My rating: 9/10 Summary: The world dynamic undergoes a massive shift as women gain the power to shoot electrical pulses at will and become able to seriously injure or kill men within seconds. It's framed as a manuscript sent from a male writer to a female writer 5000 years after the events of the book occur. It's been several months since I've written down any of my thoughts on books, and to be quite honest, I haven't been reading as much as I'd like to. But I started The Power on a whim after grabbing it from the bestseller shelf at the library and I found myself reading it throughout the day, finishing it in the afternoon. It wasn't the kind of book that made my heart pound and my skin sweaty and pulled me in with frenetic, addictive, hauntingly magneticism (like Manhattan Beach did) but rather a book that wowed with its content rather than language, structure, and dialogue. It is the type of work that frightened and awed me as a holistic piece rather than down to the level of the line. The novel, which stands at around 400 pages (after a brief Google search, my suspicions have been confirmed; it is actually exactly 400 pages), revolves around four characters: Roxy Monke, the daughter of a London crime family; Allie, a runaway who becomes a religious icon; Tunde, a journalist who documents the arc of the world's movements; and Margot Cleary, a state representative. I have so, so many thoughts on this book, but almost all of them are spoiler-heavy, so I will end the non-spoiler section here and jump right in before I forget any of them. [WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.] 1. The characters are so simple. I cannot decide how to feel about this, at all. I think that one of the biggest virtues of this book (again, I cannot stress hard enough that when I say "biggest virtue", or any kind of praise/criticism, I mean it only in terms of my personal taste and I am by no means an expert speaking for the whole literary community) is its simplicity, actually. It's devastatingly simple and clear, whereas with other books that are in the same genre of making profound social commentary through speculative worlds with surrealist and/or sci-fi elements to them are frequently riddled with intense symbolism and inexplicable actions and chaotic fluctuations in character development. This book cuts all of that away. Every action of every character is targeted and obvious, and Ms. Alderman lays it out cleanly for us. The subtle explanation of how Margot is lying to Jos about Jos's boyfriend is the example that comes to mind. It's expertly done but really doesn't require much brainpower on the part of the reader.
Roxy, Allie, Tunde, and Margot. I don't know if I can feel their three-dimensionality. So far, I can still characterize them in words, which generally for me means that their characterization is not complete enough, because when a character grows into completion, they become less of a quantifiable figure and more of a vibe. And when I see this vibe on the page, in a line of dialogue, I can recognize who it is from an inexplicable aura I get, rather than factual knowledge or idiosyncrasy recognition. All the characters in East of Eden represent a vibe for me. But the characters in The Power seem to fit into specific categories, with certain variations. The one character who I find most intriguing and provokes further thought is Allie. I did not expect her to remain as Mother Eve throughout the entire book and then carry on that image for the rest of time. Her spunky and moral personality at the beginning convinced me Mother Eve was a momentary persona to propel her through hard times and to provide hope for other girls, and she'd eventually put Eve to bed, tell the truth, confess her sins, and become the better person and leader for it. Yet looking back, I can detect the hard undercurrent of embittered resolve from the beginning, from her murder of Mr. Montgomery-Taylor. This conflicts with her actions, which center around healing and soothing complications of the electrical frameworks in other people's bodies. And yet she's hard and knife-like enough to cut through the tangled organic stuff of politics and violence, shear straight through to become the new president of Bessapara, and then rise up as a stone statue and live through eternity. 2. The meta-ness. (Starting here I'm writing from two weeks after I finished the book, so it might be a little distanced.) The story within the story itself was amazing, but what gave me shivers was the outer frame of two writers emailing back and forth. The lines about how the male soldiers seemed more like a sexual fetish than a real idea, or how a world ruled by a patriarch would be so much more gentle and kind than the one they lived in currently, and finally, the ending line of Have you considered publishing this under a woman's name? were the ones that remained in my head for days after finishing. I think this book does a great job of picking up on the nuances of gender inequality. A lot of works centering on the theme flesh out the bigger patterns of violence and power and weakness perception but fail to show the more subtle ideas. 3. Concept is simple but execution is great. I've noticed recently that in most books I read, the concepts aren't necessarily high-level or genius, but the execution is still able to fully immerse the reader in the world to the point where they can't overexamine the simplicity of the narrative. There's hardly a scientific aspect incorporated into the story, despite its physiological root (the skein being part of the body). I used to think that stories needed to be extremely complex and the premise really psychologically stimulating in order for them to be thought-provoking as a whole, but I don't think that's true anymore. 4. Redefining feminism. I've read so many tweets and posts online about women being superior to men and how the world would be a better place if it was run by women, and I'll admit, I was starting to feel uncomfortable about the double standard and how easily people accepted the snappy, humorous one-liners without truly stopping to think about what they signified. I think the Internet should remember that when a radical feminist defends her aggressively misandrist Tumblr post with "it was just a joke," that is exactly how men once defended their misogynistic locker-room talk about women half a century ago, when the patriarch still held strong. I do love a witty comeback to a vulgar comment about a woman's body as much as the next person, and people deserve to have their outlets about this male-dominated and cruel world we live in. But it's just something to keep in mind as call-out culture progressively grows stronger. In any case, I love this story because it calls out this phenomenon without offering any criticism or judgement. It just tears away the clutter of other societal factors and the double standard and the need to conform with call-out culture and shows us what might happen. I'm so glad someone wrote this, because it needed to be said. We are not perfect. Women are people and are equally as susceptible to the throes of venom and greed and violence as other humans and men are. Power is power, like Cersei Lannister once said. My thoughts fizzled out after #1 because I waited too long to write the rest, oof. Anyways, I really really enjoyed this book!
