![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Proposal (Animorphs #35) by K. A. Applegate
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
I'm finally back to the Animorph books. Unfortunately this was mostly a pretty darned bad one.
Most of the story was stupid, unbelievable, sitcom-level plot. Because of stress, Marco was losing control of his morphing, which was making him morph into multiple animals at once, like spider/skunk and polar bear/poodle. Blah blah stupid plot about having to ruin some TV talkshow guy because he was secretly a Yeerk. That part of the plot was just so stupid (Marco actually demorphed from the spider/skunk into his human body in front of other people and nothing came of it).
However there was a much smaller subplot that was really good. The reason for the stress which was making Marco unable to control his morphing? PTSD. It was another interesting, if too brief, look at how the kids are handling fighting a war while also trying to keep the world from knowing about it.
Three Minutes to Doomsday: An Agent, a Traitor, and the Worst Espionage Breach in U.S. History by Joe Navarro
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
This book is not the kind of book I usually read. Nonfiction. Military history. But I saw a really good talk online the author did (about reading body language) and so I wanted to get his book about that. While looking for that one, I spotted this book by him, and it seemed interesting enough to pick up. Set in 1988, it was about the capture of one of the biggest spies ever.
On one hand, the story was interesting (at least the first 22% of it I read). An inside look at how the FBI works. On the other hand, the "main character" (the author writing about himself) was rather insufferable -- too perfect, too good at everything. While it was making me somewhat frowny, I was willing to keep reading, until he turned mean.
The scene that made me (and other readers, per Goodreads) stop reading was the one where he interacted with the office manager. She was just trying to do her job (make him fill out required paperwork) and he ripped into her with "don't you know how important I am? don't you know how important the work I'm doing?" kind of stuff. Yes, his work was important, but in an FBI office everyone's work would be more important than required paperwork about car maintenance. But the paperwork IS required, and know how often that poor woman likely heard "don't you know how important I am? don't you know how important the work I'm doing?" ? She had a job to do as well. He went on and on and on, page after page of how awful she was, what an awful person she was. While he used a fake name for her, he wrote about how she spoke (speech patterns and such) and I'm sure she would be able to recognize herself if she read this book.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in this book: 22%
Previous abandoned book total: 378%
New total: 400% even (4 books!)
Currently reading: An Oath of Dogs
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
I'm finally back to the Animorph books. Unfortunately this was mostly a pretty darned bad one.
Most of the story was stupid, unbelievable, sitcom-level plot. Because of stress, Marco was losing control of his morphing, which was making him morph into multiple animals at once, like spider/skunk and polar bear/poodle. Blah blah stupid plot about having to ruin some TV talkshow guy because he was secretly a Yeerk. That part of the plot was just so stupid (Marco actually demorphed from the spider/skunk into his human body in front of other people and nothing came of it).
However there was a much smaller subplot that was really good. The reason for the stress which was making Marco unable to control his morphing? PTSD. It was another interesting, if too brief, look at how the kids are handling fighting a war while also trying to keep the world from knowing about it.
Three Minutes to Doomsday: An Agent, a Traitor, and the Worst Espionage Breach in U.S. History by Joe Navarro
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
This book is not the kind of book I usually read. Nonfiction. Military history. But I saw a really good talk online the author did (about reading body language) and so I wanted to get his book about that. While looking for that one, I spotted this book by him, and it seemed interesting enough to pick up. Set in 1988, it was about the capture of one of the biggest spies ever.
On one hand, the story was interesting (at least the first 22% of it I read). An inside look at how the FBI works. On the other hand, the "main character" (the author writing about himself) was rather insufferable -- too perfect, too good at everything. While it was making me somewhat frowny, I was willing to keep reading, until he turned mean.
The scene that made me (and other readers, per Goodreads) stop reading was the one where he interacted with the office manager. She was just trying to do her job (make him fill out required paperwork) and he ripped into her with "don't you know how important I am? don't you know how important the work I'm doing?" kind of stuff. Yes, his work was important, but in an FBI office everyone's work would be more important than required paperwork about car maintenance. But the paperwork IS required, and know how often that poor woman likely heard "don't you know how important I am? don't you know how important the work I'm doing?" ? She had a job to do as well. He went on and on and on, page after page of how awful she was, what an awful person she was. While he used a fake name for her, he wrote about how she spoke (speech patterns and such) and I'm sure she would be able to recognize herself if she read this book.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in this book: 22%
Previous abandoned book total: 378%
New total: 400% even (4 books!)
Currently reading: An Oath of Dogs
