pzdrnk's reviews
17 reviews

Nightfall by Penelope Douglas

4.5

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

3.75

A simple and delicate story; an unexpectedly beautiful and gracefully written book; a great summer pastime for those who love books, unexpected encounters and for those who need a break from everyday routine to listen to their souls :)

I liked the cinematic speed of the narration, the author's ability to delineate the characters' types with just a few strokes of the pen, and to describe the different environments without too many frills but, on the contrary, with an all-Japanese minimalist simplicity.

Letter to His Father by Franz Kafka

5.0

Reading Kafka's Letter to His Father felt like being a psychotherapist with Kafka on the couch, listening to his innermost thoughts. Or perhaps more like an imposter, sneaking into his house, rifling through his drawers for a diary, and flipping through its pages hungrily, knowing you shouldn't. The letter wasn’t intended for publication—Kafka’s last wish was for his entire body of work to be burned. In fact, I’m not even sure the letter was truly meant for his father. It was handed to his mother, who chose not to pass it on. In my view, Kafka wrote this letter more for himself, as a way to unburden his soul.

Regardless of Kafka’s motives, reading this letter—whether before delving into his other works or after—opens both your eyes and your heart. It gives you a key to understanding his entire opus, and perhaps, his genius. Much like his novels The Trial, The Castle, or Metamorphosis, the letter exudes a blend of helplessness, sadness, confusion, fatalism, weakness, and fear—all conveyed with a passive, defeatist tone. As you turn the pages, this complex mix of emotions seeps into you like water into a sponge—slowly, pervasively, and irrevocably.

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

1.0

I can't overstate how overwritten and underresearched this book is. I only finished it in the hope that it might redeem itself at some point, as I quite enjoyed reading Cultish earlier this year. The author's voice feels very different in this one, it's as if she came up with a few generally popular topics and then asked someone else to write a few uninspired pages building on those. The leaps she makes are eye-roll worthy. There is almost as much talk of cults as in her actual book about cults. Some of the chapters could literally have been essays I'd have written for uni with lots of big empty words, making up the word count as best I could.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

3.0

this is the book equivalent of a truck hitting you out of nowhere; the first three stories were pretty nice, emotional and touching and then BOOM the fourth story comes and suddenly you can't stop violently sobbing & crying

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

5.0

This is the most haunting and thought-provoking book I’ve read in a long time. Harpman’s prose is stark and stylistically flawless, imbued with a relentless sense of inevitability. The concept itself is powerful: a slim dystopian novel narrated by an anonymous woman who has known nothing but life locked in a cage in a bunker with thirty-nine other women. Despite her profound isolation and inexperience, her narrative is deeply introspective. She possesses an intense capacity for emotion, yet she remains convinced she is not entirely human.

Both exquisite and devastating, I’m baffled that this novel hasn’t reached a wider audience.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

4.0

I've never had to pause while reading a book just to sit in stunned silence, but this one left me no choice. It made me deeply reflect on the complexities of our world—a world that exists in shades of gray, yet we often find ourselves gaslighting each other into seeing only black or white. The writing style is captivating; I was fully immersed in a way I haven't experienced in a long time. I highly recommend! :)