Josh

First of all, kudos to the translator. In my experience with Backman's books (at least the ones I've read so far), the translators have been top-notch at capturing his unique voice and the distinctive style of his writing.

When it comes to Backman, it's almost guaranteed that I'm going to enjoy the book. His ability to write complex characters, capture their duality, and explore the human condition resonates so strongly with me that I can't help but love his work.

That's true in this book as well. It is a book about a bank robbery, about a hostage situation, but above all it's a story about a group of idiots trying to make their way in the world. T the way he explores those idiots, is at times funny, frustrating, and deeply emotional.

A perfect score for a book about imperfect people.

Miller's writing is beautiful as expected and while I said this in the Song of Achilles review it bears repeating. It takes a special type of talent to take a story we know and tell it in a way that captivates. She has that talent in spades.

She takes some liberties of course, but in doing so Circe is given agency and becomes a multi-faceted character who questions, rages, sinks into despair, and builds herself anew across her immortal life. I daresay I even enjoyed it a bit more than Song of Achilles, though I hold both in high regard for different reasons.

The author lays out on the first page the themes of this book and what his intentions are. “I wanted to look more closely at how our sense of morality both mutates and crystallizes as we come of age. I wanted to explore how hatred can complicate love, how love can make us blind to the danger around us, and how racism and hate are at work even in the lives of those who don't think they've chosen a side”.

Well, if that's what the author wanted to show, then I think he did a very good job. Let's start with the prose though. This is going to be a matter of preference, but for me, I enjoy descriptive. Perhaps it's because my first love is Fantasy, but world building matters to me. I enjoy being able to paint an image based on the prose. Zentner has a very sparse prose though, that while I was able to get use to it, it is far from my favourite. It is however very simple and quick to read.

Small quibble aside there, this is a story about a kid who has to reconcile various facts and come to terms with what they might mean. In this particular case he has a step father who is patient, will study algebra so he can help the kids with their homework, believes in hard work, treats his mother well, doesn't drink, doesn't swear, believes in God and family. But he's also a racist. And that's one element of the book. Jessup trying to come to terms with where he stands in context to his family and battling with the fact he loves them.

Another element of the book is his step dad trying to reconcile with his beliefs on family and the fact that his bigotry may not be what's in said family's best interests. These themes are so frustrating, hard to read at times, saddening, and at times downright touching through out the story. Such a myriad of up and down emotions that was so compelling.

Then we have the plot. I don't want to spoil anything here, but suffice to say I was feeling it at first, but then it entered a territory that I thought was frankly a bit to far over the line of believability from a story standpoint and I felt that characters arguably develop to fast. A pet peeve of mine is characters that feel like they're doing a 180 rather than gradual changes. I wouldn't say it felt quite 180 here, but it's definitely not gradual either.

So what do I rate this? You know what it's got significant flaws, but as I sit here contemplating the rating, I realize, I don't care. It's not perfect, but the engrossing themes, the emotional rollercoaster, and depicting a very sensitive issue with humanity...it's a 5 in my book.

This is a retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses fairytale. I'm actually not familiar with that fairytale, but my suspicion is this novel is a lot more creepy than that tale. In fact the novel really excels in two area's. The horror elements are genuinely quite creepy. I'm not overly familiar with YA Fantasy Horrors, but I enjoyed those elements here a significant amount.

The second element which is really paired with the first is the atmosphere in general. The author is quite talented at painting the world. She does a great job making you feel like everyone is really on this rocky, cold, island that survives off the sea. The type of place where the smell and taste of salt permeates everything. 

The plot lands slightly below these two for me as I was quite enjoying the mystery build up, but it did start to become quite predictable. I'd still say it was enjoyable though just because of the horror type elements through out it. I didn't really care much for the romance plot lines though. Extremely cheesy stuff...

The real let down for me though is the characters. The sisters for the most part are just slight variations on the same person. They are vain and boy crazy. Those are for the most part, the two things that define them. The only two exceptions are the main character, who is defined by one extra trait, and the youngest who is far too young to be interested in boys or status. If you took the name's out of the book, I legitimately don't think I'd be able to say which one was speaking at any given moment. I wouldn't say I enjoyed any of the other characters either outside of perhaps Fischer.

I enjoyed the creepy story/atmosphere enough though that this still hit a 3/5 for me.

Superb atmospheric writing. Ernshaw does a wonderful job selling Pastoral and building it up in your mind with her fantastic prose. I enjoyed all the characters for the most part and there are some of them where their actions match their personality so incredibly well.

