safekeeper's reviews
94 reviews

Genuenely funny, really clever, and at the same time lighthearted. I love 'Yahtzee's style of humor and storytelling. Also loved the jabs at the sci-fi genre and its more... bizarre fans.

I think I didn't get this one, and I didn't feel it gave me anything. It's supposed to be satire, but I'm not sure what exactly it's meant to satirize (I've read it's something to do with militarism in sci-fi or something). Also didn't find it particularly funny. The plot was engaging in the beginning, but the endless droning on about military training got monotonous in the end. Another book to cross off my to-read list, I suppose.

 2.0 ⭐ from the three hours I listened to.

Just too dull and dry, Richie should've probably stuck with Phillip K. Dick although this at least gave him some badly needed character development. The high point of the audio book for me was when the Japanese narrator read "this whole time" and his accent caused him to switch out the 'l' for an 'r'.

The protagonist was not only colourless but also hopelessly boring, and honestly, like Richie I thought this was why they abandoned him, because honestly it'd be enough to make anyone drop that ***. The talk and depictions of sex in this book just felt gross for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. According to reviews and the plot summary on Wiki there's also a false SA accusation, which not only sounds like a cop-out on the author's part when he could have come up with something actually interesting, or some actual conflict to resolve, but which I also dislike as a plot device (especially with false rape accusations being incredibly rare in reality), and just feels wrong in a book that's this full of fantasies and depictions of sex.

Gonna be some spoilers ahead.

Overall, I found this a surprisingly riveting listen, I almost couldn't put it down.  It wasn't what I expected (my other Kristin Hannah books are Nightingale and The Great Alone, so I was expecting something a bit more dramatic), and it was pretty heavy-handed at times, but I really enjoyed it overall. 

The depictions of grief and loss were believable and felt like they were based on real experiences. Not sure if it was realistic how Lexi ended up with so much of the blame for what happened in the accident (not calling home was a decision they made together, and she only got behind the wheel because Zack, who was way more drunk, was dead set on driving drunk and Lexi couldn't talk him out of it, and she probably crashed only because Zack and Mia were acting out and distracting her), but maybe that's just the kind of irrational thinking that follows a great loss. I also found it kind of unrealistic how quickly Jude made a 180° turn and went form being terrified of Lexi to letting her back into their lives once she started talking to her, and I wish Kristin Hannah wouldn't have skipped over most of Lexi's time in prison. I'd be interested in reading about her descent into, and recover from, drugs, and the other trouble she got into. In fact, this story would've probably benefitted from being told over two books. 

Overall, though, I'm glad I listened to this book, but at the same time, while I've listened to The Great Alone twice and I know I will go back to it again, I don't feel a need to revisit Night Road.

An inspiring manifesto that argues for sabotage (though never violence against people) to stop the climate crisis, citing everything from the civil rights movements to the sufragettes as role models, going into detail how neither were as peaceful as we have been led to believe. It's a bit stuck in its white middle class male bubble at times, and a bit longwinded in places, especially towards the end, but well worth the relatively short read.

Loved the Nightingale and Great Alone, but this one ended up being too romance/chicklit for mye taste. To be honest I intended to read The Night Road, and from the similarities of the plots starting points, I got them mixed up and accidentally bought a romantic chicklit book. Whoops. Not the book's fault, mind, so I'm not going to leave a negative review. In fact I found it really well written, with an engaging story inbetween all the love, romance, and sex scenes.

Maybe I abandoned it in the middle of a particularly love-heavy part of the book, and I might return to it some day, but the part of it that I read just wasn't my cup of tea.

"Hvis det ikke brenner, chill the fuck out."
Men hva hvis det er lenge siden det brant, og traumene og følelsene fremdeles er der og kan komme tilbake? Hovedpersonen Linda kommer over en eske med ting hun trodde hun hadde kastet, og som hun forbinder med noe traumatisk som skjedde for noe tid siden. Fortellingen handler om at det som skjedde kommer nærmere og plassen det opptar i tankene hennes. For selv om hun tilsynelatende er på et godt sted, med gode folk rundt seg og en meningsfylt jobb, sliter hun fremdeles med at fortiden ligger og ulmer og kan blusse opp igjen, slik traumer gjerne kan. Linda har aldri ordentlig snakket om det som skjedde, hun sover for lite, og jobben hennes på krisesenteret er kanskje valgt som en slags mestringsstrategi, selv om den også kan "trigge" følelser og minner.

"Hvis det ikke brenner" er en vakkert tegnet bok om å overleve mens en prøver å holde fortiden på en armlengdes avstand.

A cautionary tale from the 50s that feels more relevant than ever, with ever more widespread automation and the advent of AI that is already making jobs obsolete. In Player Piano, machines have made humans largely obsolete for all but manual labour. Even bureaucratic tasks like police work are handled by what we today would call algorithms. This has lead to a widespread sense of hopelessness for the people who, even though they are well provided-for by the State thanks to the abundant wealth brought about by the machines, also struggle with how they don't feel valuable to society, or get to pursue careers in fields that actually interest them. A visiting shah, seeing the society where the citizens are increasingly lacking a purpose, even wants to ask EPICAC, the master computer running and micro-managing every aspect of society, what it thinks is the purpose of the (increasingly obsolete) humans living in America.

Player Piano is sobering in that it takes one of our contemporary visions of the future --a society where machines make the wheels of the economy turn for us and people are paid a universal basic income, and portrays it as a dystopia plagued by directionlessness. That being said, it's also a cautionary tale about how those who prefer the inciting revolutions and civil wars instead of steady, incremental progress tend to immediately lose control of them and see them become way more atrocious and bloody than they envisioned.

(And yes, it's from the 50s, so obviously comes with the baggage of that period's racism, gender roles, and American exceptionalism.)