tbrnichols's reviews
157 reviews

A Dream of a Woman by Casey Plett

reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really loved the thruline of obsolution weaved between these other stories that contrast the sort of different but still extremely challenging problems that exist pre/during and after transition and seeing those contrasted against the problems before and during and after the alcoholism has really set in. And maybe too there's an element of the difficulties before and after you lose your family and your connection to the way of being you were brought up in. This book does a beautiful job of capturing all of those things and communicating the meaning and beauty in facing, whether willingly or otherwise, these challenges. 

Enough trouble really tore me apart, in particular, just the loss of control that she's feeling, but within that loss of control sometimes being granted access to the magic and needing the access to the medicine and glimpsing the misery ahead and behind and all around her. And within that hiding and controlling, the time that makes it work is when she leans into what she knows and puts aside some of the control and does something selfless and uncalculated and loving, because that's within her capacity when liberated from the image management that her medicine exacts.

Also I think the thruline of obsolution keeps this contrast between the deep internal anguish happening in that story and the external consequences and struggles that impact but can have meaningful solace within, rather than merely being endured more or less successfully that parallels adulthood vs childhood and early vs late substance abuse rather elegantly. 

Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix by Katherine Cross

informative slow-paced

2.5

I was hoping to get more insight into exceptions of the (almost) in the title and felt it came a bit short on that. It seems to me that posting really can make a difference in the world of policy entrepreneurship but that posting is not the shit post or the call out post or the catharsis post, but the earnest take, something that is more the domain of blogging than microblogging but feels publicizable through it. But the book was a good look at why those three listed varieties of post and the dunk post feel like politics, but very rarely have meaningful effects and why they are easier to transmit and to follow via open platforms than the organizing, the community meeting schedule, or the site plan commenting campaign is. But I did enjoy it less than I expected to, and it just didn't have that spark in inspiration I was looking for, despite making it's rather conservative argument quite well. Also I imagine the more revolutionary aspirations of the author make her more dismissive of the possibility of posting (or really takesing) into the minds of elected officials and other policy makers, or dismissive of that as constituent of politics. 

Heartstopper Volume 1 by Alice Oseman

hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I'm getting used to the under drawn style. It makes it feel a little like I am mostly reading for the story, which is odd, given I've already seen the show for this part of the story, but it's cute and made me happy to reexperience so I think I will continue reading them especially when I am in stressful situations and need to relax a little, as I was this weekend at a family wedding. 

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America by Abraham Riesman

informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

I'm not sure this book really succeeds as a biography in the traditional sense, it was very difficult to get an understanding of Vince's motivations and drivers from it (beyond perhaps an extreme understanding of nietzchean master morality). But it did function as a good history of the WWE up to the turn of the century (in that sense perhaps a history of the WWF) and of the rise of the attitude era "neo-kayfabe". As someone who started watching wrestling in the 2010s, it was great to get a better understanding of the history of my culture (smarkdom) and it was astonishing to see just how much AEW was inspired by those years of the Monday night war. I found it a bit off putting for a book to be a love letter to wrestling, a "journalist trying to be smarter than the industry" in the traditional "it's all fake" sense that she even catalogues in the book (why are people often referred to by their names outside kayfabe when it's their characters we're talking about?), a history of one man's misdeeds, and a shoehorned theory about trumpism all at the same time and think the book probably would have been better cutting one of two of these threads. The trumpism angle was made even more bewildering by the lack of inclusion of political and policy questions about competition and anti-trust that seem so obvious given the return to PG programming after the collapse of WCW outlined in the coda. 

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I found this book to be a really interesting mix of nostalgia that feels alien to me and that I long for and cultural themes that resonate with me today. Nostalgia for the cheap rent and dark rooms, with the  recognizable erotics of mutability and sameness, the dark cloud of the plague in mind but leaving our main characters untouched. Similarly youthful nostalgia for the formation of community through sexual ties, contrasted with the mature condescension towards the directionless wander of Paul's life without conventional desires. Nostalgia for a time when trans people were not as commonly a target of political fervor, combined with the liberatory joy of sexual transformation. It's hard for me to read this book and not feel less than, that my less raucous life has been a subset of the depicted, familiar with the put on vegetarianism for romantic connection, but unfamiliar with surviving as a dirt bag bartender in a small but still extant gay scene. But Lawlor's depiction of the glamour and insecurity of Paul's sexual escapades, unable to distinguish what will be soaring highs and ignominious lows provides both a compelling propaganda for cruising and a relief to return to one's own post-adolescent stability. 

Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom from Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's Legendary CEO by Satoru Iwata

inspiring fast-paced

1.0

Essentially no detail whatsoever, 150 pages of feel good platitudes with occasional management style tips. Would not have started, continued, or finished if I hadn't been reading it with a book club

Funny Story by Emily Henry

lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Chemistry: 3/5
Side characters: 2/5
Growth: 2/5
Crisis: 4/5
Delivery on fake dating premise: 0/5 
Love trapezoid intrigue: 0/5 
By far her weakest showing, in my estimation, though maybe slightly funnier than average.

An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work by Charlotte Shane

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

I was surprised how much of this felt like interiority by implication rather than explication, which seems at odds with how Shane has generally written elsewhere. I found the book more moving and less intriguing than I expected, but on balance that felt like a totally fair trade. And it made me want to re-read the other three things on my bookshelf with her name on them. 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

emotional inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I really appreciated the seriousness that gaming was given, both as a past time and a creative art and the descriptions of how sacred and intimate a space gaming should be really rang true to me. I also appreciated the idea of a representative audience of one as the genesis of great creative works, especially since it sort of created "muse" as a super category for friends, lovers, rivals, and sometimes even acquaintances. I'm not sure if I think that Sadie got better at understanding someone through mere observation in the ways that Mazer seems to prefer and intuit, while he seems to have gotten much better at verbal explication, but the creation of gaming as a sufficient alternate feels justified as a hybrid, a synthesis, and a deeper examination of motivations along the lines of acting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Suicide

Moderate: Rape, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer

The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Far too much happens in this book, yet not nearly enough of consequence does. Things feel built to and then thrown out far too often for my liking. I found the ideas about civilizational decay to be interesting and the reveal of the origin of the web made it more so, giving evidence that a race far more advanced than the guardship could comprehend could go extinct, but I found the actual events of the end of the book and the efficacy of the policy changes in Canon to be under explored. I did find Turtle's refusal and Strate's revelations to be a nice additional justification for turnover rather than merely additive new blood and a perhaps prescient insight on the dangers of gerontocracy. 

The book definitely took awhile to get into but after around chapter 50 became really consistently compelling.