Tag

Fiction

532 reviews

Books

  103. La Sombra del Viento

    Carlos Ruiz Zafón

    I embarked on this (silly) goal to read ten Spanish-language books in 2023, but stupidly picked this 555-page monster with plenty of challenging Castilian vocabulary as my first book. Unsurprisingly, my reading speed in Spanish is far slower than English, and I discovered how much of my love of books is due to reading quickly. I kept on pausing this book to read other quick (English language) reads, so it took me about a year and half to finish this. I enjoyed the book, though my Spanish isn’t quite at the level to fully appreciate the quality of the writing.

  122. Flesh

    David Szalay

    The main character drifts though (a tumultuous!) life, reacting with “Okay” to pretty much everything. Disturbing at times, but kept me interested enough to whip through it quickly.

  223. The Odyssey

    Homer, Emily Wilson

    Heard a lot of hype about Emily Wilson’s modern translation, so decided to give it a shot. I found the preface and initial notes to be fairly interesting, and the translation is definitely more readable than what I remember in high school. However, finishing this ended up being a bit of a slog for me.

  243. The Spare Man

    Mary Robinette Kowal

    Had to force myself to finish this, I don’t know why this was nominated for a Hugo. There are some interesting ideas, but in the end this is a detective story where the main character is an unlikable Space Karen that uses her money to bully everyone around her.

Movies & TV

  11. Bugonia

    As with other Yorgos films, this is not for everyone. Recommend going in blind and sticking with it to the end (my wife did not). Great acting by Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone.

  18. Barbarian

    I’m not typically into horror, but this was great, surprisingly funny at times. Go in blind if you can.

  30. Materialists

    I keep on going back and forth on whether I liked this movie or not, but ultimately I liked it more than not.

  45. Weapons

    Had heard a lot of good things before watching; didn’t live up to high expectations, but I still enjoyed it.

  76. Anora

    I don’t understand how this got so many accolades, especially since the second half of the film goes hard into physical comedy

  87. Ash

    The visuals and music save this from being a total loss. More horror than Science Fiction, also has very strong video game vibes.

  95. Cat Person

    Does well when it stays faithful to the short story but goes off the rails toward the end for the worse.

  104. The Rip

    I only watched this because Matt Damon said it had to be optimized for people multitasking. Definitely some slightly awkward dialog at times, but otherwise a solid action film.

  109. Normal

    Fargo meets Hot Fuzz, but unfortunately not as good as either. Some decent humor though, so above average for the genre.

  111. In the Grey

    If only Guy Ritchie made a sequel to The Man From Uncle instead of this. Not bad, but also not particularly good.