wdallas126's reviews
165 reviews

Illogical: Saying Yes to a Life Without Limits by Emmanuel Acho

3.0

A gift from Emmanuel Acho to my college graduating class where he was the commencement speaker.

This book was compulsively readable thanks to the easy writing style, but also the fact that I always looked forward to engaging with and annotating the content. In terms of message, a lot of what Acho had to say didn’t quite land for me, but that is a risk with self help books. There were 2 chapters that I think I will really want to go back to as well as some individual lines.

Acho performs best sharing his personal stories, but it happens rarely: instead the novel is over saturated with Bible stories and name-dropped origins that he superimposed his own belief system onto. Additionally, I wish the fact that most of this philosophy is made possible by having the privilege to “give up fear” and take major risks that aren’t accessible to everyone. 

This was not a terrible read by any means, but it was just too surface level for me to really connect with. I’m certainly interested in his video content now, though.

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 3 by Gege Akutami

4.5

Slightly lower than the first two, only because some of the things the author says during the in-betweens just weird me out, and this stars one of the most depressing plotlines that - while well-written - still isn't a ton of fun to read about. Less balanced in showing the whole team, but the introduction of another skilled sorcerer is awesome, as well as raising the villain stakes.

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 2: Fearsome Womb by Gege Akutami

5.0

Can I be trusted to reliably rate these? No, but even blinded by my love I’m confident that these are fantastic. Loved getting to see deeper into my fave Megumi, and the pacing feels so much more natural in this form compared to the anime. Plus, the world building makes much more sense now that I can learn about it at my own pace and easily refer back to it

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 1 by Gege Akutami

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I love the anime and I love the manga. It’s more fast paced, but it doesn’t suffer for it. The lore seems more digestible and I love seeing my favorite characters. Just a ton of fun honestly.

Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley

4.0

A solid conclusion, even if I felt it repeated some emotional beats and all the development was saved for the end. The side characters are really everything, so I wish we saw more of them in this installment instead of them being spread out and Scott being oblivious to their lives. Still really happy I read this series.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe by Bryan Lee O'Malley

3.5

A bit improved from the last installment in it's handling of cheating, though I really wish they would do right by my girl Knives Chau. I love pretty much all of the side characters, but Scott and Ramona are messy. The last chapter of this was very impactful though, the cat sequence <3

Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together by Bryan Lee O'Malley

3.0

a little bit biphobic, a little bit of glorification of cheating, but also a little bit of ninjas. cool to see scott "getting his life together" a bit, but I'm still shaky on whether i want him and ramona together honestly. also the ending :( wallace remains my favorite character

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt

2.5

The scenes with Keturah and Death were great but they were surprisingly few and far between. I could not bring myself to care about the rest of the plot or the other characters because they mostly felt silly. Some good lines but most of the writing wasn’t super enjoyable to me. A little disappointing. 

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

emotional funny hopeful reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I knew I would like this book but I had no idea how much I would connect with the personalities of Charlie and Nora. It was cute, funny, emotional, and so many more things too. Genuinely, I wish I could write a thorough and coherent review, but I just loved it so much. The emotional aspects and development that our characters go through is so impactful and reassuring. Just... 5 stars.

This was also my first time annotating one of my own books and I'm so glad I picked this one. It really enhanced the experience to go through it slowly and mark up the quotes and write my thoughts among the pages.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

4.0

Still a very enjoyable series! I loved the lowkey parts of this where Murderbot just thought and made plans and interacted with ART (I fucking love ART btw). In general, I just wish this book was longer to fully wrap up the things that happened, and I would have been fine if this had just been investigative/strategic in nature with almost no 'action'. Not sure where the series is going now, but excited to see.