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gandalf's reviews
705 reviews
The Sleep Prescription: Seven Days to Unlocking Your Best Rest by Aric Prather
3.0
I knew everything thing in this book already but it was a good refresher. It's pretty much exactly what a sleep specialist would have you do so if you have insomnia you might as well check this out from the library and save yourself the hassle of appointments.
Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
2.0
Every time something happens in this book, a character will say/think "Oh that's why you did this thing, because you felt x and thought y." If someone does something bad someone else (or the narration) will say, "this was a bad thing to do, and not good." The therapyspeak is incessant! The worldbuilding is convoluted and overstuffed, just like the first book. There's really no good reason for Arthurian legend to even be involved. The only connection is the names.
I also really, really dislike the way the author used real-world atrocities to lend credence to her paper thin worldbuilding. It's disrespectful at best.
The writing itself is also ...well, it's bad, and not good. Bad syntax abounds. People "speed" instead of running/jogging/whatever, giving the delightful mental image that they're zipping around on those stupid hoverboard things. They also "hum" a lot in dialogue, eg: Selwyn said "Blah blah blah." He hummed. What?? At one point someone also "temples" their fingers (should be "steeples").
The main character is bland and generic. Everyone else in this book exists solely to drop information to the protagonist. Which was also the case for the first book, so you'd think they'd have dropped all the information they had by book 2. But no! We were still getting introduced to new Proper nouns 525 pages into Bloodmarked. HELPPPP
I gave it two stars for comedy value, though.
I also really, really dislike the way the author used real-world atrocities to lend credence to her paper thin worldbuilding. It's disrespectful at best.
The writing itself is also ...well, it's bad, and not good. Bad syntax abounds. People "speed" instead of running/jogging/whatever, giving the delightful mental image that they're zipping around on those stupid hoverboard things. They also "hum" a lot in dialogue, eg: Selwyn said "Blah blah blah." He hummed. What?? At one point someone also "temples" their fingers (should be "steeples").
The main character is bland and generic. Everyone else in this book exists solely to drop information to the protagonist. Which was also the case for the first book, so you'd think they'd have dropped all the information they had by book 2. But no! We were still getting introduced to new Proper nouns 525 pages into Bloodmarked. HELPPPP
I gave it two stars for comedy value, though.
One: Pot, Pan, Planet: A greener way to cook for you, your family and the planet by Anna Jones
1.5
A few of the recipes seem nice and I'll give them a try but the premise of the book is misleading--these recipes are not particularly "green" and a lot of them are too complicated for the "one pot/pan" label to mean anything. Girl I don't have a food processor. And why in this one pot soup recipe are you using a separate frying pan. 🤔
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
I was looking forward to this one but unfortunately the prose is so clunky I can't get into it. I assume it's a bad translation
Dracula by Bram Stoker
2.0
The first part of the book with Jonathan in the castle is the best, because time and cultural context have turned it into a comedy. The rest of it is mostly a drag.