My Review of "None of This is True" by Lisa Jewell

None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alix is a famous journalist/podcaster when she meets her "birthday twin" a lady that was born on the same day at the same hospital as her. Then things get weird. This is an entertaining page-turner with some dark turns along the way. It's funny and sad at the same time.

I am not sure about the narration structure, the book presents the story as the screenplay for the Netflix documentary for the story. So, it's a story told inside a story of a podcaster. It's unique, it did not quite feel gimmicky, but at the end I wondered how much this helped the story/plot.

For me, I am starting to see a pattern, I think I am drawn to "crazy women doing crazy shit" genre.
Like "All fours" by Miranda July or all the people in Mary Gaitskill's stories. I liked the pace of the story, I liked how the mystery slowly unravels creating even more questions as you go.

I liked this book, it was a good story, I gave it three stars because I thought the author could have done without the unusual narrative format. I could not fully relate to the main character specially her relationship to her husband Nathan. I don't want to give away spoilers, but, I did not like Nathan.

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My Review of "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created and Empire and Transformed Pop Culture" by David Kushner

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the story around the people who created the game Doom. John Romero and John Carmack.
The book starts with a short bio of the two Johns. And covers the stories around the creation of their first game, the company they started and the famous public fallout.

I like the idea that the game and the company worked because both founders had opposite views and opposite approach to the game. Romero was "design is king" and Carmak was the "Engine Guy" One thought that the design of the game is the only thing that matters and tech was just a tool to get the game you want to create. Carmak was the opposite, for him the tech was the main thing, the story is not that important if you don't have the tech to make it stand out.

I didn't like the people in this story, the sterotype of the programmer as the socially-inept genius, the nerd that has the last laugh hurts the tech industry. I liked that I read this book, but I was not inspired by the people or the story. For me this is a history lesson and how to suck at managing.

Good read for sure, I recommend it to those who are in tech as a cautionary tale.


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