Review 658: The Nightingale

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
My rating: No Rating

Not rating this book since I didn't read it entirely. I actually read very little of it, but quickly realized this book won't work for me. For one, I'm not a fan of the style, the way the book was written. And secondly, not a fan of dramatized war books. Thirdly this is not a short book either, well over 500 pages or 17 hours. I was listening to the audiobook (audible gave it out free, this was years before their plus catalog of free titles).

It looks like a movie is being made, if it comes out I may watch it as 2 hours is easier than 17. But I don't know...

There was a reason this sat unread in my library for over 10 years. I read many reviews and they seem to be polarized on either end, and from them it confirmed my opinion this is one for me to skip.

Review 602: Strata: Stories from Deep Time

Strata: Stories from Deep Time by Laura Poppick
My rating: not-rated

The book is a bit more information dense than I was hoping for. It is readable, but you probably need a strong desire in reading about geology, deep time and stratigraphy.

The book is organized into four parts, Air, Ice, Mud and Heat.

I got through much of the section on Air, that contains a discussion on the GOE short for Great Oxygenation Event, or Great Oxidation Event. Scientists are having difficulty in determining when exactly this took place, and how. The rocks have to tell the story since this was such a very long time ago. The evidence is still there, but fragmentary, difficult to decipher. Opinions differ on what the rock is revealing. The details of this are interesting to some extent.

I image the rest of the book will be at the same detailed level and my interest just isn’t sustaining that deep dive at the moment. Perhaps I will attempt the book at another time, but for now I am leaving it here, partially read.

Review 576: The Red Umbrella

The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is another freebie book from Sync some years back (2017). I did not finish the book. I listened to just under 14%, which equals to around 40 pages, not too far into the book, but I wasn’t enjoying it.

The writing is very simplistic, which this is billed as young adult sometimes it can be overlooked. I read a few reviews, both those who liked it and those who did not, and decided my reading time would be better spent with a different book and leaving this one. (I’m not good at letting a book go.)

The book starts in early May 1961. The book point of view is from a young teenager, Lucia Alvarez, her quinceanera is coming up in November. She comes from an upper-middle class family, her father is a banker. Lucia and her family are Cuban and this is during the time that Fidel Castro takes over the government.

The title of the book comes from the (embarrassingly) red umbrella Lucia’s mother carries with her all the time.

Review 528: The Forester

The Forester by James Kraus
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I read this book to about the half-way point. I almost stopped earlier, due to major plot holes, but decided to give it more room. Then another farcical moment arrived and after another unbelievable situation that I had to quit this book. The writing style wasn’t very good, but I was willing to overlook that a little, but with all the other problems with the book, no there are much better books out there to spend my time on.

Normally I don’t rate books I don’t finish because I think it’s more me than the book, my reading mood at the time or something. This time it is the book.

I was disappointed this didn’t work out better. The book cover is nice, the title sounds like something I’d be interested in, and the overall content is dealing with the environment. Oh, I didn’t even mention how there was this message, repeating how environmentalists are naïve and misguided in not wanting clear cutting a forest, or wanting wild animals to live.

I’m just glad I got the book for free instead of paying for this. I got it free from amazon back when I had prime and there are free monthly offerings, if I remember correctly.

Review 329: AI 2041

AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Unfortunately, I had a hard time with the format of this book. It is part fiction and part non-fiction. The book addresses several different areas of artificial intelligence and how it will impact our lives in the future. While these may not happen exactly, there is the direction AI is going towards today. To help make these concepts more appealing there is a fictional story demonstrating a specific aspect of AI.

The format made for too much repetition for me, with one author proving the framework, then the fictional story, then a recap and further explanation. The stories were long and with the before and after it was too much redundancy for me reading this book straight through.

My library bought a copy of this book and I see the appeal for college students studying artificial intelligence. They could easily pick the chapters that interest them the most and read those sections.

One interesting final note, just in the last couple of weeks a Google engineer claims their chat bot has become sentient, is this the end goal of artificial intelligence?


Read April 01-07, 20, then June 08, 16 - 2022

Review 268: Her Quiet Revolution

Her Quiet Revolution: A Novel of Martha Hughes Cannon: Frontier Doctor and First Female State Senator by Marianne Monson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was looking forward to reading this book, but had such difficulty with the way it was written,  I just can’t seem to get into it and continue the read.  

There is an innocence, for lack of a better word, that seeps throughout this book. (Perhaps simplicity is the better word.) I also found many grammar issues, which hopefully were fixed before publication, but were so glaring to me, that it was distracting. (Certainly my grammar isn’t perfect, but I seem to notice it more with other people’s writing.)

 

The story also had this assumption of deep knowledge of the Mormon religion. There were words and things that I didn’t quite understand what was going on. I suspect the book is written for a particular audience and I am not it. 

Unfortunately, with all these issues I had to stop reading around a quarter of the way in. The struggle was too much for me to get into the story of this woman who sounds like she was amazing. Hopefully this will work better for others.

Please note my rating is based only on the first 25% of the book and consider that with your evaluation.

Thanks to Shadow Mountain Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. 

