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sebby_reads's reviews
242 reviews
Modern Love, Revised and Updated: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption by Daniel Jones
4.0
This book has been in my iPad for past six months but I only finished reading it last month. I only read it after watching the web series adaptation of the book. I was totally in love with it as each episode explores our modern day love in various forms. All are true stories written and submitted to the New York Times for its weekly column, Modern Love. The book came out last year with the introduction by the column editor, Daniel Jones.
I love what Daniel Jones mentioned in his introduction. “Vulnerability is the animating quality of all love stories, and it can take many forms. In every case, though, vulnerability means exposing ourselves to the possibility of loss, but also—crucially!—to the possibility of connection. You can’t have one with out other. The stakes vary, of course, from dipping one’s toe in the water to taking a blind dive from a high cliff.”
All essays have interpreted love in their individual way. They all are not just romantic love, there are stories about love between parents and children, between best friends, between high school sweethearts to old age lovers, too. The stories don’t limit themselves with all about love, either. As the title suggests, there are stories telling the aching loss of the loved ones, the trials of midlife marriage.
Modern Love has four main chapters : (1) Somewhere Out There, (2) I Think I Love You, (3) Holding on Through the Curves, and (4) Family Matters. Each chapter contains about 10 brilliant stories and you would be delighted to know how simple these stories are as well as surprised to find out how you can totally relate to many of these. We all may be loving in different parts of the world, but when it comes to love, what we feel are almost the same with anyone around the world. I’d rate 4 out of 5.
After finishing the book, I continue to follow up on these stories. I’ve been listening to the Modern Love podcast on Spotify. Every week, a celebrity read a story and it ended with a brief interview with the original writer and the reader, as well.
I love what Daniel Jones mentioned in his introduction. “Vulnerability is the animating quality of all love stories, and it can take many forms. In every case, though, vulnerability means exposing ourselves to the possibility of loss, but also—crucially!—to the possibility of connection. You can’t have one with out other. The stakes vary, of course, from dipping one’s toe in the water to taking a blind dive from a high cliff.”
All essays have interpreted love in their individual way. They all are not just romantic love, there are stories about love between parents and children, between best friends, between high school sweethearts to old age lovers, too. The stories don’t limit themselves with all about love, either. As the title suggests, there are stories telling the aching loss of the loved ones, the trials of midlife marriage.
Modern Love has four main chapters : (1) Somewhere Out There, (2) I Think I Love You, (3) Holding on Through the Curves, and (4) Family Matters. Each chapter contains about 10 brilliant stories and you would be delighted to know how simple these stories are as well as surprised to find out how you can totally relate to many of these. We all may be loving in different parts of the world, but when it comes to love, what we feel are almost the same with anyone around the world. I’d rate 4 out of 5.
After finishing the book, I continue to follow up on these stories. I’ve been listening to the Modern Love podcast on Spotify. Every week, a celebrity read a story and it ended with a brief interview with the original writer and the reader, as well.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
3.0
Received this book as a gift earlier this month. The story sets in a café in a small back alley of Tokyo. The cafe has been serving carefully brewed coffee and offers its customers a unique experience: a chance to travel back in time. But a visit to the past comes with a set of rules: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold.
Like all other time travel fantasy, you cannot change the past or what had already happened. Yet, if the chances are given, we all would like to go back to certain time, wouldn’t we?
The book explores the classic question we fancy to ask ourselves from time to time—what would you change if you could go back in time—but with four different aspects. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, (1) in order to confront the lover who left them, (2) receive a letter from their husband whose memory has begun to fade, (3) see their sister one last time, and (4) meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
The second story, Husband and Wife, is the most affecting one and it really tugged my heartstrings. Although time travel stories are told before in many ways, this book has its own uniqueness. It was satisfyingly relishing and I’d rate 3.5 out of 5.
There’s a movie adaptation of this book with the same title. It also looks interesting.
Like all other time travel fantasy, you cannot change the past or what had already happened. Yet, if the chances are given, we all would like to go back to certain time, wouldn’t we?
