June Book Review
Welcome to my Monthly Reading Wrap-Up, June 2023 edition!
(Catch up with last month’s reading wrap-up here first!)
These reviews are going to have a more organic structure and will include anything I am thinking or want to say about the book. Some will be lengthier, more opinion heavy, while others will be more concise.
But that is exactly why I wanted to start a book review blog in the first place! I love reading and wanted a place where I could freely talk about my thoughts and feelings and say exactly what I want about a book.
I read six books this month. They are listed in the order I read them. As always, there is a mix of fiction and non-fiction.
This was part of my ongoing series of books that challenge our culture's obsession with dieting, body modification, and pervasive disordered eating habits disguised as ‘health’ and ‘wellness’.
Dr. Joshua Wolrich presents nutritional science to debunk common diet and health myths that we collectively believe unquestioningly. His mission is to help us free ourselves from the destructive notion that weight defines health and liberate us from the desire to restrict or eliminate food groups in the pathological pursuit to reduce body size.
In today’s age of “fitness influencers” and “wellness gurus'', we are constantly bombarded with the latest health trends—from keto recipes and alkaline water to zero-sugar and intermittent fasting—there seems to always be a hot new diet on the market to try.
And they all do far more harm than good, even when we don’t realize it.
I enjoyed Dr.Wolrich’s approach to demystifying nutritional science because (like everyone else on the planet) he also used to believe the majority of the misinformation he is debunking. He, too, used to struggle with feeling shame about his body size and believed if he could just discover the perfect “diet” the pounds would fall and all would be right in the world. (Sound familiar?) Yeah, pretty much all of us have had similar thoughts.
As previously mentioned, I’m going to write a dedicated blog post on this topic, so stay tuned for my more in-depth thoughts.
This is likely going to be the last book in my series. While it was interesting, relatable, and informative, I don’t feel like I learned a whole lot of new information. Which, I don’t think is a fault of the book, but rather an indication that I now have a vast store of knowledge on the topic :)
The Land Before Time loving kids grow up to become paleontology obsessed adults, and that's a fact.
Evolution, fossils, natural history, archaeology, paleontology–I can't get enough of any of it. This was my latest book on the topic and definitely one of my favorites.
Steve Brusatte is one of the leading new voices in paleontology, having named fifteen new dinosaur species so far in his short career. He dramatically recounts the 200-million-year history of the origins of the dinosaurs’ reign– they themselves the beneficiaries of another mass extinction event at the end of the Triassic period– to their astonishing flourishing and millions of years long reign until their demise from their own mass extinction event.
What I enjoyed most was Brusatte’s descriptions of the dinosaurs and their world. He didn’t blandly state facts, but rather dynamically narrated a detailed portrait of what the dinos’ world looked like, almost like a nature documentary narration. My absolute favorite part came at the end when he described, in minute-by-minute detail, what occurred during that fateful apocalyptic asteroid crash.
It was truly fascinating, engrossing, chocked full of information, but never dry or dull. I could go on and on about how much I loved it, but I’ll spare you. It's getting 5 stars, obviously.
In the literary world, Percival Everett is what's known as A Big Deal™. He has written over 30 books and while this is my first one by him, I can already clearly see why he's so popular.
This was a Book capital B. With a Plot capital P and Themes capital T.
You get the idea.
Everett said “I have something to say and you're going to listen and learn”. And listen I did.
I added this to my list because it was shortlisted for the Booker Awards last year (one of the top literary prizes). And I can definitely see why.
It is a detective crime thriller that spirals into the realm of absurdist obscurity towards the end. While the crime solving mystery plot is the crux of the action, you're not here to actually solve the mystery. It's not about racking up the clues and connecting the dots to figure out whodunnit. There's no red string, detective clue wall. You're really here to take a giant gulp of Real World Social and Political Themes™. It felt so timely, relevant and uniquely situated in this particular moment in history.
