“…if a record cannot be perfect, it should at least be present. Better for it to exist than for it to be perfect and only in your mind.”

I think this line just changed my life.

I'm having such serious gripes with the writing in this book.

Here's the thing... there are some moments, lines or passages that resonate SO well, feeling deep and meaningful. Especially in Ike's POV moments, depictions of grief for his son, and the chasm between him and his wife, are written SO well.

But then... you have to look at the rest of the book. Most of the time, the writing is intensely flat and simple. He does this. He does that. He thinks about this. He feels that. He sees a note. There is a drawing on it. He takes the note. There are numbers under the drawing. And the moment more than one character is present, the first names get overused SO HARD, and it's noticeable because the author has such a simplistic writing style in most scenes.

HOWEVER, on the flipside of that, the author feels the need to pepper in SO MANY similies, often random, contradictory, or just plain ill-fitting. Might just be me, but I DOUBT the homophobic redneck would describe another man as "a tall glass of water". The big man walks like godzilla. Blood is smeared across his hand like Sanskrit. EXCUSE ME what.

The POV also switches between characters from one sentence to the next without significant paragraph or chapter breaks, feeling random rather than intentional.

Do you have any book-inspired tattoos? If so, what?

So, this post is not strictly about literature but also partly. Let me know if it‘s inappropriate to discuss this here but I feel we have a good discussion community here on Pagebound, so I was wondering about your guys‘ opinions. This might be a kinda long so bear with me.

In the last week or so, my Instagram algorithm kind of sent me down a rabbit hole regarding all the problems our world might be facing in coming years due to AI and climate change (including data centers and their impact on water resources, changing weather phenomenons and resulting suffering of a lot of people). It was very much not great for my mental health and I have since decided to go on an Instagram-detox. This has helped, however I still see those topics everywhere, including here on Pagebound (for example the post about AI in non-fiction a little while ago).

I, of course, don‘t want to avoid these topics completely, but just reading about them and then just feeling helpless and hopeless because no one is doing anything, is still not great for me.

So, I was wondering what are your tips and tricks to a) avoid and maybe protest AI (aside from not using it obvi), especially how to avoid AI in the books you pick up like are there any websites that check books and authors for AI-usage? etc. and b) how do you guys deal with the impending doom feeling (if you have it as well?)

So far, I changed all my search engines to duckduckgo and ecosia to get away from Google and the AI use they force on everyone and their dog, I don‘t use AI in my personal life or for uni if I can avoid it and I‘m still avoiding Instagram and other social media, especially the comment sections.

Bonus points for book recommendations dealing with AI, climate change and not just informing about these topics but talking about how to deal with their impact on our world and society!!