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Title: All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries Book 1)
Author: Martha Wells
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 253,185
Text Number: 816
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After hacking itself, this security robot could have killed whenever it wanted; instead, it became addicted to serial media and kept half-assing its job. Social anxiety, escapism, otherness, and a gradual, pessimistic form of self-actualization make for a sympathetic protagonist, but the "Murderbot" name introduces a disaffected, affectedly-causal voice that persists throughout and which I found grating. The plot is slight, constricted perhaps by novella format: adequate action and intrigue capitalize on the bulk of the narrative; I like how this sidelines worldbuilding elements that the protagonist doesn't care about into an evocative, light-handed background, but I wish the bots were better explored. They're insufficiently non-human, a missed opportunity which further undermines the protagonist's arc. I'd call this a case of decent story/wrong reader; I'm not compelled to read the sequel.
Title: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Author and Narrator: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Published: Tantor Audio, 2016 (2013)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 390
Total Page Count: 253,575
Text Number: 817
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A series of interconnected essays in which an ecologist, Native woman, and mother explores the ways in which these identities inform each other and her understanding of the relationship between humans and the Earth. The structure sometimes lacks direction, is often overlong, but also builds a genuinely complex worldview. Her anger and grief is articulate, the problems are overwhelming, but the thread of hope she finds is all the more affecting by contrast; her understanding is complicated and her influences diverse. My only complaint is: what now? Kimmerer offers a compelling appeal but, like much of the target audience, I come already convinced of the basic environmental premise. Her solution is individual: that we each reform our relationship with the land, that we branch into local community; but explicitly brushing aside government and industrial reform and placing all onus on the individual is insufficient, and that lingering frustration leaves a sour aftertaste.
Title: Romeo and Juliet
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 253,675
Text Number: 818
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: I'm surprised by how much I love this. Liebestod permeates everything, essential to the sexual and romantic elements even before the play's tone becomes tragic, inseparable from the eroticism, and it's a compelling combination. There's much more wordplay than I recalled, pervasive and not limited to humor; it's a skill Shakespeare has developed elsewhere, but here is applying to characterization and themes in ways his earlier plays lacked. Mercutio is a particular delight, so distinct in so few scenes, without which his death wouldn't mark such a pivotal change in tone. One benefit of reading the plays in chronological order is watching the playwright evolve, and this is spectacular evidence of that: he's using developed skills to set his work apart from his inspirations and sources and, occasionally, his own plays.
My mother and I had similar personal responses: we had both internalized a certain amount of the cultural bias that the play is a ridiculous romance for high school girls, that it's somehow limited by any of these associations, despite that we had both read and/or seen it before. We were both happily wrong, and retroactively angry at—ourselves? society? for the misconception.
Author: Martha Wells
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 253,185
Text Number: 816
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After hacking itself, this security robot could have killed whenever it wanted; instead, it became addicted to serial media and kept half-assing its job. Social anxiety, escapism, otherness, and a gradual, pessimistic form of self-actualization make for a sympathetic protagonist, but the "Murderbot" name introduces a disaffected, affectedly-causal voice that persists throughout and which I found grating. The plot is slight, constricted perhaps by novella format: adequate action and intrigue capitalize on the bulk of the narrative; I like how this sidelines worldbuilding elements that the protagonist doesn't care about into an evocative, light-handed background, but I wish the bots were better explored. They're insufficiently non-human, a missed opportunity which further undermines the protagonist's arc. I'd call this a case of decent story/wrong reader; I'm not compelled to read the sequel.
Title: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Author and Narrator: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Published: Tantor Audio, 2016 (2013)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 390
Total Page Count: 253,575
Text Number: 817
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A series of interconnected essays in which an ecologist, Native woman, and mother explores the ways in which these identities inform each other and her understanding of the relationship between humans and the Earth. The structure sometimes lacks direction, is often overlong, but also builds a genuinely complex worldview. Her anger and grief is articulate, the problems are overwhelming, but the thread of hope she finds is all the more affecting by contrast; her understanding is complicated and her influences diverse. My only complaint is: what now? Kimmerer offers a compelling appeal but, like much of the target audience, I come already convinced of the basic environmental premise. Her solution is individual: that we each reform our relationship with the land, that we branch into local community; but explicitly brushing aside government and industrial reform and placing all onus on the individual is insufficient, and that lingering frustration leaves a sour aftertaste.
Title: Romeo and Juliet
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 253,675
Text Number: 818
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: I'm surprised by how much I love this. Liebestod permeates everything, essential to the sexual and romantic elements even before the play's tone becomes tragic, inseparable from the eroticism, and it's a compelling combination. There's much more wordplay than I recalled, pervasive and not limited to humor; it's a skill Shakespeare has developed elsewhere, but here is applying to characterization and themes in ways his earlier plays lacked. Mercutio is a particular delight, so distinct in so few scenes, without which his death wouldn't mark such a pivotal change in tone. One benefit of reading the plays in chronological order is watching the playwright evolve, and this is spectacular evidence of that: he's using developed skills to set his work apart from his inspirations and sources and, occasionally, his own plays.
My mother and I had similar personal responses: we had both internalized a certain amount of the cultural bias that the play is a ridiculous romance for high school girls, that it's somehow limited by any of these associations, despite that we had both read and/or seen it before. We were both happily wrong, and retroactively angry at—ourselves? society? for the misconception.
