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jdscott50's reviews
1530 reviews
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
adventurous
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-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? No
4.0
When her longtime boyfriend marries his girlfriend, her life goes into a downward spiral. Unable to continue at her job where he also works, she struggles to get back on her feet. When, out of the blue, her uncle asks her to work at his bookshop, she is skeptical. When she takes him up, she finds herself living in the musty upstairs of a specialty bookshop. The customers all have specific tastes, and she is ill-prepared. She learns the magic of the bookstore, its customers, and the quirky neighborhood. She leaves restored, but not before solving her uncle's marital issues.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
An indigenous family and community pick blueberries every summer. When their youngest child goes missing, the whole community goes to look for her but never finds her. This has a huge impact on the family for years to come. At this point, the narrative shifts, and we read two stories, one from one of the missing girl's brothers and the other, presumably, from the missing girl. We see the parallel of their lives as one has to live trying to make it with discrimination while the other has the privilege of being part of a white family but then disconnected from her roots.
I thought the narrative was very sad. I think knowing that the girl belonged to the family and watching time slip by was really unbearable to read. I think from the beginning, you can see that the man narrating was at the end of his life, and only then does he find his sisters. It is beautiful to have that reunion, but it is so late in the game. It is an excellent story and great narrative to show the different paths, but that part really got to me.
I thought the narrative was very sad. I think knowing that the girl belonged to the family and watching time slip by was really unbearable to read. I think from the beginning, you can see that the man narrating was at the end of his life, and only then does he find his sisters. It is beautiful to have that reunion, but it is so late in the game. It is an excellent story and great narrative to show the different paths, but that part really got to me.
Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
emotional
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? Yes
4.0
We all have regrets. We wish we could go back in time to tell a loved one how much they meant to us, have one last conversation with a good friend, or seek advice from our past. In Kawaguchi's series, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, your wish can be granted. You can go back in time and have that one last conversation. A specialty coffee shop with special rules. You can speak to anyone as long as they have entered the shop at some point. More importantly, when you return, you can only go as long as the coffee stays warm. You must finish your drink in that time or be stuck in time. Lastly, you cannot alter the past.
We see the tragic tale of a man who is raising the daughter of a friend who died in a car accident. Now that she's grown, he has to tell her the truth. He seeks the advice of her now-dead parents and what he should do. Another person has lost his investment and wants to consult his dead mother for advice, with ulterior motives. Lastly, an old detective wants to see his now-dead wife one last time.
This is the second book in a series. This is the first book in that series I have read. It doesn't seem like you would need to read them in order once you get the gist. The coffee shop background allows for great storytelling and a variety of situations. It can be a bit saccharine, but if you are looking for a nice cozy story with life advice and a happy ending, this is the series for that.
We see the tragic tale of a man who is raising the daughter of a friend who died in a car accident. Now that she's grown, he has to tell her the truth. He seeks the advice of her now-dead parents and what he should do. Another person has lost his investment and wants to consult his dead mother for advice, with ulterior motives. Lastly, an old detective wants to see his now-dead wife one last time.
This is the second book in a series. This is the first book in that series I have read. It doesn't seem like you would need to read them in order once you get the gist. The coffee shop background allows for great storytelling and a variety of situations. It can be a bit saccharine, but if you are looking for a nice cozy story with life advice and a happy ending, this is the series for that.
What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
emotional
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.0
What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.0
One of the lines that stuck with me from Munroe's first book in this series, What If, was that when you ask physics a question, it has to answer. I really enjoyed the first book from the variety of silly and yet educational scenarios, from what happens if a pitcher can throw at the speed of light to how to use climate change to fill your backyard pool.
I thought the questions in this book were a little more juvenile and uninteresting. What if the Solar System was made of soup? How much mass would the Earth need to lose to lose weight yourself? It was still funny but lacked the punch of the original.
I thought the questions in this book were a little more juvenile and uninteresting. What if the Solar System was made of soup? How much mass would the Earth need to lose to lose weight yourself? It was still funny but lacked the punch of the original.
