Tag Archives: Book Review

What I’m Reading: The Rosie Project

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I use Grammarly’s plagiarism checker online because who likes reading the same thing twice?

What I'm Reading

From Goodreads.com:
An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don’s Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.

My review:
I think anyone who loves the Big Bang Theory and Sheldon Cooper would love this book. I couldn’t help but compare Don Tillman and Sheldon as their mannerisms are so unbelievably similar.

I found The Rosie Project to be a very amusing book, and very thought provoking as well. Don lives with Asberger syndrome, and while he struggles in social situations, he his a brilliant geneticist and his passion for his projects is astounding. He goes through life with a strict schedule, until he begins his “project” to find a suitable wife. Enter Rosie, who has a project of her own she’d like Don’s help with. This ultimately puts the Wife Project on the back burner and throws Don’s clockwork schedule out the window.

Normally when I read books and there’s a character that just doesn’t “get” what’s going on, it angers me, but in the case of The Rosie Project for some reason, I felt more compassion towards Don. Perhaps it was because it was let known that he has Asberger’s. I enjoyed reading about his personal quirks and “matter of fact” thinking.

Overall, I give The Rosie Project 4 stars out of 5. I really found myself cheering for the character’s of the book, and I would definitely recommend it!

What I’m Reading: Wild

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What I'm Reading

From Goodreads.com:
A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.
Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

My review:
I’m no hiking expert, but I’ve scaled a small hill or two and it’s no easy feat. Then I read this book and I’m taken away by the strength and courage that Cheryl displayed on her journey.

I’ll have to say, I first heard about this book maybe a year ago, but when I read the jacket cover all I could think of was, “Meh, a book about hiking, whatever.” But then I heard that it was being turned into a movie and thought to myself that it was maybe worth reading. All I can say is, why didn’t someone make me read this book sooner??

I’m not 100% sure I can relate to any part of Cheryl’s story; I don’t think anything in my life thus far can sum up to the hard times and sorrow that she experienced, at least not to the level at which she experienced everything. But the way she tells her tale – through her journey along the PCT and the people she meets … It’s just captivating. Really. I don’t think I’ve loved a book anymore than this one and I was SO sad when it was over. It makes you want to DO something. Something big, something life changing. It makes you think about those you love and think you love.

I really recommend this book to anyone out there. It’s honestly a, “I don’t care if it’s passed my bedtime, I need to read one more chapter,” book.

And clearly, I give “Wild” 5 stars out of 5.

What I’m Reading: World War Z

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What I'm Reading

 

From Goodreads.com:
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission. …

(Continue reading the full description here)

My review:
I first heard about this book back when it was announced that Brad Pitt would be starring in the movie adaptation of it. I never really paid much attention to the book or the movie, even, despite my affliction towards the undead and everyone’s fascination with them. Kyle was needed some reading material for his lunch breaks during night shift at work, so I bought the book for him through Amazon. He really loved it, so I thought I’d give it a go.

My first impression through reading it was, how on earth did they figure out a plot line for the movie? I’ve yet to watch it, but I’m curious to see which route they took.

My second impression was simply, “Wow.” Max Brooks really did an amazing job thinking every small aspect through of the “Zombie War.” He thought of how the living dead would impact every country, every city, every individual in the world. Some of the “people” he “spoke” with had quite amazing stories to tell. Some of the sections really pulled me in, the way good journalism should, however some sections were just OK. (Not the writing, but the stories that were being told.) There were several individuals who made reference to famous people, and it really made me stop and try to figure out who exactly was being referenced. (In one section, I’m certain the Queen on England herself was being mentioned slyly)

Once I got the general feel of the book, I really couldn’t put it down. It’s realistic, and it really brings the idea of a zombie apocalypse to the light of being a possibility.

Overall, I give World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War 4 ½ Stars out of 5.