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sterlingisreading's reviews
77 reviews
How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers
slow-paced
3.75
A solid collection. A few stories I found a little dull and hard to get through, but the good ones made it well worth it. When he gets into a more experimental, speculative fiction type of vibe, he always knocks it out of the park. It’s the more traditional short stories that bored me a bit. He has such an interesting rhythm when he lets his style loose and that’s what I loved about A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius. Eggers is at his best when he’s coloring outside the lines and taking risks, when the language is fluid and lyrical and has an unfiltered, stream of consciousness quality to it. When traditional story structures are applied, some of his magic gets lost.
The End of the End of the Earth by Jonathan Franzen
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
Some of these essays interested me more than others. My favorites were about technology, literary criticism, and Franzen’s more personal stories. There’s a lot about birds in here, which felt a little tedious in some essays, but in others it worked beautifully to illustrate the realities of climate change. Franzen’s birding obsession feels like an enthusiastic plea: a plea for all of us to create a passionate, personal, active connection to the natural world for ourselves. Maybe if we can all love the world just a little bit more, it may not end so swiftly.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
4.5
I haven’t read this since I was 14 and I’m glad I picked it up again. You can definitely feel the influence of The Stand by Stephen King in it: the way it’s structured, all the different points of view, the depth of detail in each situation, the wide scope of it. It’s told in short interviews with people from all over the world, all different types of people with different backgrounds and expertise, who survived the zombie war. So if you’re looking for a straight up novel with character building and a concise plot, that’s not what this is. It’s a different kind of book, it’s easy to pop in and out of without missing a beat, and it paints a larger picture of this global catastrophe using short, detailed vignettes. My brain is fried because I’m coordinating a cross-country move, so a book about a zombie war, structured like this, was the perfect thing to help me relax and enjoy myself without having to use too much of my brain.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Out There by Kate Folk
dark
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Kate Folk is definitely now one of my favorite short story writers. This is the best collection I’ve read in a long time. If I had to compare Kate Folk to anyone, it would be Jennifer Egan (high praise, A Visit From The Goon Squad is a masterpiece.) There are some hints of Ray Bradbury, Karen Russell, and George Saunders in her work too. She mixes up the perfect cocktail of speculative fiction and magical realism. Even her most grounded, everyday stories have an eerie strangeness lurking beneath.
Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
A very introspective take on the zombie genre. I’ve noticed Scandinavian horror is usually more internal, more reflective. It’s not your classic zombie story. There’s very little violence or gore. It basically comes down to this: If our dead came back and they were decayed, vacant, and miserable, would we keep them close to avoid the pain of losing them all over again or would we be strong enough to lay them to rest? It’s a story about grief and letting go. There are some other supernatural elements at play as well. A lot goes unexplained, which I like in books involving anything supernatural or paranormal. When science comes to the rescue and logic prevails, the intensity and impact of the situation is usually dialed down for me. I like authors who are willing to leave things unsaid, who leave it up to the reader to decide what it all means or how it all fits together. 🧟♀️🧟🧟♂️ This did give me an itch to read The Stand again, which is my favorite horror novel. Actually, let’s be real, The Stand is one of my favorite books of all time.