murakami’s book will always leave you hanging but in a contemplative way

Content warnings:

But as typical for Murakami writings, warning especially if you havent read him before

Sexual content. He writes scenes that are either awkward sex or forbidden sex (male MC having girlfriend that is a married woman with a kid) or both.

And of course, what I think most feminist hate about Murakami, more than infidelity an sleeping with our women or thinking about another woman while have sex with a completely different one, is misogony.

He writes the dark stuff that is prevalent during his time and rather inspire me (a male reader) to do misoginistic acts or thoughts or words it does the complete opposite for me. It made me see how terrible misogyny, infidelity, and other shitty things men can do and the consequences of such actions. I do think Murakami's intention is not to promote these acts but for the reader to realize in his own thinking while reading his works, is not the best way to live.

But oddly, I have seen several women love Haruki Murakami's book despite such themes. Not sure if those women consider themselves feminist or not, but it does say something that writing about the dark stuff of human nature doesn't exactly promote or profilerate it further or make the writing terrible.

Comment:

I somehow unexpectedly fallen in-love with the tomboyish, bookish, argumentative main female lead that jumps from being a lesbian or boyish alternetaviely to the point you dont know if she is attracted with male person like you not:, Sumire. I didn't intend to and mostly the women in Murakami's novel although appealing and interesting to me that is why I like them, I never thought, I would fall in love with one.

Hear me out. I am not going crazy and wanting her to become real and be my actual girlfriend. But I do sense I liked her more than the other female characters Murakami wrote and I dont know why. I guess the tombyish girl you know suddenly becomes pretty and lady like years later is more likely to smitten you compared to a girl that you met first time that has always been pretty or lady like to you for several years but nothing really change through out the years when you met her again later. (But reality people do change, not only their appearances but also their values and what they want to do in life, it is just more evident with Sumire in the story here. If you dont change after several years, then that might mean you are stifling your character development. But at times we cant completely stop changing ourselves, change is the constant in life and which make life beautiful.)

Sumire means violet in Japanese which is lovely.

It is also wierd the male lead/narrator/closed friend of Sumire in this story is only identified as “K” no official name

It can either be Ken or Kobe or any name starts with K. But my subsconscious states that it is “Kobe” since my goddamn name is Kobe and I fell inlove with our very odd Sumire

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

5.0

Two quotes from the author himself in the book that is worthy of noting in this review:

There is a very down-to-earth kind of liberation in grasping that there are certain truths about being a limited human from which you’ll never be liberated. You don’t get to dictate the course of events. And the paradoxical reward for accepting reality’s constraints is that they no longer feel so constraining.

I should probably clarify that I have yet to attain perfection in any of these attitudes; I wrote this book for myself, putting my faith in the words of the author Richard Bach: "You teach best what you most need to learn"

This book is fit for those who want a fresh new way to "break" from the "productivity" culture or at least if you want to realize what could inherently be wrong in such a culture and what we could do to make ourselves happier/more peaceful in our lives by changing our view for such since we can't exactly overthrow singlehandedly the current global culture of improving technology, and productivity as fast as possible.

I can tell you now with great certainty this is not your typical self-help time management book. And I read a lot that almost makes me sick of such genres whenever I pick one new to read. This book is one of those exceptions when I didn't get sick of it. This book is never preachy because the author is so self-deprecating and honest.

Longer review:
This is a book that both celebrates and criticizes the productivity culture and by doing so actually makes us think about our lives better and actually makes us "produce" a more meaningful, realistic way of life for ourselves which is far better than all our fantasies of being a person who "creates a dent in the universe" or is in complete control his life and never anxious of what the universe will throw at him (Spoiler alert: We would all always be anxious because life will always be filled with uncertainties and our "perfect" productivity system won't remove all of that but that not necessarily a problem.)

I realize the reason why people in your life (Especially the ones close to you: Friends, family, Spouse.) have unrealistic expectations towards you is they have such expectations towards themselves all because (like almost everyone in this world, including the author of this book) haven't yet full accepted the finitude of our life. We expect ourselves and the rest of the world, to do infinitely numerous tasks to be completed in a day that will lead to the achievement of our future financial, relationship, and career goals, which would finally make us fulfilled. It is only now I realize how silly this expectation is and how I am not only relieved but also more forgiving of others for having such expectations of me. I always wondered why people in my life our so anxious to maximize time and money. Now I realize it is all because of our globalization of cultures and a way to seek to improve productivity.

A book that would help you realize being more productive doesn't necessarily mean you will be happier/at peace with yourself which is often a misconception that current global society tells you: That, finally, peace and the feeling of complete control over your life can happen at the end of a long journey of "mastering" our time daily. Spoiler alert: You can't master your time because no human being ever has done so before and no one will ever master it in the future.