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Photo courtesy of Google Images. My rating: 10/10 Good if you liked: anything, this book is for everyone (unless you're under 10 in which case you should wait a few years -- not because y'all 'shouldn't be exposed' to stuff or whatever, but because it's just not interesting if you try it too early on. Trust me, I've been there. See below) I first bought this book back in 2013 or 2014 (I was a seventh or eighth grader), when I saw its sleek, edgy-looking dark cover at Costco or Barnes & Nobles. I'd first browsed the free sample on iBooks (which actually has a more contemporary and chic cover, of Ben Affleck shrouded in the mist, and the translucent title overlaid on top) and found it intriguing the way an elementary schooler finds an AP Chemistry problem intriguing: I didn't, really, but I appreciated the elegance of the prose as well as the aesthetic of its cover. But the sheer genius eluded my shallow, YA-oriented middle school self, sailing right over my cliche-loving head. It seemed like a decent story, but something I'd have to convince myself to keep reading. I carried it around with me for a while, always a lump in the bottom of my backpack, trying to read it whenever I had a free moment after a test, but I found that I was convincing myself to read it rather than being genuinely invested in it. Fast forward three or four years, and it's spring of my sophomore year. I've just finished reading The Wife Between Us (which I also gave My Thoughts On, a few months ago! Right here) and I began trawling the Internet for book reviews and discussion forums for it, eager to continue the story in my head. By the first three or four reviews, I sensed a motif. People kept bringing up Gone Girl as its precedent, as the stunning First™ that Wife evolved from. So I thought, Man, I must've misread it in middle school. I picked it up off my bookshelf, sat down, and tried again. I was the opposite of disappointed. I couldn't stop reading. Before this, I'd been in a reading drought, which I'm not proud to admit; I stopped reading for the majority of March and April -- I told myself it was to focus on AP World History, which admittedly has a grain of truth in it, but the reality was I had free time; I was just using it on other things. But I started reading and I can still remember some of the phrases on the first page: "ventriloquist dummy," "her hard like a corn kernel," "riverbed fossil." The beginning is so haunting and story-like and sets up so well for when the story turns the Typical Narrative onto its head. [ WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW. ] Photo courtesy of Google Images.