The organization, pacing, and flow was wonderful. Each “chapter” was only a few pages because it was divided up by different scenes, so one scene flowed right into the next. The action was kept tight, meaningful, and perfectly paced. I read this in only a few sittings.
If you're looking for a ‘typical’ detective murder mystery where you gather clues to solve the case, this isn't the one. If you want something more unorthodox that will stick with you long after the last page, look no further. It's the type of book that makes me want to read everything else the author has written. And three are already on hold for me at the library. When I'm serious about something, I don't waste time 🙂. 5 stars.
While perusing the shelves of a used book store, I came across this book and immediately put it on hold at my library.
If you know me, you know there are exactly 3 things I’m obsessed with: vampires, mermaids, and of course, aliens!
These essays by world leading cosmologists, astrophysicists, NASA planetary scientists, and geneticists explore what life might look like elsewhere in the solar system and the likelihood of making contact. This should have been an outta the ballpark home run hit for me, but unfortunately it wasn’t.
The science at times was too technical, detailed, and not beginner friendly and I found it difficult to focus and comprehend. Although, the bright side might be that it exposed my weaknesses and highlighted areas for future study.
And my weaknesses are… physics, biology, and chemistry. Like, the full entire curriculum from each subject.
(I’m having flashbacks to my first semester at college when I was required to take an intro chemistry class but I didn’t even qualify for “college level chemistry” and I had to take the pre-chemistry. It met four (!) times a week and one of those days was Tuesday at 7am (!!).)
Anyways, even though there were (quite a few) times when I was basically just scanning my eyeballs over the page, no reading comprehension taking place, there are a few bits of information that really stuck with me.
1) Something that I suppose I already knew on a fundamental level but had never actually stopped to think about and fully let sink in: around 4 billion years ago when the conditions needed to support life (e.g. the correct temperature, atmospheric composition, necessary chemistry components, etc.) emerged, life formed relatively quickly. And it has never happened again since. After that first initial chemical reaction that produced life occurred, it has never happened again in all of the 4 billion years that came after it. Even though all the necessary conditions have remained the same, life has only ever begun once. I don’t know about you, but for some reason that is really tripping me out.
2) I also already knew this one, but this book really reiterated it for me: the window of opportunity to find “intelligent” life is insanely small. Like, so small that all of my hopes have basically been destroyed. As someone whose #1 ultimate goal in life is to be abducted by aliens, this is a crippling blow. And that is as much as I am willing to say on the matter.
3) Not really a fact I learned, more of a comment: towards the end, one of the chapters said something to the effect of “Earth is not special or unique”. I suppose it was alluding to the fact that there are billions and trillions of planets in the universe and they are all just a floating rock orbiting a hot ball of gas and they all operate under the same laws of physics and contain differing levels of the same chemical elements, therefore, ours is nothing new.
Except for the fact that it is?!
To me, the fact that there are billions of rocks with the same chemical elements orbiting stars and yet we cannot find a single one that also has life sounds uhhhhhh pretty darn special and unique and different to me?!
So yeah, I will continue to think Earth and we (read: I) am the center of the universe 🙂.
Not sponsored, but my favorite app of all time is Likewise. It has a huge catalog of basically every movie, tv show, book, documentary, and podcast ever made, and you can add them to your own curated lists. It also gives recommendations based on your preferences and has a community feature where you can ask for recommendations from a specific category.
As stated above, mermaids are in my top 3 obsessions. I posted on Likewise asking for mermaid book recommendations and this was one of them I got. While I did enjoy, its only getting 3.5 stars.
At just barely 160 pages, it was way too short to fully flesh out and explore all the concepts and themes in order to really feel like a full-fledged Book™. It felt like I was reading a rough draft or creative writing short story assignment, not a full book. I would loosely categorize it as fantasy-esque, and I say “esque” because there is not enough substance to be considered fantasy.
It's like saying one chocolate chip is dessert. Simply not enough.
