thewindupreaderchronicle's reviews
19 reviews

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

3.0

 [the sympathizer - viet thanh nguyen] 

 

“my liver was, along with my conscience, the most abused part of my body” 

 

stars: ⭑⭑⭑ 

 

after the fall of saigon, a double agent army captain arrives to los angeles with other vietnamese refugees. while in the united states, where he arrived as the right-hand man of a general from the south vietmanese army, he secretly reports about his compatriots to the viet cong. 

 

 

the first half of it has all what you would expect from a book categorized as a thriller, about and spies and similar to the ones written by john le carré. i personally really enjoyed how the author describes the evacuation from the saigon airport. it gives you chills, you can 100% feel the desperation and fear, but also the love between the narrator and his close friend bon, and bon’s with his wife and son. however, towards the end there are some chapters that are way too slow, with so much details about things that, from my point of view, doesn’t help to enhance the narration. 

 

i am not very familiar with the vietnam war, so ‘the sympathizer’ was a great book to show many of what had happened from a different point of view than the west. it’s undeniable that nguyen knows how to write, in fact, he does it in wonderfully, but i had some problems with the rhythm of the whole book. 

 

m. 🌸 

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

fast-paced

5.0

 [days at the morisaki bookshop - satoshi yagisawa] 

 

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ 

 

after her life falls apart, takako receives a call from her uncle satoru, who runs their family owned bookshop in the neighbourhood of jinbōchō. ‘days at the morisaki bookshop’ is made up of two parts: the first one where we go deep down in takako’s personal life and her days since moving into the flat above the morisaki bookshop; and the second one which through the main character we discover the feelings and personal struggles of momoko, the woman who used to be married to satoru. 

 

🗼 about part one: there is nothing i enjoy as much as reading a book about how wonderful being surrounded by books is. i really enjoy how it’s a daily life story, with a warm feeling, and how through the descriptions you can truly feel the essence of where it’s set. 

 

🏞 about part two: i personally didn’t like it as much as the first, but the story about momoko is still intriguing. i don’t feel like the author creates the same warm atmosphere as he does in part one, but it is also true that maybe it isn’t what was needed. 

 

regardless, the whole book has a “simple” prose, not something super extravagant nor complicated, but this doesn’t mean that it’s not well written. it makes it super easy to read and enjoyable. 

 

m. 🌸 

Azami, el club de Mitsuko by Aki Shimazaki

fast-paced

3.0

 

[azami - aki shimazaki] 

 

stars: ⭑⭑⭑ 

 

‘azami’ is the first book from the pentalogy ‘l’ombre du chardon’ by aki shimazaki. mitsuo is a writer for a magazine and has been married to his wife for some years, with whom he has two nice kids. while it all seems to look perfectly fine from the outside, something is missing. when he meets a colleague from his childhood school things start to change, specially after he gets in touch with mitsuko, his first love. 

 

it was short and sweet. it was a good book to read in a couple of hours on a sunday morning with a cup of coffee in your hand. the prose was nice, and super easy to read. adulthood, relationships and how the past merges with the present. maybe i wouldn’t give it another star because the story is not far from the predictable (but that doesn’t make it childish) 

 

i already got the next book from the collection, so i’m excited to read it if i can before the year ends. i will also use this chance to wish everyone happy holidays. 

 

best wishes, 

 

m. 🌸 

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

 [a room of one’s own - virgina woolf] 

 

“but, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of one's own?" 

 

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑ 

 

woolf isn’t capable of leaving readers indifferent when slipping through her pages, and that is something that only those who know how to use words can do. 

 

it would be a lie if i said that it’s a book that was easy to read. no, it was not. after being in my tbr list for some months, i started it and quit after one chapter because i was not in the mood. but some time later it was the right time and wow, it’s amazing. 

 

‘a room of one’s own’ is based on a series of lectures she delivered at newnham college and girton colloge, women’s colleges at cambridge university. in the essay, woolf starts by stating the need for women that want to become writers to have “a room of one’s own with a lock on the door, and five hundred pounds of annual wage”. but it goes to much more beyond than that, and this fundamental feminist text explores the women’s position in the literature, a tradition historically dominated by men. 

