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smart_as_paint's reviews
172 reviews
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
2.0
Inherent Vice isn't a mystery. It's a bad trip. It gets a bonus star for currently identifying that the police and systemic racism are the real villains.
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
5.0
The White Tiger, A summary:
"Capitalism is a system that rewards talent, perseverance, and doing things the 'right way' — What a fucking joke"
"Capitalism is a system that rewards talent, perseverance, and doing things the 'right way' — What a fucking joke"
Circe by Madeline Miller
4.0
The concept of deus ex machina is no storytelling trope. The gods choose to be protean in order to extract maximum sacrifices from a helpless mortal population. Then, when all seems dire, they swoop in and save the day, cementing their power and ensuring even more offerings. It's all a pyramid scheme that peaks at Olympus.
It all seems so familiar.
If a powerful witch struggles to survive in this world, what hope do mere mortals have?
It all seems so familiar.
If a powerful witch struggles to survive in this world, what hope do mere mortals have?
All the President's Men by Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein
3.0
All the president's horses
And All the President's men
Couldn't stop the country from doing it all over again
And All the President's men
Couldn't stop the country from doing it all over again
Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
3.0
Forget astrological signs and Hogwarts houses— which pentomino are you?
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
4.0
We were born too late to explore the world.
Born too early to explore the stars.
Born just in time to get really really mad.
Born too early to explore the stars.
Born just in time to get really really mad.
How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr
5.0
"I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new empire"
-Teddy Roosevelt (probably)
-Teddy Roosevelt (probably)
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
3.0
Just because you can make up a conlang to soften the blow of ultra-violence and totalitarian immorality doesn't mean you should. It just makes the book bolshaya hard to viddy on the page.
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
3.0
For a book so interested in the science behind reducing the amount of pain inflicted upon animals, it's strangely silent on the topic of consumption. The fact that humans routinely husband, abuse, and slaughter animals for gastrointestinal pleasure should warrant more than a halfhearted defense of meat reduction stapled to the end of the final chapter.