The book explores the classic question we fancy to ask ourselves from time to time—what would you change if you could go back in time—but with four different aspects. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, (1) in order to confront the lover who left them, (2) receive a letter from their husband whose memory has begun to fade, (3) see their sister one last time, and (4) meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
The second story, Husband and Wife, is the most affecting one and it really tugged my heartstrings. Although time travel stories are told before in many ways, this book has its own uniqueness. It was satisfyingly relishing and I’d rate 3.5 out of 5.
There’s a movie adaptation of this book with the same title. It also looks interesting.
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
4.0
The book opens in early 70s with two rookie cops in NYPD— Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope—first friends and then neighbours in a suburb. Despite being next door neighbours, they never get closer. It’s a beautiful and affecting story of the friendship and love between Francis and Lena’s daughter, Kate, and Brian and Anne’s son, Peter. One night, when Anne shot Francis, the lives of the two families are jeopardised. In each chapter, different narrator told the story of their own and presented the various perspectives. The story elongated till current days telling how the past have so much effect on the present. As the story evolved, it covered multiple issues like mental disorder, alcohol addiction, depression, forgiveness etc. Interlaced these issues to the stories from childhood to adulthood of Peter and Kate, it was a thrilling ride to read how they have become.
It was so gripping and impossible to put down right since chapter one. Although told from a number of narrative perspectives, Keane brilliantly portrayed the voices of burdened adult and confused children. Keane approached the subjects like mental illness and acceptance in an exquisite way then she reminded the power of forgiveness with a subtle touch. 3.5 out of 5.
It was so gripping and impossible to put down right since chapter one. Although told from a number of narrative perspectives, Keane brilliantly portrayed the voices of burdened adult and confused children. Keane approached the subjects like mental illness and acceptance in an exquisite way then she reminded the power of forgiveness with a subtle touch. 3.5 out of 5.
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly
4.0
From cover to cover, it was an insightful read. Kevin Kelly explains the twelve technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years and transform our lives. The 12 forces he describes are: becoming, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, interacting, tracking, questioning, beginning. In each chapter, Kevin elaborates how these inevitable changes, driven by the technological trends some of which are already in motion, will play pivotal roles in our everyday lives.
It is a digital prophecy which we must try to comprehend and keep up with whet he mentions in the book. Cause this isn’t a fictional future or sci-fi novel we normally read. We all know technology can’t be stopped. It will keep on changing and a slight upgrade in a system can lead to a major revolution in tech world.
This is the third non-fiction book I like after Yuval’s 21 Lessons for 21st Century. Unlike Yuval’s in-your-face-straightforwardness tone and total bluntness in choice of words, Kevin’s writing is a breeze in the summer. Perhaps I’m more familiar with the technical terms in this book. It was a remarkable read, indeed. Kevin demonstrates how these 12 forces are intertwined to one another and how it will completely revolutionise the way we work, purchase, learn, and communicate with each other. I’d rate 4 out of 5.
It is a digital prophecy which we must try to comprehend and keep up with whet he mentions in the book. Cause this isn’t a fictional future or sci-fi novel we normally read. We all know technology can’t be stopped. It will keep on changing and a slight upgrade in a system can lead to a major revolution in tech world.
This is the third non-fiction book I like after Yuval’s 21 Lessons for 21st Century. Unlike Yuval’s in-your-face-straightforwardness tone and total bluntness in choice of words, Kevin’s writing is a breeze in the summer. Perhaps I’m more familiar with the technical terms in this book. It was a remarkable read, indeed. Kevin demonstrates how these 12 forces are intertwined to one another and how it will completely revolutionise the way we work, purchase, learn, and communicate with each other. I’d rate 4 out of 5.
Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
3.0
in to a small town in Pennsylvania far off the beaten track. Kate struggled with the dark past of her husband’s suicide (Christopher’s father) and series of abusive boyfriends afterwards. Christopher had troubles at school and with his study for he had dyslexia and been facing some bullies at school. Then Christopher vanished and no one found him for six days. When he emerged from the woods at the edge of the town, he was unharmed. He didn’t remember any single thing but he was changed. He started hearing voices and started having conversation with an imaginary friend. Soon he started helping his imaginary friend. The thrilling adventure of a young boy and his group of friends took a sudden turn when they found the bones of an eight year old boy in the woods. That just not impacted Christopher, it affected the people around him. Christmas is around the corner and the portal between real world and imaginary world was going to shatter, and soon the entire town was in a total chaos.
Back in 1999, Stephen Chbosky introduced his first book, the Perks of Being A Wallflower, to the world. It was embraced by many book lovers. I was one of them but only to read it at my college library in 2006. When the book was adapted to film in 2012, he directed and produced it. The film was a success, too. After 20 years of his debut novel, Stephen released this new book in 2019. We have waited 20 fucking years for his new book. For these reasons and the Perks being one of my all time favourites, I had a very high expectation on this book.
Don't get me wrong, the storyline in Imaginary Friend is totally gripping and I finished it in 2 and half days straight. But with 706 pages in total, it was way too longwinded and there were some unnecessary sub stories of B characters. I feel like a big chunk of book-like one third of it-can be removed and then it will be much more engaging. Despite Stephen taking long and winding road, I occasionally enjoy reading some of his narrative on some characters. Some events occurred in the story may be brutal and gruesome for plot sake, however, when he portrayed the love, it tugged my heartstrings. Again, Stephen unfailingly gave his readers a message to keep love, hope, and forgiveness in their heart. I’d rate 3 out of 5.
Back in 1999, Stephen Chbosky introduced his first book, the Perks of Being A Wallflower, to the world. It was embraced by many book lovers. I was one of them but only to read it at my college library in 2006. When the book was adapted to film in 2012, he directed and produced it. The film was a success, too. After 20 years of his debut novel, Stephen released this new book in 2019. We have waited 20 fucking years for his new book. For these reasons and the Perks being one of my all time favourites, I had a very high expectation on this book.
Don't get me wrong, the storyline in Imaginary Friend is totally gripping and I finished it in 2 and half days straight. But with 706 pages in total, it was way too longwinded and there were some unnecessary sub stories of B characters. I feel like a big chunk of book-like one third of it-can be removed and then it will be much more engaging. Despite Stephen taking long and winding road, I occasionally enjoy reading some of his narrative on some characters. Some events occurred in the story may be brutal and gruesome for plot sake, however, when he portrayed the love, it tugged my heartstrings. Again, Stephen unfailingly gave his readers a message to keep love, hope, and forgiveness in their heart. I’d rate 3 out of 5.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
4.0
The story was about a mixed Chinese American family living in a small town in Ohio. Lydia is the favourite of the Lees family. Her parents believed that she is the one to achieve all the dreams her parents weren’t able to make come true. One day, Lydia’s body was found in the local lake.
James, being a second generation Chinese immigrant, he always wanted to blend in with everyone. He's tired of being treated differently. Marilyn always wanted to be a doctor and she was tired of being told what she can and cannot do because she’s a woman. She aimed to stand out in the crowd. When these two people—one desperate to blend in with everyone and the other starved to stand out in the crowd—fell in love, what would have become of their lives? What happened when people still look at you differently or when you could no longer pursue the dreams? The web of chaos interlaced with the children.
Marilyn aggressively trained Lydia to become a doctor and James favoured her over Nath. Nath tried and isolated his own achievement from Lydia’s but they had some kind of mutual understanding. Hannah was the youngest yet the most ignored person in the family so she learnt to stay quiet, spending most of her time alone.
