Dawn

Wow, just wow.

“Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset”

Hinton started writing this aged 15 and it was published by the time she was 18 - she's credited as having written the first YA novel. Written in the first person narrative of 14 year-old Ponyboy who lives with his brothers Sodapop and Darrel, the story takes place over just a couple of weeks but so much happens.

There's gang warfare, poetry and fire, heroes and villains, “Greasers” and “Socs”, cigarettes and alcohol, the literature and death. No wonder it's a core text in some US schools and banned in others.

I don't know how I've managed to get so far in life and not read this. It caught hold of me, despite my jaded adulthood, and drew me in. It's so beautifully written that you can't help but empathise with Pony's and experience everything alongside him. I'll be interested to see if the film does it justice (no, I've not seen it either).

Well, thank goodness that's over!
This is a re-read, I probably originally read this about 18 years ago. Somehow I read all of the books in the series. This time I struggled to get even a few pages in.

To begin with the protagonist, Thomas Covenant, is just horrible. A self-pitying creep who sees woman as objects (always with the pert breasts) and then actually rapes a child. “I actually don't know if I can justify reading on with this absolute tosh” I wrote as an aide memoire whilst I forced myself to keep reading.

On finishing I surprised myself by awarding 2 stars to such a grim experience. This is solely because I am slightly enamoured by the story of The Land. However, I don't want to spend anymore time in Covenant's company.

My advice to those yet to read this, just don't. It's not worth it.

The annual Pulitzer Prize winner read and I wasn't impressed. This should have been everything I like, music and strong females and something a bit grungy and grubby.
However, I couldn't keep track of the characters (usually I love a time-hop) and quite honestly, I just didn't care. There were snippets of interest and connection but then it would lose me again, there was no-one I liked or even had any emotional response to. Just blah, and don't get me started on the slide section - no, not impressed at all.

2.5⭐ scaled up because the writing was fine.

A very clever Christie novel that keeps you guessing until the end. There are so many strands that come together beautifully, showing why they called her the “Queen of Crime”. Well worth a read or a re-read.

4.5* rounded up to 5 because it's Discworld and that's the best world. I love these books for their strange yet familiar worldscape with plots, people and places that are often a version of Earth's own.

This was a witches novel, which are amongst my favourites of the series - featuring, as they do, my hero Granny Weatherwax. I'm loathe to go into the ins and out if the reasons I didn't give it 5* so I'll just say - spoilers!

Terry Pratchett was a literary genius and will be greatly missed, I'm sure he'd have done a bit more tinkering on this if he had the chance.