Scan barcode
tui_la_dao's reviews
61 reviews
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
This is a hell of a debut, a hell of a book. This book started off strong, and the strengthness was maintained throughout, until the very last sentence. I devoured it, I want more of whatever Escoffery would write. I’m afraid I don’t have enough words to properly praise it, but read this, really. This book is so whole and complete. And also so damn funny.
I normally don’t read from an author constantly, but Escoffery got it so right, that I’d read his 2nd, 3rd, or every novels or short stories he puts out if he will maintain this writing skills. How can the author narrates from different first persons (more than 3!) and it runs so smoothly and just right? Pure talent I think.
The chapter Splashdown is a great story in and of itself. It narrates perfectly the struggle that a son has to make through in the absent of a father, and not absent because he was missing, but an intentional absence at that. The ending is all there is to know and the build up and plot twists were present until the end.
I normally don’t read from an author constantly, but Escoffery got it so right, that I’d read his 2nd, 3rd, or every novels or short stories he puts out if he will maintain this writing skills. How can the author narrates from different first persons (more than 3!) and it runs so smoothly and just right? Pure talent I think.
The chapter Splashdown is a great story in and of itself. It narrates perfectly the struggle that a son has to make through in the absent of a father, and not absent because he was missing, but an intentional absence at that. The ending is all there is to know and the build up and plot twists were present until the end.
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Calvino writes like no other, his imagination and description is so rich and fascinating, I could not imagine reading a book this abstract about just cities (on a surface level) or concept of cities that Marco Polo has visited and get pretty hooked to it. Cities & Names chapters are so fascinating and Cities & The Dead chapters were a bit easier to read but interesting nonetheless. At the beginning of the book, I wish that these cities exist so I could visit, towards the end of the book, I realize that these cities are right here, depends on how we live, see, perceive and experience them, they transform, take on different names and images and structures, resemble one another, and so on. Did you travel and think these thoughts?
IRENE
"For that matter, it is of slight importance: if you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes.
...
There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene."
ADELMA
"I thought: "You reached a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask.
...
"Now they will straigten up and I will recognize them," I thought, with impatience and fear ... I was assailed by unexpected faces, reappearing from far away, staring at me as if demanding recognition, as if to recognize me, as if they had already recognized me. Perhaps, for each of them, I also resembled someone who was dead ..."
"Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little."
IRENE
"For that matter, it is of slight importance: if you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes.
...
There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene."
ADELMA
"I thought: "You reached a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask.
...
"Now they will straigten up and I will recognize them," I thought, with impatience and fear ... I was assailed by unexpected faces, reappearing from far away, staring at me as if demanding recognition, as if to recognize me, as if they had already recognized me. Perhaps, for each of them, I also resembled someone who was dead ..."
"Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little."
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace
1.0
I think the book's concept is generally nice. I really empathize with what the author has gone through. But also, soon enough I realize that these are not poems, at least for me. This book reads like Rupi Kaur's (how they add line breaks to sentences out of nowhere to make a poem) and it was not a good experience. I think what is nice about poem is that you can write a short, and not all grammatically correct sentence, but the readers read and understand what was conveyed, and here you got all nice and grammatically sentences but line breaks are added so illogically that if you follow them, you would not understand what was being written. If this is written in a different format maybe it could have worked. This collection just make me feel like I could take out the nicest sentences in my journal, break them down in several lines and I would have a poem collection of my own too. I searched it up and it seems like there is a genre called "insta poem" and yeah, not for me. An example poem in this book:
i
let myself
know
that my life
doesn't
have to be over
just bcs
theirs are
…
it drives me insane, these sentences.
What are the poems I know:
No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future:
Yonnondio! Yonnondio!-unlimn'd they disappear;
To-day gives place, and fades,_the cities, farms, factories fade;
A muffled sonourous sound, a wailing word is borne
through the air for a moment
Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost
(from Walt Whitman's Yonnondio)
If you follow the line breaks of this one, you get what it is trying to say. I wish I could have cited some Vietnamese poems too, we have a great language for this genre, but it is mostly lost in translation. (less)
i
let myself
know
that my life
doesn't
have to be over
just bcs
theirs are
…
it drives me insane, these sentences.
