Storytelling is about heart and enchantment and capturing key aspects of the human condition. Which AI will never do.

Stringing together cliches does not make one a storyteller any more than recycling a funny story makes one a comedian.

I'm a Zoomer, so most of your middle paragraph is going right over my head haha. I appreciate the explanation though :)

Unpopular opinion here, but I absolutely hated this book. Monique's character wasn't needed at all and if she was left out, it could have been a much better book that made Evelyn more dimensional in terms of her depth as a character. Additionally, the constant foreshadowing was just too much and while there was a little bit of a plot twist, it wasn't unexpected given the foreshadowing hammer prior to that point in the novel. The book had the potential to do way more with the writing than it did. There was way too much telling and not showing, which makes sense given the interview style, but while that's easy to read for some, I found it really tedious and difficult to really dig into the time period, the scenes, the environment the characters found themselves in, etc. Also, the relationship between Evelyn and Celia was super toxic, and, honestly, had this not been the book for my book group, I wouldn't have finished it. I was surprised that so many people liked it and recommended it, honestly.

That being said, I do think this book would make a much more interesting TV show or movie. As a book, for me, it fell very flat.

Wrong subreddit and it is crap.

I had to ditch The Measure over this, which bummed me out since I want to know what happens but couldn't stand the writing.

While I agree that the writing isn’t the best, I feel like the cast makes up for it. They’re very human and feel real. And I like that I don’t know exactly how to feel about Evelyn Hugo other than that I won’t forget about her anytime soon.

Her writing is right on par with Dickens, Hardy, Austen, and of course her sisters, as far as prose goes. I just don't think there is anything about it that stands out as over written or pretentious.

She took her time writing the story. Big deal.

And I don't know where your aggression is coming from, you're like a weird mixture of an English major and a gym-bro. I've never seen anything like it.

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My interest in stoicism comes from personal experience. I suffered a neurological injury ten years ago as a young man. As a result I have lost everything (although according to a stoic I have lost nothing). I lost my health, my agency, my independence, my career, my love life, my sex life, my hobbies, my friends, my social status, even my identity. I live in excruciating agony every day, my whole body feels like it is on fire, I have constant migraines, I spend half my time lying in the dark hiding from light and sounds because they are like knives being driven into my eyes and ears respectively. I have severe insomnia and it is not uncommon for me to be awake for three days straight. My eyes, hurt my vision is blurry, everything hurts. My body is failing and malfunctioning in so many ways I would have to write a small book to list them all. I cannot function, I cannot take care of myself, most of the time I can barely read, I can barely follow a tv show, I have not felt human touch in a decade, my life is comprised of (almost) nothing but illness and loss.

I became very interested in stoicism a few years into my injury. I wanted to believe that it was possible to live a eudaemonic life even though I had lost so much. I was passionate about the philosophy and tried to incorporate it as a worldview, every time I found myself feeling sorry for myself or pining for the things I lost and the things of which I was deprived I would stop myself and attempt to focus on virtue. For a while this helped, my outlook on life improved somewhat. But eventually I realized I wasn’t a stoic at all! I was tricking myself! I was focused on virtue for instrumental reasons, not because I truly believed it had intrinsic value. Part of me thought that maybe if I changed my attitude, that I would be able to heal, maybe my health would return, maybe I would be able to work again, to date girls again! However, this was not to be, the illness remained, the pain remained, and it soon became clear that virtue is small comfort to a man starving to death.

I think stoicism would be a great philosophy for most peoples However I think the more a person needs it, the less possible it is to actually practice it. I prefer Aristotle’s conceptualization of virtue ethics, as he accepts that people have fundamental needs to be met before virtue is actually possible.

Well, then they run the risk of something getting into the gossip rags.

Thanks for sharing this. I had never hear of this book but it looks quite interesting and unusual- which is always a a big draw for me. I just downloaded it for free to my Kindle app.

