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Liked: the religious/evangelical aspects, watching the world fall apart from a distance, the Oasans

Disliked: the relationship building, the ENDING

I'd like to put more of an effort into my review writing this year, but this ending made me so angry that I want to just be done with this book. I may revisit this review.

What an empty, unfulfilling book.

Look, I can empathize with a character who pours too much into work, who prioritizes work life over personal life. I've done this at times in my life (and one could argue that I'm doing it right now as I'm in the middle of a 14 day work trip). But Georgie as a character is fairly unlikable. She takes her husband for granted, despite loving him, and acts like she has no choice but to ignore her family. No choice! If you want to prioritize your work over your family, the LEAST you can do is own it.

And at the end, (view spoiler)[she abandons her commitments to Seth and Scotty to make a last minute grand gesture for her family. YES, she should've prioritized her family more, but screwing over your business partners (and friends!) is unconscionable. The solution is not grand gestures. The solution is keeping your family top of mind and not committing to things you can't/shouldn't commit to. (hide spoiler)]

The fantasy elements of this are so boring and reminiscent of the terrible movie, The Lakehouse. THE LAKEHOUSE. Ugh.

I loved this. I finished it a single sitting because I just needed to know what would happen.

Many of the reviews complained about Victoria as a protagonist (and how unrealistic it was that anyone in the book cared for her)--they said she wasn't likable, she pushed everyone away, and she didn't do enough to try to solve her own problems. All of this is true. HOWEVER, let's have a little compassion. Considering what Victoria went through, I considered it an unsurprising attitude for her to take. I felt for her more than I was angry at her, and I think this is what the other characters in the book see too. They see a broken person, and they try to love her.

Victoria has had a tough life. Shuffled from foster home to foster home (with some truly horrific experiences), she's never learned to trust. Every other chapter is a glimpse into Victoria's past, and the past and the present weave together beautifully.

I also loved all the magic of the flowers and their meanings. I'm getting married this year, and the book made me think very differently about flowers than I ever had before.

This rating is for the audiobook only. I'm sure I would've enjoyed the book more had I the ability to skim and skip.

What made the audiobook such a pain to listen to was that you couldn't skip the boring bits. Sure, maybe a book shouldn't have boring bits, but there were certainly parts that were VERY elementary and deserved skipping and other fascinating parts that you want to hear every word.

I'm also not sure who this book was written for. I don't think anyone who believes the moon landing was a hoax would pick this up. And if you want to read this because you want to ARGUE with people who believe in astrology, well, good luck to you.

I also took issue with the narrator, Kevin Scullin. The writing was fairly light and funny, but Scullin made it seem dry and, in many parts, spoke with a pretty condescending tone. If he'd had a little more levity in his narration, the book would have gone over better.

That said, I did learn a bit, and I'm glad I read this book. My favorite part was when Plait talks about how Hollywood got it wrong and how spaceships and all that should be portrayed. It was interesting and pretty funny.

Upon finishing a collection of short stories, I have a hard time determining if it deserves five stars. I usually reserve the five star rating for books that I know will stay with me for a long time, books I know I'll think about long after I've finished.

I think this will be one of those collections, but time will tell.

These stories are mostly not science fiction or dystopian, but some have fantastic elements. They're mostly character studies, and most of the characters are elderly and looking back at their lives. I loved the way she did this--each character has such a rich history because there are so many years to draw on; they're complicated and multi-layered. Many of these stories could've spanned entire novels.

The first three stories are tied together, and I had thought the whole book was going to be like that. It's not, so don't be confused when the fourth story has absolutely nothing to do with the first three.

Loved the premise of this one. Superheroes AND zombies? Zombies who can talk? Superheroes who turn into zombies? Pretty cool.

That said, I felt that this would've been a much better comic book than novel. The author introduces too many characters by name that we only see once, and plot holes are more obvious in this format than they would have been in comic format. There was very little character development (even though we get to see how most of the superheroes became superheroes), and all the buildup was to a big battle. Very graphic novel-esque.

I saw Goff at Catalyst University and found him such a dynamic speaker that I had to give his book a shot even though it's nothing like what I normally read. Well, here we go!

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The stories in here were amazing (made even better because I could imagine Goff narrating the book so enthusiastically), and I guess if I didn't want each story in the book to end with a lesson about Jesus's love, I shouldn't have picked up a book clearly shelved in the Christianity section.

Bob is a great, inspiring man. This book was fun for me, but I ended up skimming significant portions.

Another empty business book filled with sound bites of pithy statements meant to inspire. There's no meat to this book.

It also doesn't stand the test of time well. Many of the companies lauded are no longer around or are struggling. And he does this weird thing where he calls them "twits" instead of "tweets" (referring to Twitter).

This is the harrowing story of 33 men buried in the San Jose mine in Chile for 69 days. At first, they don't know if anyone will try to rescue them or if they're given up as lost.

But the story isn't just about the time spent in the mine. We get to know many of the men personally--we hear their stories and the stories of their loved ones. We learn what was going through their heads, and we even follow them for a while after they get out of the mine: how did the mine impact their lives?

This was a very well-researched book, and I was impressed with the level of detail. I had a tough time keeping track of who was who, but that's not the author's fault. With 33 main characters, it was bound to get a little tricky remembering who did what.

I am one of the people this book is written for. I've loved the movie since I first saw it as a kid, and I loved the book when I read it as a college kid.

And now I love this memoir.

I love my science fiction to have a strong grounding in science, so I really hate to say this. Parts of this were almost...too science-y? Too technical? I was kind of shocked to find this, especially after reading Liu's The Wandering Earth which was particularly lacking in the science part of "science fiction."

But other than that, this book was a great take on first contact, and uniquely executed. My favorite parts were the game (those who've read it will know what I'm talking about).

I learned a ton in this book about the native people of South America, explorers, and the Amazon. Parts of the story were fascinating; others were a bit dry.

In 1925, Percy Fawcett along with his son and his son's friend, disappeared in the Amazon while looking for El Dorado, or Z. This is their story, and the story of the author, Grann, who tries to solve the mystery.

(view spoiler)[It's disappointing that the mystery was not solved, but I guess I didn't expect it to be. We'll probably never know what happened to Fawcett's expedition. (hide spoiler)]

There were so many things I didn't like about this book. First of all, the way the series of events played out seemed pretty much like the first book taken to the extreme. Sure, I read sequels because I liked the original, but that doesn't mean I want to read the original again.

Don Tillman and Rosie are married and now, surprise, Rosie's pregnant! Don doesn't know how to deal with this which results in typical Don misunderstandings.

Here are the things I didn't like:
-- Rosie stops behaving like the Rosie we fell in love with
-- Don, usually hyper rational, makes a series of uncharacteristically irrational decisions
-- Don is somehow a savant when it comes to fixing everyone's problems; it reads like magic, not realistic fiction
-- There's an incident with a plane that I couldn't quite suspend my belief enough for

I liked this a ton better than the movie. And now I'm going into why which contains some indirect spoilers about the endings of both the movie and the book. (view spoiler)[The movie implies that love conquers all, that all you need for mental illness to go away is someone who loves you. I had assumed it got the ending from the book and was pleasantly surprised to find that not the case. I found this ending much more palatable and realistic. (hide spoiler)]

Moving on.

This was a very quick read: I finished it in two sittings. It was different enough from the movie that I wasn't always sure what was going to happen next. The movie was fairly lighthearted, considering its content, and while this was certainly a light book in tone, the content felt much more weighty.

Those disappointed in the somewhat silliness of the movie might enjoy this.