I literally couldn't stop. I sat down on the sofa and wandered around the house in a dream-like haze, the book gripped in my hands, my eyes never leaving the page. It entranced me, the movement of the plot, and the characterization. Just when I thought it was starting to get predictable, it shifts, whip-fast, with the intense, cuttingly bone-like swerve of Flynn's prose. Incredible. The reveal of Nick's lover -- so well-done. And I still can't decide whose side I'm on, Nick's or Amy's, because Amy is a sadistic psychopath but she's also right. I LOVE this book, but I think I might've loved it even more if I'd picked it up offhand from a library and started reading, without knowing that it was a NYT bestseller and the mother of domestic thrillers, because that set my expectations incredibly high from the start. Gone Girl does an incredible job of delivering social commentary in the declarative without shoving it down the reader's throat. It's starkly straightforward, but I wouldn't have it another way. Amy's monologue after her diary self is swapped with her real voice was cold and chilling and true. Girls are still trying to play Cool Girl today. And with TV and the Internet and the movies, it's easier and easier than ever to mold yourself into someone you're not, everyone following the same script, for ease, for speed. Flynn pinpointed exactly what I've been grappling with for the past few months: we're all following the same script. My short story about that literal concept is going up in the Adroit Journal soon, and she encapsulated that in her book. It's also a thriller, too; it's not an intensely literary work that requires mental concentration and meticulous dissection to find the message. It doesn't give the reader time for that. It moves at a breakneck pace that teases sweat from your temples. You can feel the incongruity of people's actions and words ex. Nick's smile as he said he didn't kidnap Amy. A work that leaves you thinking for days after, but you enjoy it for the sweet, flowy read during –– hard to find. Meshing thriller and social commentary is hard, in my opinion. Usually, it's more subtext that you can choose to take away or you can choose to not ex. The Woman in the Window could be construed as commentary on the stigma surrounding alcoholism and drug addiction, but it's never so unflinchingly straightforward like Gone Girl was. Because authors typically try to be subtle about weaving in the irony and commentary, but Flynn delivers it straight-on. And usually that might be cliche, but because of the characters she's set up and the contrast with Diary Amy, the real Amy is just so real, and the tone Flynn takes with her is demanding, ruthless, witty, cold. Des and Go are interesting to me because a) they seem real, and their characters are so well built, and also b) both take archetypes and turn them on their heads. In a way, Go's playing Cool Twin Sister ex. drinking and swearing at the pub, being rough and masculine but also caring for Nick, and in a way, Des is playing Cool Boy ex. wanting to care for a damaged Amy but also enclose her and keep her pampered and soft and gentle, which leads to his demise at Amy's hands. I can't tell if I want Amy to go to jail or not. I can't tell whether I like her or not. Actually, I can. I don't like her as a person, but I like her as a character -- my opinion towards Severus Snape as well. I enjoyed the ending -- though, as always, I wish it wasn't the ending; if Flynn ever publishes a sequel I'd buy it in a heartbeat, even though I can feel that Nick and Amy Dunne's story has drawn to a close. Nick's decision to stay to protect the baby redeemed him a little bit in my eyes. I still haven't gotten the chance to watch the movie, and I read high praise for the performance of the woman playing Amy, and Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck. I'm excited to do so! 7.5/10 Good if you liked: The Thousandth Floor, Unrivaled Disclaimer: I'm way biased for this book because it actually has non-tokenized AAPI characters Anyway, so, into the most basic part of My Thoughts On. This novel is about a woman from New York named Rachel Chu who's going to accompany her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, to his friend's wedding in Singapore, where Nicholas is secretly from an incredibly wealthy and elitist family that's regarded like nobility on the island. Rachel doesn't know this, and she has to navigate the oftentimes toxic socialite life of Nicholas's family who don't quite approve of her modest roots. I don't know how accurate this is in depicting the glamorous inside lives of the Singaporean elite, but its depictions of the mainland Chinese billionaires in China Rich Girlfriend are pretty on-the-dot from what I've seen (I'm from mainland China). But the little tidbits of Hokkien and Singlish sprinkled in there and the cultural nuances ex. ACS really help prop the story up on its feet. The story also focuses on Astrid Leong, Nick's cousin, who is married to Michael Teo, a non-Singaporean-elite man who also had to deal with the backlash when he initially married Astrid. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm biased for this book because, frankly, it has Asian people in it. It's sad that that's an actual standard that exists but in any case the hype surrounding the upcoming movie next month got to me, and I picked it up in the Stanford bookstore, read the epic prologue, and was hooked. I bought it and stayed up until 1 am that night finishing it, and then read the second book the next day (today). The movie is set to come out August 15, 2018, and I'll be back to update this post once I watch it! [WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.] I have quite a few thoughts on this! Below's the breakdown. 