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pinesandpages's reviews
468 reviews
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin
Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.
This memoir is more of a description of his Chin’s life events rather than any reflection. I was hoping once we moved out of his childhood era that it would be more reflective, but even 44% of the way through he’s still in high school.
How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo
3.75
The author is clearly quite smart, thoughtful, and analytical. Lots of excellent ruminations and castigations.
My qualms with this book were threefold:
1. I didn’t expect this to be literary criticism. As I can’t even recall the last time I read something that could be described as “literary,” this is a genre I’m not well informed in (or interested in). I should’ve read the full synopsis but I stopped after the first paragraph, thinking I knew what the book would be about and alas I was incorrect.
2. Because I’m not well versed in literary things and also pop culture in many ways, I knew almost none of the author’s references. That doesn’t mean Castillo necessarily chose obscure things to write her essays about (eg Joan Didion and X-Men/Watchmen were discussed at length) but I still didn’t know them! Which made it harder to connect, be interested, or form my own opinion. I didn’t come into the book with my own thoughts on the topics, ready to engage with the author - I merely read the thoroughly laid out opinions and said “oh, ok.” (Although I will note she does discuss at length a few extremely obscure texts.)
3. Castillo makes no attempt to make her points using accessible language, so concepts are abstract/meta and sentences are LENGTHY. The dictionary was in heavy use. I’m not saying she needs to dumb down her points but it was hard to fill grasp what she meant, once we got more esoteric. And boy, did we get esoteric. Again, not what I expected!
I highlighted several sentences and paragraphs to ponder over and will return back to them….but I am in no rush to do so. By the last two essays I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish the book in a timely fashion, and then I was taken aback by the abrupt and unceremonious end. Castillo did insert a lot of fun and interesting tidbits/gossip into her endnotes which was fun.
So, all that to say: this book is smart and interesting, but I was not the correct audience for it.
My qualms with this book were threefold:
1. I didn’t expect this to be literary criticism. As I can’t even recall the last time I read something that could be described as “literary,” this is a genre I’m not well informed in (or interested in). I should’ve read the full synopsis but I stopped after the first paragraph, thinking I knew what the book would be about and alas I was incorrect.
2. Because I’m not well versed in literary things and also pop culture in many ways, I knew almost none of the author’s references. That doesn’t mean Castillo necessarily chose obscure things to write her essays about (eg Joan Didion and X-Men/Watchmen were discussed at length) but I still didn’t know them! Which made it harder to connect, be interested, or form my own opinion. I didn’t come into the book with my own thoughts on the topics, ready to engage with the author - I merely read the thoroughly laid out opinions and said “oh, ok.” (Although I will note she does discuss at length a few extremely obscure texts.)
3. Castillo makes no attempt to make her points using accessible language, so concepts are abstract/meta and sentences are LENGTHY. The dictionary was in heavy use. I’m not saying she needs to dumb down her points but it was hard to fill grasp what she meant, once we got more esoteric. And boy, did we get esoteric. Again, not what I expected!
I highlighted several sentences and paragraphs to ponder over and will return back to them….but I am in no rush to do so. By the last two essays I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish the book in a timely fashion, and then I was taken aback by the abrupt and unceremonious end. Castillo did insert a lot of fun and interesting tidbits/gossip into her endnotes which was fun.
So, all that to say: this book is smart and interesting, but I was not the correct audience for it.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023 by Carl Zimmer, Jaime Green
4.0
This collection was much more in the “writing” side of “science and nature writing” compared to the 2022 version. Not bad, but it was more reflective than 2022, so I didn’t learn as much bc it wasn’t jam packed with fun and new to me stories and experiments and such.