AUTHOR: Rachel Aviv

ISBN: 9780374600846

FIRST PUBLISHED: SEP 13TH 2022

PAGES: 288 PAGES

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

★★★★

How does the narrative we construct about mental illness influence our understanding of others and their experiences in the world?

This is an essay collection and case study that documented different individuals whose stories challenged the conventional psychiatric limits and reshape our understanding of mental illness. It begins with Aviv’s powerful and personal story, as the youngest patient that has been diagnosed with anorexia at the age of 6. And further explored a diverse range of cases featuring individuals who have various of backgrounds.

I was captivated by the introspective prologue. And I liked how reflective Aviv was about her experiences, and candidly shared insights into her recovery. However, the following section, the chapter called “Ray” didn’t hold up with the same level of engagement and I was worried that the writing would become weaker when Aviv was talking about other people’s stories. But luckily the book as a whole quickly recovered and regained momentum. Each following chapter offered a unique perspective into the mental and spiritual world.

I liked how tender and inclusive the tone is in this book that pervades this book. It creates a sense of compassion and understanding, allowing readers to connect with the diverse individuals whose stories are shared. Additionally, I found the social commentary in the book to be thoughtfully incorporated. Whether it’s providing additional background stories or calling out systematic failures. They are presented with the right timing and length, providing insightful observations on relevant issues without overshadowing the personal narratives.

I especially loved the conclusion story of the book about depression which raised the question: How does the narrative we construct about mental illness influence our understanding of others and their experiences in the world?

This is an insightful and thought-provoking book that I highly recommend reading this book with an open mind and receptive perspective. It offers a valuable opportunity to broaden our understanding of mental health. And how we constructed the world around social norms and often overlook individual needs and differences.

TRANSLATOR: WILLIAN MAYNARD HUTCHINS

ISBN: 1859643108

FIRST PUBLISHED: JAN 1ST 2012

EDITION RELEASE DATE: SEP 11th 2012

PAGES: 94 PAGES

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

I read this book for the From And About Asia Reading Project

For the month of Yemen, July 2022

A Land Without Jasmine is a short magical realism mystery that centered around the disappearance of a female student called Jasmine at Sana'a University, and the conspiracies around her disappearance. This is a thrilling book discussing a girl's coming of age journey in a heavily male-gazed and sexually repressed land.

The book is multi-POV, but besides Jasmine, all other narrators are male. They are Jasmine's observers, the very people that made her feel threatened and in danger. Each of them has a different impression of Jasmine based on their own interpretations, many related to sexual fantasies. The author wasn’t afraid of criticizing men and their behaviors in this story. Men's voices are full of sexual desires and violence, despite the fact that the women, in this case, Jasmine, cover themselves heavily and also follow strict rules to avoid any contact with men outside of their families.

I found this format suits this book very well for the subject matter, because what tells the reader more about the male gaze than presenting the hot gazings directly on the page? However, this is also a double edge sword because there were so many excessive sexual descriptions that sometimes can be tiring or repetitive.

The gruesome atmosphere is a high light of the story. The depressing vibe chases Jasmine as well as the readers. On top of that, the magical realism elements kicked in later in the book, making it an eerie read.

However, I was unsatisfied with how the mystery evolved, the twist and turns were surprising but also felt a little lazy. So I wish this book has more development to the core mystery, but it ended abruptly. Moreover, the sexual writings in the book can feel excessive once the book made its point of critiquing the male gaze and sexual repression. The impact of graphic words was diminished in the end.

Overall, this is a solid story to read and it brought up the idea of how society works for women in Yemen with a vivid example of Jasmine's story.

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TRANSLATOR: LINDA COVERDALE

ISBN: 0307589676

FIRST PUBLISHED: OCT 1ST 2019

EDITION RELEASE DATE: MAR 2ND 2010

PAGES: 188 PAGES

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

I read this book for the From And About Asia Reading Project

for THE month OF YEMEN, July 2022

Nujood Ali, the youngest divorcee who was granted a divorce at the age of 10, is a brave, smart, and strong girl. This book is a memoir she wrote along with Delohine Minoui, documenting her story, including but not limited to her divorce.