Honestly that’s fair. We spend so much of our lives on screens, wanting to be off screen is important

That’s a good point about Amazon services actually. Would make all other points irrelevant

I loved everything about this book. I especially loved that it had everything to do with true love and almost nothing to do with the actual seven husbands of Evelyn.

What you may not be appreciating is that reconciling with something still means accepting a loss, of having had something taken from you, in some cases. Refusing to accept it can mean insisting on the importance of what was lost. This is a sensitive area for disabled/chronically ill people. I was promised a 'normal' life as a teenager prior to the negligently-performed operation that disabled me. As disabled people in society, we are seen as lesser, as not fully human, as though 'normal', full human life doesn't apply to us, isn't even something we have a right to desire.

Absolutely, they should have every right to kill themselves if they so wish, suicide is an issue of bodily autonomy. Maybe check out philosophical works on this subject. It's not a taboo question. Camus' Absurdism presents suicide as not the answer, but as 'the only really important philosophical question'. I love Camus, I would absolutely put his work in front of a sufferer of chronic illness before any work of stoicism written by some Roman Emperor. Camus contracted TB, he went from fit and sporting to living under the shadow of death, he knows what he's talking about.

Camus was also very politically active. I'd suggest books about political movements and activism before a book of stoicism, too. Marcus Aurelius directly benefited from people being encouraged to accept their lot in life. Pitchforks are really a far preferable problem solving approach in this case.

I really liked it. I read it right after having gone through some medical trauma that left me hospitalized for weeks after giving birth. I could really relate to the story. Even after coming home I was too sick to take a real part in raising my child for a few weeks, and I can imagine my husband felt a bit like Miri at times. Something so “normal” went so wrong that I came back a different person.

Thankfully I am much better now. But I had a strong connection to the book. How it conveyed love and loss was really powerful.

Hi there. This subject has been very popular in the past. Please use reddit search and/or check the /r/books/wiki/faq.

Love her writing style but definitely I felt that way too on this one!

I mean what makes something entry level fiction? I’m sure Brontë never thought: ‘yes a nice entry level book for entry level readers’. She just thought she was writing a good story. I have no issues reading the book and understanding her English. But there is a difference between ‘this English is too hard for me to read’ and ‘this English is pretentious and overly wordy’. I’m not used to reading contemporary books at all. I’m a classics student so I spend most of my time reading Homer and Virgil who manage to convey more meaning with more brevity. What a chump man smh.

Brontë goes on and on and on expanding what could have been a 250-300 page story into over 400 pages. Now I can see you replying: ‘Ah well I guess if you are used to reading shorter stories it’s not for you hue hue hue’. But no my issue is that it is needlessly long and drawn out. Homer manages in 300 pages (differing based on translation ) a larger story with more impactful moments via his economy of words. As Shakespeare says: ‘brevity is the soul of wit’.

Go back and read it lad

Maybe The Three-Body Problem and its sequels next, which has some more cool ideas about multiple dimensions.

Daisy Jones and the six , Malibu Rising, 7 husbands , and Carrie Soto is back are all in the same Universe. For example, Carrie Soto made an appearance in Malibu Rising.

She seems like a totally bad ass. I haven’t read Carrie Soto is back. I’ve read 7 husbands, Malibu Rising and I’m currently reading Daisy Jones and the six.

I can already tell I’m going to finish it tonight or tomorrow.

I loved this book so much! I’ve seen people class it as both literary fiction and horror. I wasn’t expecting to feel so sad and empty when I finished it lol I would love to read more stuff that’s similar. Salt Slow by the same author is also good if you like short stories — it’s kind of in the same vein as Carmen Maria Machado and Mariana Enríquez

It's consistently an actual underrated story.

not me. whatever it is i own,i like to have something i can HOLD if possible: i buy lot's of books to read at night,i buy copies video games and movies rather than download them and even still have a CD player.

digital is all fine and dandy if that's your thing but i'm old school and i like being able to touch things and feel them in my hands.

To each their own, I guess

For me, there's that sensation I have when I turn pages of my physical books. I still read online books but physical ones will always hit different