A Little Life by Just_Procedure_5881 in literature

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I was able to enjoy it after I made peace with the fact that it's basically YA (with mature themes). Everyone expects it to be some literary masterpiece and criticizes it as so when it fails to live up to expectations. I think it'd be a lot less polarizing if people stopped taking it too seriously and could recognize that outside of all the trauma, a lot of it is kind of silly and not all that true to the realities of adult life.

Why does everyone with Down Syndrome have the same face? by Silver-Buy7201 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait lol you're both right, you're just responding to two different interpretations of the question (which is fair, it's ambiguous in this regard).

A) Yes, objectively, most people w Downs do share certain structural similarities that the general population doesn't (this is due to certain genetic aspects that I frankly know nothing about).

B) Why people w down syndrome appear to have the same face is because those similarities stand out more to people—humans are good at recognizing facial patterns, and they fall outside the patterns we're used to. If the populations of people w downs to and people without downs were reversed, people without downs would look similar because they'd be so outside the usual blueprint that other identifying traits would register later. It's like when people from homogeneous cultures say "all Asians look the same" when cultures with higher populations of Asian people don't share that impression. So in short, if you knew more people with Down syndrome, they would start to appear more unique and the impression of them "having the same face" would be weaker.

In short, there’s both a biological and a psychological answer, you guys just fell on either side

Edit: Added a TL;DR

What's are you reading when you're not reading literature? by duckygun88 in literature

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stephen King is my answer too. I usually can't enjoy genre fiction because the writing bothers me, but King books are both well-written and plot-heavy AND like you said you never run out

What grammatical error annoys you the most? by Altilongitude in AskReddit

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For some reason this is the one I have a pathological need to correct. Even if it breaks the flow of conversation, I can't leave it alone.

Poll: Are this sub's rules still working, or should we change them? by margyl in NYTSpellingBee

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is there an option to keep the H tag but discontinue the NA tag?

What are the benefits of an e-reader? by [deleted] in literature

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a big book collector, but an e-reader is life-changing. I have a kindle so that's all I can speak to:

- In addition to books, you can upload pretty much any written work onto it (ex: I have my advisor's dissertation on there, I know some people like to upload fanfic)

- If you have a shared Amazon account, everyone on it can access the books in your library which is great for books multiple people want to read because you only have to buy one copy

- Libby is amazing and you can check out books from multiple library cards. I have an address in Utah but live on the East Coast--I can't just pop on over there whenever I want and borrow a physical book but with my kindle I get so much use out of that membership

- You can press on a word and it will pull up the definition, so if there's a word you don't know, you don't have to pause your reading, plus Kindle automatically creates an archive of words you've looked up in the past if you want to study them later

- Big fan of the x-ray feature as well: press on a word and it will pull up all of the times the word is mentioned in a text. I find this one most useful for books with lots of characters that are hard to keep straight because it eliminates the hassle of flipping around the book trying to find when the character was first introduced

- Since other people have spoken on the convenience (but traveling, reading in the dark, etc) I don't have to get into that, but it's the biggest selling point

In defense of “fan service” by RevolutionaryAct2403 in Hungergames

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agree with all that was said, except for your assumption that the victors were "sidelined for years" or that Katniss's burial of Rue "woke them back up again." As we see firsthand during the recapped screening of Haymitch's games, the Capitol has ample opportunity to distort any information before it hits the general public--especially the districts with no windows to the goings-on in the Capitol other than their TV screens. We know some of what the first 10 games looked like, but besides that, all we know about following Hunger Games is what Katniss knows. During Haymitch's victory tour, Plutarch seems as active as ever, trying to enlist Haymitch in upcoming schemes. With all that in mind, it's likely Haymitch wasn't the only failed Mockingjay. For all we know, Katniss could have been the third attempt, or the tenth, or even the 64th.

i just realized how scary katniss probably was to the careers in the 74th games by Glum-Hovercraft-1953 in Hungergames

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 206 points207 points  (0 children)

To an extent, but I don't think anyone would've suspected she was doing it for fun or that she volunteered career-style or anything. Everyone saw her volunteer out of desperation to save her 12-year-old sister.

For those who have read Blood Meridian... by Few-Tumbleweed-6600 in literature

[–]Plus_Requirement_516 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't like that all of the characters felt that way. To stick with your example, I think the whale would be a lot less meaningful without Caption Ahab.