Nujood's story was unflooded with an overview of Yemen, the "magical land with legends as astonishing as its houses, which are adorned with such delicate tracery that they look like gingerbread cottages trimmed with icing", which has another name means "Happy Arabia". Nujood grew up in this land, but her stories do not rhyme with the gorgeous image of Yemen, nor do the stories of other child brides.

When Nujood found out her father has arranged a marriage for her, she was only 10 years old or younger, enjoying her innocent childhood and school life. Without realizing what was happening and what is marriage, she was hurried to marry off a man who is three times her age, and a nightmare began.

In this book, I was struck by the fact that how the decisions of early marriage, for girls in particular, were commonly and casually made in Yemen. In a lot of cases, the girls are a lot younger than the legal age of marriage. And I was amazed at how courageous Nujoob was at an age of 10, to have the determination of fighting for her own life, as well as her siblings.

I believe Delohine Minoui did a lot of rendering of the book, but I appreciated that the writing kept Nujood's 10-year-old perspective and understanding of the world and family. The things she went through made her maturer than her peers, but she still kept her curiosity as a child, and the eagerness to learn. It's very lovely to read about.

But this memoir is not just about Nujood alone. She also talks about the stories of her parents and her siblings that are as bizarre and heartbroken as hers, and really shows how little people have in control of their lives, in a highly hierarchical and patriarchal society.

If you are interested in Yemeni culture and society, this book will be a good choice because a lot of Yemeni concepts are explained clearly and efficiently in the book. And the stories of Nujood and her family members can be seen as case studies and examples of many phenomena. Exceptionally the "honor" of a family, and how people are willing to sacrifice everything to defend and protect the "honor", even their family members' well beings.

One thing I would love the book to expand on is the legal system in Yemen, and how professional women work in such a society. Nujood encountered many professional women who went through her divorce, it would be great if the book spent more than with them. However, the professional world is still very complicated for ten years old to articulate, so I still appreciate the amount that was shown in this book.

This is not the most elegant memoir I've read, but it's indeed one of the most powerful and emotional memoirs. I was brought to tears a lot of times when reading the book, especially towards the end of the book when Nujood was talking about the aftermath of her divorce.

It's 13 years since this book was first published. Our world has not become a better world for girls and girls' education. There are still countless girls who are abused and assaulted across the globe. And the world hasn't even become better for Nujood, who unofficially changed her name to Nojoom. Because Nujood means hidden, but Nojoom means "stars in the sky". But I will always remember her dreams, and how her courage and her determination moved me.

According to Wikipedia, Nujood was forced out of their home by her father, who has also withheld most of the money paid by publishers to Nujood. Her father also arranged a marriage for her younger sister. Nujood married again in 2014 and now has two girls.

This is also a book that reminds us to fight for girls’ rights for education. We can take action at Malala Fund.

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GENRE: FICTION

ISBN: 0007120842

RELEASE DATE: JUL 1942

EDITION RELEASE: 2012

PAGES: 299 PAGES

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

★★★★

This is the third full-length novel in the Miss Marple series. The book was written from the first-person perspective, following Jerry Burton who was injured in an airplane accident, so he follows his doctor’s advice, moving to a small village where nothing happens called Lymstock with his sister Joanna to have some quiet recovering time. Little did they know what they would experience.

Because it’s a first-person perspective, this book feels different from other Miss Marple stories, and it’s the first time we are following an outsider of the village, and learn the local custom with him. And same as Jerry Burton, I enjoyed learning the villagers’ personalities and are amused by the local orders they are following.

There are so many other things to uncover in this village besides the mystery. Gossips, relationships, people’s foibles. Although it’s one of Miss Marple stories, she didn’t show up until the last third of the book. So all the learning is done by the protagonist and we missed the process where Miss Marple learnt about the villagers, and her clever comments about people seem a little bit abrupt.

The mystery itself is well designed and twisting. But as one of the flaws of reading this book as a contemporary reader, I foresaw some of the twists that happened in the book since they have been borrowed by so many other books and media works already. But that shows you how smart Agatha Christie is to design and development classic mystery tactics that people wanted to follow.

One thing that confused me is, it was never clear how old Jerry and Joanna Burton is at the beginning part of the book. Since Agatha’s main characters are usually elderly people, it takes me a while to realize Jerry and Joanna are both very young. So some things happened in the book that confused me for a very long time. But as soon as I found they are younger than I thought, everything became clear.

