maddness22's reviews
714 reviews

Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most by Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

As Hannah Montana says, life is what you make it. This book is, and presents itself, as a stepping stone for how you want to make your life. There are a lot of preliminary ideas about ways to live a life based on popular philosophy theories with no real conclusions drawn from them. Some sections are better than others and I wish I had the opportunity to just be able to sit with the book and read it in one sitting. It's kind of rough to pick up and put down and I found myself re-reading a ton of sections to recall the concepts being evaluated. But it's not that bad and does serve as an excellent stepping stone for the pursuit of the Question (what is the meaning of life) which will likely never be answered but a good life can still be lived while in pursuit of it and this book encourages that mindset very well. 

Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help us Find our Way by Kieran Setiya

hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

I loved this read! I felt like the re-framing of concepts such as friendship, hope, chronic illness, and treating life as a series of small events rather than a long ever lasting narrative with a definitive arc were really well done. There's a lot of concepts and quotes introduced in this book for me that will likely stick with me for a long time. The introduction warns that the book will contain a bleak outlook that doesn't gloss over the hardships of life, but it's far from pessimistic in my reading of it. I even feel more confident with how to handle hardships in life from reading this book due to the pragmatic nature. Not a bad little surprise I picked up from the library on a whim because it was cold out lol 

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.

It's not a bad little read, but personally if I'm at the 50% mark and still don't really care about the characters and where they're headed next on their adventure, then I don't really want to spend another 50% of the book with them. Other people might enjoy it though.  

It's All in How You Fall by Sarah Henning

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

Oh precious angel YA sports romance book, how you have given me strength. This was SO delightful! I had so much fun with this charming little book. I knew it was going to be cute from "Throw Like a Girl" also by Sarah Henning, but gosh I was blown away by the nuanced takes on starting over after unplanned trauma/injury and the mature realizations that Caroline experienced after being forced to uproot her life and dreams. I also just loved, loved, loved how precious and cute the whole thing was. The miscommunication trope is strong with this one, but in an endearing Jane Austen way that makes sense for the characters and their ages. I had so much fun! What a delight!

I Do (I Think): Conversations About Modern Marriage by Allison Raskin

informative lighthearted fast-paced

3.5

While I didn't totally love the voice or tone of this book, I did appreciate the moments of validation and attempt at conversation about whether or not marriage is needed in our modern society. It really does seem to be a case by case basis, but I'm really in agreement that no one should get married just because they "should" or feel obligated to do so as the next step in adulthood. It should be an autonomous decision based on whether it would actually benefit your life. This book does pretty well at advocating for the option to have a choice for marriage or not rather than forcing one decision over another. It even offers sound relationship advice, like how major life decisions shouldn't be made in one go and rather as a discussion of multiple conversations if needed 

That being said, this book would've really benefited from a co-author with the perspective of not getting married. It felt like the author took any and all chances to mention how much she loved her own marriage, even when it felt inappropriate to the material being discussed. I wished there was more outside perspective and the author had less of an influence on the structure of her argument. It felt like she was including herself and her life in every other paragraph. 

The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life by Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer

hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

4.5

 Bite sized, but I loved how it was full of optimistic energy and very do-able ideas on how to embrace community and deepen relationships. The gist of the read is "get out of the door" because you're not going to be able to build relationships or meet new people by sitting on your couch watching TV and I loved it. I've found improvement in my own life by going out and doing random events in my community so I fully agree with the offered ideas and insights into how to reduce loneliness. It's very friendly for technology based relationships too and attempts inclusivity with mentions of how disability can impact relationship building. There's some obvious self-promo in it, but I love Dr. Ruth so much from the documentary on Hulu I watched about her that I'll allow it. 

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

2.25

The problem here is that I stopped having fun with this series. The flaws that made the first books fun suddenly made this book aggravating. It's like the friend from college who is still trying to do keg stands in your 30's - you want to keep having fun with them, but at the same time you're hoping they grow up too at one point. 

Absolutely nothing happens in this book until the 75% mark-ish. We bounced between some fun-ish islands, but it was a pointless diversion and literally nothing happened to further the plot or even build my relationships with the characters until the end of the book. I was also incredibly annoyed with both Violet and her romance with Xaden. They finally stopped their non-stop bickering, but they traded it for non-stop "I love you pooky-poo" and "Gosh you're so hot" dialogue that never ceases or varies. Their love scenes are also repetitive and boring at this point with not much variety from "we have 20 minutes between missions - let's break some furniture real fast because you're just so hot" which is the same from the past two books. 

I'm also just so, so, SO tired of being told how awesome and special Violet is. I was low-key cheering when bad things started happening to her at the end because she finally got some consequences and couldn't just use her special girl "everyone loves me!" powers to get out of it. 

The cast is way too large too. There's a lot of criticism about how much death occurs, but honestly we need to thin the herd more, especially after the Gryphon Riders joined. It's getting so hard for me to care about who lives, who dies, and who tells the story. 

Reinventing Love: How the Patriarchy Sabotages Heterosexual Relations by Mona Chollet

informative fast-paced

3.25

Maybe it's the clunky translation, but this felt like an incredibly superficial understanding of how traditional gender roles impact our modern heterosexual romantic relationships. There's not a lot of deeper insight into "this is how men traditionally react in this situation and this is how women traditionally act", although the author raises valid points in several regards. The author also self-inserts herself into the narrative and her thoughts on specific things a little too much for my liking. It also references bell hooks enough that I felt like I should've just read bell hooks. 

Not bad if you're getting started on a deeper understanding of how traditional gender roles influence modern relationships, but other books provide deeper context for specific gender traditions. 

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

4.75

Gosh this book is super duper Catholic. But it's also just SO good. The way it plays and explains gender was phenomenal. It lost me a bit on the inner family drama stuff, but then it brought me back with the Father Damian stuff and gosh what a solid good read. I wouldn't recommend reading it without a background knowledge of both Catholicism and previous Love Medicine novels, but wow what a great time exploring complex relationships, complex Native American history, and complex gender identities. Such a super solid read. 

The Sunny Nihilist: A Declaration of the Pleasure of Pointlessness by Wendy Syfret

hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.0

A relatively quick read that offers a very digestible perspective of nihilism through an optimistic lens. From a personal perspective, I've found I've started enjoying life much more when I stopped chasing a "greater purpose" or larger meaning in my life and adopted the sunny nihilistic lifestyle of just living in the moment and with the resources the universe grants you rather than what you expect as proposed in this book. It focuses a ton on the COVID-19 pandemic, which already ages it a tad while reading it in 2025, but it's interesting to analyze the shift of what was meaningful to us before and after the pandemic.