What are the poems I know:
No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future:
Yonnondio! Yonnondio!-unlimn'd they disappear;
To-day gives place, and fades,_the cities, farms, factories fade;
A muffled sonourous sound, a wailing word is borne
through the air for a moment
Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost
(from Walt Whitman's Yonnondio)
If you follow the line breaks of this one, you get what it is trying to say. I wish I could have cited some Vietnamese poems too, we have a great language for this genre, but it is mostly lost in translation. (less)
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.25
I need to write a review for this book at this odd hour, because I need it. I just found the first two chapters so emotional and real. I relate to it, and sadly, I guess my sister will, too, if she reads this. It is about kids who can't take refuge at home, who can't depend or trust on who they are supposed to trust, kids who have developed unhealthy coping mechanism to get by, kids who nurture themselves with the thoughts and imagination in their own head. Who read the beginning of this book and doesnt want to hold Natsuki dearly and protect her, it's just extremely sad, being someone who doesn't become what society expects from them. I don't know when I came home and don't see the usual cheerful smile in my sister anymore, or to see that she has lost appetite and weight uncontrolably,to the point that she *BIG SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING* finally let me know that she has been suicidal so many times, and I understand so well that she was the unlucky one for being kinder and chooses to stay back while I fled home as soon as I could. I just wish we would find a way out soon, one way or another, like the characters in here. "Survive, no matter what". And then you can choose the happiness that you want, hopefully.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book addresses numerous deep-seated societal issues in an accessible manner. I haven’t read through a book of this length so quickly in years. I don't feel like I could hate on either Athena or June. Athena has a lot of influence on our main narrator and other characters in the book, but we only ever know her from the memories and impressions of the people who know her when she was alive. What fascinating is the way she mined ideas for her writing, which seemed to be cold-hearted and unempathetic. She carried on interviews, many writers do that, but she never paid tribute to her source of inspiration or information, interviewed people are always caught of guard to see their vulnerable and painful stories and words printed without their permission. She did this even with the people she is the closest to, like her mom, or June, or ex-boyfriend. Athena's brand is something that sells, she is ethnically Chinese, so people perceive her as far as her looks go even though she barely speak any Mandarin.
June, our narrator, is deeply human—confused, greedy, jealous, and flawed. Her actions are undeniably wrong; she stole her friend’s legacy instead of properly applying to be a co-author (if that was even an option). Despite numerous allegations, she never confessed, opting instead to work behind the scenes—writing, researching, polishing, and finishing the novel, as much as she could make the book hers. But it's also true that she did write a significant part of the book, she did do her research, and she did attempt at Mandarin and her struggle visits to Rockville and Chinatown, maybe not good enough, but not nothing, and the novel (with much of her contribution in it) did move Mr.Lee, whose uncle was one of the CLC (he probably thought she belongs to the community, though). June's biggest flaw is her desire to live the literary dream despite not being a naturally talented storyteller.
June justified her actions with how rigged publishing industry is, it's a male-dominant, racist, and unfair, it's where your literary work is chosen to be a winner and worthy of their marketing budget not because you are the most talented writer, but more about what people want to read and see at that point in time, and when it happens that readers want more diversity on the bookshelves, what a white girl like June fumes about and wants to put on pages are simply never good enough. She's already not good enough because of something she cannot choose for herself, race. And she really believes it. This does not excute her action, though.
But given that the novel is June's original work, the question will be: can June write about Chinese history if she is not born in the country, but did the work to understand it? Can she really understand it just by doing her research? Maybe it's a question for readers to judge, as we should not limit any writers from any topics, we should only "critique a work on the grounds of literary quality, and its representations of history". But again, can readers be fair judges?, because if you really think about it, it is really imaginable that the same story be viewed differently if it is written by authors of different backgrounds. Isn't it just easier to trust and feel comfortable reading a Chinese person writing about the Chinese Labor Corps, then to read the same story written by a white person? And it understandably is so, but it does not make this topic any less complicated, and it's not the right way to go about it.
We explore topic of racism, but also reverse racism, the cyber bullying, and the ugly nature of publishing. "Racism is bad, but you can still send death threats to Karens". And we see how social media is really realer than real life. Candice is a really interesting character too, I just love what she said to June during the confrontation. And the ending is good, June has developed into a person who I believe will survive longer in that industry, she got the gut and the thick face and she could write good enough.
