Shauna finished reading Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to …
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70% complete! Shauna has read 35 of 50 books.
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to …
It is 1987, and only one person has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus -- her uncle, the renowned painter …
This book had me at its premise: "a novel about the socialist calculation debate". If you are not interested in economic theory, you should skip it - the question of how best to run an economy is not just the main driver of the story and a topic of conversation among characters, there are several significant chunks of the book that are just straight-out lecture. I found the lecture-y bits to be very helpful context, so I will not dock stars for them, though I preferred the actual story (which is maybe 85-90% of the text).
The book follows many characters, real and some fictional, some we keep circling back to and some we never see again. Luckily Spufford has a knack for sketching interesting characters quickly. Still, this is not the kind of book that grips you hard and fast so you can't put it down. You can read …
This book had me at its premise: "a novel about the socialist calculation debate". If you are not interested in economic theory, you should skip it - the question of how best to run an economy is not just the main driver of the story and a topic of conversation among characters, there are several significant chunks of the book that are just straight-out lecture. I found the lecture-y bits to be very helpful context, so I will not dock stars for them, though I preferred the actual story (which is maybe 85-90% of the text).
The book follows many characters, real and some fictional, some we keep circling back to and some we never see again. Luckily Spufford has a knack for sketching interesting characters quickly. Still, this is not the kind of book that grips you hard and fast so you can't put it down. You can read it in pieces here and there. That's fine - it succeeds in what it wants to be, not a thriller or an epic but a thoughtful exploration of an important question through the lens of storytelling.
Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the …
A haunting, diverse debut story collection that explores the isolation we experience in the face of the mysterious, often dangerous …
"Reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion, Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon …
The story takes place on the fictional planet Urras and its moon Anarres (since Anarres is massive enough to hold …
After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally …
High Fantasy with a double-shot of self-reinvention
Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc …
Time-travel secret agent Shannon Moss visits future time periods for clues about a Navy SEAL astronaut's murdered family and the …
Memory makes reality.
That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the …
Content warning spoilers for the ending
This book is not a love story but a character study. It's a meditation on professional dignity, and what happens when you sacrifice everything - every opportunity, every chance for connection, for human emotion - on the altar of that dignity. It's a book about misleading yourself. It's a book about giving in to sunk costs.
The last few pages are what made this story work for me. Because Stevens is a sympathetic, if deeply frustrating, narrator. I was rooting for him to have some kind of growth, to leave him ready to grasp the remains of the day. And it seemed like Ishiguro was leading him there, showing him reconsidering the value of bantering (and thus, human connection). But the very last thing Stevens thinks is how this will make him a better butler. Because in the end, he is too scared to be anything but what he has always been.
Superbly done by Ishiguro.