Has anyone tried StoryGraph as an alternative to Goodreads/Amazon? I created an account awhile ago but didn’t start playing around with it until the beginning of 2021. Unfortunately, I don’t love the UI or UX to put it mildly, and despite the modern minimal aesthetic, the app feels pretty clunky. I have so many thoughts that I couldn’t just cram into the intro of this post, but I just wanted to throw that question out there to gauge how people are liking the app. I haven’t heard people talk about it much and don’t get the sense that it’s caught on, despite all the buzz the beta site got. I will say that I like how you can mark books as DNFed and rate the pacing (slow/medium/fast) though. I think the DNF feature might have made me more liberal with my DNFs this month and… I’m not mad about it? I’m not planning to continue using StoryGraph though, so we’ll see how my DNF habits hold up.
Currently reading The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
★★★★.5 // Goodreads
It was good to laugh. I wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh until I laughed myself into becoming someone else.
I loved Aristotle and Dante from the first page they met. If I had my own copy of the book, I’d stick a tab right there on page 17.
I had heard about this book for so long but didn’t know what it was about except that it was an LGBTQ YA novel following two boys. Now that I’ve read it, I still don’t really know how to say what the book is about in any specific terms. It’s about family; about love; about two loners, one who wears his heart on his sleeve, one who protects his heart even from himself; about a summer of friendship that lasts a lifetime.
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
★★★★★ // Goodreads
In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff’s “So Yesterday,” both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.
After finishing my first reread of Harry Potter ever last year followed by JK Rowling’s transphobic tweets and everyone saying how Percy Jackson is better anyway, I decided to make this series my next reread. Loved it as much as I remember I used to, especially the chapter titles. First chapter: “I Accidentally Vaporise My Pre-algebra Teacher.” Fast-paced.
Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods by Amelia Pang
★★★★.5 // Goodreads // (Giveaway win)
In the end, the Cultural Revolution killed millions and mangled China’s economy. This is why modern mainland Chinese ideals tend to place higher value on social stability than human rights. The last thing people want is another revolution.
In 2012, an Oregon woman finds an SOS letter in a package of Halloween decorations from Kmart.
I thought this was going to be just another true crime book but it was so much more. It’s about laogai/forced labour, Falun Gong and the fight for Chinese democracy, Uyghur concentration camps, and even the complicity of the American government and our own consumerism, though it didn’t focus on consumerism as much as I thought it would, but that’s a whole other beast to tackle.
Only 220 pages + 60 pages of footnotes/index. If the first few chapters don’t get you right away, give it a chance as it lays out the historical and political context.
Very graphic descriptions of torture.
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
DNF-32% // Goodreads
The true story of early 20th century America’s great radium painting scandal and the fight for worker’s rights. Before the dangers of radium were known, it was thought to be a wonder drug and was even used to paint watch dials so they’d glow in the dark. Dial painting was a highly sought-after job for working class women.
This book came highly recommended. I hadn’t heard of the case until I heard about the book and found it absolutely fascinating. I probably would have finished it if I didn’t have to return it to the library, but since it’s out of my hands, I don’t feel any urgency to get back to it because the book was a little repetitive and though the case was fascinating, I wasn’t particularly invested in any one person because there were too many characters to track. I respect that the book calls attention to these forgotten women though. My one major critique is the focus on these women’s beauty, as if the effects of radium poisoning are more tragic for that.
A Goodreads reviewer recommended this scholarly article on the case for a more concise, less dramatised/indulgent read.
Invisible Women by Caroline Craido-Perez
DNF-17% // Goodreads
Data bias in a world designed for men.
Another case of having to return it to the library. I slogged through the intro (repetitive) and first chapter (boring), but the second chapter was interesting, and looking at the table of contents, the following chapters seem pretty interesting too. I’d like to return to it eventually. A shame that it took me so long to get into the book. I found the data dumping dry. It’s natural for a book about data bias to be dense with statistics, but I’m not as interested in the actual data as I am with the choices behind the data. For example, I love the storytelling in Super Freakonomics.
Have you tried StoryGraph? What do you use to track your reading?