Accepting that fact is necessary not solely because it is true but rather because it is empowering (especially on a personal level) to do so.

The human disease he refers to is our struggle with the finitude of time. The antidote to this disease, according to Burkeman, is accepting our finitude.

The human disease he refers to is our struggle with the finitude of time. We feel a constant pressure to achieve everything and live a life of significance, but the reality is that our lifespan is limited. This mismatch between our desires and limitations is what Burkeman calls the human disease.

The antidote to this disease, according to Burkeman, is accepting our finitude. By embracing the fact that we can't do everything, we can focus on what truly matters to us and live a more meaningful life.

Just in case in the middle of the reading the book, if things get too metaphysical/philosophical for your taste (I doubt you would wont likely feel so), and you prefer more practical applications of the theories the author suggest go to the appendix of the book. And simply go back to reading the rest of it chronologically if you had craving for practical techniques that you want to apply satisfied. But a book that can or has change your perspective towards the world, even to some little degree, is great "practicality" in itself.

Our actions towards the world are the plants that blossomed from the seeds of our perceptions. Better actions/decisions towards the world is the result of having better perceptions.

With all the great no self-help books or books about time management these days, I thought this would be just another almost similar carbon copy of the other self-help books but I am surprisingly delighted to be proven wrong as I read it. I honestly thought it would be the same recycled life hacky advice that I read almost countless of times in previous selfhelp books that I read (which is the reason why I postponed in reading this several times despite seeing the good reviews and positive social media noise it created during its publication), but glad it took a different path because finally somebody(the author) realize and actually called out what could possibly inherently wrong with our economy that demands a culture to be utmost "productive" or "work till you burn out" in order to justify your existence as an individual in it.

And it is entirely more delightful to know that this realization and writing against such beliefs is from a subspecies that the authors calls himself the "productivity guru"(This are his words not mine. He literally called himself a subspecies of human called the productivity guru which makes reading the book more human and self-depreciating funny which in turn makes me want to read him more because he is being honest with himself and doing real talk.)

It is a sub species you would naturally expect to celebrate and worship our "productivity/hustle" economy and culture. I am happy to realize that I am not the only one who feels something is wrong with our " hustle culture. Happier even that a guru like him realize this. I do see now why this book has such honest good reviews because a lot of people feel the same way secretly with their productivity routine but only the author is manage to voice it out and their to challenge our way of thinking of such.

Note that he doesn't want to burn the whole productivity gig all to the ground but in the book he mentions the points where we could be wrong(Since the author tried almost all the productivity/time management techniques, he doesnt exactly feel at peace or happier at the end of the day because of those special "techniques"so he did realize one day sitting a park bench that is impossible to be at peace doing "only" these techniques)

And he advice us to adopt certain views and attitudes to counter that so that we could feel better in spending our terribly short life on earth. (80 years/4,000 weeks average life span of a human being. Realizing 80 year is only 4,000 weeks does give a more urgent feeling to spend your time better, rather seeing your time left on earth in years. The title of 4,000 weeks for the book is more eye catching and effective than I thought.)

Note I read this around March 3, 2024

and I have 2,400 weeks left out of 3,700 weeks (I put the expected average life of a Human being 80years/4,000 weeks to 3,700 because the latest life expectance of a Filipino stat is around 72years/3,700 weeks.)

A self help book that looks like it is about productivty but it isnt. It is more profound and more about real talk. Rather asking you to maximize your productivty but to help you chose a more happier life

Choujin X, Vol. 1 by Sui Ishida

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adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

One of his best and I consumed an audiobook version of this. But it is one of his most depressing as well and it tackles mental health especially in a time it was written mental health topics were not as widely spoken as it used to now. So this novel might have inspired the generation who read this to make the current generation be more vocal about depression and better our thinking and mental health

But sadly I wouldnt recommend this book to anyone who is depressed because the ending is very depressing

And spoiler alert:
One of the main characters committed suicide because she cant handle her depression.

Suicide is not a unfamiliar topic in Japan so no wonder Murakami wants to write about it.

It doesnt say he wants to inspire you to do it but rather he wants to paint a picture of reality, the darkside of reality. Because he is a writer and writers are artist just like realist painters

Like an realist painter to make her image on canvas she must not only write the light side of a landscape painting but also the dark parts of the landscape to make the scene more realistic

Fire Punch, Vol. 2 by Tatsuki Fujimoto

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 1%.

A bit too dark for me xD hahahaah I am surpised how dark this is

I realize I cant handle female child rep. No one can

Fire Punch, Vol. 1 by Tatsuki Fujimoto

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adventurous challenging dark