chrishammer's Reviews (89)

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Thomas Piketty

5.0

The Message

Ta-Nehisi Coates

5.0

challenging dark informative fast-paced

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

Omar El Akkad

3.5

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread

Kate DiCamillo

2.5

adventurous fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

1Q84

Haruki Murakami

4.0

dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Murakami explores loneliness and societal drift in this 1000 pg opus. He skewers the effect of religion and what it normalizes, power structures that are still inherent to it, and how in some societal areas, the replacement of religion with work and capitalism has not yielded any better results.

At times this book teeters on a knife edge driving forward and at times it drives into boredom. Murakami does both of these things purposefully and with skill.

Unfortunately some of his bad habits around sex, and women are on full display and even heightened here, and his interest in condemning abusers doesn't do enough to offset any of that weirdness. If you can abide and look past those weird spells, there is something majestic here but if those moments will throw you, stay clear.

Content Warnings

Smothermoss

Alisa Alering

3.5

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

All Systems Red

Martha Wells

2.5

adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Just falls fairly flat for me. Not as funny as it needs to be for this pace and level of character development, and any commentary, themes, and world exploration that is happening here is so surface level that it feels empty. If you're the type of person whose fine with it taking a few books to get things going, this may work for you, but not enough here for me.