 

i personally love reading non-fiction, especially when the author is skilled enough to not exclude a creative and metaphorical writing from their story. and woolf is, by far, capable and doing that. i enjoyed how she questions everything she is talking about, particularly when talking about the brief history of women writers. 

 

if you want a book that gets your brain active while reading, this is one you can not miss. and if you need to stop reading, go back or maybe leave it on your side table for some days, that is completely right. it’s not a book that you can pass by. 

 

m. 🌸 

Hiroshima by John Hersey

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

 

[hiroshima - john hersey] 

 

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ (it feels weird to put starts to the suffering of millions of people, but i rate it from the perspective of how it’s written) 

 

“his memory, like the world’s, was getting spotty.” 

 

after some weeks of being stuck with my reading, starting new books and stopping after a couple of chapters, over and over again, i was frustrated. so i decided to go back to my “roots”, if i can put it like that. 

 

in a convulse time, with so much worldwide uncertainty, john hersey words remember us what we are capable of doing to other humans, that are just like us. through an apparent effortless writing style, hersey conveys the full horror that the atomic bomb was in hiroshima. 

 

a mother, a doctor, a priest.. they all had a life before this horrendous event. and after, conditioned forever by one of the most cruel acts humankind has seen, they tried to survive, continue with what they were doing and strive for a better future for those who they cared about. 

 

it’s difficult to put into words what all those people in ‘hiroshima’ had gone through, but i think hersey is able to make us understand (us, the ones born way after this happened and thousands of kilometres far from it) what it meant to throw an atomic bomb to a city. and again, it is now when we must remember and be conscious about how cruel we can be to people who are just like us. 

 

m. 🌸 

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

5.0

 

[on earth we’re briefly gorgeous - ocean vuong] 

 

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ 

 

“all this time i told myself we were born from war—but i was wrong, ma. we were born from beauty. let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence—but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.” 

 

‘on earth we’re briefly gorgeous’ it’s a letter from a boy, a son, to his mother who can’t read. it’s not a tale, but the truth of the long-lasting impact of the vietnam war and the consequent immigration to a foreign country (the united states) to this family. a familiar story that that could resonate to many other ones. 

 

note: i have never gone through any kind of situation similar to what it’s portrayed in this book. it’s a reality that i will never 100% understand (i hope), but thanks to novels like this i become more aware and sensible to other realities. 

 

all the hype surrounding ‘on earth we’re briefly gorgeous’ is so so deserved. it might sound exaggerated, but this book was life changing in the way it is written. it’s a masterpiece. it’s the greatest example of how to use words in a brilliant way. i really like what daisy johnson says: “vuong is rewriting what fiction is supposed to be and it’ is a privilege to watch”. and also ben lerner: “vuong expands our sense of what literature can make visible, thinkable, felt across borders and generations and genres”. 

 

if i didn’t already make it obvious, vuong works with words in a magical way. the metaphor done with the monarch butterflies migrating says so many things without making it explicit, because thanks to all the narrative layers built you can get his message. it’s also a portrait of what vuong calls “to be awake in american bones”, the hardships that you go through in that country, with or without citizenship. 

 

i will use another example to sum up. in one sentence he is talking about oxytocin addiction and the next one is about what is art. it doesn’t feel chaotic, it makes one hundred percent sense. and that’s the beauty and what makes ‘on earth we’re briefly gorgeous’ so brilliant. 

 

m. 🌸 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

[the remains of the day - kazuo ishiguro]

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑

stevens is a butler in darligton hall, an english country house owned by lord darlingon. he is not a simple butler, but the most dedicated and diligent one. that, obviously, comes with benefits but also perks. in the summer of 1956, he decides to take a road trip to visit miss kenton (who used to be the housekeeper of darlington hall), and while driving he reflects about what had happened years ago in the house.

i don’t want to miss the opportunity to highlight the excellent prose in this book. ishiguro never misses a detail about all the complex aspects that form the personality and attitudes of a british butler, in order to build up his narrative.

🏷️ hi! i read this book in the reading club at my university and from the conversation that it started, i decided to take some notes. it’s different from what i usually do, but i think that it’s great to engage in conversations surrounding books.

· how i have lived? that’s the main question both stevens and miss kenton ask themselves. she asks it to herself before him.

