alisalmao's reviews
37 reviews

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

A great expose on grief and the chaos and turmoil of recovering. The crow is one of my favorite characters in recent literature I’ve read. Seriously hilarious, but somehow hilariously serious. 

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

adventurous challenging lighthearted mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

On Palestine by Ilan Pappé, Noam Chomsky

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky

4.0

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn is a witty and satirical exploration of totalitarianism and censorship. Both fictional and borderline corporeal, this awe-inspiring novel frames totalitarianism as the devastating result of opportunism. The five members of the High Island Council of Nollop, the fictional scholarly island off the coast of South Carolina where the story is set, jump at the promising chance to control the citizens and gain more power through restricting their use of certain letters of the alphabet. These restrictions gain the council members power and material wealth, but eventually rob them of all morality and result in the devastating nation-wide loss of culture, life, and eventually personal identity and thought. Through the poignant activism of a young girl, Ella Minnow Pea - and her friends and family - freedom of speech is justly brought back to the island. At its heart, Ella Minnow Pea is a novel about resilience that demonstrates a fundamental truth about life: given the right conditions, anything is possible.

The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky by Jana Casale

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The girl who never read Noam Chomsky unfortunately really  never did read Noam Chomsky. Leda was a very well written amalgamation of the female experience. This book follows her throughout her life, from college to her death bed. It was so uncomfortable reading her  feminist perspectives and contradictory desire to meet the male gaze and fulfill the unreasonable expectations put on women. At the same time, you know Leda is a smart and capable woman, but you hate her for never wanting to do more. She is happy as a stay at home/part-time mom, but you want her to finally pick up writing again and publish her own book. As the reader, I wanted Leda to be the super woman who can balance work, family, and tackle all obstacles in her way. But instead, she is the very real, very poignant example of a woman doing her best to find herself and find meaning in everything around her. She is so relatable, but you feel as if you do not want to relate to her because of your own beliefs on feminism and overcoming the patriarchy. But, really, individual happiness is Leda’s goal and I believe she achieved it. My only issue is that her daughter Annabelle tossed the poor Noam Chomsky book and never read it either. It would have been beautiful to see her as the “better version” of her mother, as Leda saw her, by reading the book and prevailing over the challenges her own mother faced. But, I think it is more fitting that she, too, is a representation of a true woman in today’s society. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about the female experience.

The Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book was recommended to me by a colleague, and I was fully expecting it to simply be a regurgitation of my own beliefs with nothing new for me to learn. Fortunately for me, I was mistaken. Granted that many of the ideas were not necessarily new to me, the factual evidence and anecdotal evidence opened my eyes that I don’t really pay attention to politics and the world around me as much as I thought I did. Hedges makes plain the fact that the Democratic Party has failed the people and functions as the Republican Party under a different name. I’m reading this book 15 years after it was published and it is shocking how well he predicted the future of America. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to begin understanding the political climate we are in and how it came to be. 

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Dracula by Bram Stoker

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75