But this book's not a 3 star or higher for me, because there are a lot of plot holes and the twist itself to me, is just something I can't believe as an explanation at all. The atmospheric writing is so strong that this may not actually matter to many people that read the novel, but for me I read a mystery for the mystery. Here the mystery just isn't on point imo. 

There's some value as an introduction to issue's surrounding tech and addiction, but there's not much in the way of analysis of the studies and factoids presented. The latter portion of the book does offer something in the way of solutions in harnessing addiction for the greater good, but I personally found it left a lot to be desired.

 Not a scary book in the traditional sense, but definitely one that I found very unsettling and the tension runs high reading it. I don't think anyone writes crazy, quite like King does. He's written a lot of nasty bad guys, supernatural boogeymen and antagonists of other sorts in his time, but Annie is definitely up there as one of the most memorable and compelling to me. A bit over the top at times mind you, but overall she's what makes the book work.

If you love psychological horror then this is one I'd definitely recommend. 

Quite an enjoyable book although not always the easiest to read. It can be violent, bleak, and quite dark at times although not without purpose. I wanted to point out something I appreciated from the start though, so on a bit of a tangent!

I was hooked to this book almost immediately and the reason for this is how it displays mandatory training. It reminds me a lot of basic training. Exaggerated and embellished of course, but if someone had told me Hurley had been in the military I wouldn't have batted an eye. What do I mean? Small things, for example, the mantra's about killing they yell out during bayonet training are very similar to some of the same things you will say in boot camp. The Drill Sergeant will yell things like “What makes the grass grow green” the response of course “blood, blood, bright red blood”. “Who are we?” “The Quick.” “Who are they?” “The dead”. The dead being figurative here as this was actually before Iraq or Afghanistan, but I digress. 

She even writes about that burning desire to be praised and recognized by the very people yelling at you and making you do push up's. There's enough element of truth to what Dietz is saying and experiencing during said training, that I instantly understand and have an immediate connection with the character.

Moving on though, overall I quite enjoyed the journey. I like the theme's it brings up about war, power, governance, and the power of the people. None of this is new and you can find many stories like this out there, but not every book needs to re-invent the wheel. Sometimes it's enough to add something to existing theme's and execute on it well and that's what we have here.

My biggest complaints I suppose is outside Dietz I don't have any attachments to any characters. Some people die...it's war obviously...but I don't really feel much outside of how it effects Dietz, because I don't ever feel like they're really that important. The other complaint and the main one is that the ending is kind of...well for lack of the better word lame. I would certainly have liked something a bit different in that regard, but while cliche, sometimes it is true that it's the journey and not the destination. Last bit will be in a spoiler even though not integral to the story it's something I certainly missed.

When I was reading this book I thought Dietz was male. It's never stated that they were male, they have relationships with both sexes through the story, so it begs the question why I thought that. Could write a paper on that likely, but I appreciate that the book caused that kind of reflection without it feeling unnatural or shoehorned in.

This is a heavy one in a way that only historical fiction can be imo. The fact I can remember all the stories about unmarked graves just a couple years ago from schools such as the one's in the book just adds additional gravity. Because you know that while the story you're consuming may be heartbreaking, the scope is so vast that there are thousands of Kenny's, Maisies, Howie's, etc out there. Many, many thousands who never had a voice to tell their story.

I appreciate this book immensely for telling the story it does, because it reminds us that tragedy isn't localized especially when your policy is essentially “kill the Indian, save the man”. Systematic racism like this ripples out and touches entire communities for many, many generations to come. And it's important to recognize that when discussing current issue's that effect such communities.

So the subject matter, the emotional impact, and the historical/cultural importance...I'm there for all that. But having said all the above, the writing just doesn't jive with me. From characterization, to dialogue, to what I felt were plot conveniences etc. There's just too many things I didn't personally like that pulled me out of the book.

I'd still recommend it though, because I firmly believe that understanding the abuses of the past is key to understanding communities of the present. And I think this book can be a starting point towards that for some. 

The first book I read in a couple days and it was very good. I found the mystery, horror, and Sci-Fi elements interesting. I was enjoying the Biologists perspective and all indicators were pointed towards a series that would make my favourite's list. Then the second book came and it was so incredibly slow, meandering and filled with so much bureaucracy that it completely killed my interest in the series.  It also doesn't help that I didn't like Controls character much at all and he dominates the second book.

The third book had a few more interesting perspectives such as Saul, which make it better than the second book imo, but similar criticisms in that it's slow and nothing much really happens. Area X itself is very interesting, but the books for me end up drowning in the minutiae.

