Nik Kroushl

I really wanted this to be a framework or guide post for setting out what you want in a “good enough job”, a work of philosophy maybe. (I read it because Oliver Burkeman recommended it and I really liked Four Thousand Weeks.) But it was more a work of journalism examining some different aspects of our relationship to work through the stories of individual workers, with a few broader statistics thrown in. It was fine for what it was but very little of the book contained new ideas for me and the authors conclusion is kind of just “a lot of our problems with work are institutional and societal, but you probably should just find your own middle ground between caring about your job and building a life outside it”.

Shorter (I think) than the first two and not quite as strong. I liked it plot wise as an ending to the series, eg it felt full enough of a circle, but the signature character and relationship development I've usually gotten from Butler seemed less present, more rushed. I guess at some point you have a large enough cast of characters that it's difficult to juggle them all with real depth – although in this case, the final book was (unlike the others) written in first person, and it seemed to share one of the complaints I had about the Parables: the cyclical and even repetitive thinking of the narrator, parsing a philosophical question or ideal. To me it's clear that Butler shines best with multiple viewpoints. I also wish the story had done more to question the validity and righteousness of the Oankali (but perhaps that's the resister human in me). By the end of the series, none of the characters had any remaining real objection to the manipulation from the Oankali. Which is maybe the point. It is interesting to read a book that does not give as much narrative punch to the “humans resisting alien colonization” argument as to the “humans are irreparable, inevitably destructive, and maybe thus aliens aren't so bad” one.

A tribute to the paranormal, steampunk, and romance genres. All of Jane Austen's hilarity and flare with an extra helping of dirty jokes. I loved this much more than I expected to!

I reread this book alongside my partner and I think it really does work best as the basis of a longer discussion. I tried to sit with it, take notes, reflect as often as I could. And I think the first half of the book was much stronger than the second half: the core concepts are best described here and Brown shares the largest number of anecdotal examples in the first chapters, which were necessary for me to grasp what she was saying. The Guidepost chapters are somewhat short and vague, but I guess that's the point: they're touchpoints, not theses.

It seems to be a useful source of further reading in the genre as well!

At times nausea inducing, always fascinating, either the characters writ large on the page. Gaps where I wanted to know more in some places (like, I wanted to know how Westover dealt with moving in with her partner and overcoming the “living in sin” thoughts) and cyclical in others (many of the stories with Shawn were essentially playing out over and over, although I understand this to be a reflection of the realities of abuse).