I also watched the BBC adaptation of this novel starring Joan Hickson, and what a fantastic adaptation! It changed the plot a little bit to have Miss Marple appear throughout the whole story but didn’t steal the thunder from Jerry and Joanna Burton. And the setting and the designs of this adaptation feel a lot more elegant compares to the other adaptation featuring Geraldine McEwan that I watched for 20 minutes. So I highly recommend Joan Hickson’s adaptation if you are interested in watching this book on screen.

GENRE: Poetry

ISBN: 1943735042

RELEASE DATE Jul 19, 2016

PAGES: 102 PAGES

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

★★★

This is a collection of city life in the United States. It includes stories of the hardness Hanif encountered growing up and the things he went through as an adult. Analysis of gender, race, family, and love. It’s more uplifting than I expected.

Throughout the collection, I was impressed by the imagination of Hanif. He uses metaphors wonderfully and vividly, and some whimsical imagine in his poems are developed beautifully and I really enjoyed them.

However, I wasn’t blown away by the collection, so I gave it a 3/5 rating.

TRANSLATOR: JOan tate

GENRE: FICTION

ISBN: 0156005271

RELEASE DATE: 1990

edition release date: Oct 16, 1997

PAGES: 384 PAGES

WRITTEN LANGUAGE: Norwegian

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

This is a fictional story about Titanic but from the perspective of the motley band on board. It’s more about the life stories of the musicians and how they came together, but it’s not a retelling of the lives of the actual musicians. Although the author did a lot of research, the characters are all fictional. I read this book with a local Nordic book club for books by Norwegian authors.

The story is mainly divided into 6 parts, each part is focusing on one musician, showing us how they became a musician and why they came to work on the Titanic. There are a lot of common themes running through the stories. The musician’s life paths are full of uncertainty, music in their life is more of a wayfinder that helped them navigate their life journey rather than a job. Many details about how musicians work is apparently very accurate. We have a book club member who is a musician and she finds so many of her colleagues in this book, so she enjoyed this book a lot.

Personally, I liked the first two stories in the book, but the writing quickly became repetitive as I read further. Each musician is struggling with different kinds of misfortune and longing for belonging and recognization. However, the structure of each person’s story is basically the same, so it’s very easy to get tired of the stories and lose focus.

Another thing that bothered me is the amount of romance in this book. It’s not a romance novel by any means, but the amount of romance that happened and influenced the characters feels so excessive, it unnatural, and certainly unnecessary. I think this feeling was also caused by the repetitive plot development in each person’s story.

If you go into this book wanting to read a Titanic retelling, this book is not for you. Although they eventually were all on Titanic, their stories could happen anywhere, and the setting doesn’t matter. I don’t know if it’s because I was prepared for the inevitably tragic in the end, or I didn’t care about the characters enough, or even if the characters already went through so many misfortune, the ending of the book feels lacking for me. I was expecting more emotional feelings, but unfortunately not it was not the case.

However, if you want to read about musicians’ lives and their works, and what inspires their music careers, this may be a very good book to read, since our musician book club member felt very relatable in the story and liked it quite a lot. (That’s a good thing about book clubs, you always find new perspectives!)

TRANSLATOR: Silja-Maaria Aronpuro

GENRE: FICTION - GRAPHIC NOVEL

ISBN: 9789525909319

RELEASE DATE: Aug 2018

EDITION RELEASE DATE: OCT 26th 2021

PAGES: 367 PAGES

WRITTEN LANGUAGE: Finnish

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

OKSI left me with so many thoughts and feelings that I can’t articulate. This illustrated graphic novel centered around a pair of bear mother and daughter that is based on Finnish bear mythology.

We follows a bear cub who is different from other cubs, and kind of looked down by its siblings. Longing for recognization from its mom, the cub went on a journey of searching for its origins. On the journey the cub learnt magic and encounters many peculiar events.

So many things mixed in the story. It’s whimsical and very dark, mysterious and twisting. It covers so many things like seeking for meanings, greediness and emptiness, family and communication, journey and destination, and the connection of the spiritual world and the real word.

I liked the illustrations as much as the story. Only four major colors are used in the book. Black, white, red and yellow. The combination of these can have thrilling effects.

