Silicon Hearts by Robin Miyashita
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For some reason I kept waiting for this book to be like many others where Silicon Valley is full of evil, terrible people who are plotting some sinister way to exploit the main characters. I think I hadn’t fully read that it was a romance story.

So while there was a little evil-ness, it was mostly a story about five kids who win an opportunity to participate at a special program hosted by a big tech company (that smelled a lot like a combination of Apple and Google). As someone who works at one of these companies, I laughed at some of what was true and some of what was clearly exaggerated but all in the spirit of fun.

The writers are both from the industry so there’s nothing here that was egregiously ridiculous except maybe that they couldn’t predict the 2023 slow down of tech.

I enjoyed each of the five characters. They weren’t super complex but they also weren’t cartoons. They just weren’t deeply developed but it didn’t bother me. This was a fun, entertaining read.

with gratitude to netgalley and Hyperion Avenue for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Sketching Buildings & Landscapes: Perspective and Proportions for Drawing Architecture, Gardens and More! by Masao Yamada
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a different and interesting book on how to structure your sketches for a scene with buildings and landscape. It focuses less on how to draw the bits of a building but more around how to make decisions around where to frame the elements of the scene, how to get the proportions and perspective right and then how to break down the structures of the drawing to get the scene to match what you’re looking at.

It’s unlike any other book I’ve read on this topic and I think for that reason alone, it’s a valuable addition to your library of art/sketching books.

with gratitude to Tuttle Publishing and edelweiss for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

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