Recent comments in /f/books

boxer_dogs_dance t1_jdr6hu9 wrote

Reply to I just finished The Winners by Fredrik Backman and I am just weeping on the couch. That author is so talented. by cerebellum0

I loved a Man Called Ove. Anxious People was fun. And Every Morning the Way Home Gets longer and longer was a punch in the gut.

I'm currently in the middle of Things My Son Needs to know about the World. If Dave Berry wrote about fatherhood, it might look something like this book.

Great author.

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ddpherm t1_jdr5zu7 wrote

Reply to How to stop reading as if in a competition? by Butterfuckungfly

Don’t set reading goals. I love reading and found when I started participating in the annual reading challenge on Goodreads, a lot of the joy got taken away from reading. I found myself purposefully choosing short books and rushing through books quicker than I should have just to get my reading stats up. As soon as I stopped joining the reading challenge I found myself enjoying books a lot more.

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the-eyes-on-you t1_jdr5we5 wrote

Reply to I just finished The Winners by Fredrik Backman and I am just weeping on the couch. That author is so talented. by cerebellum0

Backman is my favourite author, I absolutely love his books but I think the Winners was the first of his books that didn't make me cry. I can't put my finger on why, something about it just felt off to me and I wasn't able to get into it as much as I had the other 2 books in the series and his works in general. I'll gather my thoughts on the specific story and come back to add them in a while!

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Disparition_2022 t1_jdr5jwv wrote

Reply to comment by Fritzkreig in Book ban attempts reach record high in 2022, American Library Association report says by audiomuse1

According to the article, this "record high" is only in the context of the ALA's data, which only goes back 20 years. Ulysses was published a little over a hundred years ago. It would be interesting to see data from earlier periods of history.

It's also worth noting that Ulysses wasn't banned in the sense of being challenged at a local library by a bunch of angry parents in the sense that things happen today. Rather, it was completely blocked from being imported into the US by the federal government. I don't know if that level of ban could or would happen today.

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BitPoet t1_jdqzn61 wrote

Reply to Finished Les Mis and just need to brain dump my thoughts [Spoilers, of course] by ChildhoodSadd

I think you're reading Marius paying Thermadier to go away wrong. Thermadier was, and will always be, scum. From the battlefield looter to when he first shows up to him leaving for America. No money can change who he is.

Jean ValJean being given the candlesticks at just the right point and in the right way in his life to make a difference is really the only part of redemption in the book.

Javert committing suicide at the end was simply because he could no longer pretend that Jean ValJean was utterly an purely good. Which would make him the bad guy. It destroys his worldview so badly that the only way (at the moment) he can resolve it is to die.

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travelling_cirque OP t1_jdqrpvy wrote

Reply to comment by Superb_Tiger_8376 in (TW: DV) What is with all the super popular contemporary novels featuring violence against women? by travelling_cirque

God I didn’t even want to bother including outlander in my list because practically every single character gets raped. Do it once, okay. Do it twice, a little odd, but whatever. Three times? Do you seriously have NO other ideas for how to make a character go through a tough time? And then she just makes the characters move on and forget it ever happened!

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