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stormlightreader's Reviews (934)
The Family Experiment has so many things going for it:
- Short chapters
- Trippy plot
- Mixed media
- Fast-paced
- Immersive audiobook
The chapters are delightfully short. The plot is wild, fast-paced and supported by a mixed media format (which I always enjoy). The audiobook is so immersive, with music so that the ads (such as webuyanyavatar.com 😂) sound like real ads and the messages have a sound similar to the WhatsApp message sound. This book is like The Hunger Games but for people wanting to start a family. This is my first John Marrs book and it was a wild ride.
My only criticism is that the main plot wrapped up around the 90%-ish point. The remaining chapters did carry on revealing little twists or informing the reader of the current situation of the main characters, but the pace slowed down a bit here. Otherwise, a great read!
Thank you to NetGalley for the free eARC in exchange for a review.
- Short chapters
- Trippy plot
- Mixed media
- Fast-paced
- Immersive audiobook
The chapters are delightfully short. The plot is wild, fast-paced and supported by a mixed media format (which I always enjoy). The audiobook is so immersive, with music so that the ads (such as webuyanyavatar.com 😂) sound like real ads and the messages have a sound similar to the WhatsApp message sound. This book is like The Hunger Games but for people wanting to start a family. This is my first John Marrs book and it was a wild ride.
My only criticism is that the main plot wrapped up around the 90%-ish point. The remaining chapters did carry on revealing little twists or informing the reader of the current situation of the main characters, but the pace slowed down a bit here. Otherwise, a great read!
Thank you to NetGalley for the free eARC in exchange for a review.
I've missed Ryan, Frank, Mac and co. Firstly, I made a mistake and while I was checking the page count of the book for my reading tracker, I clocked the first sentence of the Author's Note, so brought down the intrigue of the twist for myself. Absolute idiot move on my part, but it did not stop me getting stressed out by that ending!
I go into the DCI Ryan books knowing that I'll get atmosphere and a relatively well wrapped up plot, and I love this about this series but every now and then there is a plot that spans numerous books and this appears to be one of those. There's lots of call backs to earlier DCI Ryan books, which I loved. I thought this was slow going at first but then it just took off and I really need the next book, because the plot is yet to be wrapped up.
I go into the DCI Ryan books knowing that I'll get atmosphere and a relatively well wrapped up plot, and I love this about this series but every now and then there is a plot that spans numerous books and this appears to be one of those. There's lots of call backs to earlier DCI Ryan books, which I loved. I thought this was slow going at first but then it just took off and I really need the next book, because the plot is yet to be wrapped up.
"Checo heads for the chequered flag. I can hear the roar from the pit wall."
I loved the insight Collins gives us into the inner workings of a Formula 1 team. The insight is slightly different to that given in Guenther Steiner's, Surviving to Drive, with him being a team principal and Collins being a race strategist. It's lovely to hear how appreciative Collins is of all of the staff involved, from catering to mechanics. However, hearing how organised and structured an F1 team is just makes me sad about how poorly organised my workplace is 😂
I've been lucky to find two F1 books released at the same time that give some detail of Checo's time at his current and previous teams. Collins spent five and a half years working with him and the chapter describing Checo's first Grand Prix win in Sakhir was great.
It's awesome to listen to her insight into the career of a woman in F1 and listening to her talk about her job was really fascinating. Anyone who watches F1 knows Bernie loves a bit of tyre talk and as expected, we get some of that in the book 😂
A very informative book, that is different to the nonfiction I normally pick up. It reads a lot like an academic paper and from a professional standpoint, I found it very interesting. The author provides a lot of information about how our day-to-day choices have global impacts on the environment. This would be a good book to put in front of the general public but to make it more accessible to real people and their real life decisions, I think the author could have concluded each chapter by bringing the broader information on environmental implications back down to how impactful our daily decisions are. One recurring theme is that the consumer does hold a lot of power and that money is always going to be a huge inhibitor to companies making real large scale change.
Thank you to NetGalley for this free eARC in exchange for a review.
Thank you to NetGalley for this free eARC in exchange for a review.
Where Guenther Steiner's Surviving to Drive was laced with humour, which I loved, I was not expecting that nor did I get that from this book. Hunt provides a pretty matter of fact overview of key events from Red Bull Racing's rise to the championship winning Formula 1 team they currently are.
There are some interesting but unsurprising 'revelations' such as the FIA's scepticism of Red Bull's car design and the 'we don't have a number one driver' line (I'm a fan of their current second driver, this is absolutely a thing 😄).
I've grown up around F1 and the names of these drivers have been familiar to me for years but I wasn't as into F1 during Vettel's championship years. So it was insightful to hear about Vettel's mindset, which is currently mirrored in Max Verstappen's mindset and behaviour towards his Red Bull teammate in recent years.
