Hannah > Recent Status Updates

“The Little Engine That Could” is the story of determination. It is taking me a lot of determination to finish this book.

Trying hard to get through this, but I feel pained. Am I being tricked into loving it and into trusting the government to fix planetary issues…?

I watched the move on the plane from the U.S. to Hanoi and now every dialogue that I read between Grace and Eva is a conversation between Ryan Gosling and Sandra Hüller. With “Sign of the Times” as background music.

I’m ashamed that this book halted my reading for an entire month. It’s not for lack of plot. I wanted to like the book, and I couldn’t. The writing style doesn’t resonate with me, and oddly enough, I didn’t like the male characters and lack thereof female characters, which is not a critique but a weird deterrent from my enjoyment of the book.

Recommended to my by Thục

This book is a doozy. The only thing that keeps me going is occasionally updating my reading status (much to Serafine’s disapproval).

There’s something about how nature, plants and some animals, is quiet and patient, while technology is birthed from the hurried and brilliant minds of thinkers who wanted more progress. Had the thinkers stopped to smell the roses, would they have been so keen on planting them behind a screen, soiling them in 0s and 1s, missing out on their their fragrance, texture, and vibrant color?

Reading due to Serafine’s urgent suggestion. Before starting, I want to reply to a sentence in a Goodreads book review “I had grown ready for this book. I would not have had patience ten years ago to follow from roots over trunk…” because it reminds me of my own childhood spent in front of the TV or on a laptop instead of out gardening or playing by the creek.

For my PC friends who told me to stop being ignorant

Pleasant read. Like walking in the park with a friend.

Something that struck me about the book is how the rising action was the most difficult section to digest. This is when Malcolm X becomes a huge representative and speaker for the ideas of the NOI. It’s a powerful section, rich in history and striking in emotionality, but it’s also the least personal section of the memoir. Perhaps because Malcolm X gives up his personhood to spread an idealogy.

My second read and I’m enjoying it even more.

Have to take a pause on this book.

Lately I’ve been laying horizontally too much, and letting life for all its beauty pass me by. I want to read more, just not in my room. I have two years of PC service. Surely, I can read some noteworthy books in the meantime.

Started as a recommendation by a friend

“He’s acting as if it’s a normal Monday, but it is not a normal Monday.”

Nope.

I’m gonna attempt to read more, but if it keeps going on like this:

“She would have laughed.
But not anymore.
Not now she’s forty-five.
Not now.
Now she’s simply disgusted.”

I won’t be able to finish. I don’t like telling over showing.