Reviews and Comments

I've only read one small quote and had my eyes feather over the jacket, picking up just enough words to be sure this book is entirely up my alley. 👀

Friend who's a big activist lent this to me. Excited to get into my first actual cli-fi novel.

The presentation is really interesting; super minimal, no quotation marks or chapter headings -- it's all just from the protagonist's perspective/retelling. No exposition that I can see, you just have to figure out what things are by context.

Reading kind of like a diary so far.

I enjoyed it. Though even on close reading, it went absolutely over my head. I feel like this book does its readers a minor disservice by not recommending some prerequisite reading.

I struggled through most of the book to connect the phantasmic imagery to real scenes or projects, but maybe that's me missing the point--maybe the point of this book is the dialectic between two experts, focusing on fundamental structures of their field?

I don't know what book I would recommend as an intro to queer literary studies, but it's not this one.

I do think this book would probably be great if read by a group, or studied by a class, but as a solitary endeavour it's a bit of a bear.

So like the titular subject, probably better experienced with friends.

All over the place. Fun and exciting at times, achingly dull and cliched at others. Totally unbelievable, many chase scenes, shallow romance subplot, male gaze-y descriptions of every female character, much gadgets, kind of a lot of product placement, and what feels like a denouement that was hacked into a press piece for some stealth watercraft with an eye-rolling acronym.

I won't lie and say I didn't enjoy it, but there wasn't exactly a lot of soy on the bean on this one. It's a Hollywood blockbuster that goes down easy if you don't think too hard.

SecUnit's on the case!

I've kind of been hopping about the Murderbot books, so I'm just going through them chronologically now. I had missed this one in my earlier readings, but now I realize it's kind of the tonal "key" to the shift in SecUnit's attitudes in Network Effect.

The ending of Exit Strategy is such a great payoff. It's so understated and compassionate. I loved it.

Sigh... I'm not proud. Literally found this in a wet box at the side of the road and fondly remembered reading a Rainbow Six a couple lifetimes ago. If nothing else, I don't much care if I drop it in the bath while reading. :p

Not my usual thing, and normative af, but the pacing and imagery were good, characters distinct and punchy, never felt lost, and I cared about the plot all the way to the end, so it did something right.

I want to say I didn't like it, because of what that would say about me, but I actually did enjoy it, despite myself. :)

Lovely book that reads like cashew butter. Pretty diverse vignette of characters, but with a definitely through-line. As usual, the inner jacket gives pretty major spoilers, but the details of the story are so emotionally charged, it doesn't really matter if you already know every single plot point and twist--it's just a plain old captivating tale.

My first time reading anything of Doerr's, and I don't know why but I was somewhat resistant to emotionally investing in this book for about the first half, but the characters and their hopeless trials, and their tiny triumphs, eventually won me over.

I love the main thesis of the book. It's kind and pragmatic, while still being foolishly hopeful in a thematically endearing way.

I'm updating my review because I can't stop thinking about this book. It's infected me with a kind of radical, unreasonable hope. Moreso than I thought it could. I'll be speaking to a friend who burdened by doomerism, and realize I'm paraphrasing this book; or I'll be washing the dishes and get choked up out of nowhere, thinking about the thesis and its execution.