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
A young, directionless woman runs into their old high school teacher at a bar. He hasn't changed a bit with his rigid ways. He even begins to correct her as if he is still her teacher. Even though she resists at first, she seems to welcome his direction. Maybe he can get her out of the slump she is in. Sensei does dispense wisdom, but he also has his mysteries and issues. She thought his wife died, but it seemed she had just run off. She makes a lot of untrue assumptions. She finds that he always has a secret wisdom that is just what she needs. (The book is originally titled Sensei's Briefcase since he always carries it around and almost always has a solution to their current situation). Eventually, their camaraderie turns to affection. It is a sweet connection and a heartfelt ending.
I enjoyed the dynamic between the two. The Sensei and student relationship is educational for the reader as well. I wasn't sure about the romance part, but it was handled well and came off mostly platonic infatuation. The deep caring they have for each other is touching and very endearing.
I enjoyed the dynamic between the two. The Sensei and student relationship is educational for the reader as well. I wasn't sure about the romance part, but it was handled well and came off mostly platonic infatuation. The deep caring they have for each other is touching and very endearing.
Blackouts by Justin Torres
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
System Collapse by Martha Wells
adventurous
emotional
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Our favorite SecUnit returns for another installment of the Murderbot Series. In the previous novel, SecUnit is caught up in alien intrigue, causing them to face their biggest challenge and, as a result, cause them to doubt their abilities. This PTSD carries over into this novel and is a main background focus. Gone is the overconfident SecUnit who can seemingly defeat foes almost by magic. Now, SecUnit second-guesses their every move.
The story begins when a pre-corporation rim colony is discovered, only to have a corporation swoop in and attempt to woo them to their side. The University is only interested in their freedom and self-choice rather than a lifetime of slave labor to a faceless corporation. It would seem to be a straightforward decision that one would not want to be a corporate slave, but this is a pre-corporation rim colony, and they are unaware of the troubles. After taking out a chaotic agricultural bot, SecUnit, a copy of ART, and his human companions venture to the other side of the planet to look for more survivors. When they find the colony, the corporation has gotten their first. Can they convince them of the horrors of Corporation life? If anyone can show the damage a corporation can do to an individual, SecUnit can.
Another fun installment. The PTSD suffered by SecUnit was heartbreaking. Normally, they would be able to hack, blast, or talk their way out of situations, but here, they are vulnerable, compromised, and not feeling confident. For a robot, their experiences are always very relatable.
The story begins when a pre-corporation rim colony is discovered, only to have a corporation swoop in and attempt to woo them to their side. The University is only interested in their freedom and self-choice rather than a lifetime of slave labor to a faceless corporation. It would seem to be a straightforward decision that one would not want to be a corporate slave, but this is a pre-corporation rim colony, and they are unaware of the troubles. After taking out a chaotic agricultural bot, SecUnit, a copy of ART, and his human companions venture to the other side of the planet to look for more survivors. When they find the colony, the corporation has gotten their first. Can they convince them of the horrors of Corporation life? If anyone can show the damage a corporation can do to an individual, SecUnit can.
Another fun installment. The PTSD suffered by SecUnit was heartbreaking. Normally, they would be able to hack, blast, or talk their way out of situations, but here, they are vulnerable, compromised, and not feeling confident. For a robot, their experiences are always very relatable.
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Award-winning author Brandon Taylor returns with a new novel. Fresh off the success of Real Life and Filthy Animals, Taylor's book, The Late Americans, details the lives of students and residents of a small Iowa college town. Each struggling for their identity and future, they confront the illusions that make up their life to create solid ground.
They are poets, dancers, and townies, all struggling into the next phase of their lives. It is a novel, but broken up like short stories, we follow those characters through their relationships and what happens next.
I like this book focuses on the great uncertainties of life. College can be a dreamland with endless possibilities. As that dream comes to an end, panic sets in. A cold shower to awaken the senses of the dangers of life. Can I make a career out of this? Pursuit of passion, but will that lead to survival? Take the safe route, but is that a life of fulfillment? The landscape of Iowa can come off as Hellish as if they are all in limbo. Who will escape? Who will meet their fate?
I enjoyed the classic literary undertones of Taylor's work. Even the turn to Fatima at the end, like he's approaching his fate. It's another magnificent tale from a modern master.
Favorite Passages:
“It would have been easier for these poets to say that sometimes you lied and sometimes you were mistaken and sometimes the truth changed on you in the course of telling. That sometimes trauma reconfigured your relationship both to the truth and to the very apparatus of telling. But no, they went on signifying. Tethering their bad ideas to recognized names and hoping someone would call them smart, call them sharp, call them radical and right, call them a poet and a thinker and a mind, even if they were just children.”