GENRE: FICTION

ISBN: 9570837691

RELEASE DATE: MAR 17 2011

PAGES: 456 PAGES

WRITTEN LANGUAGE: CHINESE (TRADITIONAL)

EDITION LANGUAGE: CHINESE (TRADITIONAL)

★★★★

I read this book because of LGBTQ in Translation Project hosted by Jen from Jen the Librarian. The book for February is to read The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei translated from traditional Chinese. Therefore I read this short story collection that has The Membranes and many other stories. So this review will be in two parts. The Membranes and other stories.

The Membranes

This is considered a classic queer speculative fiction set in the future when human beings have migrated to domes at the bottom of the sea due to climate change. The story centered around the protagonist Momo who’s a dermal care technician. We follow her narrative and get to know her world, things, and people she encountered. Even though it’s a short story, a lot of things are going on. And the sound of Mo appears countless times in the book. The protagonist is called Momo, it’s the Chinese word for membranes, and a lot of the objects in the book have the same sound too.

This is such a peculiar story with wild imagination of the future. The story is set in the 22nd century, but it was written in 1995, so it’s very interesting to see Chi’s prediction of the future, what things really happened in our current world, what things went in a totally different direction from his speculation.

I really liked how the book dealt with gender fluidity and sexuality in the book. It also discusses the meaning of genders and is that really necessary.

Not only gender is fluid in this book, but a lot of many other things too. Chi is constantly breaking down the concept of gender. Twisting realities and imaginations, mixing truth and fiction. I found it’s interesting that because the author also wants to write about the interactions among females, therefore there are no male characters in the book.

We had a very good discussion about this book in the discord of LGBTQ in Translation Project, and I feel like I learnt so much from the discussion. As a heterosexual person, I see the lacking in my understanding, and the limits of my thoughts from the discussions, and I appreciate the whole group so much!

Rest of the Stories in this collection

This book also has other three major parts with 17 stories. Fluidity is definitely a keyword of these stories. It’s fascinating to think about how fluid can Chi write about nearly everything. Gender fluidity, sexuality, feminism, desires, technologies and so much more. Some are even just common items or concepts we have in our day-to-day life, but he was just able to see things from a different angle and make us discover the hidden possibilities.

I also really enjoyed the writing of the book, I underlined so many sentences just because of how beautiful they are written. I feel like this happens more when I was reading books in Chinese, but I really appreciate the sentence to sentence writing in this book, and I even want to recite a lot of them.

Overall this is a collection that I feel is well worth reading, and I’m really glad I did.

ISBN: 0008294046

FIRST PUBLISHED: Feb 7th 2019

EDITION RELEASE DATE: Jul 25th 2019

PAGES: 272 PAGES

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

★★★★☆

This book is a warning of how nationalism is coming (back) to us globally more popular than before, the signs we need to pay attention to, and the consequences that would follow if many countries failed to prevent the dissolution of democracy.

Losing her homeland Turkey, Temelkuran examined the transformation and the political tools the Erdoğan regime used to popularize nationalism and popularism, divided people, damaged democracy step by step with seemingly small changes, and eventually turned Turkey into a land of dictatorship. At the same time, Temelkuran emphasized on these political moves are not exclusively happening in Turkey, they can happen to a lot of democratic countries. Actually, the change has already happened to many countries that people think would never fall into nationalism pr dictatorship without alert.

This is a book that we need to read NOW (as soon as we found out about the book). It’s alarming to know how many similarities there are between the events that transformed Turkey during the years and the things that happened in other western countries. Temelkuran not only led me to see many things I observed and realized during my nearly 10 years of living in the US, but also pinpointed many phenomenons I haven’t recognized but indeed experienced. Especially during and post-Trump's presidency in the US and Brexit in the UK.

She also analyzed the roles people play in any country’s transformation, and how the shifting of social responsibility works in the current age. Studied the recent events in Western countries, Temelkuran pointed out how and why the concept of “real people” was created by propaganda, how it’s harming, and why it would be a struggle to debunk the concept.

All the examples she used, whether they are things happening in Turkey or other countries, and relatable and some are surprisingly common enough. Each is a reminder that democracy is at high risk and what happened to Turkey could easily happen in other places.