· stevens as an unreliable narrator. everything he says does it so well that you believe it. he is not lying, but he always has a rational justification for everything.

· stevens is a master of his job. part of this virtuosity is his unconditionality. his honor is lord darlington honor, his biography is lord darlington biography.

· the constant. conflict between personal life and professional life.

· relationship with the father. stevens doesn’t know how to reduce his fathers tasks, it’s a way of telling him that he is getting old.

· ishiguro and the descriptions. he has a great description capacity. what happens, the characters, the landscapes… he does it accurately and with a “stevens style”.

m. 🌸

Hardboiled & Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto

emotional hopeful reflective sad

4.0

 

[hardboiled & hard luck - banana yashimoto] 

 

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑ 

 

“but before long, i realized that she saw things differently. or rather, some part of me realized it, and i kept pretending i hadn’t noticed. i felt horrible about what i had done. she was still there inside me now, just as she always was: a life put on hold, a memory i didn’t know how to handle.” 

 

it’s about love, loss, memory. ‘hardboiled and hard luck’ is a book made by two separate stories that walk you through the process of accepting the death of a loved one. 

 

in the first one, ‘hardboiled’, yoshimoto writes about a woman that is on a hike when suddenly surreal things start to happen. the story follows in a hotel, where  those surreal things happen and where the story fully develops and we get to know what had happened to that woman. lately i’ve been really into human stories, about how we, as persons, deal with different life situations. the author not only does this with an exquisite writing style, but also with a refined use of magical realism elements. 

 

the second story, ‘hard luck’, evolves around a woman whose sister (whom she adored) suddenly was left in a coma. in such a difficult situation, a beautiful love story blossoms with the brother of her sister’s fiancée. i love how yoshimoto writes, that’s a fact, and this story, even it touches common topics with the first one, has a completely different vibe. 

 

it’s really nice to get two different beautifully written in one book. in such a small amount of pages, banana yoshimoto is able to write a book that combines, i quote the edition i read, “delicate prose with unconventional characters”. 

 

m. 🌸 

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

emotional informative inspiring fast-paced

4.0

[pachinko - min jin lee]

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑

there are two things that i love when they are well combined: history and fiction. and pachinko has both of them.

without having an extensive knowledge about the japanese occupation of the korean peninsula (or about the lives of koreans in japan), lee gives you enough context to understand and follow the historical context that surrounds the characters and, undoubtedly, shapes how they live, think and act.

while the book is not an extremely short one (mine had around 500 pages with a big typography), the reading pace was never slow. lee is able to catch your attention with her writing style and vocabulary, not adding any unnecessary fioriture.

through the lives of sunja, solomon or isak, lee touches controversial topics during a period of our history (and even present times in some parts of our world): pregnancy outside of marriage, religious beliefs or aids.

if i have to be a little bit critical, there were occasions when the chapters finished way too suddenly. i don’t particularly enjoy having one of the main characters killed in two sentences. from what i read in other reviews, it was somehow a common feeling. but please, please, please, don’t let this prevent you from reading ‘pachinko’, a page turner from the first chapter.

m. 🌸

A Girl's Story by Annie Ernaux

reflective slow-paced

4.0

[a girl’s story - annie ernaux]

stars: ⭑⭑⭑⭑

“i too wanted to forget that girl. really forget her, that is, stop yearning to write about her. stop thinking that I have to write about this girl and her desire and madness, her idiocy and pride, her hunger and her blood that ceased to flow. i have never managed to do so.”

‘a girl’s story’ is travelling back to the summer of 1958 with the author, as she recalls the time she spent at a summer camp in normandie.

writing from a “present”, ernaux revisits those events, in which there is her first sexual experience with a man, whom she viewed at the time almost like a mystic god (above all, she just wanted to be loved by him). the truth is that these encounters left her with a depression and an eating disorder because the annie of 1958 didn’t know what consent was.

specially through this book you can see how ernaux has evolved as a woman, influenced by may 68 and simone de beauvoir amongst others, and how she now views what happened in that camp not only with the maturity acquired through the time, but also from a feminist perspective.

if you want to read something short but well written and that makes you think, that’s your book. my edition had around 150 pages, and while the prose wasn’t simple nor easy, you can still enjoy without finishing the book and not knowing what you’ve read.

m. 🌸