Review: Grit

Grit by Angela Duckworth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: A Gathering of Shadows

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

(1.5/5 stars) I'm so disappointed!

I really wanted to enjoy this book...

It was so long and I continually kept trying to get into it but just couldn't.

He talks about some subjects as if it's new but it's been there read that already, nothing was new and exciting.

There was way too much about religion and politics that I had zero interest in.

I was hoping this book was going to be more psychological and factual but it was more opinionated. Felt like reading the Opinion section in the newspaper but it's 400+ pages long.

I don't see what all the hype is about this book.

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Review: Circe

Circe by Madeline Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

MASTER PIECE!!!

One of my favorite books of all time... all bow down to Madeline Miller because she is on another level. I can't even... lol Amazing... I don't even know how to review this book...

I just wanted to live in Circe's world forever, I didn't want there to be a beginning, middle, or end... I just wanted to be haha The other book series/author that's made me feel like that is Patrick Rothfuss's book The Name of the Wind. You just want to live in their world and read their words and just be happy and whole lol.

I loved reading about Circe's story of how she came to be, her family, how she was different, how she didn't agree with how her family ran things, namely her father and mother.

I have to say that this book is super dense and poetic. I literally had to re-read the first few pages at least 10 times. You cannot speed read this book at all, you have to sip and savor every sentence. There's new gods and characters at every turn and you have to be focused at learning about them.

All the Greek God references... she's the daughter of Helio's the sun god. They fear the almighty Zeus. There's some interesting politics. Circe has a million cousins and brothers and sisters and each one is such a character.

Prometheus was really interesting and what they did/do to him is just soooo disturbing... because he is a god he cannot die from wounds, so they have a crow come eat his liver and leave and once it heals back the crow comes again to eat it... it's just so disturbing lol And how Circe is the first to be compassionate about him and she takes some risks.

She pushes her powerful father and he exiles her to an island. But turns out that the island is pretty freakin cool and there's a beautiful house that she lives in and makes her own. From here she finds her true self from isolation, determination, and devotion. She practices and practices relentlessly and is finally confident in herself and realizes her true power internally and externally. It goes on from there with sailors and other gods visiting her in exile. The rest is history :P

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Review: Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection

Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection by Haemin Sunim
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was surprisingly really good! I went into it without much expectation, and I actually got quite a bit out of it.

This book is full of practical day to day advice that you can actually apply.

Haemin Sunim is big on compassion and empathy. If you try your best to understand others, where they are coming from and to sympathize with them you can let go of fear, anger, resentment, and just be at peace with them.

Some themes in the book are about letting go, dealing with depression, hurt, anger, anxiety.

Learning how to meditate properly and what the benefits are for the mind. Daily practices to set your mind at ease and set it clear.

This is a book I would purchase and re-read ;) Marked as one of my fav self-help books.

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Review: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We try our best to make a good judgment call on strangers but we're often wrong about them.

Sexual charge case, ineffective Al Qaudi torturing, misreading an upset lady as being dangerous while pulling her over... sometimes we take people the wrong way. And it's an unfortunate thing when it comes to court cases. Sometimes adding more information like the persons expression and body language just makes things worse to judge them.

Sometimes people are mismatched; they seem like a killer but they really aren't and vice versa.

Extreme torture isn't effective because inhibits the frontal lobe and the person can't even remember anything from the past and later on doesn't even properly remember the torture.

Coupling is really interesting, you'd think that after they put up Golden Gate Bridge barriers that suicide rates would remain the same but they would use another tactic but it's not true, suicide rates actually declined. Also the British gas systems changed from having carbon monoxide in them to natural gas which has no carbon monoxide and suicide rates plummeted. Killing yourself with a gas was seen as a very tempting easy painless way for people to commit suicide so suicide rates went up.

Crime usually happens in a specific place and time, down to a street block. So don't waste your police patrol cars out in the suburbs trying to catch criminals.

Alcoholism and going to a frat party is a dangerous thing lol... The guy and/or the girl blacks out and they don't remember anything and there's no witnesses so we will never actually find out what really happened. Sexual abuse cases are so complicated... it's sad =/

The TV Show Friends seems like real life but it's not how ppl actually behave/express themselves in real life. It's how people think people react to things. Back in the time of Rome they wouldn't even understand our expressions today haha

We are all in general truth biased, we start clean slate assuming people are being truthful in what they say. Then we need not just one doubt but many doubts in order to change our minds about them. Hence, humans suck at detecting a person lying!

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