Celeste Ng likes to start her books with a big unknown. Page after page, she feeds fragments of information via her characters to reveal it. Through her snippets of information, she urges the reader to think why, too. She proves that there are more than just two sides in a story. Here, I see family members held their tongues and believed what they had perceived. Love reading this book as it is quite thought provoking. I prefer this to her another famous one, Little Fires Everywhere. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
James, being a second generation Chinese immigrant, he always wanted to blend in with everyone. He's tired of being treated differently. Marilyn always wanted to be a doctor and she was tired of being told what she can and cannot do because she’s a woman. She aimed to stand out in the crowd. When these two people—one desperate to blend in with everyone and the other starved to stand out in the crowd—fell in love, what would have become of their lives? What happened when people still look at you differently or when you could no longer pursue the dreams? The web of chaos interlaced with the children.
Marilyn aggressively trained Lydia to become a doctor and James favoured her over Nath. Nath tried and isolated his own achievement from Lydia’s but they had some kind of mutual understanding. Hannah was the youngest yet the most ignored person in the family so she learnt to stay quiet, spending most of her time alone.
Celeste Ng likes to start her books with a big unknown. Page after page, she feeds fragments of information via her characters to reveal it. Through her snippets of information, she urges the reader to think why, too. She proves that there are more than just two sides in a story. Here, I see family members held their tongues and believed what they had perceived. Love reading this book as it is quite thought provoking. I prefer this to her another famous one, Little Fires Everywhere. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
ကျွန်မ၏သစ်ပင် by ဂျူး
4.0
Despite the protagonist being an adolescent male, the title was named ‘My Tree’ with feminine pronoun. After an argument with his father, Oak Soe, an aspiring singer and song writer, left his hometown and started working random jobs in Yangon. Later he worked as a driver for an older woman, Daw Ni Ni Zaw, and she discovered his musical talent. From that, his music career escalated and became a successful artist. His strained relationship with his father and the unsettling relationship with Daw Ni Ni Zaw were meticulously written and it was such a satisfying read.
Apart from her relentless use of her weak translations of lyrics from some 90’s english songs in between, regardless of the storyline they didn’t fit in, it was actually a beautiful read. The relationship between the protagonist and the older female was poignantly crafted with such subtlety. I believe she had to tone down her writing cause at that time, the Board of Literary Censorship was quite extreme and conservative so when it comes to portraying the relationship between two unmarried couple, she had to be subtle.
Personally, I feel this book has one of the most pervasive female characters I have read in Burmese books. Like a kind mother, she cared for him; like a good employer, she cultivated his music career; like a considerate lover, she put up with his passive-aggressive behaviours. She is so giving.
I normally prefer reading her short stories to her novels but this book is my absolute favourite of hers. Yesterday afternoon, I took a detour from my current read and picked up this book by Juu for the umpteenth time. (Simply because I feel like it.) Re-reading this book brought me a mix of joy and sadness as it has always been. 4 stars out of 5.
Apart from her relentless use of her weak translations of lyrics from some 90’s english songs in between, regardless of the storyline they didn’t fit in, it was actually a beautiful read. The relationship between the protagonist and the older female was poignantly crafted with such subtlety. I believe she had to tone down her writing cause at that time, the Board of Literary Censorship was quite extreme and conservative so when it comes to portraying the relationship between two unmarried couple, she had to be subtle.
Personally, I feel this book has one of the most pervasive female characters I have read in Burmese books. Like a kind mother, she cared for him; like a good employer, she cultivated his music career; like a considerate lover, she put up with his passive-aggressive behaviours. She is so giving.
I normally prefer reading her short stories to her novels but this book is my absolute favourite of hers. Yesterday afternoon, I took a detour from my current read and picked up this book by Juu for the umpteenth time. (Simply because I feel like it.) Re-reading this book brought me a mix of joy and sadness as it has always been. 4 stars out of 5.
