Book Capsule Reviews
Aug. 21st, 2017 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroAgent to the Stars by John Scalzi - Scalzi's first novel, which apparently has been republished over and over as his other work continues to be popular. It's not quite as brilliant as some of his other work, but there are a lot of clever ideas. Some parts are trite or absurdly glossed-over, but they’re often different from the usual ones, so that’s nice. It's fun, it's funny, it's a fast read.
Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage - Part travelogue, part informational, large part fuck-you to various hypocritical conservative pundits; the rough theme of this is Dan Savage looking at the seven deadly sins and writing a chapter of the current state of each in America. Really, it's a series of articles about things that interested him; interspersed with explaining exactly why Bennett, Bork, GW Bush, etc are sexist, homophobic and hypocritical assholes; and held together with a rough framework that's mostly an excuse. It feels dated to me, and I suspect it would be really weird for someone who wasn’t conscious of politics circa 2002. I thought The Kid was a much stronger book.
The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories by Terry Pratchett - A collection of Pratchett's earlier works (from when he was a teenager), intended for young readers. The description that kept coming into my head was, “Pratchett writing Just-So Stories,” though that's more about the tone than the content. They're cute, but fairly shallow and the best bits are the footnotes he clearly inserted later. I think this is only for the completist fan.
My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut by Hannah Hart - Hart is a Youtube star who I've follow on Tumblr for years; I enjoy her humor (generally off-the-cuff drunken wackiness) in measured doses. That said, the book is less a book and more a thrown-together series of long-form rants with a vague food theme. Each segment tries to vaguely drive towards a bit of positivity or a life lesson of some sort, but the progress towards it is scattershot at best. Sometimes there are puns; sometimes there is inexplicable hatred of vegetables. At basically no point is heat applied to food. This is entertaining, but leaves no lasting impressions.
Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage - Part travelogue, part informational, large part fuck-you to various hypocritical conservative pundits; the rough theme of this is Dan Savage looking at the seven deadly sins and writing a chapter of the current state of each in America. Really, it's a series of articles about things that interested him; interspersed with explaining exactly why Bennett, Bork, GW Bush, etc are sexist, homophobic and hypocritical assholes; and held together with a rough framework that's mostly an excuse. It feels dated to me, and I suspect it would be really weird for someone who wasn’t conscious of politics circa 2002. I thought The Kid was a much stronger book.
The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories by Terry Pratchett - A collection of Pratchett's earlier works (from when he was a teenager), intended for young readers. The description that kept coming into my head was, “Pratchett writing Just-So Stories,” though that's more about the tone than the content. They're cute, but fairly shallow and the best bits are the footnotes he clearly inserted later. I think this is only for the completist fan.
My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut by Hannah Hart - Hart is a Youtube star who I've follow on Tumblr for years; I enjoy her humor (generally off-the-cuff drunken wackiness) in measured doses. That said, the book is less a book and more a thrown-together series of long-form rants with a vague food theme. Each segment tries to vaguely drive towards a bit of positivity or a life lesson of some sort, but the progress towards it is scattershot at best. Sometimes there are puns; sometimes there is inexplicable hatred of vegetables. At basically no point is heat applied to food. This is entertaining, but leaves no lasting impressions.
