panI can see what they were trying to do, and it's tragic that the effort is largely posthumous, but it just kept leaving me wondering how good it could have been if Bourdain had been around until completion. I'm fairly certain choosing to consume the book via audiobook did not help the experience as the cobbled together pastiche feel was heightened by the rapid shift between voices. 1/?
Points for sense-memory awakening: totally forgot, I love that smell. 😌
Beautiful response, awesome brother - and brother-in-law!
pickVery weird to go back in the history of this book to look over my first review and realize I highlighted a couple of the same quotes almost a year later. 😅 Upon reread of book and review, I honestly don't think I can say it better than I did, or have much to add. I think I can acknowledge some pacing issues in the second half, balancing mystery with an increasingly gripping pace against multiple dense story lines, but overall still impressive.
Value-added grandfather-ing. ☺️ Excellent philosophy for nightmares.
pickA lovely experience that makes me so, SO glad not to be in my twenties anymore! 😅 Well-known term or not (don't forget the Afterword), an Age of License is probably something that could happen at different times in your life as long as the confluence of factors, (feeling untethered from family and routine, having the resources and opportunity for travel, uncertain of long term plans), exist, but I think that more often happens 1/?
Okay, that DOES sound like a good time. Support artists, enjoy a new experience! 😉🤭
Hee hee...all coats of arms should have a creature. ☺️
pickYeah. Reread confirms, this is a book that's going to stay with me. I'm glad it's one I own, so I can revisit, probably annually. I think having experienced Tigerman by Nick Harkaway this past year, I have a new scale for 'heart-ripped out' books that affected me emotionally, but even knowing what was coming, this one still got to me. Grief, unshakeable, self-annihilating grief, is the undercurrent throughout the story, 1/?
Yep, pretty sure that's the face I make when I see DOG, too. 😍
pickResilient, defiant, joyful, gentle. The tone of this work really surprised me. As much as Graham is clear about her and others' negative experiences of racism and misogyny in academia and scientific field research, it's clear that in pursuing her own path she has provided a place of hope and curiousity undaunted by biased, apathetic and oppressive forces, not just for herself but for other Black people and other minority groups, 1/?
pickLOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOVE. I maintain that I would happily read this Tom Taylor Nightwing run as long as he cares to continue. There's such light and humour and warmth in it, even while the battle against all and sundry villains continues. You get Batfam moments, and you get satisfying story arcs, and you get actual optimism, and while I definitely have favourite artists, you get consistently great art 1/2
Good Robin/Bad Robin 😈 Is it a reductive characterization of Tim and Damian? Perhaps. But I can also see it working really, really well.
Oh, sure, it's all fun and games until Batgirl finds out. 🤨
Okay, but I LIKE it. Look at that chill little fishie!
Relatable.
The computer cables! 😆 Puppy is HELPING with the research! 😁
Did not know I needed pirate vibes Nightwing until I got pirate vibes Nightwing. 😁
pickBest case scenario: I'm glad to have re-read it, and I feel better about it than I did the first time. My hunch that I'm more invested in Susan Sto Helit as a character, than Death, proved true. If I think of this as one of the Discworld Death books, it feels like there's barely enough of him in it, AND I run into the same problem I've regularly had with Death's books, 1/?
pickWhat a wonderful time. ☺️ While the 'choose your own adventure' format is somewhat modified for the audiobook, I love how it was done, and I would not want to pass up the chance to listen to Neil Patrick Harris narrating the majority of the book. The little missives from friends and acquaintances peppered throughout are in a different narrators voice, but they're almost more hilarious for being read in a deadpan 'straight-man' style 1/?
Current reads colourway. A little purple, a little blue, a little sci-fi, a little fantasy(reread). 🥰💜💙
pickYES. More of this PLEASE. By which I do not mean that this book needed to be anything more than it was, I just want more works like it. I knew that I loved sci-fi stories that drift about in that space of humans/humanoid/android/clone/cyborg examining identity, the nature of life and existence, of being, and one's right to do so; that I love stories where the horror has the idea of employment, being a worker, a cog, as a central theme, 1/?
Would just like to point out the cover indicated in the digital listing in my library catalogue vs the version that showed up on the hold shelf. They did us both dirty Olga, glad you got another cover. [I think there's a third one with black gunk in a water cooler, might be more on theme, but it's a little basic for my taste.]
so-soWell, shucks. A lot of promise at the start: unique premise, irreverent and humourous writing style; sex positive pansexual, not simply bad ass but appreciatively skilled and canny (without necessarily being manic pixie dream warrior trope) female main character; gradual world-building that hints at the past and makes intriguing suppositions about certain unknowns; engaging supporting cast; nods to one developing relationship, BUT
pickZoomed through that like candy, though I didn't mean to!
The brief introduction gave an interesting frame to view the comics from, and just like when I've encountered the artist's work in Tumblr, I just found myself quietly swept away for a single moment each time. I'm struggling not to over or under sell the collection, I think the subtitle is a perfect description. 1/2
pickAnd so ends the first five star of the year. 🥹😂😭
Hilarious and tender, Linney is given such life, a strong character with a specific voice, yet anyone who's had any remotely friendly feelings toward a particular cat will have the joy of recognizing the spectrum of feline behaviour from the fondly tolerated to the widely enjoyed. Her people provide entertainment and heart as well. Love the art style, 1/2
The cat's face! Impotent rage and loathing in this group hug. 😆
Cuddly cryptid, mysterious mouser. ☺️😺
so-soOkay, I'm most definitely projecting but, the part where the lesson of the book seems to be that you don't have to be perfect and giving all the time, you should take time for yourself, great, and okay, yes, you can't take on the responsibility of changing other people or cleaning up all their chaos, but...not a single hint of a recognition of the need for a change from the rest of Egg's roommates? 1/?
pickAn amusing bit of strange. Part way seems to want to point out how we take for granted treating 'man's best friend' a particular way, in the certain belief that they enjoy it, and part way a standard tale of alien experiencing what we see as familiar, and part way a commentary on the revelations available when we interact with a new being and recognize when we're expecting them to react as others have (especially those who look similar) 1/?
pickWhile I have encountered personal reflections told in essay format and stream of consciousness snippets style before, it's the mind behind the format that makes all the difference. There is something warmly unique about Slate's writing. You get flights of fancy woven through the realities of looking for connection and intimacy, love and support, acknowledging the harms of the patriarchy, trying to find a sense of inner contentment and 1/?
Me too! Me too! ☺️
On to more individual concerns: this is the first book (ostensibly) by Bourdain that I've read. I no longer have an interest in chef confessionals, so I thought this would be the crossover between his well-loved work and my interests - I'm desperately trying not to associate his writing with this because I don't think it's a fair sample to assess. 13h