amy_haynes's reviews
688 reviews

It's really not my humour and I fear it will be more of the same for all eternity. There's too many other books I want to read to let this stall stop me. 

This book was mostly really enjoyable. It manages to be informative and interesting whilst also good fun. The best parts were when Bill and Cats were together; it lost a lot of its charm when Bill was day hiking alone. They were both very human and unafraid to show their flaws throughout the book which made it easy to feel like you got to know them. I now really fancy a long hike somewhere. 

Not my usual genre but i did really get invested in all the characters. I think I could have done with it ending sooner and perhaps not tieing up quite so symmetrically I feel it deserved to be end on a messier note. But over all a great sweeping family saga. 

What an odd book. For a while I genuinely thought this was hoping to be a gay awakening by the sea side. Instead it was a sort of midlife crises combined with a depressive delerium. It was almost dreamlike at times. I can't say i particularly enjoyed it. Edna was far to unlikable in her selfishness especially in terms of her children, and I can't fathom why so many men were interested in her. I believe it's well written (though what do I know) but the story just plodded on with potentially the only plausible conclusion. Not a book I'd recommend on the whole. 

I don't know how to rate this so J won't give it a star rating. But I liked it, found it very easy to comprehend and enjoyed the structure. That being said I know diddly squat about poetry. 

I enjoyed reading this as someone with a passing interest is puzzles, riddles and statistics. I have no particular interest in interviewing and employment but the book is written well enough that I found it all enjoyable and quite fascinating at times. Not being especially familiar with this type of writing I can't really rate it relative to others of the type and so it may have an articifially high rating as its the first of its kind and therfore everything was new and fresh to me. 

It's all wonderful allegorical fiction until the last quarter where it gets sad and confusing. It did make me research the author and honestly that is an even wilder ride. 

Mark Twain has a masterful way of describing human nature. His understanding of the impulsiveness of children and the melodrama of internal dialogue was great fun to listen to. I can't think of another author who so effortlessly places me in such a convincing and vivid, yet foreign environment. Loved it. 

George Orwell is a master of his craft. His ideas and creations are spectacularly well formed and coherently and vividly conveyed. This book hasn't aged a day. I marked it down from 5 stars for 2 reasons. First is a what I read as or wells belief that man's natural urges are to rape and murder if he can't get his own way (perhaps only intended in the world he's created but still...) and generally an uncomfortable representation of sex and gender. Secondly in the final part of the book there are some very long explanatory chapters that seem overly repetative and hammer their points so hard that they stop being ground breaking and seem to lose a lot of their power that way. 
Over all I loved it.