Posted on September 27, 2018 in Books
Of course, I had to read the sequels after I watched the movie. I read them both over the course of 24 hours without power. I read P. S. I love you mostly with a book lamp in the dark.
The only reason I read the sequels was for the relationship between Lara Jean and Peter. That is the stuff of teenage dreams. The second novel had yet another love triangle. There were a lot of cheesey moments including the use of a feisty grandmother character who had a handsome grandson (called that grandson right away). I only cared about the family moments and the Peter ones. Everything else was just ok.
The last book in the trilogy felt much longer than the first two. Han dedicated the book to her fans and the book lacked a real plot. It meandered a lot. If I didn’t like Lara Jean and Peter so much, I would have stopped at some point. I relate to Lara Jean and we have similar hobbies, but even in this novel, I felt my patience was growing short with her and the author. The conclusion of the novel is just there. I am glad that Han wrote a third book mostly with Peter and Lara Jean stable; however, the last book felt rudderless.
I do hope they make the movies in the sequel if only to see the actors excellent chemistry, but they could really merge the last two books. The third book has no major plot so they can’t make a stand alone movie with it.
Read Sept 21 and Sept 22, 2018 respectively.
Posted on September 24, 2018 in Books, Movies
I wanted to read this book because of the buzz the Netflix movie. I wanted to wait until after I’ve read the book to see the movie.
It took me a few chapters to get comfortable because the book is actually a bit longer than some young adult books. There’s a lot of character moments. The more that I read about Lara Jean, the more I could relate to her or rather how I was when I was her age.
This book did give me the good feelings of being a teenager again. It helps that Lara Jean and I are both East Asian. Like Crazy Rich Asians and The Hate U Give, I wish I had more diverse novels like this growing up. I didn’t have books the reflected my experiences. I like that Lara Jean was quiet and dutiful, but also dreamy and into fashion and food.
The novel was sweet. It made me laugh. There was a lot of nice moments with the characters. There was even a love triangle that I did not mind. The character beats were just right.
About two thirds of the way into the book, I knew I had to read the sequel. The ending is a cliffhanger. However, I am not going to wait to watch the film.
Read Sept 20-21, 2018
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
With the book so fresh in my mind, I compared them a lot. I didn’t think Peter was dreamy enough at the beginning, but he won me over. The movie was sweet. It worked because I think the casting did well especially for the Coveys. I appreciated John Corbett as the good (and hot) dad and they even added more character moments between
This movie would have been a mini obsession for me in high school. I liked what they added. Very cute movie and I hope they do make a sequel.
Watched Sept 21, 2018.
Posted on September 22, 2018 in Books
I liked The Martian well enough to try this novel. Like The Martian, this felt more plot driven than character driven even though the protagonist gets more development.
I was divided between how I would rate this book overall. While the world building, plot, and the cast of the characters were good at times, I was also underwhelmed. I am still skeptical of Weir’s ability to develop good characters. Jazz is different and interesting, but there were moments where it did feel like a man was trying to write an edgy woman. The dialogue could be hit or miss.
I do think this will make a decent film because of the plot.
Started reading Sept 9-10, 2018. Returned it to the library, forgot about it then finished Sept 18-19 on Kindle.
Posted on September 20, 2018 in Books
This is a book about big data specifically the big data gleaned from services such as Google and Facebook. It has a look about how big data from these sites can reveal people’s true behaviour.
This book took awhile to get comfortable. The author’s chapters were a bit disorganized. It lacked cohesion because each chapter was more focused on data themes and ideas and not on any specific topic. One chapter is “Is Freud right?” and it has a few facts on people’s sexual desires and phallic objects. The next chapter “Data Reimagined” has tidbits on the flu, unemployment rate, Google, and horse racing. Once you got use to this jumping around, there were some interesting insights on how this data can be used in social science. I also got use to the author’s wry and tongue-in-cheek tone.
I listen to a lot of economics podcasts and read books by economists. If only I was this interested in economic ten years ago when I was actually in uni. I do think there some are interesting and insightful information when I read these books. However, I need to be more careful since I seem to request a lot of these books, but they aren’t always as informative or good as reviews lead me to believe. I have no regrets about picking up this book. It was a quick read and does show an aspect of human behaviour not explicitly studied in traditional academic social sciences. I like the ides in it and if the topics were more focussed, I would read another book by the same economist.
Read Sept 13-19, 2018.