သံသရာ ကြမ္မာစေရာလှမ်း by ခင်မြဇင်
3.0
သာယာဝတီမင်း (ကုန်းဘောင်မင်း)ရဲ့ အနောက်နန်းမိဖုရား (နန်းမတော်)မမြလေး ကို အဓိကထားတဲ့ သမိုင်းနောက်ခံဝတ္ထုပါ။ မမြလေးက လှသလို ဂီတတေးသီချင်းမှာလည်း ဝါသနာပါလှတယ်။သာယာဝတီမင်းက မမြလေးအပေါ် မေတ္တာပိုရှိလို့ မိဖုရားခေါင်ကြီးအဖို့ မကျေနပ်စရာတွေဖြစ်ခဲ့တယ်။ မိဖုရားခေါင်ကြီးရဲ့သား ပုဂံမင်းဟာ လောင်းကစားနဲ့ သောက်စားမူးယစ်နေလို့ အိမ်ရှေ့အရာပေးချင်း မခံရပါဘူး။ ပြည်မင်းသားနဲ့ ညီတော် ပဖန်းမင်းသားတို့သာ ခမည်းတော်မင်းကြီးရဲ့ အားကိုးရာဖြစ်ပြီး သာယာဝတီမင်းက ပြည်မင်းသားကို အိမ်ရှေ့အရာပေးဖို့ လျာထားပါတယ်။ မမြကလေးနဲ့ ပြည်မင်းသား (ကုန်ဘောင်မင်းနဲ့အလယ်နန်းမိဖုရားတို့သား) တို့ဟာ အသက်မတိမ်းမယိမ်းရှိကြပြီး ဂီတမှာ ဝါသနာထုံတာချင်းလည်းတူပါတယ်။ မိဖုရားခေါင်ကြီးနဲ့ ပုဂံမင်းသားတို့ရဲ့ ကုန်းတိုက်မှုတွေနဲ့ နန်းတွင်းကစားကွက်တွေကြားမှာ မမြလေးရဲ့ ကံကြမ္မာဟာ ပြောင်းလဲခဲ့ပါတယ်။
မမြလေးကို သူရေးခဲ့တဲ့ 'ရှိစုံရွက်ကြာ' နဲ့ 'ချစ်သမျှကို' တော့ သိဖူး၊ဖတ်ဖူးပေမယ့် သူ့အကြောင်းကို သေချာ မသိခဲ့ဘူး။ (တချို့ သမိုင်းအထောက်အထားအရလည်း 'ချစ်သမျှကို' က သူရေးတာမဟုတ်ဘူးလို့ ဆိုကြတယ်။) သမိုင်းနောက်ခံဝတ္ထု မဖတ်ရတာလည်း ကြာပြီ။ စိတ်ဝင်တစားနဲ့ လက်ကမချတမ်းဖတ်လိုက်တာ ဒီနေ့လည်မှာ တစ်ထိုင်ထဲနဲ့ဖတ်ပြီးသွားတယ်။ ဆရာမခင်မြဇင် ရေးထားတာလည်း တော်တော်ပြည့်ပြည့်စုံစုံနဲ့ ဖတ်ရတာ အရသာရှိလှတယ်။
မမြလေးကို သူရေးခဲ့တဲ့ 'ရှိစုံရွက်ကြာ' နဲ့ 'ချစ်သမျှကို' တော့ သိဖူး၊ဖတ်ဖူးပေမယ့် သူ့အကြောင်းကို သေချာ မသိခဲ့ဘူး။ (တချို့ သမိုင်းအထောက်အထားအရလည်း 'ချစ်သမျှကို' က သူရေးတာမဟုတ်ဘူးလို့ ဆိုကြတယ်။) သမိုင်းနောက်ခံဝတ္ထု မဖတ်ရတာလည်း ကြာပြီ။ စိတ်ဝင်တစားနဲ့ လက်ကမချတမ်းဖတ်လိုက်တာ ဒီနေ့လည်မှာ တစ်ထိုင်ထဲနဲ့ဖတ်ပြီးသွားတယ်။ ဆရာမခင်မြဇင် ရေးထားတာလည်း တော်တော်ပြည့်ပြည့်စုံစုံနဲ့ ဖတ်ရတာ အရသာရှိလှတယ်။