Witness and legacy of violence and valid: such terms made poetry seminar feel less like a rigorous intellectual and creative exercise and more like a tribunal for war crimes. Seamus hated it very much—not because he believed that trauma was fake, but because he didn’t think it necessarily had anything to do with poetry.
Everyone was always so optimistic at first, when they arrived at the hospice. See, look at how beautiful it is. See, you will have a view of these trees. It’s hardly even like being on the East Side. Oh, look, there are ducks in the pond. There is a knitting circle every day. Once a month, a group of young children comes to read and do crafts. The busy politeness you offered the god of dying in order to pretend for a little while that you were simply on a brief respite from your life, that before long you would get to return. But soon that wore off. Some came out of it, joined the ongoing projects of hospice life: the garden, the compost, the deer, the bird-watching, the knitting, the crafts. And some did not. They sat by their windows and waited. And then they died.
Taking his bike across the bridge. The wind was stronger then, slicing up his face. He looked up. The stars, he thought, had been watching him his whole life. They’d seen the whole thing go on and on. Him and the rest of all the people who had ever lived and ever would.
It was like living in a museum exhibit or a dollhouse. It was so easy to imagine the hands of some enormous and indifferent God prying the house open and squinting at them as they went about their lives on their circuits like little automatons in an exhibit called The Late Americans. A God with a Gorgon’s head peering down in judgment.
What were you supposed to do in the face of that? Turn to stone? Fuck.
He mattered so little.
They are poets, dancers, and townies, all struggling into the next phase of their lives. It is a novel, but broken up like short stories, we follow those characters through their relationships and what happens next.
I like this book focuses on the great uncertainties of life. College can be a dreamland with endless possibilities. As that dream comes to an end, panic sets in. A cold shower to awaken the senses of the dangers of life. Can I make a career out of this? Pursuit of passion, but will that lead to survival? Take the safe route, but is that a life of fulfillment? The landscape of Iowa can come off as Hellish as if they are all in limbo. Who will escape? Who will meet their fate?
I enjoyed the classic literary undertones of Taylor's work. Even the turn to Fatima at the end, like he's approaching his fate. It's another magnificent tale from a modern master.
Favorite Passages:
“It would have been easier for these poets to say that sometimes you lied and sometimes you were mistaken and sometimes the truth changed on you in the course of telling. That sometimes trauma reconfigured your relationship both to the truth and to the very apparatus of telling. But no, they went on signifying. Tethering their bad ideas to recognized names and hoping someone would call them smart, call them sharp, call them radical and right, call them a poet and a thinker and a mind, even if they were just children.”
Witness and legacy of violence and valid: such terms made poetry seminar feel less like a rigorous intellectual and creative exercise and more like a tribunal for war crimes. Seamus hated it very much—not because he believed that trauma was fake, but because he didn’t think it necessarily had anything to do with poetry.
Everyone was always so optimistic at first, when they arrived at the hospice. See, look at how beautiful it is. See, you will have a view of these trees. It’s hardly even like being on the East Side. Oh, look, there are ducks in the pond. There is a knitting circle every day. Once a month, a group of young children comes to read and do crafts. The busy politeness you offered the god of dying in order to pretend for a little while that you were simply on a brief respite from your life, that before long you would get to return. But soon that wore off. Some came out of it, joined the ongoing projects of hospice life: the garden, the compost, the deer, the bird-watching, the knitting, the crafts. And some did not. They sat by their windows and waited. And then they died.
Taking his bike across the bridge. The wind was stronger then, slicing up his face. He looked up. The stars, he thought, had been watching him his whole life. They’d seen the whole thing go on and on. Him and the rest of all the people who had ever lived and ever would.
It was like living in a museum exhibit or a dollhouse. It was so easy to imagine the hands of some enormous and indifferent God prying the house open and squinting at them as they went about their lives on their circuits like little automatons in an exhibit called The Late Americans. A God with a Gorgon’s head peering down in judgment.
What were you supposed to do in the face of that? Turn to stone? Fuck.
He mattered so little.
