Hugh Neill

"Every day, Griffin Batt goes to work at his job where he cuts off his left hand in a single swift strike.

Griffin Batt hates his job where he cuts off his left hand in a single swift strike."

The first sentences of this book are one hell of an opening. And it only gets better. The back cover and content warning are entirely accurate. What they don't say is that this book is both very funny and very poignant.

Griffin's pointless and painful job, shitty apartment, diminished social circle, and show more weird commute with men who smell strongly of lunch meats are life under late capitalism, pushed to the point of absurdity. The way that the limitless possibilities of youth are worn down under other people's desires that you should do this, from school, to whatever work keeps a roof over your head, until all that's left is a nub of a life that's little more than pain, distractions from the pain, and on minimal thing worth holding onto, hits right fucking there.

Writing about pain is easy. Funny writing is incredibly hard, and Sinister Extremity laughs through the pain. Everything has a purpose, and the story builds as Griffin finds things worth living for, even as grotesque teratomaliths threaten to overwhelm his city. All the pieces matter, and the conclusion is a maniac climax that believes in a possibility of justice, of agency over your own life, and the proper use of a Serbian steel cleaver.

Sinister Extremity is one of the best books I've read in 2025. show less

I can imagine this book being useful to someone trying to relearn math from the very basics, or if you are homeschooling someone. It has worked examples, little nuggets of trivia and other things, but the level is just too low for me personally. It starts with basic arithmetic and goes on to cover basic algebra. On the way it includes Statistics, how to read graphs, fractions, basic geometry without axioms and proofs and other such things. The end of the book contains ideas for further show more reading and some websites that seem to be primarily British, which is understandable, since the book was bound in the UK.

Final thoughts; good execution, but the level isn't high enough for me. show less

Mathematics