xyzhou's reviews
64 reviews
Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke
5.0
This is for sure biased because I’m not really one to read letters like this but I was really REALLY struck by how human and how touching this exchange is despite just reading it from one side and very edited. Rilke’s perspective is incredibly striking and quite frankly beautiful
The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
4.0
fascinating in a way— started from a very abstract place that i didn’t really understand the urgency of and became something a lot more interesting… excited to see how it develops
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative, by Austin Kleon
2.5
interesting potential but too cheesy
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3.75
it’s interesting and has a lot of lines of plot that connect together well. i liked the romance, my only complaint about it really is that the characters were pretty obviously poc written by a white woman— i suppose it can’t really be helped, but it could have been a little less obvious.
Babel: An Arcane History, by R.F. Kuang
I'm not really into Kuang's propensity to over-explain the morals and thoughts of the characters. I do think that it made the book very easily understandable, but at times it feels like she explains through the text inferences and thoughts that the reader can take away through just thinking or annotating it through. It definitely validates my mental thought process while reading but I don't think it is always necessary-- especially in the so-called golden days when she mentions how lucky and how good everything is and how it is about to change. I think it spoils the build-up of tension for me.
Kuang likes writing dark and gritty series. I'm trying not to compare to Poppy War that much, I'm glad that she kept the torture to a minimum here but... it just had to be there... I hope she explores writing dark stories without the violence and torture of it all. At some points in the book it just seems like everything is happening and the torture is just the cherry on top for the horror. Also did this story really also have to end with the protagonist killing himself?
An overall good book I'd say, excited to read more from Kuang.
3.0
Honestly, I respect R.F. Kuang and I'm fascinated by the ideas she has. Like genuinely I find them really interesting. I think that this book really represents the growth in her writing career, I like it much more than the Poppy War series, I loved the characters (at least in the beginning) and how real this book was when it came to representation. Let's do a pros and cons list to be fair:
Wonderful, loveable characters. They really represent the different ends of the ideological spectrum very well. They all felt really real in the beginning
I think that Kuang is really good at writing school fiction, and this book felt very Secret History, dark academia-inspired (maybe because it's Oxford). Very playful environment, very fun worldbuilding.
The research and thought that went into this book is evident. Its delightful to read, especially since it is a historical fiction.
Spoiler
Pros:Wonderful, loveable characters. They really represent the different ends of the ideological spectrum very well. They all felt really real in the beginning
I think that Kuang is really good at writing school fiction, and this book felt very Secret History, dark academia-inspired (maybe because it's Oxford). Very playful environment, very fun worldbuilding.
The research and thought that went into this book is evident. Its delightful to read, especially since it is a historical fiction.
Spoiler
Cons:I'm not really into Kuang's propensity to over-explain the morals and thoughts of the characters. I do think that it made the book very easily understandable, but at times it feels like she explains through the text inferences and thoughts that the reader can take away through just thinking or annotating it through. It definitely validates my mental thought process while reading but I don't think it is always necessary-- especially in the so-called golden days when she mentions how lucky and how good everything is and how it is about to change. I think it spoils the build-up of tension for me.
Kuang likes writing dark and gritty series. I'm trying not to compare to Poppy War that much, I'm glad that she kept the torture to a minimum here but... it just had to be there... I hope she explores writing dark stories without the violence and torture of it all. At some points in the book it just seems like everything is happening and the torture is just the cherry on top for the horror. Also did this story really also have to end with the protagonist killing himself?
An overall good book I'd say, excited to read more from Kuang.
Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami
4.0
strange, stilted, and really really graphic at moments. these Japanese schoolchildren are really another level of messed up. i think the distorted grasp on reality speaks to the off-kilter perspective of the protagonist. they say that the romans turned to stoicism because their life sucked so much... in the same way it seems that these dismal little children attempt to find meaning or force themselves to become jaded and care about nothing. kojima and momose seem to be extremes on either side of the spectrum that haunt the narrator. I'm glad he fixed his eyes
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
4.25
a little convoluted and off putting at first but kind of surprising and delightful if you keep going