hot potato book club

George Orwell has done it again; he has written a story that is relevant to the modern day and  is scarily similar to actual historical events!! Despite being written almost two decades earlier than the emergence of the true events of what happened in Soviet Russia, Animal Farm has a LOT of overlap with the genesis of the communist uprising as well as the horrors of the Soviet gulags detailed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago  and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich  (the wall = the windmill???) Additionally, the misinformation and gaslighting of the other animals by Napoleon and Squealer are eerily similar to that of the Trump administration...well...throughout his entire presidency lol. Animal Farm is only 84 pages long, but that is definitely enough to send a shiver down your spine... Rating: 9.5/10

Fahrenheit 451  starts off as almost a gripping sequel/spinoff novella to Orwell's work, but about halfway through chapter two ( note: the whole book is three chapters long ) it devolves into being a two-dimensional caricature...much like those newspaper comics that boomer artists make about millenials being mindless zombies incapable of critical thought or enjoying anything that isn't a TV show. I was disappointed because the premise is actually pretty good, but unfortunately it just doesn't hold up after the first chapter... :( (side note: as you can probably guess by the cover, F451  has been made into a movie starring the wonderful Michael B. Jordan...but the ratings are pretty bad!)

  Before reading this, I had suspected that I might  be a highly sensitive person (HSP), but I wasn't entirely sure of that because I can be quite insensitive at times. After reading this, I have come to realise I am definitely an HSP...and that those "insensitive" behaviours are often just acts of self-preservation e.g. keeping my contact with other people - with a couple of exceptions - to a seemingly abnormal minimum, being direct (read: blunt) in communication to avoid others overthinking, experiencing almost-extreme annoyance by seemingly innocuous things like noisy people in the background, etc. The HSP  is a goldmine full of practical advice that I'm sure anyone who considers themselves to be sensitive could benefit from implementing. The advice covers a range of topics from individual and interpersonal settings to career and spiritual settings. The most interesting piece of advice for me was to avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy of negative labels - especially

The world it's set in is very cool, but definitely seems like a horny teenage boy's dream. The author's writing style kinda reminds me of Kristin Cast (co-author of the House of Night  series), but with a lot less uhh...grace haha 😂 It makes me feel like a teenager again because of how much this reads like the YA novels I used to absolutely devour...except this is definitely  geared towards adults! Speaking of devouring, I'm glad that the book is almost 400 pages long because I had set myself the goal of reading at least 50 pages per day, but I would read 30 pages as soon as I woke up because it's so enticing!! Not gonna lie, this isn't exactly a literary masterpiece...but it is definitely a very fun read!  Rating: 6.5/10

A beautiful collection of poetry and observations with the basic principles of compassion, simplicity, and respecting nature. I also really appreciate how the translator largely allowed the work to speak for itself, rather than writing fifty pages of notes beforehand! rating: 10/10

It's terrifying how 1984  was written in 1949, but could have just as easily been written yesterday !  I'm not really sure how to review this without spoiling the plot of the book because it is definitely a lot more than "Big Brother is watching you", but let's just say that it was mind boggling to read along with the psychological decimation of someone who starts off hating the establishment to the point where he vows to throw acid in a child's face if it means that the establishment will fall. rating: 9/10 (would have been a 10, but there are certain parts that drag on for a while; there was a chapter that was almost 50 pages long! 😱) final thoughts Why is 1984  not required reading??? I am of the belief that if more people read 1984, then we would probably not be experiencing the extreme polarisation ergo vulnerability that we are in 2021. words I picked up from 1984 : acrid : "unpleasantly bitter or pungent" (is there such thing as p

I vaguely remember reading Dracula  back in 2014, but everything after the first four chapters was new to me soooo technically this was a fresh read?? Considering how obsessed I was with vampires as a teenager, I'm genuinely shocked that I hadn't read Dracula  in its entirety yet! This one took me a while because the text was so small, but it was so good and I am glad that the small text actually forced me to savour the words rather than chowing down to find out what happens next!! Rather than focusing on the eros and decadence of the vampiric lifestyle coupled with the crushing loneliness of outliving everyone you've ever loved as most vampire novels tend to, Dracula  focuses instead on the people that are affected by Count Dracula. There are multiple storylines told in the form of diary entries and letters. The story paints Count Dracula as a monstrous, ruthless, and powerful creature. As an adult, this was a lot more fun for me to read as opposed to the vampi