ladybugwrites's reviews
283 reviews

Hundreåringen som klatret ut gjennom vinduet og forsvant by Jonas Jonasson

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A weird, absurd book that I enjoyed, but not entirely sure how much I liked. I don't yet know if the absurdness was good or bad, though it was definitely neither all good nor all bad, and I did enjoy myself.

The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I like some stories, I dislike some, but all of them still felt rather important somehow. Even, maybe especially, the ones I found a little boring. I think it's an important read, but also that I lack the information I need prior on Korean history to really understand every story. My favorite is The Man on the Mountain.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

dark funny reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A funnily absurd book. Highly entertaining, though a tad too long. I really should've read this sooner. 

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

4.0

If someone had told me 10 years ago, that I'd be reading Shakespeare out of my own volition and enjoyed it, I would not have believed them. And yet, here I sit, having thouroughly enjoyed Macbeth. It was funny and intriguing and I had a good time. Shakespeare will never be my favorite, but I do plan on one day having read all his plays (hopefully).

Den Ensomme Vandrers Drømmerier by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Birger Huse, Henning Hagerup

3.5

Whilst interesting and to a degree thoughtprovoking, the only one of these "promenades" that is worth reading is the fifth, unless you're exteremly interestes in Roussau.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

An emotional book about intelligence; the importance of it, the need for it, it's consquences both positive and negative. But mostly, it's a book about people and what we value and an exploration of those values - an exploration of the specific value of 'smartness' defined by IQ and whether it's better to be smart or dumb. 

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No

3.5

The concept of this novel is immensely fascinating and lends so many different directions to take it in. It's well-written and it's a thought experiment that leads the reader to thinking about their own idea of the same concept, to try to answer those questions the narrator constantly asks.

And, unfortuantely, it disappoints. 

The first part of this, which is about a clinc for the elder with memory loss to live in the time they do remember, is fascinating and interesting and had me constantly try to figure out what to think of the past. What is the past, when do we classify the past and so on. The book takes this experiment a little further at first, where I don't think there's anything unrealistic about it and find it equally fascinating - to open up the past to everyone, even those with the memories of the present.

This book however, takes this thought experiment even further and loses me about halfway throught. There's still a lot of fascinating things happening and thought provoking ideas of what the past means and what history means, but it takes up so much space in an otherwise interting book to the extent that I didn't care about it. I liked the quietness of the first part and struggled with the expanse of the third one. I wish it had stopped at some point before this, or used the concept of the first idea instead. It was more interesting, it had more merit, and it felt more real. Maybe the book could've done a better job of being the time shelter it talks about.

It is also a hard book to explain without spoiling anything. It's one of those I think you have to understand, to get. But wether that's worth it or not, I'm not entirely sure. 

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

emotional funny lighthearted reflective tense slow-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

4.5

This book is a respite from life, a breathing space to remind us of where the ground is in a world where it is hard to find sometimes. I don't really know how to explain it. It just, felt like a fresh breath of air, in a way. And at the same time it tackles big questions and thoughts and culture clashes and so on, with different sides, with strong characters. I can't really explain it.

But I can say that I'm sad this was the last book in the wayfarers series because I've loved all of the books, but I know I'll reread them at some point and maybe it won't be like reading them for the first time, but I imagine it might feel like a break after being away from home and I'm absoluelty looking forward to that.

Daydream and Drunkenness of a Young Lady by Clarice Lispector

dark reflective tense

4.75

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

4.5

This is a book about being different, about not fitting in with society's expectations of what a 'normal' person is. And the most delightful part of it is the fact that our MC, Furukura Keiko, does not care that she's not normal. Because of this, she manges to point out all the things that doesn’t make sense with society, lets the readers know that it’s hard to realize why something you did doesn’t make sense when no one tells you, and gives people like me who struggles with many of the same things as Keiko as chance to feel somewhat understood. 

This book criticizes what 'normal' means and the society we've created of what's expected of people, and I absolutely loved that. It felt nice to see someone thinking the same things as me.