June, our narrator, is deeply human—confused, greedy, jealous, and flawed. Her actions are undeniably wrong; she stole her friend’s legacy instead of properly applying to be a co-author (if that was even an option). Despite numerous allegations, she never confessed, opting instead to work behind the scenes—writing, researching, polishing, and finishing the novel, as much as she could make the book hers. But it's also true that she did write a significant part of the book, she did do her research, and she did attempt at Mandarin and her struggle visits to Rockville and Chinatown, maybe not good enough, but not nothing, and the novel (with much of her contribution in it) did move Mr.Lee, whose uncle was one of the CLC (he probably thought she belongs to the community, though). June's biggest flaw is her desire to live the literary dream despite not being a naturally talented storyteller.
June justified her actions with how rigged publishing industry is, it's a male-dominant, racist, and unfair, it's where your literary work is chosen to be a winner and worthy of their marketing budget not because you are the most talented writer, but more about what people want to read and see at that point in time, and when it happens that readers want more diversity on the bookshelves, what a white girl like June fumes about and wants to put on pages are simply never good enough. She's already not good enough because of something she cannot choose for herself, race. And she really believes it. This does not excute her action, though.
But given that the novel is June's original work, the question will be: can June write about Chinese history if she is not born in the country, but did the work to understand it? Can she really understand it just by doing her research? Maybe it's a question for readers to judge, as we should not limit any writers from any topics, we should only "critique a work on the grounds of literary quality, and its representations of history". But again, can readers be fair judges?, because if you really think about it, it is really imaginable that the same story be viewed differently if it is written by authors of different backgrounds. Isn't it just easier to trust and feel comfortable reading a Chinese person writing about the Chinese Labor Corps, then to read the same story written by a white person? And it understandably is so, but it does not make this topic any less complicated, and it's not the right way to go about it.
We explore topic of racism, but also reverse racism, the cyber bullying, and the ugly nature of publishing. "Racism is bad, but you can still send death threats to Karens". And we see how social media is really realer than real life. Candice is a really interesting character too, I just love what she said to June during the confrontation. And the ending is good, June has developed into a person who I believe will survive longer in that industry, she got the gut and the thick face and she could write good enough.
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I really enjoyed some stories in this book, they were well-crafted, and sent a chill down my spine and left me thinking damn this book has big potential, but unfortunately there are also many mediocre stories, those that were written just to fill up the page ... and eventually, water down the collection to some extent.
Spoilers:
Great stories (4): "The Well" (This one is really good, the moment I realized what happened was golden, but very sad of one), "Rambla Triste" (it's so cool how this made me fear Barcelona, a city that I enjoyed visit, for a long moment, that was how good it was),"The Lookout", "Kids who come back"
Good ones (3): "Our Lady ...", "Back When ...", "Where r u ..."
The other 5 are either ... shallow, or distasteful, or just too surreal which is simply not my taste, or maybe I did not understand them. The book was still worth reading, but I wish that some stories were not included.
Spoilers:
Great stories (4): "The Well" (This one is really good, the moment I realized what happened was golden, but very sad of one), "Rambla Triste" (it's so cool how this made me fear Barcelona, a city that I enjoyed visit, for a long moment, that was how good it was),"The Lookout", "Kids who come back"
Good ones (3): "Our Lady ...", "Back When ...", "Where r u ..."
The other 5 are either ... shallow, or distasteful, or just too surreal which is simply not my taste, or maybe I did not understand them. The book was still worth reading, but I wish that some stories were not included.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
I think the book is good, but the writing style is not for me. The pace is too slow. And while it is really poetic and I enjoyed it at times, I absolutely think it is unnecessary to maintain such tones throughout the whole book. This is longer than what it should have been and I don’t think the content would be compromised if certain chapters would be shorter. And less paper is always more desirable if points are still being delivered … otherwise a good book.
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Great stories, lovely stories, amazing stories, and full of subtle hints and metaphors. Even if you won’t read the whole book (but you should because all of it is amazing), read the last one, it touched me a lot, or the one called “Interpreter of Maladies”.