strrygo's reviews
248 reviews

Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu (Novel) Vol. 4 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

On Love by Alain de Botton

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

3.5

going back n forth about whether this was self-absorbed on accident or if the characters' singlemindedness was an intentional part of the commentary; super interesting n enjoyable if u accept botton's protagonist isn't a projection of any standard for love just a muddled mess which is a better canvas for the rationalization of love,smt so irrational, and inherently focused on the internal world in the context of loving,being loved(when r u ever forced out of yourself more) which was so interesting for a lot of the time and just as baffling even more of the time, rly shouldn't be rated this high but there r so many lines i loved too much to fault them for the parts i didn't!!!! sort of lost me at the end nd there was lots i disagreed with.. but i can't Make myself dislike it(for now)
Murder in Retrospect by Agatha Christie

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

3.0

more game than book, i need to know how they decided when a chapter should start or end because it felt so arbitrary, how r u starting another chapter mid thought? it's the same sentence ?? otherwise Yea!!! mystery murder fun sometimes mostly fun bc its short nd quick i could not take more of these ppl!!  :3 was not that hard to solve just bc it was a little heavy handed abt it's clues but that's fine too, rip amyas kind of deserved
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An Imaginary Life by David Malouf

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

4.0

The Frolic of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima

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

4.0

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Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet

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

2.5

just so hit or miss, didn't feel cohesive because it's thematically consistent but does not track in its execution across the stories, would have much preferred this if the distance between man and animal was kept consistent, or at least if the changes felt like they offered something, but stories where i wanted more of the animal kept them on the periphery and stories where the life of the person the animal was being attached to felt like it should matter(because otherwise what's the point...) were just mentioned as what seemed like an afterthought, even in the stories i preferred :[ real standout was tesla and wife, i could've read that removed from the context of the collection and still enjoyed it just as much, maybe even more !! 

✧ favorite: tesla and wife
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri

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

2.5

can't pin it exactly but this feels unfinished, somehow, like i'm floating wayyyy above the scenes and her instead of There, think it might be that it reads too much like the journal of someone who knows others will be reading it eventually(likemy journal..to be exact...which i cannot and will not read for that reason..but this made me feel like i Was reading it) 
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

what could i possibly even say
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What is Cinema?: Volume I by André Bazin

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informative

3.0

rly enjoyed 2 of the essays (chaplin was esp fun! the stand out of the book), was slightly interested in some of the stuff the others had to say just bc i'd been introduced to the ideas before in a more engaging context (class discussions) but i think not having seen a lot of the films/directors used as the basis of the analyses made this a real doozy for me. got so excited when i did though!!!! also realizing i'm not a nonfiction girl...or could b i'm approaching it wrong..but could also b me just loving a narrative and a more cohesive thread in my essay collections..... 
wouldntve finished or given it the effort i did to get through it if it didn't come to me as a recommendation from someone rlly excited abt it :,) 
Dubliners by James Joyce

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
can't put a pin in how i felt abt this..n still keep going in circles abt it. recognize its objective importance n Thought i would love the vignettes (actually only picked this up bc of a prof who was obsessed w modernism n joyce, so i did know what i was getting into) more but some of them just felt beyond me. think my own lack of awareness in terms of the book's context or place in history played a big part, but there was also just a detachment i felt with some of the stories that i don't think i could recover or bridge with any amount of research. do Get It but i was craving some warmth in the in-betweens :,) bc when it's cold it's cold but when it's warm....then i get it.

✧ favorites: araby, eveline, a little cloud, a painful case, the dead