Review by laurareads87 - Stories of Your Life and Others

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laurareads87 's review for:

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I just assume that any book by Ted Chiang is going to receive a five-star rating from me, and Stories of Your Life and Others unsurprisingly met that expectation. I'd read some of the stories in this collection before and I've taught the film Arrival, based on one of them, in a university Cultural Studies class. What Ted Chiang does remarkably well, in my mind, is take what might seem like a simple premise -- for example, what if a technology existed to disrupt the ability to respond to beauty (or lack thereof) in human faces, thereby eliminating lookism? -- and explore it from multiple angles in a remarkably brief number of pages. His writing ranges from exhilarating to tragic to hilarious but is always, always thought-provoking in the best possible way. Highly, highly recommend.

Content Warnings