jeremychiasson's reviews
1140 reviews

The joke sort of wore itself thin by the end of the story, and kids just won't get it, but I can't give such a clever book concept less than 3 stars!

The lovely water colours are still here, the whimsy is as well. But "Hi, Koo!" just didn't satisfy me or make me think like the previous Zen Panda books. I think it's because I'm too much of a philistine to "get" haiku.

Somewhere between a John Green Novel and The Big Bang Theory.

If that sounds awesome, than I can guarantee you will love this book. It will make you think and feel or whatever it is you do. I imagine 85% of people who read "The Rosie Project" will love it. So I'd recommend it to most people I meet.

Personally though, I found it annoying and overly cute.

A pretty funny book about pets and accepting people for who they are. Plus, who doesn't like sloths?

Binky the Space Cat is the tale, told in the form of a graphic novel, of Binky, a cat that wants to go into space to protect his family from aliens (also known as bugs).

This will absolutely kill with the primary/elementary school crowd.

"The Shadow of the Wind" was far from a perfect read, but the perfume-scented beauty of the story intoxicated me and dulled my critical faculties.

My Brain: Mixing metaphors? But it is forbidden, Mr. Zafon!

Zafon: (places a finger on my lips, and whispers in a Spanish accent) Hush now, silly brain. Go to sleep and forget about the quality of the writing. My metaphors are a lot like diamonds in the rough--one in the hand is worth two in the bush.

And then I would smile like a dope, forget what I was so upset about, and keep reading.

While his technical ability as a writer might not make this a classic, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's passion and flair for storytelling does. You savour the prose, even though half of it is flowery bullshit. You love the characters, even though deep down you question their originality. And you read the story with rapture, despite the melodrama.

This book is damn good at what it does, and what it does is seduce you. "The Shadow of the Wind" is the literary equivalent of a passionate fling. So don't look at this book in the unforgiving light of morning, steal glances at it, from across a smoky bar. Immerse yourself in the mystery of Gothic Spain. Give in to your urges, my bookish friends, and read it!

I'm torn about how to evaluate this book, because it had some serious merits, but there were way too many problems for me to love this book head-over-heels.

I know it was partially played as a gag, but Jairo's worship of Willow clues us into something a bit problematic about the text as a whole. That is the fetishization of Willow's giftedness. Sloan not only make her gifted, she makes her so special that Willow radically improves the life of anyone she encounters. Willow is basically a Mensa Saviour, and even if the author tries to portray her as a "quirky orphan" as some sort of tragic flaw, it does nothing to hide Sloan's obvious idealization of gifted kids.

Dell is supposedly redeemed, but we never really see him become a better counsellor. He just becomes less fat and sloppy, and learns to care for a few people other than himself. Willow barely shrugs when she finds out about Dell's horrific labelling method. Poor Dell, it's not his fault he doesn't give a shit about people.

Patti, who is so great for 80% of this book, decides to finally spend her secret fortune. Apparently her regular children weren't special enough to deserve a decent standard of living? Similarly, when Jairo listens to Saint Willow, he wins enough money to cover his entire college education. This author clearly came from a different economic reality than these characters, because she doesn't really get how money works. I know it's just a kid's book, but please, limit the financial miracles to one per book. And if you're going to have a miracle, don't use it as a deus-ex-machina to escape character development.

None of these feel-good redemptions feel earned. At times, Counting by 7's reads like a a savvy author's attempt at reverse-engineering classic newberry winners. I hope that wasn't her aim, because this was a funny and insightful book, most of the time.

Very cute story told through an exchange between the book's narrator, and a rather silly cat who wants to replace the Easter Bunny.

In this very funny and readable book, Ronson takes a look at public shaming. He researches public shaming methods of the 18th century, you know, where people would be locked in the stockades and publicly whipped. Then he compares it with the way people's lives are publicly ruined by the harsh judgement of twitter users nowadays.

Ronson claims that Twitter has led to the democratization of justice, ushering in a golden age of public shaming. You’ve heard of street justice, well this is Tweet justice! Throughout the book, he meets up with and interviews several people who were publicly shamed, to see how the shaming has affected their lives.

What Ronson finds is that though it sometimes achieves a good outcome for society, for the most part, the price these people had to pay for their transgressions far exceeds the severity of their crimes. Shame, as it turns out, is one of the most corrosive and mortifying things that can happen to a person.

Along the way Ronson debunks Zimbardo and Lebon, visits prison rehabilitation centres, and makes compulsive liars andplagiarists like Jonah Lehrer, sympathetic. I thought it was funny how hard Ronson came down on pop science writers, considering he's a pop psychology writer.

At any rate, it was a really fun, thoughtful examination of shame.

This is a kids book intended to be read by kids,so it didn't do a whole lot for me. That being said, I still got a few chuckles out of this very silly story.

Perfect for Wimpy Kid fans, and boys who are reluctant to read.