Sign up
Search
Advanced search settings

Search only in certain items:

Search results
All (2089)
Content
People
Apps
Books
Orbs
Movies
Music
Podcasts
Shows
Tabletop Games
Tech
TV
Video Games
YouTube Channels
Videos
    BestDay.com

    BestDay.com

    Travel and Utilities

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    With BestDay To Go you can plan your business trip or vacation, and search for and reserve the best...

40x40

ClareR (6134 KP) rated The Glass Hotel in Books

Aug 27, 2021  
The Glass Hotel
The Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry
9
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Glass Hotel is a book that I really didn’t think I was going to like - but I did. It’s about a failed Ponzi scheme - I had to look up what that actually was. I had absolutely no idea. It’s where someone, a real or fake advisor, planner or investor, promises to invest your money with a certain rate of return. Instead of putting your money in whatever investment they promised, they keep it for themselves. If you want your money back, they take it from other investors to give to you. I couldn’t read a whole book where this was constantly referred to and not find out what it was!

However, this book isn’t just about Ponzi schemes. It’s a character driven book, and there are a fair few of them.

Vincent was a fascinating character - she starts her life in a remote village in Canada, only reachable by boat. When it looks like she’s losing her way, she gets a job at a hotel and meets Jonathan Alkaitis - the organiser of the Ponzi scheme. Vincent is completely unconcerned at where the money she spends is coming from, she just spends it, lives in their luxury apartments, living the life she never had as a child. When that money is gone, Vincent moves on - she’s a survivor, and I really like that about her.

I couldn’t believe the length of Alkaitis’ prison sentence - I’m assuming 140 years or more is normal for a fraud of this scale. He doesn’t cope well. He has visions, sees ghosts of the people whose lives he destroyed. This was really eerie: were they real? Was it his imagination?

Leon Prevant shows what happens to a lot of older people when they have no income: he becomes one of the nomadic people, travelling in a camper-van from job to job. No savings, no home. The fear as they get older, of illness or infirmity.

So yes, I really enjoyed this. I liked that it’s completely different to Station 11, and I’m very glad I read it!
  
40x40

Jenny Houle (24 KP) rated The Weight of This World in Books

Jan 13, 2018  
The Weight of This World
The Weight of This World
David Joy | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I received an ARC from FirstToRead for an unbiased review of THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD.

It's particularly hard to explain the details of this book without spoilers, beyond the blurb already posted about it: "A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can’t leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it."

I don't entirely think I knew what I was getting myself into reading the book, which was well written but a little too graphic for me. I think in referring others to it, I will consider those who handle certain scenarios well, versus those who do not (for example, I'm not exactly rushing out to recommend this to any of my friends who've returned home from war and are dealing with PTSD).

The development of the three main characters and the intensity of their bonds and loyalty, despite all the ways they continued to fail one another, were a true depiction of human spirit. How we can love someone so much that we never mean to fail them, yet we can never do fully right by them.

I loved the epilogue but not the ending...if that makes sense (I'm afraid to say much for fear of spoilers). Part of me wanted so desperately for Aiden, Thad and April to all find their way away from Little Canada, alone or together, having beaten all their demons. Part of me, though, is realistic enough to know that is not how life works.

I will absolutely be hunting for other books by David Joy having read this one. So glad I took the time and stuck out the scenes that were hard to stomach.