This is the story of a sexbot that gains sentience and it was so thought provoking. I stayed up until midnight finishing it and then couldn't fall asleep for an hour thinking about it. It reminded me of Klara and the Sun but more disturbing. Can sex ever be consensual if you are programmed to feel pain if you "displease" your owner?

This is a hard book to review. I have always been drawn to people following the beat of their own drums to go on spiritual journeys. And in highschool I absolutely loved this book.

It is written as if it where a true story, with the author being the narrator as himself. This is an interesting approach that works pretty well. Here is one of my favorite quotes from the novel, and something I have been thinking about a lot as I search for a new religious home. Unfortunately, I agree with Larry's feelings about the mainstreem Christianity's version of God.

"I couldn't believe in a God who wasn't better than the ordinary decent man. The monks told me that God had created the wolrd for his glorification. That didn't seem to me a very worthy object. Did Beethoven create his symphonies for his glorification? I don't believe it. I believe he created them because the music in his soul demanded expression and then all he tried to do was to make them as perfect as he knew how."

So overall I do recommend it. However, the sexism (and yes, I know it was just a sign of the times) was jarring and I just can't bring myself to rate it 5 stars because of that. He described so many women as fat, or at risk of becomming fat, or with legs that were fat. It was distracting.

I was expecting to really like this book. It was recommended by people whose taste I usually share (for example, we both hated the book James). However, overall, I did not like it.

This is a martial arts/fantasy novel set in a tiny village. The magic system was similar to Avatar: The Last Air bender but with made up words to make it sound more fancy. Even though most words were translated into english for the convience of the reader for some reason, units of time were not. and i found that rather off putting. Especially because no justification was made for why it was so important to not use typical units of time. I get that the couldn't call it "water bending" and had to make a fancy name for the magic system but why couldn't they call it a "minute".

The main character was a kickass teenage warrior who rather than marrying the man she loved, followed her family's wishes for an arranged marriage into a very traditional culture where women were only valued as homemakers and then shrunk herself for 15 years into the role of subserviant house wife who felt disconnected from everything including her children.

I actually found this dichotomy interesting and could understand why she would follow her fathers wishes. I also understand how people can feel trapped for decades at a time. However, IT IS NOT FUN TO READ ABOUT. Until I got to the last 100 pages, I had to force myself to pick up this book every time. I did really like the last 20% or so and I enjoyed parts here and there of the first 500 pages (especially the parts with Mamoru) but I can't recommend it.

Probably 3.5. This was a hard book for me to rate because I definitely think it was worth reading. If nothing else than to be a counter point to all the pro therapy media we are constantly being fed. Therapy is not without risks and even though therapy is more readily available than over before and less stigmatized....mental health is in fact getting worse. Obviously this is correlation not causation (a fact that Shrier never acknowledges) but it is still worth thinking about.

That being said, my spot check of her references lost her a lot of credibility. I only checked on two but their were problems with each. On page 8, Shrier asserts that "therapy can deliver unintended harm and does so in up to 20% of patients". She lists two sources for this claim (and only the date of the most recent one) neither abstract mentions the 20% number and both articles seemed to be discussion articles rather than research. I could only get full access to one of the articles but I could find no reference to a percentage of therapy that causes harm (please correct me if I am wrong).

I was also curious about her assertion that betwen 1950 and 1988 teens suicide rates quadrupled. Her source was a sentence from a New Yorker article (NOT A PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL) and the New Yorker article did not cite their source. So not very convincing. After doing some digging myself, I was able to verify that statistic for the most part but citing a secondary source was not an impressive or scientifically sound choice.

Overall this book had some points that are worth considering and I am glad I read it. I especially liked her points about being "action oriented" versus "state oriented". In other words, it is more helpful to focus on tasks that should be done rather than how you feel currently. But of course I liked that, I am a behavior therapist.

I would recommend this to you if you can handle being told you potentially ruined your kids by putting them into therapy. There were definitely worthwhile ideas but I wouldn't trust her conclusions any more than any other "expert".