1) The details about Singaporean and mainland Chinese culture. I mentioned this earlier but I want to get more in depth about it with evidence. So in China Rich Girlfriend, there's a bit where Colette speaks about wanting her house to represent the temporary/modern aesthetic as opposed to the tacky, gaudy, Versailles-palace-esque style of other mainlanders. For what my parents tell me (they're decently in the loop via WeChat gossiping) the garish goldness is pretty characteristic of mainlander billionaires. That's definitely something you wouldn't really notice a pattern of unless you were entrenched in some degree into the Chinese culture of flexing, basically. Super cool that Mr. Kwan wrote this into the book. As for the culture of the Singaporean elite families, it's super interesting to me how they value family heritage over money specifically. At some point in the books, someone said a mainlander could have a billion dollars and still be seen as a speck of dirt by a family that only has three or four million but can trace their lineage back to the Duke of Yansheng. Now I'm just wondering how realistic it all is, because the sheer toxicity of the upper echelons of the Singaporean society sounded straight out of a movie (which it will be, I guess, in a month or so). 2) Rachel and Nick's relationship / general dialogue - cliché or not? There were bits that I felt verged on cliché, but, at the same time, something I've been trying to get better with lately is being less cynical and critical of individual sentences. Nevertheless, I feel the need to point out that Rachel and Nick's relationship is romantic to a fairy-tale-degree (there were specific lines that were something along the lines of "Nick looked at the woman he loved with all his heart" or "Nick could not believe how beautiful she was"--definitely not those exact meanings but something along the lines of Nick being pretty infatuated) and the last time I got that feeling of intense, almost sickly sweet in a fictional relationship, that was in the beginning with Astrid and Michael, and we know how that turned out. Again, it's possible this is just me being cynical. 3) Astrid and Michael + Rachel and Nick parallel! (for book 1) LOVED this! 10/10 brought to life how intense the Singaporean elite clan is, driving both spouses away. I almost wish that, for that brief part while Rachel left Nick so she could think things over at the end of book 1 and Michael left Astrid, Astrid and Nick could have had a deep conversation over the toxicity of their environment. Though that's just a pipe dream. The ending of book 1 is perfect the way it is, anyways. 4) CHARLIE WU What an icon. I haven't read book 3 yet (I'm about to as soon as I finish this post) but I love him so far. Finally a mainland Chinese man who isn't emasculated or fetishized -- like, seriously, we need more characters like Charlie in literature and TV shows. On another note, his overwhelming and persistent and wholesome love for Astrid puts me on edge, but that could just be the cynic in me speaking. His purchase of Michael's company for Astrid was cute though. 5) The fashion and luxury side of it I thought it was really interesting how everything was fleshed out in full detail. Everyone's outfit was described with intense fervor and always tagged with the names of the designers and boutiques, and every new stunning mansion they visited every chapter was described for at least a paragraph or two as well. I think it definitely helped bring to life the extreme attention to detail that elites are looking at each other's kids' wardrobes and cars with. Personally, it did make it a little dense to read because I didn't recognize many of the brands and they were lost on my uncultured soul, but I think it was well worth it. Not a book review, but something that came to mind after reading The Girl on the Train, the Wife Between Us, and the Woman in the Window was that there seems to be a rather loose pattern here: some of the characters are weirdly similar. An actual depiction of me, about to go to sleep and rest, before my brain was like Not today: Anyway. Below are my thoughts:
The Husband aka the epicenter of the tangle - a psycho, like actually mentally unstable, with violent tendencies, manipulative, etc. - white, decent height, typically exotic eye color ex. bright blue or green The Ex-Wife ™ - bitter and has unresolved feelings, whether they be anger or love, for ex-husband - career has taken a wrong turn - financially struggling - usually living with a family member - white - A L C O H O L - overweight/unsatisfied with body shape, but didn't used to be before her husband left her - used to have the perfect body - did I mention alcohol? - people often insinuate she is mentally unstable/seeing things, probably due to her consumption of alcohol and/or hallucinogens and/or other depressants - note: Anna Fox gotta chill with the merlot like I think she mentioned/described it once every page or something The side chick turned wife - very young, also white - initially distrustful of ex-wife's attempts at communication - protective of relationship with husband - is actually lowkey psycho (but very lowkey compared with the husband) Summary: Super intriguing premise, reveals a side of the legal world that normal crime/legal TV shows wouldn't touch on (law hustling and for-profit law schools), but I was unsatisfied with the ending I wasn't planning to read this book, but I couldn't ignore it any longer -- every time I checked the New York Times bestselling list to keep up with what was popular/on the rise, there it sat, that bokeh-speckled cement road overlayed with the massive 'JOHN GRISHMAN' watching me balefully from its #1 position. (Now, of course, it's been usurped by The President Is Missing, whose cover actually looks suspiciously similar. I'm beginning to suspect that all legal-horror-thriller-suspense-action-assassination-political-etc. books use the same formula and literally the same fonts to create their book covers. But anyway. I digress.) The idea of the Rooster Bar is super interesting while also simple. These three friends, Todd Lucero, Mark Frazier, and Zola Maal, all enrolled in Foggy Bottom Law School despite having no aptitude for the law whatsoever but hypnotized by the high starting salary of lawyers in DC. Then they realize it's basically a scam, because the education quality is bad and the students are bad, so nobody can pass the Bar exam, and without passing the exam, no job, and no job means no salary, which means