log(book)
There are currently 155 reviews missing.
The last time I was up to date with reviews was 2022-01-31. Since then, 267/422 books (63.3%) have been reviewed. We'll get there … eventually.

Welcome to log(book)!

This is where I valiantly try to keep track of The data gets synced to Goodreads, but this site is the primary source. If you're really interested in what I'm reading, you can subscribe to the feed. Thanks for the content go to our civilisation and the preceding ones, to the people involved in the publishing industry – authors, editors, layouters, translators, printers, illustrators, agents, publicists, marketers, book sellers, antiquarians –, to my family for hooking me early and understanding that all a child needs to be happy are eighteen hours of uninterrupted reading per day, and to my friends for their consistently good-or-interesting recommendations and their patience with what they call my "reading habit".

Here are a few of the books I’ve read recently:

Cover of Reach Heaven Via Feng Shui Engineering, Drug Trade And Tax Evasion.

Reach Heaven Via Feng Shui Engineering, Drug Trade And Tax Evasion

by melmonella · published 2025 · read 2025-03-15
★★★☆☆
Xianxia plot with decent worldbuilding. Reviewing at chapter 91 (which is relatively early in book/arc 3). As usual, the protagonist is overpowered, not in terms of actual power, but in terms of analysis and brain power. Very rationalist/Martian/my-brain-will-save-us vibes, but with good worldbuilding and progression. Definitely indulging in reading this, but it was nice, and the characters and plot seem distinct enough that occasionally reading a batch of updates should be doable.
Cover of Safety Anarchist.

Safety Anarchist

by Sidney Dekker · published 2017 · read 2025-03-09
★☆☆☆☆ (did not finish)
You’d think that this book would be catnip for me: The premise (compliance and security theatre has grown way too much, rules like that are good at preventing some accidents but not others, give people some agency and watch how they’ll make much better decisions!) is solid, after all. You’d think. I ended up not finishing this book, because I have limited time on this planet and don’t need to spend it being angry at this guy’s tone. It’s just so know-it-all, talking down to the presumably stupid reader (Chapter 5 is just explaining Goodheart’s Law. Chapter 9 out of 10 is “lays out the difference between anarchy and anarchism”), and so extremely impressed with itself. Chapter 2 is about "who has the right to rule / make these rules". Chapter 1 opens "this is not a political book". Angery noises.
Cover of Light from Uncommon Stars.

Light from Uncommon Stars

by Ryka Aoki · published 2021 · read 2024-12-04
★☆☆☆☆
Every minute I spent reading this book was a minute that I could have read trashy bad fanfics that still have more nuance, plot, character and consistent world-building than whatever this was. I don’t even know where to start. The writing is bad. Formulaic in language, and committing POV hopping in a way to make sure that we never get to see important inner reactions or emotions of anybody to anything. Pacing is all over the place – the parts that should be emotionally load-bearing get skipped entirely, and there are things like completely new characters getting dropped on us, including their whole family history, about a third of the book in, and somehow we’re expected to care. And was this book not edited? I’m not a native speaker and there were things I’d have called out for editing. Content-wise, it only gets worse. The world doesn’t feel real and has zero consistency. How do “alien space empires all die of depression when they realise mortality doesn’t go away and nothing is eternal” and “heaven and eternal torment in hell and bargains for your soul with demons really exist, but only here” mesh? They don’t. But sure, shove an emerging sentient AI finding personhood in there, I’m sure that’ll help. In spirit, this book is pure wish-fulfillment. It literally ends with “oh and also the rich guy gave the self-insert protagonist a Tesla”. There is absolutely zero examination of anything it presents, and zero consequences for anything. Secondary POV character is redeemed(-in-narrative) for not sending the protagonist to hell, after doing the same for six others (zero emotional impact) and also just … killing people who annoy her? Sure, sure, why not. How are your space aliens doing handling their angry school shooter son? Oh, they just pause him, which they can do for 50 years? Grand. The big relationship gets a happy-ever-after even though it was terrible and unfulfilling throughout? Why not. Emphasize excellence as the thing that can’t be bought, but then it can be bought from hell, and the protagonist isn’t great at music, but at the same time she’s this hidden genius whose soul will just let her make the most beautiful music, especially if the secret aliens give her holoprojectors? … sure but why. There’s a lot of needless detail about donuts, other food, and violins. As somebody who loves classical music and recognised ~half the performer names etc, I can say that this did … nothing. It felt wooden and dead and janky – which is probably the best way to describe the whole book and its characters. Oh, and actually, the queerness: The trans character is just a trope checklist. Yeah, I know the author is trans – queer people are allowed to write queer people badly, just like everybody else – they don’t have magic writing powers. And this stuff was so bad – a lifeless trauma dump. Ew. The only redeeming feature of this book was complaining about it at book club, and getting very drunk in the process.
Cover of The Perfect Run.

The Perfect Run

by Maxime J. Durand · published 2021 · read 2024-12-02
★☆☆☆☆
Decided to stop reading about two-thirds in. Just thoroughly meh, unevenly paced, way too in love with itself.
Cover of Deaf Republic.

Deaf Republic

by Ilya Kaminsky · published 2019 · last read 2024-11-28
★★★★☆
Not falling in love with this one, but there are very strong parts in it, and what more can you really ask for in a poetry collection / smol epos. Re-read because I’m giving the book away.