My Goodreads reviews

author: John Boyne
name: Kim
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves:
review:
Boyne at his haunting best

A story of hurt, despair, betrayal and the most horrible abuse, well told and entirely plausible. Boyne is brave to tell the story from the point of view of a woman. A couple of times I wondered if a woman “would do that” or “wouldn’t she be more guarded?” But overall he pulls it off with his straightforward prose, teasing out the story step by step as only few writers can do so well. A novella of more weight and poignancy than most novels three times as long.

author: Samantha Harvey
name: Kim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves:
review:
Short on story, long on listicles

My expectations were high after all the accolades, but although I enjoyed learning lots of what being on a space station is like, and many of Harvey’s reflections on life and the universe were poignant, I was left disappointed. I found the author’s relentless use of listicles to describe everything from brushing teeth to the deepest emotions and the most stunning vistas in space too repetitive and a bit boring in the end. Still, an original book worth reading.

author: Henrik H. Langeland
name: Kim
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves:
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author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Kim
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
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author: Amitav Ghosh
name: Kim
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/22
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
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author: R.F. Kuang
name: Kim
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves:
review:
A clever story well told

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most clever, and this one works a treat. It’s mostly believable, told with much wit and insight, but stretched a bit beyond the plausible towards the end.

author: Heather Rose
name: Kim
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves:
review:
Beautiful, gut wrenching, unexpected

Heather Rose is a superb writer, and this is such a well crafted book. It made me wonder, it made me laugh and it made me cry. Just read it…

author: Gabrielle Bergan
name: Kim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
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author: Jack London
name: Kim
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1904
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves:
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author: Michael Vatikiotis
name: Kim
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
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author: Upton Sinclair
name: Kim
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
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author: Ewan Butler
name: Kim
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
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author: Ben Bland
name: Kim
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
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author: Hannah Kent
name: Kim
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
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author: Joseph O’Neill
name: Kim
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
review:
Not sure why I persevered. Maybe because the storyline had lots of potential. After the silly ending I found myself regretting even starting. An implausible narrative told from two POV’s who were in many ways incidental to the story and neither of them particularly relatable. That the book was largely well written didn’t hide the fact of it being too smart for its own good, trying too hard to be relevant. A missed opportunity for both writer and reader.

author: Jennifer Croft
name: Kim
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/06/15
date added: 2024/06/15
shelves:
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author: Georgi Gospodinov
name: Kim
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/29
date added: 2024/05/29
shelves:
review:
A very different kind of book

Written as a series of vignettes that sometimes hangs together, sometimes not. The narrative is about time and place and how we deal with both through life, but it is also about memory loss and the effects of dementia, the impact of war, the end of the Cold War and a lot more. The author tries to cover a lot of ground, sometimes whimsical, sometimes profound, rarely boring but also not sufficiently engaging for me. Kudos to the translator (from Bulgarian), this is not an easy book to get your head around.

author: Antony Beevor
name: Kim
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/04
date added: 2024/04/04
shelves:
review:
The forgotten war that rendered the revolution a myth

Anthony Beevor at his best, the detail he gets across is astonishing, although in this book there is little to be known about the people and the soldiers who suffered through what must surely be one of the most horrible ‘civil’ wars in all of history. 12 million dead and so many more in the famine and devastation of the aftermath.