Review 252: The Sky Above Us

The Sky Above Us by Natalie Lund
My rating: NOT RATED 

I can't get into this story, can't connect to these characters. It is a YA book, and my age is well beyond that, but I have plenty of YA books that I can connect to and enjoy. Still, I will admit the younger set may connect to this book where I could not.

There was one aspect in the story line that I was interested in, but that was relegated so much to the back that it wasn't enough to keep me interested.

No rating since I did not finish. Read about 40% of the book.


Thanks to Philomel Books/Penguin Group Penguin Young Readers and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Additional tags: friends, death, suicide, past lives, twins, family, Young Adult, fiction

Review 125: Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir

Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir by Rebecca Solnit
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Placing on partial read status for now. Haven't touched this book since: March 16, 2020 at page 90 (35.16%).

The writing is spectacular. I will return to this title once the world calms down a little. I just couldn't continue as for me some of the subject matter was difficult, and with the world also causing a lot of stress, I couldn't do both. I can't turn off the pandemic, but I could pause on this book for a while.

I do recommend this book.

Solnit's autobiography (so far) is exploring the man-woman dynamics back while she was growing up into an adult. It starts as she is on her own in her teens, living in San Francisco. The way men assume so much, especially sexually, definitely not right. It brought up so many emotions and memories of things that happened to me, that happened to my friends, somewhat like her stories.

Review 112: The Widower's Tale

The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

This just isn't working for me. Learning to move on, instead of just powering through.

Review 111: Hayduke Lives!

Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book seriously disappointed me in many ways. At one point, about to quit going any further, I told myself I wasn't giving the book enough of a chance. Plus I'm generally reluctant to abandon a book I start. It's a problem I'm trying to learn to let go easier, and move on to something else.

Well, I gave Abbey some more room. This book is a sequel to his more popular book Monkey Wrench Gang, and as I remember it was okay, but not great. I think I rated it higher than the book deserved. More for some of the sentiment. Well, this one sank, and far. Maybe, just maybe, it was due to the book being unfinished and published after Abbey died. But I doubt it. The book was awful in the writing.

There were parts of the story that started to be interesting, yet I could not get beyond the characterizations of the people. It would not quit. Everyone was sexualized and it was completely unnecessary. Then there was racial slurs. I cannot believe that this book published in the 1990s was allowed to let this go. There was no reason for it. Surprisingly, I got to around 30% of the book and I could care less about any of it.

Review 96: The Book of Science and Antiquities

The Book of Science and Antiquities by Thomas Keneally
My rating: no rating

Not rating as I did not finish this book.

This book has an premise that intrigued me and with a writer of some note, with many books behind his name including some well known. This seems like a formula for a good book, if not great, so it was a disappointment that I could not get into this story.

It can be difficult to say exactly why a book doesn't work well. Something about the story or the writing, and in this case maybe it's just the age of the characters, being old and looking back, but I don't know, done well it could be an interesting read.  [see Our Souls at Night] Something here just didn't connect with me and after getting half-way through it looked to me like a chore. Reading should not be a chore.

I like to think that someday I will return to this book and give it another go, try again, as sometimes the book fits better at a different point in your life, or a different mood. Yet, there are so many other books waiting, but who knows. For now, I'm moving on to something else.



Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


Also note, I purchased the audio version of this book, tried that format and while I got further along in the book it didn't help enough.

Brief Review 95: Hope Never Dies

Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer
My rating: not rated

I'm stopping this at 30% finished. I got the audiobook and the narrator doesn't work for me. I wonder if I would get the book more if I was reading it in print, or had a different narrator. I'm not one to read a lot of mysteries either, so maybe some of the humor is lost on me. In any case, this book didn't work for me in so many ways, I decided to move on to something else.

No rating as I didn't finish the book.

Review 91: The 33 1/3 B-Sides

The 33 1/3 B-Sides: New Essays by 33 1/3 Authors on Beloved and Underrated Albums by Will Stockton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

These are short essays each by a different author on a favorite album that wasn’t one that was popular with the masses, the “B sides.” The small book features 55 different musicians (counting the introductions.) If you enjoy music these essays will remind your favorite album and how it affected you.

Many, or at least the ones I read, seem to feature the author reminiscing back to their youth, when music first started taking hold, and the album they listened to over and over, that became a constant.

I didn’t read this entirely, just dabbled here and there with the artists I’m familiar with. I tried reading one or two of ones I don’t know and it didn’t do much for me. I love the concept of the series and will be looking for one of the full-length books dedicated to a favorite artist.


Thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 23: Gateway to Paradise: Stories

Gateway to Paradise: Stories by Matthew Vollmer
My rating: not rated

This collection of stories was not for me. I read half of them and couldn't continue knowing the others were not going to be something I could get into.

How to categorize the stories? I put them into my weird area. They aren't all the same type, as may be true for other short story collections. The first one set the stage for me, a dentist who keeps seeing his dead wife, but takes it further than that, way further. Too odd.

The next story was better for me, and if they were along those same lines perhaps I could have stuck with it. But when the back of the book write up said something that about one story that likely is bestiality with a woman and dog, nope. no. I'm done.

I guess these are considered dark? If so, then I don't like dark.