One big takeout I got from this book is, we should take more time to communicate with the people who are holding similar thoughts with us, discuss a common goal that we want to reach, and work out a path to it. Instead of using our precious time to focus on people who are holding opposite opinions. Especially in this distractive internet age, maybe uniting with more people and developing plans to move forward is more essential than putting a lot of our energies on negative impacts.

However, this book is extremely Western-focused, especially the chapter about citizens’ impression of their fascist leaders and how it’s dangerous if one underestimates their opponent. Growing up with an Asian background, I don’t think a lot of the analysis about leaders applies to a lot of countries with paternalism leaders (I could be wrong!). When Temelkuran summarized the similarities, the phrasing makes you wonder they apply to any kind of government. So I think it’s worth mentioning that it has its limitations.

With that, it doesn’t affect the importance and the masters of this book. And in my opinion, paternalism is a later stage of the dissolution of democracy after all. I still think this is a must-read for everyone and it’s a great guideline for us to reflect on our daily lives and maybe, we have a chance to stop the world sliding from democracy to dictatorship.

AUTHOR: 东野圭吾 (Higashino Keigo）

TRANSLATOR: 吐雅 (Tu Ya)

GENRE: FICTION

ISBN: 9787544767217

FIRST PUBLISHED Jan 2011

EDITION RELEASE DATE: Mar, 2017

PAGES: 211 PAGES

WRITTEN LANGUAGE: JAPANESE

EDITION LANGUAGE: SIMPLIFIED CHINESE

★★

This is a short mystery story collection of Higashino Keigo’s early works. Aka the book that should not be published.

Even Higashino admitted it in the foreword. Talking about how he wasn’t satisfied with these stories, so that’s why they were never published in the first place. But the warm-hearted editor of him insisted on publishing them because of his fan base. So he gave in and we got this book. Well authors, stand by your works! If you don’t think they have the publishing quality, then don’t publish them! It’s the author’s choice after all. Especially Higashino Keigo, who is already a profound mystery writer.

So needless to say this book was a collection of mediocre stories which are not as captivating, not as interesting, and not as worth reading. One of the stories was the outline of one of his full-length novels, Naoko. For readers who want to read the long version, it indeed is a spoiler and kills the anticipation of the story. For readers who have already read the novel, the short story is a way more lame outline.

I’m very disappointed by everyone who’s involved in the decision of publishing and translating this book. It was even translated into Korean!

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ISBN: 9780062073617

FIRST PUBLISHED Feb 1942

EDITION RELEASE DATE: Sep 16th, 2003

PAGES: 224 PAGES

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

★★★★★

I loved this book so much. This is the second full-length Miss Marple novel, and it’s everything great about Agatha Christie. And it’s exactly what I needed between heavy topic books.

Early in the morning, Mrs. Bantry vaguely remembered someone mentioned there’s a body in their library. When they went to check, The Bantrys indeed found a body of a young blonde girl, who they don’t recognize was strangled in their library. Questions were raised about this case right away: Who is this girl? Why is she in The Bantrys’ library? Mrs. Bantry invited her friend, our lovely Miss Marple to help her investigate, and they both went on a little trip in order to find out the truth.

Although the book started with the cozy town where Miss Marple lived, the case took part of a bigger stage this time, and Miss Marple had to deal with people who’s not familiar with her and won their trust. I loved the characterizations, and some comments on people’s traits are just so humorous, makes me laugh all the time.

As Miss Marple met new people, she often compared them to the townspeople she knew, to make her old friends from their town understand the personalities of the new people more. She gave out examples of things people did in their town and delivered clever comparisons. I just loved to read about the fun facts about the townspeople. Also, the vicar from the first book of the series, Murder at the Vicarage, made a cameo in this book too. And it was just very lovely to see him.

As a mystery, this was a complex and unpredictable case. Not only was the stage where the murder was related upgraded to a larger place, but the identity of the victim also became more complicated too. There are so many connections between people that were hidden so well from the readers, and there were many looming motivations that would keep you wondering too.

This book was such a great read and has a weird, almost magical power that made me fully present in the reading experience. Once I opened this book, I forgot about the things I’m anxious about, I lost the urge to consistently move fast. I was fully emerged in the story and felt like I was at the town with Miss Marple together. So although it may not be the most rigorous mystery novel, it’s by far my favorite Miss Marple story.