He had wanted to ask why it was that people found it so much easier to extend charity to the anonymous herd beasts of the field than to other people. Loving people was hard. It was difficult sometimes to believe that they were good. It was hard to know them. But that didn’t mean you could just go on without trying. What he believed was that love was more than just kindness and more than just giving people the things they wanted. Love was more than the parts of it that were easy and pleasurable. Sometimes love was trying to understand. Love was trying to get beyond what was hard. Love, love, love.
Fyodor still thought sometimes about the shooting in Alabama. There had been four other shootings across the South in the last month or so, each rising for a brief instant above the noise and clamor of the news, the whole country looking in one direction at one thing, burning a hole in the fabric of the culture. But then, the next day or the next, their thoughts turned back to the common demands of daily life. Everyone went back into the anonymous whir of things, safe inside their irrelevance.
Climbing the stairs at Noah’s party, his hand at Goran’s back, Ivan could see in the eyes of these young people, too, how desperately they wanted to be—and how desperately this hinged on being seen. That if no one witnessed you in the state of freedom, then you were not free. This seemed, to Ivan, really sad. He wanted to grip their shoulders and tell them to leave and to go and just be, just get the fuck out and do something with themselves. They still had time, they were so young. But what right did he have? He was not older than them. Not old enough to justify giving them orphic warnings from the shores of his second life. But he did know something about wanting to be finished with a part of your life before you were really ready, how you could trick yourself into thinking you knew so much when in fact you knew nothing at all. These dancers. High, glossed out of their minds, riding a wave of pleasure. They were so fucking alive. And they were dead already. And it broke his heart.
How to make his own feelings understood? How to say, I see you, I love you, I’m sorry? But sorry was just a cheap, dirty little word. It presupposed an orderly world. It presupposed that it was ever possible to make up for what had come before.
Perhaps what people misjudged for prodigious talent was really just unexpected competence.
He thought he could understand Bert a little now, seeing the fields and how close the sky stooped in the distance. He understood the peculiar loneliness of such a place, the way that loneliness held fast to you, no matter how far away you ran. You grow up in a place like this, Noah thought, and it haunts your dreams until you die.
“Money is like an animal, changeful and anxious, ready to flee or bite. There is never enough of it.”
Perhaps that is what you call it when you appeal to the world about something that has happened to you and the world answers back that it’s fine if you leave, as though you were nothing but an irritating child being sent on your way.
Fyodor still thought sometimes about the shooting in Alabama. There had been four other shootings across the South in the last month or so, each rising for a brief instant above the noise and clamor of the news, the whole country looking in one direction at one thing, burning a hole in the fabric of the culture. But then, the next day or the next, their thoughts turned back to the common demands of daily life. Everyone went back into the anonymous whir of things, safe inside their irrelevance.
Climbing the stairs at Noah’s party, his hand at Goran’s back, Ivan could see in the eyes of these young people, too, how desperately they wanted to be—and how desperately this hinged on being seen. That if no one witnessed you in the state of freedom, then you were not free. This seemed, to Ivan, really sad. He wanted to grip their shoulders and tell them to leave and to go and just be, just get the fuck out and do something with themselves. They still had time, they were so young. But what right did he have? He was not older than them. Not old enough to justify giving them orphic warnings from the shores of his second life. But he did know something about wanting to be finished with a part of your life before you were really ready, how you could trick yourself into thinking you knew so much when in fact you knew nothing at all. These dancers. High, glossed out of their minds, riding a wave of pleasure. They were so fucking alive. And they were dead already. And it broke his heart.
How to make his own feelings understood? How to say, I see you, I love you, I’m sorry? But sorry was just a cheap, dirty little word. It presupposed an orderly world. It presupposed that it was ever possible to make up for what had come before.
Perhaps what people misjudged for prodigious talent was really just unexpected competence.
He thought he could understand Bert a little now, seeing the fields and how close the sky stooped in the distance. He understood the peculiar loneliness of such a place, the way that loneliness held fast to you, no matter how far away you ran. You grow up in a place like this, Noah thought, and it haunts your dreams until you die.
“Money is like an animal, changeful and anxious, ready to flee or bite. There is never enough of it.”
Perhaps that is what you call it when you appeal to the world about something that has happened to you and the world answers back that it’s fine if you leave, as though you were nothing but an irritating child being sent on your way.