Review: Seveneves

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was amazing. I love reading Stephenson, and this was no exception. The story starts with an astronomical event that scientists soon figure out mean that the earth will be destroyed and nobody will survive. Representatives from different countries and cultures and with different skill sets are sent up to space to represent the future of humankind. The book follows what happens to those people, and the generations that come after them. It's part space science, part sociology, and part adventure.

Not only was this book obviously meticulously researched, but it was well-written, smartly plotted, and filled with rich characters. The book is long, like most of his works are, and it is great fun to see seeds sown early in the book grow into critical plot points later. Thoroughly engrossing and enjoying.

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Review: One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Both Lindy West and Jessica Valenti have blurbs on the back of this book, so it was kind of an obvious choice. It is a series of essays by Koul, an Indian-Canadian author who writes for BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and The New Yorker, among other outlets.

At first, I was disappointed. The first few essays were more Mindy Kaling than Arundathi Roy. I found the humor distracting; it undermined her message for me. However, either I got used to her, or her later essays were more serious, because by the end of the book I was enjoying it a lot. Her commentary on race was well-illustrated through her own experience, and that of her young niece, her father, and many other people in her life.

I need to read more intersectional feminists. This was a great start.

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Review: Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wish I had liked this book more, because Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead was very influential to me. This book was about Sandberg's unexpectedly losing her husband, how she coped, and how other people can cope with great challenges as well.

Unfortunately the book didn't hit the mark. I spent the entire book feeling pulled in different directions among a memoir, self-help book, and sociological study. I would have been interested in reading any one of the three, but the way the book was constructed, I didn't think it did any of them particularly well.

I understand this may be partially because Sandberg co-wrote this with Adam Grant. If she needed to do that to get through the heartbreaking subject matter, than I'm glad she did - for her. As a reader, the empathy I felt for her loss still didn't make me like the book any more.

One nugget I took with me, however, was the idea that kids with a "growth mindset" were more resilient than those without. It was the first I'd heard of a growth mindset, and it immediately changed how I've been talking to my kids.

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Review: Emma in the Night

Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This starts as a standard mystery - two sisters disappear and years later, one returns. The detectives and forensic psychologist who responded to the original crime resume their investigation. However, a few things tipped me off early that this was no formulaic beach read. First off, the psychologist has an unusual background herself. Second, seeds are planted early in the story that the sister who returns may not be a completely reliable narrator. Also, their mother is completely nuts. As the authorities (and me, as the reader) try to figure out what really happened, increasingly more psychological dysfunction is revealed. I was able to forgive some of the less-than-perfect character development, and some of the basic techniques used for developing doubt and leaving clues, because the plotting and story was just that good.

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