So I did a terrible job with my CBR reviews the past two years. I did fine from 6 through 11, then I think I totally skipped 12, and did a few reviews in 13. Year 12 was the start of the pandemic though (2020), so I'm cutting myself some slack! It was also the first year of my job where I was … [Read more]
Some stuff — Round Up
Money by Jacob Goldstein
Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo
Time and Free Will by Henri Bergson
Mind of my Mind by Octavia Butler
The Utopia of Rules by David Graeber
Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny
Assembly by Natasha Brown
Jews Don't Count by David Baddiel
People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn
A Fanatic Heart by Ron Rosenbaum
How Civil Wars Start by Barbara Walter
My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
Time and Free Will - 5/5 I am not a philosopher or even particularly well-read in philosophy, so this review is more from the perspective of someone with a literature background, and who is used to using philosophy to serve the aims of literature and philology. This book is particularly suited to … [Read more]
Wild Wild Country
Rajneeshpuram: Inside the Cult of Bhagwan and Its Failed American Utopia by Russell King
In the 1980s, a man who calls himself God and his disciples attempt to set up a utopia in the countryside of Oregon, and they are not afraid to bend laws and hurt people to get what they want. As a Hindu myself, I have a quite skeptical view of all the Western-catering groups that sprung up out … [Read more]
's CBR14 Review No:46 ·
Genres: History, Non-Fiction ·
Tags: ARC, cult, NetGalley, Non-Fiction, Russell King, true crime ·
Not going to lie – I pictured Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley in my head when reading this
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
Olive Smith is a Ph.D. candidate working on her thesis at Stanford and really has neither the time nor the inclination for anything romantic. However, she did briefly date a guy who her best friend is now gaga over, and because Olive needs to convince her BFF, Ahn, that she is well and truly over … [Read more]
's CBR14 Review No:5 ·
Genres: Fiction, Romance ·
Tags: Ali Hazelwood, cbr14, Contemporary Romance, fake dating, Malin, science, the love hypothesis ·
Bringing Life to the Story
The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman
I'm not usually one to knock people's tastes in problematic art. Chinatown is my all-time favorite movie and I'd be hard pressed to never watch it again. So it's tough for me to judge. Which doesn't mean that automatically immunizes me from criticism. I may be a "You do you" person but I also … [Read more]
's CBR14 Review No:40 ·
Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction ·
Tags: #biography, Lolita, Sally Horner, Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita, true crime, Vladimir Nabokov ·
“I knew beyond any doubt that there was genuine value to be found in my story.”
Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby
I feel like this is going to be a tough one for me to review, because my relationship with the content that Hannah Gadsby creates is so personal to me and has been frankly crucial to how I am coming to understand myself that it’s a bit difficult to try to take that out of the equation and look at … [Read more]
's CBR14 Review No:30 ·
Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction ·
Tags: #memoir, Anxiety, ARC, ASD, autism, comedy, debut, Depression, faintingviolet, Hannah Gadsby, NetGalley, neurodivergent, Ten Steps to Nanette, trauma ·