KJ's Book Reviews

  If Cats Disappeared from the World Written by Genki Kawamura Originally published in 2012 ~202 pages Rate 5/5 A short yet impactful story about a man's last days on earth as he experiences a prolonged game of "would you rather" with the devil.. The "would you rather" propositions the main character was faced with made me reflect and question my own reality and daily decisions. As the story progresses, the whole world is impacted unknowingly by the  main character's decisions while the main character sees the short-term effects of his choices . He begins to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of even the smallest of objects/ideas. Readers never get to find out the main character's name, he is merely defined by how he decides to spend his last days on earth.  At times the verbiage felt too juvenile considering the narrator is in his 30s, but I'm not sure if that's because of the way it was translated. That's the only compliant I rea...

  The Unhoneymooners Written by Christina Lauren Originally published in 2019 ~430 pages Rate: 3/5 After years of reading, I am starting to wonder if I actually don't like reading romance or if all the romance books I pick just aren't my type of romance. The last book I read that I would categorize as romance was The Song of Achilles (read 12/20/23-01/18/24) and I did enjoy that. There was a little bit of a marketing issue I noticed with this book. The book description claims the story as an enemies to lovers romance, but that was not at all what I read. There was only one seemingly rude circumstance that later got cleared up as a misunderstanding on Olives part. There was a little bit of bickering, but it felt incredibly tame and unproblematic. I would only consider this a fake dating trope. Spoilers ahead  The only enemy I saw in the story was Ethan's brother, but that was the plot twist. Dane being deceitful was the only element that saved the story for me. Dane and Oliv...

  101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think Written by Brianna Wiest Originally published in 2016 ~450 pages Rate 2/5 I think this would be a very nice coffee table type of book, or a book where you would read one chapter every day. I just listened to this book.  From my understanding, this is a compilation of essays written by different people and then edited by Brianna Wiest so the essays concepts/ideas are numbered.  Of the 101 essays in the book, only a handful of them provided concepts and ideas that were new to me. The book doesn't go into too much depth with most of it's claims so if this is the first self-help book a person reads it would be magnificent. For those who have already dived into self-help/psychology related materials before, the book might be deemed as a waste of time.

  Cultish The language of Fanaticism Written by Amanda Montell Originally published in 2021 ~300 pages Rate 3/5 What are we willing to do in order to find a place in this world? In Cultish , Amanda writes about her personal experiences with cults. From her run in with Scientology to her interviews with ex-cult members (from different cults), she covers an array of cult-related material. She claims that we, as a society, have normalized the word cult to the point where it doesn't have a distinct meaning anymore. Hence her new world cultish,  when something has cult-like characteristics, but it might not be recognized as a cult.  Towards the beginning of Cultish , Amanda explains how it's easier to label certain cultish behavior rather than what is a cult and what is not. Later she goes on to say that most people might be able to notice a religious cult when they see one, but there are other groups that display cultish characteristic that go unnoticed, the groups she mentio...