Mike > Recent Status Updates

This is a good book. It can be a little ridiculous at times, but I appreciate how realistic it is, particularly in regards to the setting and the culture of the characters. This feels authentically teenaged, in a way that very little else does. It's kind of amazing that this was done in a way that doesn't feel dated even eleven years later. I love this book.

It's occurring to me that Kaori is... perhaps something of a manic pixie dream girl. I mean, the artwork is still awesome, and I still like the story, but if I'm going to get behind this series as a whole, I'd really like to see more character development for her.

David Levithan's prose is goddamn amazing. Some of the best writing I've ever seen in a YA book. Rachel Cohn isn't nearly as good of a writer, but Norah is a compelling enough character that I think it'll make up for it. But honestly, unless there are any serious, pervasive flaws, Nick's voice is enough to make this book one of the best things I've read in months.

John Green's story is substantially more asinine than Maureen Johnson's, but it's also substantially funnier. Watching Green try to do gender politics kind of makes me cringe, but the story handles its tone pretty well, and it was a fun read.

This is alright, I guess. Certainly, the artwork is great. The story is just a little... pointless? I dunno, it's not totally resonating with me. But it's certainly not bad at all.

There's some very good theming here, and the prose isn't great, but it's mostly passable. I guess this book is just too short. There's no connective tissue, which makes this story and this world feel very thin. I honestly think this would've worked better if it had been shortened into a novella.

The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson: 2/5

This was cheesy, badly-written, and just not very impactful. It's so lightweight that it undermines its own message, but most of the fun feels really forced. It honestly feels to me like a bad imitation of John Green.

This is pretty bad. The artwork is confusing, and the story completely lacks direction. I guess some of the ideas and the dialogue are interesting, but it's not really holding my attention so far.

It isn't as obvious as I feared it would be that Atwater-Rhodes wrote this when she was thirteen. This is pretty rushed, and a bit simplistic, but it's not that bad.

Maureen Johnson's story is not nearly as good as I remember. It's cheesy, badly-written, and the plot construction is just lazy.

This is very effective escapism - the worldbuilding and quirky characters provide a lot of shiny things to look at and think about. I just see nothing behind all that - this book is shallow as a puddle, and it doesn't feel very human to me.

The worldbuilding is easily the strongest aspect of this book, both so far and from what I can remember. Rowling has clearly done a lot of elaborate planning here.

This opening might work better if it was a tad bit more realistic. I mean yes, I know it's a fantasy book, but if you're trying to be relatable to kids with shitty families, you don't really gain anything from being so over-the-top.

I think monarchy drama just doesn't interest me very much. Same reason I couldn't really get into Song of Ice and Fire.

The worldbuilding is pretty interesting, but I just find the story directionless, and hard to follow. Although in terms of ability to follow, this is probably the simplest thing Host has ever written, so eh.

This is overall a really interesting book, and it was created in a really interesting way. But I feel like I would've enjoyed following the blog more than reading this as a novel. The plot structure is super weak, and Cass is too passive of a protagonist.

I guess my biggest complaint is that Cass is a really passive protagonist. There are a lot of complicated concepts here, and I think the plot would be a lot easier to follow if Cass had some primary goal that she was working toward the whole time. The way it is, it's easy to lose track of what's going on because the circumstances change so much, and Cass has no goal that ties everything together.

This reminds me of, like, a really good manga or something. Lots of fun to read, super interesting worldbuilding. This is even better than I remember.

Coming back to this book is an utter joy. I love the prose, and knowing where this story goes excites me.

Yeah, I really don't have much more to say. Great story, wish it were better organized.

It's funny to be reading this right after I read 1984. Orwell really was spot-on.

I guess I just wish this book were better-organized. Mandlestam has a lot of really interesting insight, and I'm happy to be reading this book. It's just very hard to follow the events in her life.

This is way, way better than it has any right to be.

I do agree with a lot of Orwell's politics, and that makes them very nice to read. But this novel just makes me wish I were reading his essays instead. There's hardly a single sentence that wasn't written explicitly to be political, and it makes for a cold, empty novel.

I had forgotten how much sex and outdated gender politics there are in this book. I kind of think one of the problems with the political commentary is that I'm never really sure how much I'm supposed to buy into what Winston is doing as legitimately rebellious, and how much of it is supposed to be just things that the Party is secretly cool with him doing because they're actually counterproductive.

Man, re-reading this book is making me realize just how much people miss the point. Like, the fact that the majority of the population is barely watched at all, and how actually central it is to the story that Winston is middle class and not one of the proles. This is different than I remember.

On one hand, this isn't very funny, and the writing is a lot cheesier than I remember. But... yeah, this is still pretty poignant. Rafe is a really good character, and I can totally see why I found him relatable when I was a kid. This is, if nothing else, way better than the books it's ripping off.

It's nice to see this political commentary again - it's hard to deny how insightful and intelligence Orwell is. That said, I still think this doesn't work at all as a novel, except for being really well-written.

This book is like a well-made machine. It only sets out to do one very specific thing. It does that specific thing very well. It performs no other functions whatsoever. It's smooth and efficient. It is exquisitely crafted. It is completely inhuman, artificial, and lifeless.

This makes me think I was too hard on Middlesex. This has almost as little direction, but without nearly as strong of a human touch. Apart from this book's relevance to 2017, it's hard to find much going for it.