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ethanbaima's Reviews (56)

funny informative lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Foster Wallace's witty escapades in writing continue in this series of brutally honest writings about himself, America, recreation, and being from the boring part of Illinois (something that definitely led to this heavily biased review).
funny lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Shockingly funny, creative beyond belief, feels like reading a mushroom trip (likely because Robbins references taking mushrooms while writing multiple times). Fantastic novel for anyone that just wants a weird good time.
adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Boring as shit. Added half a star because of how revolutionary it was but please never revisit it. The first 2 chapters were interesting when you were learning about the Eloi and their lives but he wanders into the forest and everything goes to shit.

Pale Fire

Vladimir Nabokov

DID NOT FINISH
challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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: Yes

DNF, boring beyond belief and too slow for any of the "cool dark mysterious" elements to fully rear their heads. Gave it 2 stars for the sheer creativity (and I liked the poem itself) but I felt stupid skipping around and just reading it straight through is hard to follow.
dark funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

A killer fragment of Vonnegut's humor, it's a scathing criticism of the "ideal man" while placing the blame not on the man but on the circumstances that shaped his psyche into the toxic way of thinking he seems stuck in. Truly a great play and a good writing from one of the greatest authors of the 20th century.
dark reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Read a while ago and I remember a shifting philosophy throughout with strong characters. You can never tell exactly what stance Orwell is taking because it's less of a stance and more of a caution. When an extremist pig takes over things collapse and the ideology of the writing seems to shift because it's not a concrete book. My one complaint is that it was too short and seemed a little preachy at times. My history teacher also called me a communist for reading it.