yeah ain't nobody got time for that. I actually think the easiest way to fix Jacob would be to keep him as a good husband, they had a solid relationship and maybe he was a little whimsical and pretentious BUT when Harper gets the scale he flips the flip out. The whole book is about people being whipped up into a panic and the danger of group think - so why not have their love rupture because he believed everything he heard on the news?
I saw you had read this on Goodreads and was looking forward to reading your review. I am just about finished, about 40 chapters to go - except I'm "reading" it as an audiobook - I couldn't pass up the opportunity to listen to Kate Mulgrew read another Joe Hill book. I'm finding it absolutely captivating and terrifying. It's such a fantastical premise but it's also so *real*.
SPOILERS - ish
I agree about Harper but can we have a long and very detailed discussion about how much I hate this current trend of "oh I'm so in love but OMG they have turned into a monster" - which this book did with Jacob. He was initially painted as being fairly pretentious and I could buy his about face when she got infected, but he becomes so over the top villainous so quickly. I just don't get how Haper was so blind to his true self or how he could hide his intense misogyny for so long.
I was about to say that Into the Wild is a lot more positive and uplifting and it is ... but it's also reeeeal intense. Haha, but it's probably more life affirming than something like Missoula!
I hope you like him! I really loved his book on Everest, but I think most people find their way into his work with Into the Wild. My next book of his is going to be Missoula - it's meant to be a pretty intense read.
I loved Stiff and really need to get a few more of her books. I really liked it, but I'm so terrible at following up with authors I like.
She's very similar to Jon Krakauer for me - not necessarily books I'd otherwise pick up but their names attached make me consider them.
And I'm pretty sure Mythbusters did the chicken test in an episode of theirs early on.
Why is she even having an MRI of her neck for an issue in her wrist? Is that a thing that happens? This sounds like a book where those little details would add up far too quickly and I'd just be in the lounge room shouting at the book while I read.
It's totally because "ew girl books are all about romance and teen vampires and garbage" we want to read TRUE literature. The dig at Water for Elephants points to that. I bet you a million bucks they've read women who wrote under pen names though and didn't even realise it - or have made exceptions and read Frankenstein but justify it by saying Percy Shelley and Byron probably "really" wrote it when they were at the Villa Diodati.
Ted is the WORST. I rewatched HIMYM last year and I nearly lost my mind every time he was on screen. Did you watch the final season when it aired originally? It is peak Ted Shmoesby.
I don't think I'll write another post for this book, but I'll definitely do it in the future. What did you think? Did you love the ending? Hate it?
That is such a great point, and I also think it comes through A LOT in relation to gender/sexism. I'm mostly thinking of Game of Thrones (TV) here when last season (the season before?) they had the scene between Jaime and Cersei and everyone is like "GUYS THAT'S RAPE" and they disregarded it like "nahhh, we'd know if we wrote a rape scene". If you can't recognise that one of your characters just raped another character, how consistent or well written could they possibly be? It reflects so badly on the project as a whole.
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Medley