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ruby_gordon's Reviews (67)

Crying in H Mart

3.5

emotional reflective medium-paced

An easy read but not incredible. I don’t know if it’s because I had never read a memoir before or because of this author’s writing style, but some parts felt too descriptive. Like when people say ‘show don’t tell,’ this book ‘told’ a bit too much. It didn’t have the depth of writing to fully immerse me into the world (her life). It felt like it just listed a lot of descriptions without painting a picture. Also VERY food focused, I definitely expected it to be a motif as it was a core part of her relationship with her mother, but the descriptions of food and cooking were way too in depth. Like at one point it was basically a non-fiction recipe book tutorial on what she was making. Also the ending seemed pretty sudden. Overall pretty entertaining easy read but just didn’t fully connect with it and the writing wasn’t my favourite kind.

Philosophy: The Classics

Nigel Warburton

3.75

informative fast-paced

Good a level wider reading

Philosophy: The Essential Study Guide

Nigel Warburton

3.75

informative fast-paced

Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk

3.5

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Was Not expecting the theistic ending, preferred the film

Beautiful World, Where Are You

Sally Rooney

5.0

adventurous emotional lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really enjoyed this book, but the ending kinda disappointed me. It felt a bit strange and unnecessary to start focusing on the pandemic, especially since the exact time period of the book hadn’t been established beforehand. It sort of became the generic comments about ‘whether we’ll still be in lockdown,’ not really original. I feel like it took me away from this fictional world she created and spent the last 200 or so pages immersing me in, yes the world felt realistic, but still very separate from the real world. The rest of the book would’ve made perfect sense without mentioning covid, it was unnecessary and did nothing for the plot. I wish it ended on one more email of Alice writing back, because we never really find out how her story ends and about her and Felix aside from the fact that they’re still together. On a positive note, that was the only downfall and the rest of the book was amazing. Rooney’s great writing once again, she got very poetic in her descriptions and any fan of hers who has read her earlier work can really see how her style is developing amazingly.

Natural Theology

David M. Knight, William Paley, Matthew D. Eddy

2.0

informative reflective medium-paced

My main issue with this book is the beginning third which focuses on describing human and animal anatomy in DEPTH. It shows his great knowledge of the different body parts and their functions, but it says nothing about what Paley makes of all of this information. It’s like he throws all of this information at us without explaining WHY this proves the existence of a deity. We clearly see evidence of regularity and complexity in design, but I wanted more of a personal commentary from Paley instead of a highly scientific boring description without any dissecting or deeper analysis of the information. I appreciate his theory and watchmakers analogy much more than this book, I hoped to get a deeper insight into these by reading this but unfortunately not. :(

Sin City, Vol. 1: The Hard Goodbye

Frank Miller

3.0

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The graphics were cool at places but this story is probably one of my least favourites out of all of them. My main issue with this tho is the layout. It feels really choppy and clunky, compared to some mangas I’ve read which capture movement really well. The choppiness makes it harder to understand what’s even going on, especially during the fight scenes. The fight scenes were just very stiff, they felt like still images flung together without considering how they would read. There are also pages which are just a single image and a big strip of writing next to it, which just feels not very interactive. The text placement could’ve been broken up and interweaved with the images which I feel like mangas are a lot better at doing. During the conversation between him and Wendy their eyelines weren’t even aligned. The negative space colouring style throughout also made it harder to see what was going on as there were barely any outlines. For me graphic novels and comics should read like a smooth animation, but it was very mismatched and choppy. I never normally prefer film adaptations but the film was honestly so much better.