Rated Paper Girls, Volume 3 6/10
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Rated The Afterlife of Walter Augustus 4/10
A bit obvious, uneventful and a miss for me.<br/><i></i><br/>As always this review is based on my experience of reading this book and not reflective of the actual content or story for a broader audience (I say because I'm not particularly glowing in my rating!).<br/><br/>If I had this on holiday then I may have warmed to it a little more. It definitely feels like the kind of book that doesn't require much thinking.<br/><br/>I found the twist "baddie" very obvious but at the same time lots of the story moved forwards without any real reason.<br/><br/>I came away from reading the book like it had been 100 pages or so. Maybe it's because I felt like the characters didn't have any depth - the sister Victoria is cruel and unkind to the protagonist Letty, but it seems for no reason other than to make a bad character (in the living world). <br/><br/>Then there's Walter, living in the afterlife (or the interim, or maybe even purgatory…), it's unclear why he's been there for so long - what was special about his name. He wrote a book of poem, god knows how many hundreds of years prior to the current day, so I'm not entirely sure why he doesn't pass on.<br/><br/>Later we meet Hector. I'm not sure how he's part of Walters "life". Maybe it was explained and I skimmed idly past it, or perhaps it's just some rando that has a larger part to play - and even then, when Hector plays his hand, he kind of just falls off the pages.<br/><br/>All in all, a bit of a miss for me.
Rated Lord of the Flies 6/10
Stressful, but solid, reading.<br/><i></i><br/>My rating is based on how much I _personally enjoyed_ the story. It was pretty heavy reading, and perhaps more so as I knew there was an underlying bullying aspect that ran through the story - and bullying always puts me on edge.<br/><br/>The book itself is brilliantly written and the climax of the story is masterfully executed. Golding does an excellent job of slowly building up the tension throughout the story until it's crashing so hard at the end of the story it seems like there's no way out.<br/><br/>Ralph's (one of the protagonists) feeling of peril at the end of the book is visceral. Reminding me of my typical nightmares and stress dreams where I'm unable to escape the terror no matter what choice I make.
Rated Exit Strategy 10/10
I read the first installment of the Murderbot a few months back (as an Amazon single), but after reading it, I decided I was going to pony up the £8 for the following 3 books - although probably the most I've spent on a single book, let alone 3 books - absolutely totally worth it. I **loved** this series.<br/><br/>The series follows Murderbot, a rouge security unit, mostly good at killing but who would rather just watch TV and be left alone. The first book reads easily as a stand alone, and I'd say the second book does too. <br/><br/>The third and fourth pull together all the previous adventures into an overarching story that we see Murderbot learning about itself and struggling with the the concepts of emotions and desires.<br/><br/>In fact, the Murderbot ends with that huge question of: what do you want.<br/><br/>There's so many things I enjoyed about this series: it's a sci-fi that doesn't really require you to understand all the ins and outs of the political systems that exist in the world. I've read a few sci-fi books that really struggle to make the world believable because there's often so much to take in - the Murderbot diaries does this in a way that reads easily and lightly.<br/><br/>The action sequences are really well written and fairly easy to follow - another thing I've struggled with in other books.<br/><br/>Even though we know that the Murderbot is a construct, it exists in a time that emotions can be simulated - and therefore felt - by the Murderbot, which, just like any one of us, they don't relish having to process those emotions, and they'd much rather just shun away and hide away escaping with TV.<br/><br/>Finally the characters are refreshing. As a white man myself, I'm too quick to assume the gender and race of the characters I reading about, Martha Wells does a really good job of keeping me in check, reminding me that Murderbot _doesn't_ have a gender, there's people in the universe that don't identify as one gender, and that not everyone is white. I love this, and I appreciate it in the books I read (in the hope that it shifts my mindset).<br/><br/>Loved it.
Rated The Power 10/10
Loved this book. For me, it puts a magnifying glass on the grotesque behaviours that men have and still do, inflict on women, simply because of gender, this warped idea that one is stronger than the other. As a man this book is a huge insight into the reality of the power struggle, along with being a great page turner and great thriller.
Rated The Dead Fathers Club 6/10
The story of an 11 year old boy after his father dies. The story uses a unique story telling device where it's told from the boys mind (or imagined diary), but the result is a stream of consciousness, littered with rule-breaking authoring techniques. <br/><br/>I can imagine this method coming off as forced or trite. But Haig's book manages to execute really well.<br/><br/>There's some vivid scenes of loss that touch my own personal childhood, remembering my own mother in the early chapters. <br/><br/>The boy himself believes he's being visited by his deceased father who asks him to enact revenge for his recent death. <br/><br/>The boy, Philip, struggles with his own confused feelings of being a boy, being 11 and starting to see more of the world, and being thrown into a new family structure. It's all too much for him.<br/><br/>Being inside his head you can understand his actions, and it makes me wonder about how we judge someone from the outside who behaves so oddly or "badly".<br/><br/>Ultimately we're left to decide for ourselves whether the boy is really seeing ghosts, though one thing is clear by the end: he'll need counselling to get through the next 15 years.<br/><br/>A good, fast, little read, perfect for holiday reading.
Rated The Song from Somewhere Else 8/10
Beautiful story (and printed paper was so nice).
Finished reading Nihilism and Technology
Wants to read Solo Leveling Novel 06
Edited 88d ago
Reviewed What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley
Very different than I was expecting but still very good!
Wants to read Stakkers en wolven: In de schaduw van Gaza
Wants to read Solo Leveling Novel 08
Edited 88d ago
Finished reading Slow Time Between the Stars
Finished reading The God Delusion: A Study of Religious Belief and Skepticism
Rated Artificial Condition 8/10
Uh! I love this character! This is the 2nd book in the murderbot books and the main character, who I realise now doesn't have a name (nor gender as it's a bot) is so fun to read. <br/><br/>The murderbot is so dry and grumpy and so different from previous characters I've read in sci-fi.<br/><br/>The first book definitely works as a stand alone, and although there's a self contained story in this second book, it definitely carries through a decent number of references to the earlier story that I'd not recommend reading this on it's own.<br/><br/>Since the books are only around 160 pages, I'm moving right on to the next installment and looking forward to it already.
Wants to read The ZX Spectrum Ula: How to Design a Microcomputer