no way of paying off the staggering student debts that FBLS unloads onto your shoulders. Their friend, Gordon, who is also Zola's boyfriend, commits suicide likely in part due to the pressure of paying off those debts -- but before he jumped off the bridge, he put together an elaborate set of evidence and testimony of FBLS being run by shady Wall Street people to take the money of unsuspecting, starry-eyed students. The story is about Todd, Mark, and Zola starting on another business venture of sorts to try to play the system. [WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.] Honestly, I was disappointed, but that's likely because its position on the NYT Bestselling List had my hopes so high they were ridiculously unreasonable. I was hoping this book would blow my mind. It didn't, though it was quite enjoyable anyhow. My thoughts: Love the legal background and the premise. Definitely interesting -- because it's true, no one ever questions someone claiming to be a lawyer or asks to see their license (though I'm sure now they do, after reading this book). The element of hiding in plain sight was quite suspenseful. Characters were cool! I liked reading about all three of them and the dynamic between them, and how it changed with the progress of their (il)legal clinic ex. Zola not making enough money as the other two. The deportation of Zola's family was interesting as well. Ending was unsatisfying. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the last 45-ish pages at all -- as I read, I kept hoping the very very end would redeem itself, but it didn't. The FBI and Darren kept chasing, and the other big law firm, and they get away on a beach in Senegal with new identities. I actually kind of wanted to see them brought to justice, but build up a life for themselves afterward. The making-a-new-identity seemed like a temporary and childish escape from their troubles. I hope John Grisham writes a sequel. Overall, pretty good, but not a book I would reread or recommend wholeheartedly to a friend -- I think legal thrillers just aren't my thing. The Renegades didn't quite resonate with me as much as I would have liked. I'm actually really sad that I didn't enjoy this series as much as I thought I would. The Lunar Chronicles was one of my favorite series a few years ago, and I was expecting more from this new series. Essentially, this book is about the Anarchists vs. the non-Anarchists (I can't even remember the premise, despite the two-page italicized blurb about the backstory), and a girl named Nora, and a guy named Aidan, who will probably get together. Note the 'probably,' because I couldn't finish the book. I don't have strong self-control when it comes to finishing books that have particular rough patches, so this might not be a good indicator of how the book actually turns out, but it gets dry fast, at least in the first chapter. Some of my thoughts: [WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.] The dialogue was just pure cheese. Like, some of the lines that Aidan and Nora said to each other upon their first meeting -- I love good-old fashioned banter like the next person, but some of that conversation seemed like it was ripped off of every chick lit Wattpad book about Harry Styles. No one noticing that Aidan is the Sentinel. Hannah Montana called, she wants her gig back. I read 1.5 pages after Aidan returned from his first showing as the Sentinel and genuinely couldn't believe that no one was suspicious whatsoever. Tokenization. Maybe (probably) this is me being a picky reader, but Nora's background felt weirdly exoticized. Half-Filipina-Latina, but the book never explores it or demonstrates a cultural background she might have. As I write this, I realize I sound even pickier than I thought. Again, personal thought. Something just felt off with Nora's incredibly diverse background that lacked actional support, as if it was just there to play the minority card. There's probably more, but I didn't read enough to catch onto it. I'm also doubting that her name was actually Nora -- maybe I'm hallucinating that. I read the book a few weeks ago and am just now writing my thoughts, and all I remember was that it triggered a small wave of cringe emotions that blanketed knowledge of all plot and characterization. 10/10 Good if you enjoyed: literally anything, this book is good no matter what From Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen comes yet another stunner. I guess it's no surprise to anyone, including myself, that it's emotional, tear-jerking, and perfectly crafted. Released earlier this month, the Refugees explores the Vietnamese refugee experience through the lenses of various people––a young Vietnamese man who moves in with a gay couple in San Francisco, a ghostwriter who grapples with the death of her brother, a woman whose dementia-afflicted husband begins to mistake her for an ex-lover. I loved this book. (How can one not?) [WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.] Here are my top 2 reasons why I liked it so much. - voice. His writing is gorgeously concise–– definitely my favorite writing style of any writer I've ever read, kind of reminiscent of Emma Cline and this one short story writer on Writer's Digest whose name is now evading me. Mr. Nguyen manages to use a single word–– the perfect word–– to convey a vibe, like using the word "shoestrings" to describe a Vietnamese snack. Honestly, when will I ever?? - The endings are by far my favorite. Each short story has a way of implying the character's emotion/change of heart so subtly –– Liem's uneasiness yet desperation with Parrish, Claire's father's catharsis at the end––and how they resonate with us. I felt happy for Thomas when he began the slow process of mending his relationship with Sam, and I felt Sa Khanh's resignation, frustration, realization of her husband's descent from senility into a mental youth. The endings leave a lot to the imagination, for sure, but they leave off on a note of real tenderness, love, and remembrance. - just everything. I mean, I'm no expert, so I'm sure I'm missing 99% of the content beneath the surface, but I loved it all the same.
