drplantwrench's reviews
129 reviews

It's no surprise that Wilder went on to write mostly plays, as this book (one of his first) reads an awful like a play. The book takes a snapshot of various characters and their lies, each separate into essentially an Act. There are reasons why it's not a play, as it is a bit more introspective and narrative, an overall quite enjoyable. However, it is just a taste of each character and the resulting impacts, almost like hors d'oeuvres - it is quite a short book that won't fill you up, but it is a tasty morsel for what you do get.

In my opinion, this book has the best opening line of all time. While a lot of books fall off after their classic line (I'm looking at you, Moby Dick), the Invisible Man really accelerates from there. A fascinating examination of race in the South and New York. When I tell people that I really dislike To Kill a Mockingbird as a book that has a façade of race, but isn't actually good, I always think of this book instead. A well-written story that takes a much more serious look at race than a lot of books that are taught as the classics on the subject. This deserves more credit, and should be a must-read!

Easily my favorite (anti-)war book. No hard feelings to Catch-22 (which is great), but this book so deftly combines the devastation of war with a novel twist of sci-fi, all written with the precision of Hemingway. I didn't know the power that Vonnegut wielded, but now I know. Definitely looking forward to his next books.

And so it goes.

When I first googled this title to see whether I should read it or not, and of course the first thing you hear first is that it's written in the second person. This both intrigued me and also gave me pause. Would this be an indecipherable experimental text that would be a slog to get through? Or would it be academic and a test t see if I can finish it?

Fortunately, as you can probably tell from my rating, it ended up being neither. I did not imagine that it would combine such an interesting tactic with a sense of wonder and intrigue that made it feel like one of the truly most unique books I have ever read. Highly recommend those to read it!

I had never heard of EM Forster before I started my mission to read quote/unquote the classics. I had also not read much of India either. Then, I had read several fictions set in India, and grew a new appreciation. When I came across this book, it seemed rather basic, but given its "classic" status, I grew excited for it.

It is not at all what I expected. There's a somewhat of a twist in the book, and I think this is where the book really pivots from a mundane tale to something interesting. The first section of the book, one worries about how this book has aged, but the second part of the book really focuses and zooms in on the British-Indian interaction. It was a refreshing break from what the first part of the book was implying. Likewise, the prose of EM Forster makes the book a delight to read. Overally very interesting and aged surprisingly well, in my opinion.

I love trying new kinds of books. I want to have a taste of all kinds of writings and authors, so much so that I feel bad for reading a second book by the same author that I know I love, because there are so many new authors that I have never read.

This book made me question that philosophy. Here's another rule that this book has broken: I have never fallen asleep in the middle of a book. To the credit of this book, it made me do it twice! I often had to go back a few pages to make sure I wasn't missing something, and no I was not. This may be a moment of "to each their own", but I certainly will not read another of his books.

I think it isn't surprising that I viewed Infinite Jest as daunting. But I had discussed this book with some friends, who absolutely raved about it. Combine that with the the fact that this is viewed as one of the modern classics, I decided to take this book on. And it took me quite a while to get through this brick of a book.

All in all, I have very mixed feelings about it. There are some fascinating ideas in it, the ending is beautiful, and the writing is dripping with ironic humor. On the other hand, it is far more farcical than I expected, to such a point that it borderlines on annoying foolishness. Some of the plots I don't think aged well, and it is nearly impossible to keep straight. I read later on that you should read this book all in one week, or not bother at all, and I somewhat agree with that. Half of me wants to take a week off and read it all in one crazed go. On the other hand, I'm not sure it's even worth it. As much as it is lauded as a classic, I do think of it as more of a take-it-or-leave-it book.

This book reminds me a lot of Infinite Jest. Notoriously difficult to read, deemed a modern classic, pretty divisive views on whether it's worth or not. Much like my opinion of Infinite Jest, I think it's a pretty mixed bag. There are parts of it that are interesting and caught my interest, and then there is also a bunch of gibberish. I think the purposefully difficult to read parts are pretty dumb, an a cheap way to try to make some kind of literary statement. That said, I found the characters to be fascinating, but just wish I had more opportunity to let them grow. Instead, it is obscured by the author's desire to do something novel, no matter the cost. In some ways that is admirable, but it also meant I didn't really care about what happened next. All in all, take it or leave it.

This book made me want to start a review blog just to document all my thoughts on it. It is truly an epic book, in that it is sprawling across decades and countries, and provides plenty of fuel to the internal fire that burns in my mind when I read books like these. It's a bit long, meandering, and I can understand why some people are not huge fans of it, but it really hit every nerve for me. It was hard to put down in spite of its length, and was a very pleasant read. In a love-it or hate-it book, I found plenty to love.

This is my first Joseph Conrad book, and the beginning part of it was fascinating. Reminded me of a classic movie from the 60's in black and white - stark, strong characters, sparse but weighty dialogue, beautiful settings. But after that, I really lost interest. I don't know why I cared about Nostromo, and the writing seemed pretty regressive. To be perfectly honest, I don't remember much of the book other than the fact that I truly hated the ending, and once I saw where it was going I rolled my eyes for the next 50 pages.

In short, some of it is nice but overall, pretty forgettable.