The book was concise and was well paced. It focused on the racing and opted not to wade through any driver on driver dramas and Checo's significant drop off during the 2023 season, which was surprising, but it kept the focus where it needed to be.
There are some interesting but unsurprising 'revelations' such as the FIA's scepticism of Red Bull's car design and the 'we don't have a number one driver' line (I'm a fan of their current second driver, this is absolutely a thing 😄).
I've grown up around F1 and the names of these drivers have been familiar to me for years but I wasn't as into F1 during Vettel's championship years. So it was insightful to hear about Vettel's mindset, which is currently mirrored in Max Verstappen's mindset and behaviour towards his Red Bull teammate in recent years.
The book was concise and was well paced. It focused on the racing and opted not to wade through any driver on driver dramas and Checo's significant drop off during the 2023 season, which was surprising, but it kept the focus where it needed to be.
How is a survivor of rape meant to react? Why did the perpetrator carry out these assaults? Should the incompetent police officers have remained in their job after the way they treated Marie? What criteria do police officers use to determine that the survivor is 'looking for attention' or that this qualifies as 'actual consensual sex'? Does a woman invite sexual assault purely by leaving a window open? Do all women have a rape fantasy?
There were so many questions are raised for me while reading this book. This was a fascinating and disturbing read about how a rape survivor is interrogated instead of being interviewed, then labelled a liar and coerced into recanting her story, to be later charged with false reporting, only for her rapist to eventually be arrested miles away.
This book is a book of two parts. On the one hand, this is such an infuriating read. The way Marie is traumatised by the initial attack and then retraumatised again and again by law enforcement is heart-breaking. It is disgusting the way the officers analysed every bit of her behaviour as if she were a perpetrator and then accused her of lying and making her feel like those close to her didn't believe her.
On the other hand, Miller and Armstrong explore how this police department owns up to their mistakes and takes steps to make changes. The portrayal of the Lynwood police department was done very well. It would have been easy to simply paint the officers as misogynistic, but the authors presented the nuanced truth. The detectives, particularly Mason, acted in what he felt was good faith, but clearly lacked proper training to understand the signs of a sexual assault survivor and how these reactions vary among survivors.
The fact that the department owned up to their mistakes and is working to make long-term positive changes is probably to only silver lining to this story. There's also a bit looking into the disturbed mind of the serial rapist which provided some insight to his mindset, including whether he could have been stopped with earlier intervention. However, I am glad they didn't dedicate more than this to him, because his story adds a necessary element in terms of insight, but the focus is on the survivors.
The audio narration is perfect. The pacing is perfect. The content of the book is concise and presents the pertinent details with relevant background details. The authors have also made extensive effort to make sure that the language they used was in line with the survivors' stories (e.g. being referred to as a survivor and not a victim). They had Marie herself fact check the story, which is just a great approach to writing a nonfiction book about such a sensitive topic. It keeps the survivors at the focus of the story, making this a very well-written true crime story. It presents an important discussion of how rape is (or isn't) investigated in America.
Before I listened to this, I watched the Netflix miniseries, Unbelievable, which is based on this story. The show is very faithful to this book and did a very good job telling this story. Both are hard to read/watch, but it's an important story.
This story has similarities to Know My Name by Chanel Miller (which is narrated by her) and from a different angle, The Central Park Five by Sarah Burns, both of which I'd recommend.
There were so many questions are raised for me while reading this book. This was a fascinating and disturbing read about how a rape survivor is interrogated instead of being interviewed, then labelled a liar and coerced into recanting her story, to be later charged with false reporting, only for her rapist to eventually be arrested miles away.
This book is a book of two parts. On the one hand, this is such an infuriating read. The way Marie is traumatised by the initial attack and then retraumatised again and again by law enforcement is heart-breaking. It is disgusting the way the officers analysed every bit of her behaviour as if she were a perpetrator and then accused her of lying and making her feel like those close to her didn't believe her.
On the other hand, Miller and Armstrong explore how this police department owns up to their mistakes and takes steps to make changes. The portrayal of the Lynwood police department was done very well. It would have been easy to simply paint the officers as misogynistic, but the authors presented the nuanced truth. The detectives, particularly Mason, acted in what he felt was good faith, but clearly lacked proper training to understand the signs of a sexual assault survivor and how these reactions vary among survivors.
The fact that the department owned up to their mistakes and is working to make long-term positive changes is probably to only silver lining to this story. There's also a bit looking into the disturbed mind of the serial rapist which provided some insight to his mindset, including whether he could have been stopped with earlier intervention. However, I am glad they didn't dedicate more than this to him, because his story adds a necessary element in terms of insight, but the focus is on the survivors.