Please, please read this book if you have the time. It's a gorgeous read. - The Wife Between Us - Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen - 9/10 - Good if you liked: The Girl on the Train, Gone Girl The other day, I went to Costco with my dad, expecting to briefly accompany him on our excursion to the market and return home empty-handed. I was wrong. As I walked past the book section, the first thing that caught my eye was the spine of this book: sleek, rosy blue and sharp yellow letters. I'm a sucker for book aesthetics. I picked it up and read the flap. Then I started reading the first chapter. Then I bought the book, went home, and despite the mountains of unfinished homework I had, sat on the couch and read it until I finished. There is simply no way to put this book down once you've started. It's thrilling, clever, adrenaline-filled –– I'm pretty sure my heart rate literally doubled while I was reading this. You can't tear your eyes away from it. Here's how the book sets itself up: A bitter ex-wife, Vanessa, has been knocked off her feet by a divorce from the man she loves, Richard, and is struggling to get back on her feet. She's extremely jealous of the radiant young woman her husband Richard left her for, Nellie, who lives a healthy, lavish lifestyle. But as the book progresses, genuinely nothing is as it seems. This twisted fabric of a story never stops revealing more about itself. Everyone should read it! I'd been reading so much predictable YA before that the twist here hit me out of absolutely nowhere, and then the twists just kept coming and coming until the last page. Two thumbs up from me. [WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW.] Image courtesy of Amazon.
I had never really thought of an author twisting the chronology of the story itself to create this weird, cyclical fabric of women warning other women about Richard. So good it gave me chills until the very last page! I reread the first chapter as well and I couldn't help but admire the genius of Hendricks and Pekkanen. Each line slots perfectly into the double meanings -- "She doesn't deserve this" can mean "She doesn't deserve this happiness" or "She doesn't deserve this horror," and how "the therapist" becomes "Kate wearing the gold cuffs." Though I wouldn't say this story was scary, it definitely had some heart-pounding moments. For me, the most terrifying was in the Past Lens at the exact moment when Richard discovered Nellie's Moleskine notebook! There's something about that white-hot, blank panic that Nellie felt as her captor realized her awareness, his mercilessness after, her helplessness as she ripped up the pages. The situation really resonated with me. Also, the authors have a really crisp, smooth writing style and a great way of indirectly characterizing people; though the full transition from happy Nellie to dark Vanessa was never detailed, I can easily fill in the blanks myself because Vanessa feels so tangible. The one thing I didn't like was the added twist of Emma being the professor's daughter and stealing Richard to wreak revenge upon Vanessa. It felt extra. If it was to represent that infidelity often tears families part or show the effect parental infidelity has on children, it should've been given more attention than a brief mention in the epilogue. I more like the narrative of Emma being a past-Nellie -- another unknowing woman lured into his trap. Other than that, this was an awesome read! 6.5/10 Good if you enjoyed: The Young Elites, Matched, All the Crooked Saints I love Marie Lu. I really do. I think her books all pack a punch, especially my favorite, Legend, and her infamous Young Elites; she's daring when it comes to new ideas. So it's with love that I say I believe Warcross has much, much more potential. Warcross is a virtual reality game that the entire world is immersed in, consisting of teams battling to find power ups and accomplish missions. Inventive and daring Emika Chen acts as a bounty hunter, capturing criminals who illegally gamble on Warcross. But then Emika hacks herself way into the famous Warcross tournament, and suddenly, the creator of Warcross, a handsome man named Hideo Tanaka who's been Emika's crush for a reallly long time, asks her to help him locate a dangerous glitch character in Warcross that has a dark ulterior motive. [WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.] As many Goodreads comments say, Ms. Lu's arguably biggest strength is her inventive world-building. From the flashing JumboTrons and notes of Legend to the snowy scars in Young Elites, she's always dazzled us with a scene never experienced before. Each gives off a certain vibe that another writer can't replicate. But Warcross doesn't hit as close to home, and that's because