I also watched the 1984 TV mini-series adaptation of this book features Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. It’s the TV series that stayed the most loyal to the original novel that I have ever watched, for any book. It’s great fun to watch after reading the book, although there are times I feel like the characters are mumbling and it’s hard for me to understand.

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ISBN: 0571367984

FIRST PUBLISHED Jan 15th, 1982

EDITION RELEASE DATE: Aug 5th, 2021

PAGES: 117 PAGES

EDITION LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

★★★☆

This is a very peculiar little book that perfect to read in one go. The story started with Dorothy, who is a housewife living a simple life in the suburbs. There weren’t many people in her life, just her husband, some relatives and a couple of friends. One day a monster appeared in her town who’s somehow related to Dorothy, and stirred a series of events in her routinely peaceful life.

I picked up this book knowing the blurb and for some reason, it intrigued me so much. For a very large part of the book, I wanted to figure out the background of the monster and whether it has relations to Dorothy or not. But soon I learnt that the premiss of the story is way beyond that.

This is a magical realism story about longings for excitement, for the escapement of domestic duties, for being seen and loved, for being brave enough to face the truth in life.

Dorothy and the monster, despite being two different species, share many things in common. They both are trying to figure out the situation of their existence, and how things become what they are. Just like the readers.

But in the middle of the book, the story takes an unexpected turn and swatted its direction. The mystery on the surface level faded away, and the problem in the background surfed to the front. I didn’t see that coming and was left there feeling lost and unsatisfied.

However, the writing of the book was beautiful and very atmospheric, I liked the ambiance it creates. Being a book written in 1982, the environment doesn’t feel dated at all. The town that Dorothy lives in feels very cozy, relatable, and picturesque.

In the end, I still enjoyed this book, despite feeling lost after the story shifted its focus.

GENRE: NONFICTION

ISBN: 1984877925

FIRST PUBLISHED: Nov 9th, 2021

PAGES: 418 PAGES

EDITION LANGUAGE: English

★★★

This is Will Smith’s biography that’s very hard for me to process. On one hand, it fulfilled its mission being a biography and covers almost every aspect of Will Smith’s life, who I didn’t really know much about, in spite he’s a very successful actor. His personality shows through every page (or every minute - since I listened to the audiobook) of the book. But on the other hand, this book makes me so stressed that I have to put it down for a long time, hence why I finished this book in January when I started in early December.

Starting from Will Smith’s childhood, the book narrated many events that influenced Will Smith as a person and really makes readers understand why he is who he is today.

Growing up in an abusive family, Will Smith started to adopt humor as one of his defense mechanisms and developed a fascinating imagination that helped him in difficult situations. He believes if he can make people laugh, everything will be okay, and this eventually led to the success of his acting career and how he interact with people around him well after he became an adult.

I liked how he wasn’t self-pity and was able to turn some of his heavy childhood experiences into different lessons and analyzed their impact on him. He reflected on things, and you can feel that he genuinely tries to learn the maximum amount of lessons from each event. Which is great for personal growth, and which is also why he was able to become and maintain success for a very long time.

This is a double edge sword that makes the book seems too stressful. Throughout his life, you can see his desire for success and the layers and layers of pressure he added to himself. And the expectations were just so heavy. Maybe I have a low tolerant of “success-talks”, but in the end, I felt pressured too. His wording makes you feel like you are wasting your life if you don’t work as hard as he did. What comes worse - he has expectations for others as well. Not others’ performance, but he needed a very high quality of reactions from people around him. So that he can feel recognized and loved.

On the bright side, he noticed that himself too. He’s consistently reflected on his flaws and wasn’t shy away from calling himself out. But the frustrating thing is he never really reflects on it. So throughout the book, you see him repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Eventually, it became too much for me to read (listen).

This is also a very self-centered book. Of course, it’s the nature of a biography, but I don’t think it’s necessary to repeat himself as “the biggest movie star” a hundred times in the same chapter. I understand he wanted to make a point about hard work, but it’s still too much for me.

However, this book was also entertaining because being Will Smith, he has the ability to enlighten the mood and make people feel happy. His writing was humorous, and because I listened to this on audio, I was also entertained by the top-tier performance of audiobooks. Also, the audiobook includes many clips from his albums or things he referenced, so I highly recommend the audiobook if you are interested in this book.