Amanda

4.25 ⭐️

This book feels like a love child between The Secret History and Gillian Flynn, so I thought I'd like it, even though Storygraph's AI said I probably wouldn't because it's of the “Crime” genre. The AI was right. Even though this is a bit of a satire on the True Crime genre as a whole, it's still true crime and I'm just not a True Crime murder girly.

Penance is a novel about the brutal murder of a teenage girl by her classmates, and the town where they all live. Very much like The Virgin Suicides, Penance is more interested in creating a robust picture of the characters involved—the murderers, the victim, their families, their neighbors—and is less concerned in recounting the events of the murder. My favorite aspect was how characters' actions and words—fueled by their own insecurities and traumas—rippled into each other's lives. No one was solely guilty, no one was fully innocent.

It's tricky, because as ART, Penance is 10/10. The narration style is ingenious, the character development is perfect, but I was gripped until I wasn't...then it started to slog for me and I considered DNFing. I am glad I didn't, though.

Incredible novel that just isn't for me. Objectively 5 stars, but subjectively I'd give it 3.5.

4.5 ⭐️

First, the prose: I absolutely loved the dreaminess! The rest of the novel felt like four separate yet interconnected short stories, in the vein of Emily St. James Mandel. I also loved how the themes of loneliness and love and relationships are related to spaciousness and home. I only wish the ending had been drawn out a bit more; it felt sharp.

4 ⭐️

I thought this would be an easy 5 stars until about halfway through when the plot slowed and everything started to fall apart. Incredible writing, but a disappointing ending, and, maybe it's just me, but the characters did not grip me in the way that I had hoped. They are likable, and their relationship is likable, but I did not care enough when everything inevitably came to an end.

Another small bother was the backstory development. Both Leah and Miri reflect on their relationships with their parents and how this shapes their present moments and Leah's felt much more fleshed out than Miri's. I'm still not sure how Miri's relationship with her mom and her illness relates to Leah other than the fact that Miri watched both of them die. It felt as though the author built two houses in a neighborhood and never built the road between them.

Regardless, I did not want to put this book down and would happily read it again, and anything Julia Armfield writes in the future.

3.75 ⭐️

First the pros: this is a book of artfully woven anthologies. Nagamatsu created a world that is endlessly imaginative. The lives of people separated by tragedy are still hopeful, and the connections they find are heartwarming and tender. I wished some of the vignettes were books of their own, and I only found a few to be bland.

The cons: this one was on me for not reading the blurb thoroughly, but I don't think I needed to read a pandemic book. A 2022 “what if” exploration into the death of millions of humans by plague felt gratuitous. Maybe I'm not finished grieving the past few years though?

The plague is also a metaphor and not just a plot device. I do like this about the book. It is mostly explored in the final chapter, but I'm not sure it works. The plague is the mutation of the genes of Earth's creator. It comes about when she imbeds herself into creation (i.e., having a child with a Neanderthal). As the creator, she represents the innate nature of humankind to dream and create. But, manifested in her dead daughter, this potential also wreaks havoc (it must be noted that the virus lays dormant in the Siberian tundra and only becomes an issue through global warming). To be honest, I'm not sure what the author is getting at with this one. Humans have the possibility to create and destroy? Yeah, I guess. That point just feels a little flat.

Some of the stories I found more interesting than others. One of my favorites was from the perspective of Cliff's wife, who goes on a 6000 year space exploration to find a new world to colonize. To go from that back to 2039 on earth felt disappointing. Again, maybe I was just wishing I was reading a different book?

Overall, my personal disappointment isn't enough to say that this is a bad book. It isn't. It's exceptionally beautiful, but it wasn't what I wanted it to be.

I started this book four months ago and a good 60% of it was, frankly, boring. Also, there's a 4-way love triangle that one character isn't even aware of and it's all very men-don't-know-how-to-write-women, which is a bummer. But this book was written over 40 years ago and if the romance in it is mostly just cringe, that's a pretty positive review. I don't really fault Robert Jordan for it.

All that said, the I loved the first half of the book when we were still in the borderlands and the last 10 chapters when the action started ramping up. Still totally in love with these characters, the world, and this story.

3.75 ⭐️

I have a habit of avoiding synopses so that I don't spoil the plot, but about 60% through I realized I had no idea what the plot even was, which feels pretty indicative of how meandering this book is. As any other Emily St. John Mandel book, we follow different characters along their intersecting paths through time, so “meandering” is expected to some degree. There were so many paths, though, that it was difficult to parse the actual through line. Eventually, the thread of each character's moral ambiguity becomes more clear: they make choices and use each other out of desperation and survival, rarely with the intention of causing harm. Though there's so much truth to it, the themes felt a bit thin, but also I think it all just made me feel sad. Did I enjoy it? Sure, Emily St. John Mandel is always enjoyable, but I'm not sure if I liked any of the characters, and I probably wouldn't recommend it.

3.75 ⭐️

A fantastical and poetic millennial fairy tale (think dystopian Hans Christian Andersen) that is wholly unserious in the best kind of way.

On a more critical note, many sections felt frenzied in a way that detracted from any emotions evoked. I only wish there was a bit more space in the sentences to give the reader a chance to linger on some of the heavier bits.

4.5 ⭐️

I feel so mixed about this one. The story telling was completely on par with The Fifth Season and Obelisk Gate. However I could not get past the fact that what took Nassun a lifetime to master, her daughter figured out on her own as a child in 2 years. Yes, Nassun had internalized trauma to overcome and a lot of unlearning to do, and her daughter did not have to deal with these things, but it still felt unrealistic. And then her daughter was able to do what she couldn't? Also,
—maybe it's just me—but I never really felt sympathetic toward Shaffa until the very end and I resented that N.K. Jemison was pushing me into empathy.

I initially rounded-up to 5 stars because of how masterfully Jemison connects human relationships, power dynamics, and environmental protection, and weaves it all into an gripping narrative, but after a few days I'm feeling annoyed, so we're rounding down to 4.