it doesn't feel like it's entirely hers. So many writers before Ms. Lu have taken their own spin with it: augmented reality dystopia, technological takeover, an immersive gaming experience; I'm sure I've seen more than one trailer of movies in this premise, too. Of course, there's nothing wrong with using this concept –– it's really, really interesting, and it's definitely a kind of warning to us as an audience about where our future lies! But Ms. Lu's implementation of it kind of fell flat. The ending was really predictable. Half a chapter after I met Hideo, I knew he was going to turn out to be a plot-twist-villain –– there was just something very obviously off about him. Also, if Hideo and Emika's romance wasn't central to the gravity of his betrayal, their relationship would've been kindled much more slowly. And the second Emika unlocked Hideo's Tragic Backstory™ and he mentioned his brother, the one mysterious yet pivotal character we hadn't yet met, you could tell he was going to be Zero without a doubt. Like, who else could it be?? Everyone else is either a) not important enough or b) not symbolic enough. That said, I did like a lot about this story as well! The bounty hunting was a really cool addition (Legends Only tbh), as well as Emika's father's secret gambling. Something that also worked well for me was the tiny, tiny details Ms. Lu included to ensure that her new world was as realistic as possible –– for example, the Warcross tournament players being sponsored by Coke. Overall, I do realize that the predictability is most likely because it's setting up for the sequel –– which I'll be eagerly watching out for! Also, before you go, check out this really cool fanart of Emika that Marie Lu posted on her Instagram, drawn by @arz28: Isn't it beautiful? I know, queen.
7.5/10 The Da Vinci Code is a book about femininity and Christianity, essentially. Harvard professor Robert Langdon and another code-cracker, Sophie, go on a wild chase across Europe, trying to crack the secret of the millennia (the past 2 millennia, to be exact), racing against a Christian cult that wants to destroy said secret, lest it undermine their doctrines. I first heard the title Da Vinci Code back in –– I don't even know –– elementary school. It seemed like some kind of urban myth that simply everyone acknowledged as higher literature. So when I picked up this book from the library to read, I was really excited; I thought my life was going to be revolutionized, that I'd be enlightened by the philosopher Dan Brown. I was right in a sense, but I was also wrong. [WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW.] My opinion on this book –– and of course, it's just my opinion –– is that this book wasn't revolutionary. But it was still highly entertaining and adrenaline-filled. Here's my breakdown. - PRO: the historical aspect was interesting. Serious hats off to Dan Brown for that. The amount of information in this book seems like 3-5 years of research at least, and it was just so well-paced and well-fluffed with historical and analytical background that I couldn't help but be swept up in the frenzied current of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a thing. - PRO: the riddles were clever! I love books with mind twisters, and the Isaac Newton riddle and the anagrams in the beginning were really mind-blowing to me. Very well done. - CON: the character development felt contrived. Robert and Sophie both fit into an exact stereotype, and their relationship developed in the most predictable way possible too. - CON: the entire thing was written like a hyper-edited, scare-tactic Marvel movie. I don't know how to say this without dissing Marvel, because I do enjoy a handful of their movies, but it just seems like a quality that Marvel movies and Da Vinci Code share is aggressively-blockbuster-esque scare tactics. Like how Marvel provides twenty thousand cuts for a single fight scene, Da Vinci Code always includes a dramatic cliffhanger paragraph at the end of every section. That would be perfectly reasonable if it was done once or twice, but this happens in every single chapter, sometimes more than once per chapter. - CON: some of the riddle-solving didn't really have any basis. The characters jump to enormous assumptions based on the tiniest things; it's a little ridiculous in some cases. I think the video below explains the cons of this movie better than I do, so here it is, for those of you curious: In any case, I did enjoy this book! I couldn't put it down once I started it, so however much I criticize the quality of the writing, it still definitely did its job in immersing me in its world.
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November 2018
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