Beth G > Recent Status Updates

I'm so grateful to this author for making his text free and open source!

I'm reading this now and it's honestly kind of amazing.

This isn't the kind of book you can read in one sitting, or even two or three. I've been going through one chapter at a time and pausing to think before going to the next chapter. THAT'S how much this book makes you feel like your brain is spinning around in a centrifuge. :P

I'm only 20 pages in, but I'm already stunned by this book. The author's writing is gorgeous. I can't believe English is not his first language!

Pretty interesting so far, but some bits are too simplistic. Author is trying *very* hard to explain all political history with geography; inconvenient details are sometimes glossed over!

This novel was prescient in so many ways.

It's already so good. I can't believe I didn't read this years ago! Any woman in STEM will immediately identify with Ellie.

So good.

A bizarre satire, but I'm enjoying it. Reminds me of Vonnegut.

It's astonishing how some of the survivors are still clinging fast to the will to live after everything that's happened to them.
This book's a case study in the psyche's survival under the worst conditions - a bit like Man's Search for Meaning.

Informative, but MUCH too anecdotal for a science book. And the author, an educator, "jokes" about having a fictional form of dyslexia.

Interesting so far. I like that the author is an actual physicist (unlike so many books that try to draw connections between science and religion).

I think I get it. The book's Dickensian not just because orphans and curiosity shops appear, but also because Theo himself, our unreliable narrator, is a satire of privilege. He genuinely believes he and his mom were poor, just because they weren't as rich as other kids at his school. So he casts himself as the hero of a pathetic orphan tale.

I'm still not really liking the book, but I'll probably finish it.

I'm thinking Theo is in love with Boris, but too self-closeted to acknowledge it.

Only on page 62 and I don't know what to think.

This kid who DEPENDS! on his scholarship to goes to school lives in a doorman building on E. 57th St in Manhattan.

The mom who has to SCROUNGE! for loose change to tip deliverymen hails a cab to ride to a museum 1.5 mile away, instead of walking or taking the subway.

Is the whole book written like this? Does the author have *any* clue what actual poverty is like?!