capy's reviews
351 reviews

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre

dark reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

One always dies too soon-- or too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are your life, and nothing else.

It’s what one does, and nothing else, that shows the stuff one's made of.

jean-paul sartre, you would've loved psychological horror games! this was an interesting play on the influential relationship between the human gaze and self-perception, although i found it hard to understand the extreme lengths these deluded characters go to simply for each other's validation. the writing isn't challenging but the dialogue is layered and deserves extra attention if you're reading the play, i would've missed a lot of interesting lines had i only seen it performed

Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess (...)?

the climax of the play being the "hell is other people" tagline didn't land as hard for me as i had hoped either, maybe because i expected it, but this is still a solid read (and makes me miss 'the good place')

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi

emotional reflective fast-paced

4.25

I realized that the reason I had trouble meeting people was my compulsion to try to make myself look better.

ah the young adult ordeal of defining yourself as an individual without familial influence! felt a little messy at times but isn't that the point? this was a solid, honest depiction of early 20s depression, the dangers of misplaced effort and the struggle to separate yourself from your family's perception of you in order to feel like AND be treated as an adult

Sometimes I think that if I were a guy, surrounded by this insufficient education and tons of fantasy sex... I'd be seriously shocked when I learned about women.

an example of a forever relevant topic lightly mentioned in a single paragraph, which this manga does often — the message is impactful enough, even if the author doesn't go any deeper
a valuable quick read for most teens/young adults, the art style is gorgeous too

and we get an alleviating ending takeaway about the relief in staying authentic to yourself any way you can, which felt like a needed deep breath after this whole anxiety trip

A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

When someone you love dies you pay for the sin of outliving her with a thousand piercing regrets. Her death brings to light her unique quality; she grows as vast as the world that her absence annihilates for her and whose whole existence was caused by her being there; you feel that she should have had more room in your life – all the room, if need be. You snatch yourself away from this wildness: she was only one among many. But since you never do all you might for anyone – not even within the arguable limits that you have set yourself – you have plenty of room left for self-reproach. 

man... it baffles me that there was ever contention around the publication of this book. we NEED works like these, we NEED people like simone de beauvoir to honor her mother in writing. this was a heartwrenching read on how one lives through and processes the death of the person who brought them into the world, especially when that relationship has taken its sharp turns over the years. i expected reading solely about death but it is a solid piece on family trauma as well. i assume that a lot of the women who've read this can see their lives reflected in the difficult mother-daughter dynamics expressed — i certainly saw a lot of my own grandmother's personality in françoise

The misfortune is that although everyone must come to this, each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days which she confused with convalescence and yet we were profoundly separated from her. 

i've lived almost 27 years on this planet without going through a relative or a friend painfully passing. every death i've experienced has been sudden, which holds at the same time its own heavy weight and levity. this book really turned my thinking from "i'm the youngest in my immediate family!" into "i'm... the youngest... in my immediate family..."
respectfully not looking forward to revisiting this book if/when i eventually need to and f*ck cancer

The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain

lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

1.75

That was exactly what Tabucchi was suggesting with his title ("La Nostalgie du Possible") — that we can pass right by something very important: love, a job, moving to another city or another country. Or another life. 'Pass by' and at the same time be 'so close' that sometimes, while in that state of melancholy that is akin to hypnosis, we can, in spite of everything, manage to grab little fragments of what might have been. Like catching snatches of a far-off radio frequency.

at one point, a writer in the book admits to checking his own books' reviews and feeling insulted when a reader expresses his book didn't leave an impression them... i'm afraid i'm recreating that moment
this was a fast, super readable book that is probably considered a "cozy read". decided to pick it up because i was in the mood for a mystery but found it ultimately underwhelming (and not that sweet or romantic)

The Comfort Book by Matt Haig

hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

2.75

truly a collection of Stuff. the book seems randomly organized in parts, the writing is of course reassuring but bubbly, repetitive and elementary, which can be a pro or a con. thankfully, we're moving into a world of significantly more emotional intelligent discussions so, to me, the fact that i didn't get as much as i wanted out of this book might be a good thing?

the notes i did connect with (and apply to my life) include the importance of staying authentic, separating yourself from your thoughts, engaging in good self-talk, changing your perspective when you feel trapped, knowing you have to take the good with the bad, expanding your views by consuming art in all its forms, having an active community of support, being present in nature and lastly, the cosmically lucky chance we have as people to keep going — to stick around long enough to figure ourselves out

Rest is an essential part of survival. An essential part of us. An essential part of being the animals we are. When a dog lies in the sun I imagine it does it without guilt, because as far as I can tell dogs seem more in tune with their own needs. As I grow older, I think that resting might actually be the main point of life. To sit down passively, inside or outside, and merely absorb things—the tick of a clock, a cloud passing by, the distant hum of traffic, a bird singing—can feel like an end in itself. It can actually feel and be more meaningful than a lot of the stuff we are conditioned to see as productive. Just as we need pauses between notes for music to sound good, and just as we need punctuation in a sentence for it to be coherent, we should see rest and reflection and passivity— and even sitting on the sofa—as an intrinsic and essential part of life that is needed for the whole to make sense.

this paragraph was the highlight of this memo soup, along with learning about karl heinrich ulrichs and about how plato was a wrestler. it's a book best digested when someone feels they need it, otherwise it won't really land as comforting but as fluff

Henceforward... by Alan Ayckbourn

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

1.0

how can a play be this slow, trying to be ahead of its time by grappling with multiple interesting concepts yet not land a single one and ultimately going nowhere... a reviewer said "once you get it, there's nothing else to get" and that pretty much sums it up for me too
go watch blade runner instead of this artistically self-serving ego fest

Guesswork: Essays on forgetting and remembering who we are by Marion Winik

reflective fast-paced

3.5

what a lovely collection of essays, can't think of another word to describe winik's writing besides clean
enjoyed her take on reading for the company of people in books, who can feel so instantly intimate through the thoughts and feelings they openly share — something we typically wouldn't do ourselves in real life settings

Wish You Were Here by Sanaz Toossi

emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

She will never know how fast this earth can spin underneath you.

i appreciate how this play focused particularly on female friendships and the subtle dynamics between women, not just the circumstances they're under. it did get unnecessarily graphic at times for me but otherwise, the author did a great job at including the audience/reader in the characters' close circle as they navigate what life is like in the middle of the iranian revolution
in terms of production, the voice acting and sound design were one of the best i've experienced

My Husband by Maud Ventura

funny tense fast-paced

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

3.0

i felt compelled to buy this because of the 'lover girl' blurb but this queen is off the RAILS. i've not read gone girl but this has to be gone girl's goofy obsessive one-track mind cousin. so much passive aggressiveness, resentment, overthinking, ruminating... and honestly, it did hold up a mirror to my own habits and thought processes at times. i understand the choice to make the writing repetitive but it only dulled what would otherwise be a solid fun read

spoilery p.s: this is a work of fiction but it further supports my old theory that

both halves of a couple have to be the same level of freaky to work together

The Garden of Time by J.G. Ballard

mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

has the essential elements of a satisfying short story for me: captivating (albeit sometimes convoluted) writing, speaks volumes in a short space and may leave me wanting more. found it particularly important to question why the mob of people is seen as villainous and what perspective we choose to filter the author's words through

as for this story's ironic connection with the met gala, i don't see a moment in time where choosing a theme of "dystopian-but-real class disparity" wouldn't be a questionable decision on the organizers' behalf — but 2024 was absolutely the wrong year for it