aquatique

This is a late review that has been hanging over me a month. I read all volumes of this manga series in October and November, but I wanted to review the work as a whole. I consider Hayao Miyazaki a genius and one of my favourite artists and film makers ever. The Ghibli films are special to me and his work does move me. This series is definitely one of his best works. This series…

Remember in the last review how I mentioned women in Greek mythology tended to be mistreated or abused? This book has a lot of that. Circe is a goddess. She is the daughter of a Titan and a nymph. She has been born with a mortal voice but even as an immortal, she is mistreated. This novel is well written especially in its in depth look at Circe's character. I am impressed with Miller's style…

This is a long overdue read. I've had this in my TBR pile for a few years after hearing the raves. My interest in Greek mythology and Greek stories is an old one. I remember reading many of the myths when I was around nine. As a kid, I had a big interest in mythology especially those with the Greeks. I knew the stories of the heroes and the gods well. I read the Illiad…

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…

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…

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?"…

This is a Pulitzer prize winning novel. I did not know what it was about when I started to read it. It's one day in the life of an older couple Ira and Maggie Moran. The characters in this novel felt real. Maggie felt uncomfortably real. She had all this weird peculiarities to her which made her so human. I cringed when reading her thoughts and actions, but it didn't seem unrealistic to me that…

The last book in this trilogy and I am sad! I have had such good time reading these books. The last two have been very addictive. I devoured this book in two sittings. I do think the author has issues with dragging the middle parts and concentrating on less interesting or underdeveloped characters like Kitty. She was slightly more developed this novel, but it feels like the reader had to be prodded to like her.…

This was fun. This is the Crazy Rich Asians sequel and another follows this one. I am looking forward to it because I think the author has found that groove. This second instalment in the series is better written than the first. The author changed up some of the format and added more characters. The pace moved along well in the first half. There is still a lot food, Chinese language, and rich people jargon.…

Between the Crazy Rich Asians books, I decided to read a non-fiction book about the wealthy to ground me further into reality. I learned about this book from the NPR podcast "Hidden Brain." I actually requested that my public library acquire this book. I only resort to doing that a few times a year. The podcast interview let me to think it was more of a casual non fiction book about wealth managers and their…