safekeeper's reviews
94 reviews

I study geography and cartography, so this one instantly caught my eye in the bookstore, and after rifling through it in the shop I added it to my Christmas wishlist. Unfortunately, while it's an interesting concept with a wide variety of maps and topics, it also has its share of issues.

For starters, the maps are often laid out so that Europe ends up in the middle where the two pages meet, which with my paperback copy meant that part of the map was harder to read. A better idea would've been to lay out the maps so that either the empty Pacific Ocean, or Greenland and the Atlantic 'fell between the pages'.

Also, a fair few of the maps are hard to read as the colours are too similiar. Several of the maps also give the darkest colours to the lowest data values, even though map readers instinctively interpret the darkest colours as the highest values. Additionally, not all the colour sets are colour blind friendly.

Additionally, some of the maps should have better explanations than just their title. Particularly, there's a map that shows roads branching out from the city of Rome captioned "All roads lead to Rome" and no further explanation. As far as I've been able to figure out by Googling, this map is an art project that shows European roads that happen to lead to Rome, but the caption gives a misleading impression.

All in all, it's a great idea and an interesting book. A second edition with some editing would for readability and clarity would make it truly shine.
3.5.

A wonderful family narrative which follows a Vietnamese family over decades. Reminds me quite a bit of On Earth we are Briefly Gorgeous, only far less bleak. The fact that it follows a whole cast of characters instead of a single character also helps a lot. Loved the character development, and how it tackles such a wide range of issues.

Dette er en utrolig viktig bok, og dekker et så stort spenn av tema at den er lærerik både for unge og voksne. Er du en forelder med tenåring eller et barn som nærmer seg tenårene, er denne boken en perfekt presang. Senneset dekker et bredt spekter av tema fra A til Å, og skriver klokt og med innsikt om alt fra hverdags- og tenåringsproblemer til skjønnhetsindusrtrien, samfunnets holdninger til dem som trenger hjelp fra Nav, selvmordstanker og spiseforstyrrelser og hennes egen erfaring med psykose. Det er lenge siden jeg har opplevd så mye visdom mellom to permer.

Skulle gjerne sett at boken var enda lenger, for jeg vet at forfatteren sitter på kunnskap og innsikt om enda flere tema. Skulle for eksempel gjerne sett at mobbing var dekket, selv om jeg forstår at mensen er viktig og tabu nok til å fortjene et helt kapittel for seg selv. Kanskje Senneset får skrive en oppfølger.

Uansett en utrolig velskrevet og viktig bok med mye innsikt.

Beautifully drawn, tells an insightful story about a girl starting to suffer from an eating disorder. Recommended. Wish this would be translated to other languages.

Bow&Arrow is an authentic and relatable story. I can't remember the last time I read a comic drawn in pencil, and the art style itself is colourful, expressive, and portrays both the environment and the character's feelings wonderfully, and also switches from realistic to dreamlike when it wants to reflect the protagonist's daydreams, ponderings, and emotions.

I also found myself rooting for the protagonist throughout the book, and I love that she included her more 'clumsy', immature, and vulnerable moments as well as her successes. Really recommend this one.

(Would've easily been a five if not for the narrator who did a bit of over-acting at times, particularly when doing a very stereotypical interpretation of a German who speaks faltering English, and a Norwegian accent that sounded nothing like it. That's easily forgivable, though, most of the time he does a great job. Either way, it's the only reason this book doesn't get a 5 from me.)

If you liked The Martian, just go get this book already. Don't read reviews, don't read the description, just run get it. You'll want to know as little as possible about this one before you pick it up. Suffice to say it's got all the MacGuyver-esque science-made-fun atmosphere that made The Martian so special, plus a story that's inventive, emotional, and incredibly heartwarming, with a nice ebb and flow of successes and catastrophies. You know, like in the Martian. The setting is really different, so it feels like a fresh experience.

Can't wait for the film.

Starr and her close-knit family lives in Garden Heights, where it's not a given that a kid will graduate high school, or even live to turn 18. The sound of gunshots is an everyday occurrence, snitching can make you the target of gang violence, and encounters with white police officers can be traumatizing life-or-death moments where making the wrong move during a stop can lead to you "becoming a hashtag". Skin colour matters a lot more than many of Starr's white friends realize, and she's hesitant to introduce her white boyfriend to her parents.

By contast, where Starr goes to high school her privilegued students who go on vacation trips to distant countries. Here Starr can't be herself, but has to shift to a second version of herself who speaks and acts more formally so as not to be labelled "ghetto".

When Starr and her childhood friend Khalil are pulled over by a police officer and a confrontation ends up with him getting shot and killed, her neighbourhood erupts in protests and violence while she has to deal with her own trauma and grief, and friends at her high school, who don't know she was present at the shooting, views the incident as little more than a drug dealer killed by police. Meanwhile, Starr struggles to come to terms with her own role, and whether she should remain anonymous and try to move on, or use her voice for Khalil and everyone subject to police killings and systemic racism in general.

The book does a great job at portraying both the societal issues it writes about, including Starr's trauma, including the way her friends don't understand her sudden outbursts when they talk about the killing, or throw out the kind of racist remarks that can be played down with "I was just joking, why are you being so sensitive". It takes the time to delve into a wide range of topics, from black activism and litterature, gang violence and "snitching", the ethics around protests, riots, and vandalism, class difference and prejudice, how people can so easily get caught up in a life of drug dealing and crime, and white ignorance about racism and the minority experience.

I've seen the book be criticized for being too predictable, both in terms of plot and the admittedly one-dimensional characters. If you are already familiar with the topics, this book maybe won't do much for you. To this privilegued white guy who's far removed from it all living in Scandinavia, though, it was shockingly eye-opening, even after following the last few years' discussion on police shootings, discrimination, and the violent attacks on peaceful protests in the summer of 2020.

Overall, 4 stars, highly recommended. Probably going to watch the film now.

A cozy and relatable book about a summer vacation somewhere in between childhood and early adolescence.

For another comic set to a summer vacation, but for older readers, see That One Summer by Mariko Tamaki.

A cozy and uplifting book, worth a read.