The audio narration is perfect. The pacing is perfect. The content of the book is concise and presents the pertinent details with relevant background details. The authors have also made extensive effort to make sure that the language they used was in line with the survivors' stories (e.g. being referred to as a survivor and not a victim). They had Marie herself fact check the story, which is just a great approach to writing a nonfiction book about such a sensitive topic. It keeps the survivors at the focus of the story, making this a very well-written true crime story. It presents an important discussion of how rape is (or isn't) investigated in America.
Before I listened to this, I watched the Netflix miniseries, Unbelievable, which is based on this story. The show is very faithful to this book and did a very good job telling this story. Both are hard to read/watch, but it's an important story.
This story has similarities to Know My Name by Chanel Miller (which is narrated by her) and from a different angle, The Central Park Five by Sarah Burns, both of which I'd recommend.
Random note to start with: there has definitely been a change in tone since King Alfred died, one I'm happy about. While watching the show, the biggest annoyance for me was Uhtred being tethered to Alfred because of a vow he'd made, which felt less prominent in the books, even when Alfred was alive, but since Alfred's death and him taking back Bebbanburg, it feels like Uhtred is more free. Even though he is still keeping promises to Alfred's kids, it still doesn't feel like he's in the same kind of chokehold as he is in the show.
Sword of Kings is another good book which feels a little repetitive and one plot thread make a reappearance (Uhtred's wife conveniently ends up dead just as he's found a replacement wife 🙄, which is tiresome but the show prepared me for that). However, I am enjoying how Uhtred's aging is being portrayed, and that he isn't faultless in this book. It's not the first book in the series that feels like a filler book but there is some slight differences in this one. The most notable being that Uhtred encounters quite a humiliating encounter at the hands of an enemy, which naturally Finan rescues him from. If it wasn't for the intervention of others, namely Finan, Uhtred may not still be alive at the end of Book 12. Finan, once again is the best character in this book!
I never grow tired of Cornwell's action scenes. I like that the past couple of books have been set on ships - random thing to review, but I liked that. These books have without a doubt become a comfort read for me and you know exactly what you're getting from them, and if that's what you want in your comfort reads then you won't be disappointed.
One more book to go!
Sword of Kings is another good book which feels a little repetitive and one plot thread make a reappearance (Uhtred's wife conveniently ends up dead just as he's found a replacement wife 🙄, which is tiresome but the show prepared me for that). However, I am enjoying how Uhtred's aging is being portrayed, and that he isn't faultless in this book. It's not the first book in the series that feels like a filler book but there is some slight differences in this one. The most notable being that Uhtred encounters quite a humiliating encounter at the hands of an enemy, which naturally Finan rescues him from. If it wasn't for the intervention of others, namely Finan, Uhtred may not still be alive at the end of Book 12. Finan, once again is the best character in this book!
I never grow tired of Cornwell's action scenes. I like that the past couple of books have been set on ships - random thing to review, but I liked that. These books have without a doubt become a comfort read for me and you know exactly what you're getting from them, and if that's what you want in your comfort reads then you won't be disappointed.
One more book to go!
"In Mexico each horror story surpasses the previous one and Mexico looks increasingly like one enormous mass grave"
Stories of 'disappeared' people, prisons without bars, cartels exerting their seemingly endless power, girls/women 'boyfriended' into the sex trade, journalists kidnapped and tortured and civilians training themselves to do what the authorities should be doing but are too scared to do.
To quote the writer Gregor von Rezzori (cited in this book)
I am "fascinated and horrifed by Mexico in equal measure".
At least I get the fascination fulfilled by Mexican fiction books and the horror from Mexican non-fiction books.
The Sorrows of Mexico was a bit of a mixed bag, but mostly good with some really interesting stories and some less interesting ones towards the end. However, it introduced me to some new Mexican non-fiction writers that I'm looking forward to reading more from.
Sidenote: I don't think I've ever used a map so much while reading a book 😂
"So many adults masking as children bringing more children into the world. Most of the time people have children without any thought. You won’t catch me taking care of anyone."
As someone who has a developing knowledge of Mexico's history, I found this to be a gentle introduction to some key figures of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. I'm learning a lot about the history of Mexico through books written by authors of Mexican descent, and Immortal Pleasures gave me some of that history with a fantasy twist.
I found Castro's depiction of La Malinche's story very interesting to read. I liked Malinalli's modern day storyline but her POV detailing past events was my favourite, particularly the flashback of Malinalli's transformation into a vampire. The first romantic interest (Colin) brought out a very animalistic side of Malinalli (
Immortal Pleasures combines vampires, historical fiction, and a little spice. I also want to read up on the history of La Malinche, as well. I'm definitely missing bits from this review but I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to get to Queen of the Cicadas.
Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. I have pre-ordered a copy.