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riversnowdrop's reviews
287 reviews
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
1.0
I don’t think me and ole’ Mitch would get along very well. We appear to have very different worldviews (something I perhaps wasn’t as aware of when I read ‘The Five People You Meet In Heaven’ as a young teen).
I found this book to be… nothing. Uninventive prose; boring. Truly asinine quotes about how to live, stuff that could’ve been written by a fairly non-creative high school student. There was no emotion, no feeling, and I couldn’t connect to the characters at all (despite some themes which should’ve sparked ~something~).
Just a lesson in “having a kind-of-good story doesn’t mean you can write it well”.
I found this book to be… nothing. Uninventive prose; boring. Truly asinine quotes about how to live, stuff that could’ve been written by a fairly non-creative high school student. There was no emotion, no feeling, and I couldn’t connect to the characters at all (despite some themes which should’ve sparked ~something~).
Just a lesson in “having a kind-of-good story doesn’t mean you can write it well”.
Pod by Laline Paull
5.0
Why haven’t more people read this book? Why aren’t more people talking about this book?
I judged this book by its cover when I first saw it and wouldn’t have picked it up if it wasn’t for Leena Norms’ convincing praise - which I believe is well-deserved. This book is about so much more than dolphins. It’s about the climate and what we’re doing to our oceans, it’s about power and relationships, and it’s feminist, and forgiving, and it’s about family. It’s about the hope that still exists in the world, amongst the horrors, and how we do not have to give in to that nihilistic apathetic voice that tells us there’s no point even trying.
I really think you should read this book, particularly if you want to engage with the climate crisis but feel overwhelmed by the facts and figures. I hope this moves you. That’s how we begin.
I judged this book by its cover when I first saw it and wouldn’t have picked it up if it wasn’t for Leena Norms’ convincing praise - which I believe is well-deserved. This book is about so much more than dolphins. It’s about the climate and what we’re doing to our oceans, it’s about power and relationships, and it’s feminist, and forgiving, and it’s about family. It’s about the hope that still exists in the world, amongst the horrors, and how we do not have to give in to that nihilistic apathetic voice that tells us there’s no point even trying.
I really think you should read this book, particularly if you want to engage with the climate crisis but feel overwhelmed by the facts and figures. I hope this moves you. That’s how we begin.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Saltwater by Jessica Andrews
3.0
My thoughts on this book are complicated and still forming… I didn’t LOVE it for sure, but I think I’m moving around the scale of liking it well enough and actually really not liking it. It got repetitive and felt a bit stale/uninspired in places. However, there were also passages I enjoyed and felt resonant - sparks of the magic that the majority seem to see from this book! I guess if a book is making me think about it this much, it’s done ~something~ right, so that’s why I’ve given it 3 stars.
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer
4.0
“…it is a defeatist myth that individual decisions have no power at all.”
You do not have to read this book. You do have to reduce the amount of animal products in your diet. You do not get to tell me it is a privilege to do this, when you are privileged and still do not do this.
I felt a lot of anger throughout my experience of reading this: anger towards people in my life, and towards people who are vocal online about the climate crisis but who do not advocate for switching to a plant-based diet (and, of course, at myself). To paraphrase Foer, knowing and believing what we have to do and not doing it, is basically worse than not believing we have to do anything at all. Your despair is apathy in disguise and apathy is inaction. Once again, it is hope that motivates human’s survival. So do something hopeful, please.
You do not have to read this book. You do have to reduce the amount of animal products in your diet. You do not get to tell me it is a privilege to do this, when you are privileged and still do not do this.
I felt a lot of anger throughout my experience of reading this: anger towards people in my life, and towards people who are vocal online about the climate crisis but who do not advocate for switching to a plant-based diet (and, of course, at myself). To paraphrase Foer, knowing and believing what we have to do and not doing it, is basically worse than not believing we have to do anything at all. Your despair is apathy in disguise and apathy is inaction. Once again, it is hope that motivates human’s survival. So do something hopeful, please.