Francesca

Dull Read, Unfortunately

Revisado: 04-11-24

This one is difficult to get through, nothing interesting happens and the story focuses a lot on describing the personality of the main characters rather than showing you through their actions. It’s a lot of mundane dialogue, things that are supposed to be shocking to the main characters are introduced so early and hinted at so many times before it happens that there’s no surprise or suspense whatsoever, and the whole story moves slowly. But I will say the “technobabble” is pretty spot on and the author clearly did their research on the engineering and science terminology, it just felt more like a schematic of a story than an actual story, and maybe that was fully intended too. The low story rating that I am giving is purely due to my lack of enjoyment and it’s been a struggle to force myself to finish. Normally I love star wars books, and I loved rogue one, but I guess this book was just not for me.

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Loved this insight into Alderaan

Revisado: 03-27-24

Honestly I love everything I’ve read from Claudia Gray and this one was no exception. I love the traits that are given to teenage Leia because they’re so plausible and relatable, and adding a backstory for Alderaan that deepens our understanding of how much her planet meant to her. It shows how she is able to overcome any loss and move forward, and where her strength of will comes from. I loved everything about this book, I only wish it didn’t have to end!

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Excellent Backstory and Insight to Living In Japan

Revisado: 01-03-24

I’ve been a fan of AbroadInJapan since I happened across the channel in 2020, and this book is a great recap of his older videos that I had binge watched out of order. This book helped put Chris’ early days in Japan chronologically, and highlighted turning points in his life, as well as some of his significant videos that were pivotal to his career. I also really appreciated the personal aspect to this book and the way that Chris tries to show that he is above all, a humble person not so different from the rest of us. He does a great job of explaining problems he faced in his early days of living in Japan, and how he overcame them, so I imagine it would be a helpful read for anyone thinking about moving to Japan. I was an exchange student in Sendai during my college years in 2010 and went home only months before the earthquake that devastated the Tohoku region, so for me it’s really interesting to hear about how the region has changed and adapted since I had lived there. Thanks Chris for putting your experiences in writing! It’s really a good picture of how you got to where you are, and your story seems like it would be really inspiring to those who may want to join JET or other programs. I know I would have found it really encouraging to hear someone else’s story of what to expect, it would have dispelled some anxiety about the unknown for sure!

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Pulls You In

Revisado: 10-10-22

I really love how this story is so gripping, it pulled me in and I couldn’t put it down! It’s been a long time since I had a book like that. Having a main character who is loyal to a fault, and time travel is done in a creative way, I couldn’t ask for more. It’s not hard scifi so don’t expect the physics / mechanics to be explained, but it’s lovely because the characters are not scientists and that’s kind of refreshing too, they’re just trying to figure it out like the rest of us.

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Not For Me

Revisado: 04-14-21

Let me start off by saying I love science fiction and fantasy novels, those are my favorite genres of books. I’ve read classics and contemporaries, and I’m usually able to finish all the books I started. But this book really is testing my patience...

Years ago I had watched BBC Merlin and thought it would be interesting to read this someday for another take on the same tale, and I fully expected it to be a children’s story, and I expected it to be a lot different than an over-dramatized TV show. I knew Merlin was supposed to be old, that he ages backwards, etc, and was truly excited about reading this book.

But I am so sad to say it’s legitimately boring, I am on chapter 17 (which is 7 hours into the story) and I just can’t get into it. There are still 24 hours left in the story and I don’t think I can force myself through this. Why? What’s so bad? Well the story just goes on and on, random stuff happens, no significance, no importance, no character development, nothing to hint it will get better except all the good reviews.

I may try skipping to the middle or end to see if anything happens.

I apologize if this offends anyone, but I guess it’s just not for me. I think a lot of the good reviews are for the nostalgia of this book and what it meant to each person’s childhood, but oh well, I am just missing out then.

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Interesting But Dry

Revisado: 01-16-21

The story reminds me of Ocean’s 11 but the whole narration is told with a robotic voice, which seems unfitting in all the action sequences but I suppose it was done to match the main character’s technical perspective. The setting is actually so far future that the things in this story are not really in contradiction to known science, and I felt curious to learn more about the world.

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I wish it was a longer book

Revisado: 12-12-19

I think this book was packed with a lot of useful information, but it felt rushed and quickly spoken. I would have loved more examples or to take more time explaining when to use which method, for example describing some famous photos to break down why it worked.

Thanks though for writing this, and I will definitely listen through a few more times to try and absorb more the next time through.

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Not what I was expecting

Revisado: 11-19-19

First of all I want to say, the voice acting is excellent. I love the cultural representation in the story and I think that the adopted son was a great perspective to see the story from, and these things were one of the only reasons I kept going with the book.

That said, the story is not what I was expecting or hoping for, basically it's an arrogant first person perspective and a sort of forceful "you, reader, are stupid" storytelling. It tries to shove fake and actually dumb interpretations of science jargon down your throat like you're just stupid and uninformed. It's really annoying to listen to real scientific terms being thrown around incorrectly.

What I found the dumbest was the story's assertion that you can "cut" into "quantum reality" with a box cutter lol. No explanation, no justification, just completely doesn't make sense. Oh, and P.S. you can't learn physics in one night, don't care if it's Stephen Hawking he didn't become an expert in one day.

I guess I need to stick more with

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All was well until "Authenticity"

Revisado: 10-23-19

This lecture series was really informative and interesting up until lecture #23, on Authenticity. It's really terrible, the content completely misunderstood and misrepresented what authenticity actually is... and spent forever talking about why Authenticity doesn't exist when using the wrong way of looking at it the whole time!

To me, authenticity is about acting in ways that are portraying who YOU THINK you are. This lecture was entirely based on the definition that authenticity is about your actual actions... which of course have no consistency, therefore, you can't see a distinction between authentic and not authentic. It was so painful to listen through!

Your authentic self is obviously a layer separate from actions. It is a layer that judges your actions. It is the person who you feel is trapped beneath a heap of incongruent actions and is fighting to be seen. Your vision of yourself is fairly consistent (long term goals, motivations, beliefs) even if your actions are conflicting.

It was funny to use a cell phone / apps analogy to make a point that actions have nothing in common, when it actually is a much better analogy for the real definition of authenticity, because what runs all the apps? Your operating system. What is authenticity? Being true to yourself, meaning, your self-defined identity, self- assessed and goals / beliefs, etc which are actually consistent.

When we behave in ways that we are not proud of, those are inconsistent with our sense of identity. That is why we call those inconsistent actions "inauthentic" we don't want them to define us...

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Amazing Voice Acting

Revisado: 08-14-19

If I could give 10 stars for this performance, I would. Quinto was putting in just the right amount of emotion, of sass when needed, and never falsetto'd women, just spoke in a way that suited them. I have listened to at least 30 audiobooks and never come across one this masterful!

The story itself was good but, it was soft science that could never be explained. Kind of refreshing in a way, but also felt like the ideas could have been expanded to a larger story. I did like it overall, definitely an interesting read!

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