Cuzzin Todd Male. West Des Moines, IA, USA

Beautifully written, powerful and compelling throughout, and at times written with such frank brutality some passages will be difficult to get through. But the book had a major flaw for me - the protagonist spends most of the book as weak character and the reader spends most of the book waiting for him to "man up." If he had, many of the horrible things that happen in the book could have been avoided completely. And the last 100 pages or so seems to be an unnecessary if-it-can-go-wrong-it-will-go-wrong nightmare. (Which is probably why, after breezing through the book the last bit took me a month and a half to get through.) ... (continue)

A satirical look at consumerism run amok. But the phrase "run amok" doesn't describe the world Barry creates nearly well enough. Imagine a world where not countries go to war against each other, but corporations. Where there aren't military goals, but marketing goals. The government will only investigate a crime if funded by the victims, ambulances require an Amex card to come to your aid and workers take on the name of their company as their surnames. It's all rather far fetched... or is it? Perhaps the satire works so well because it's all so plausible. An often hysterical and thought provoking read. ... (continue)

Written in a very unique style, told from the perspective of a young autistic boy determined to solve the mystery of a murdered dog. The dog-murder is merely a red herring, a way to examine this boy's life and how he deals with the world around him. An interesting idea and and intriguing read... at first. But the rambling "inner thoughts" style becomes exhausting by the end of the book, and the ending felt extremely rushed. There were 5 or 6 pages left and the book didn't feel as if it was building towards a conclusion. And then it was just over. Wrapped up clumsily in a couple pages. ... (continue)

It's one thing to get the feeling that in the grand scheme of things your job doesn't matter much at all, it's another thing to find out your job is in fact absolutely meaningless and serves no real purpose. Max Barry does a wonderfully absurdist job of satirizing the corporate office place. This is a must read for anyone who's ever worked in a cube-farm. Though senior management, the evil that is HR, office politics and departmental infighting get somewhat exaggerated for comic effect here, this allows for some very pointed, VERY funny and very true observations. The plot is kind of a mess, the characters aren't much more than two dimensional, it largely falls apart in the end, but Barry's stark writing style and keen skewering of the office place makes Company a hilarious and enjoyable read. ... (continue)

There were times when I just wanted to stop reading. The book starts well with an intriguing idea, Henry is a man who time travels and jumps around in time who falls in love with a Clare. My main problem with the book was that other than the time traveling, there isn't much else interesting about Henry, and I never got why Clare fell so madly in love with him. It was kind of like watching a romantic comedy where the two leads have no chemistry.

Things picked up for the last 100 or so pages, and I found myself quite emotionally involved with what was going to happen (what the reader KNEW was going to happen but still had to read along to find out exactly HOW). The author does a excellent job of working Henry and Clare's individual timelines together, but for a bulk of the book I just didn't care what happened to either of them. ... (continue)

The story started out well enough, but I quickly grew bored with it. The writing is unengaging and rather bland throughout. And for some reason, the author seems to think the reader wants to know when any character decides to take a piss. Literally. I'm sure there's some symbolism there I didn't care to figure out.

The last part of the book was better than the rest (following as it did hundreds of pages of boring political and religious machinations and thinly veiled allegories on civil rights) but by the time I reached those final 100 pages I was reading not to find out what happened, but just to get through the thing. ... (continue)

In this collection of essays, Tyson does a remarkable job of taking extremely complex scientific concepts and theories and making them accessible to those of us lacking a background in astrophysics, all without dumbing things down in any way. His excitement and zeal for the subject matter is conveyed throughout the book, and I enjoyed it immensely. Even got quite a few laughs out of it at times. For those with questions about how the universe works, I can't recommend this book enough. ... (continue)

This is one of those books that I wanted to really like, but I liked the concept of it better than the execution of that concept. It sounds great: use jokes to relate and introduce different concepts in philosophy to readers who probably don’t have a background in the subject matter. But the entire book follows this same layout:

1. Introduce complex philosophical theory in short paragraph or two
2. Joke
3. A few lines or short paragraph tying the joke to complex philosophical theory
4. Joke 2
5. A couple more lines concluding the discussion on complex philosophical theory

And that’s it. Sometimes there’s a third joke, but few topics get more than a couple pages. You don’t come to an understanding (as the book’s subtitle suggests) about philosophy because nothing is explored at a length that makes understanding possible. It’s not a crash course in philosophy. It isn’t even as fleshed out as Cliffs Notes. There are quite a few laughs sprinkled throughout the book, but I don’t know that I’ll recall any of it after a week. Still, it’s a light and easy read, and while I did enjoy most of it the book doesn’t amount to much. I wanted more. Much much more. ... (continue)

Join Red Lobster manager Manny and his crew on the last night their restaurant is open for business. Last Night at the Lobster is, more than anything, like watching the finale of a TV show that has run for many seasons, but you've never seen an episode other than the final one.

The descriptions in the book are very vividly written - at least when it comes to things like the setting and physical objects. But not the characters. Anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant will get a chuckle or two are they recognize the universal customer and coworker types. But that's all any of the people in the story are is "types." The old lifer waitress, the young pretty but vacuous hostess, the mentally challenged dishwasher, the old man who comes in for the tilapia every day. We're barely given more than that on anyone. Even the motivations of Manny, the only character that gets somewhat fleshed out, aren't really clear. You'll be calling for him just to close the damn place early as employees keep deserting and the blizzard outside piles up more and more snow. In the end Last Night as the Lobster isn't a bad book, there just didn't seem to be much point to it. At least it's a quick read. ... (continue)