An ideal fantasy book would have the correct balance of world building mixed with plot. This had neither. The world building read almost like a folklore, like myths and legends passed down orally from community elders. And what little plot was interspersed throughout completely failed to captivate my attention.
It should have been my exact cup of tea– it had (queer!) mermaid romance! But the ‘romance’ happened in, like, 15 pages. No build or tension or climax, nothing. Like I’ve been saying, totally not enough time to dive into any of the interesting but woefully under explored themes.
So, if anyone has any mermaid book recommendations (bonus points if romance!) let me know. They have to be hearty though, I need meat and potatoes. And an entire bag of chocolate chips. Mama is hungry.
I'll do anything to feel like I'm not missing out on something culturally significant and influential. Including, apparently, suffering through one of the most horrendously bad books I have ever had the misfortune of reading. You know it's bad when after finishing a chapter you put it down and think, “My God, am I hating this”.
If I jumped into a pool and then complained about being wet, you'd think I was an idiot. And that's exactly how I feel about complaining about this book. I knew full well what I was getting myself into and yet I had the audacity to be disappointed.
Originally published in 1961, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein is regarded as a landmark science fiction novel. It felt like hailing the steam engine as the pinnacle of engineering. Sure, it is impressive for its time and definitely paved the way for future endeavors, but compared to the quality of our current selection, it pales in comparison. I would never dream of even attempting to use a steam engine to… power my car? Idk, you get the metaphor I'm trying to convey. “Good” for the times but not worth revisiting.
The premise: a human raised on Mars amongst Martians, known as The Man from Mars, returns to earth and must learn and navigate human culture. Which sounds incredibly intriguing to me! Unfortunately, the actual substance was abysmal. Because is that even truly what it's genuinely about? I don't think so.
It seems like Heinlein was more interested in putting words on paper and using the characters to preach his own opinions and world view rather than presenting an interesting, plot driven story. It was sooo long and for no reason. (Probably partially my fault though, as I read the uncut version. I'm assuming the parts that had previously been cut were all the parts my eyes skimmed over.)
It was extremely dialogue heavy, to the point where instead of actively being present for a scene, the reader would instead get a play-by-play description of a scene as told by one character to another. Bizarre.
Although quite a lot unfolded throughout the book (it was 50o pages), the pacing felt odd. Instead of flowing from one action to another, each plot development was banked on either side by the long drawn out dialogue and character details. I felt like I was skimming from one plot point to the next while getting bogged down by words, words, and more words. Unenjoyable.
Oh, and the casual sexism, racism, and homophobia strewn throughout didn't help its cause much either.
Another reason why I was so disappointed was because it was only sparingly told from the POV of The Man from Mars, even though he was obviously by far the most interesting character, again going back to my original intrigue for the premise.
The parts that did focus on him were great. His “alienness” was slowly revealed throughout the book: he can make objects (and people) disappear at will if he senses a “wrongness” in them (i.e. they're dangerous or harmful), he can slow his heart rate to appear dead and has control over even “involuntary” bodily aspects such as immune system and muscle mass, he can teleport by leaving his physical body when he’s is a trance-like state, and the Martian language affords abilities to mind-read, share thoughts, and “discorporate” at will—the Martian equivalent of dying, because nobody can truly die and after they do they can still physically and emotionally interact with the living.
See! It sounds interesting!! But, Lord, it so wasn’t.
If you are looking for a sci-fi book using the juxtaposition of our culture against an interesting and detailed alien culture to explore humanity and life, then there are far better options. Off the top of my head—the Lilith’s Brood series or even Embassytown or The Humans.
It had 5 star premise potential, 4 stars for the recognition of the social significance of the work and the fact I could tell it was “well-done” by literary critic standards, but 2 stars for my own personal enjoyment. And if you've read my previous post on my rating system, you know a low 2 star rating from me is unheard of. I should have DNF’d it and stopped reading as soon as I suspected it wasn't for me. Could have saved myself some torture.
That’s all for now, folks. Catch ya on the flip side!