Extremely fast read due to it's casual/conversational writing style. It's got a pretty interesting premise, but it doesn't really go much beyond said premise. I'd go as far to say If you read the synopsis you already understand 75% of the book.

There is a plot of sorts, but it's pretty underwhelming and not the focal point of the novel. It's a fun read though and I had a few chuckles, but ultimately wish it had more depth.

The problem I often have with stand alone novella's and short stories is quite simply the length. It doesn't allow for the type of character development or plot progression I prefer. This novella also falls in that category and I just find I wanted more. I personally thought the stakes were too high and the discussion on good, evil, and hate to grand to be condensed to fit in under 200 pages. I did enjoy the characters and thought they were rather well developed for the page count, but some of the moments that are meant to hit hard, didn't land for me emotionally. 

I found myself thinking several times while reading that, I think I would have enjoyed it more in movie format then novella. Your mileage may vary though, if you tend to like stand alone novella's, body horror, and such. I will say if you are going to read it, know that a lot of it is written in dialect (Southern, some Creole, Gullah Geechee etc), so if that's not your cup of tea for visual reading the audio book may be the way to go. Personally, growing up in the South did help me on this front I think, but even then I did have to re-read sentences (particularly Gullah) and puzzle out what was being said. Anyhow, would put at 2.5 if half stars existed on this platform.

While this was a very fast read, I'd be hard pressed to recommend it to anyone. You have subplot after subplot that have nothing to do with the main plot. You'd think like most mysteries maybe they're there to misdirect, but you'd think wrong. 

The ending is completely shoehorned in and one of the most contrived I can recall in recent memory. The novel is essentially nothing more than the serial killer you didn't see coming and only leaves you asking ‘why' to so many things.

The characters also suffer from the same type of shoehorning. The main character is a group therapist, but yet there are no boundaries you'd associate with therapy or even interactions that would remind  you of therapy. Instead there is a massive amount of projection and inappropriate behavior from the main character that one would not expect from a professional. I understand an author is not necessarily an expert in the fields their characters are employed in, but there should be enough knowledge so the reader doesn't have to completely suspend disbelief. And given the huge role psychology plays in the book, you just expect something more then what felt like the depth of an intro to psychology clause. 

None of the other characters are much better mind you so suffice to say I found it disappointing on nearly every level.

 It's an incredibly heartwarming, cozy and at times very amusing story. This is in large part due to the characters that just tug at your heart strings. Lucy in particular is my favourite for his flare for the dramatic and his dark sense of humour. But all the children have their quarks and endearing moments. It's also quite enjoyable to watch Linus develop as a character over the course of the story.

That's the strength of the novel. The weakness? In my opinion, everything else, because it's just to simple and shallow for an adult novel which is what this is marketed as. Even if viewed as for young adults though, I don't think there's enough depth or nuance in the plot or world building. You get a barebones ‘dystopian' world with some black and white overt morality, but little else.

So...the book isn't perfect shrugs...it's still a very enjoyable ride because it simply makes you feel good and at the end of the day that counts for quite a bit. 

I thought City of Lies was good, especially for a debut novel, but I think the sequel and conclusion here is even better. There are two main elements of Hawke's writing that really stand out to me. The first is the world building. There are different cultures, languages, religions, magics, and races found in the novels that makes for a very interesting and real feeling world.

The second element is the characters. The representation in this book is amazing imo, because it never feels like a character is defined entirely by just one thing. They are fleshed out, nuanced and very representative of what you might find in a city. So you have among the cast non-binary, homosexual, mental illness, disability, religious belief (extremism and faith), with complex behaviors, emotions, beliefs, etc. The world feels lived in, in part because of how well the society and the people that make up said society are written.

It's not all praise though. The pacing felt very slow to me. I did think the book could have been quite a bit shorter and been better for it.  The bigger issue I have though is you alternate between two POV characters and while they are distinct from a personality standpoint their narrative voice to me is very similar. The chapters are named after the POV so you can keep it straight that way, but if you removed their names it would be very hard to distinguish which character's perspective you're in depending on the chapter.

The other thing I dislike is just preference, but I've always preferred mysteries where you can deduce the bad actors, rather than getting surprise information out of nowhere. Be that as it may, a great second novel and would highly recommend to anyone that likes their Fantasy with a lot of politics and a mystery/thriller plot.

I would say is if you are a person who prefer descriptive prose over dialogue heavy then you might find this one a bit more challenging, as it's almost entirely plot driven prose but even then I would still recommend giving it a try.

This is a story about a modern black woman is teleported back in time to the 1800's through a connection with a white ancestor who lives on a plantation. This creates an interesting dynamic with their relationship as she obviously has a vested interest in his survival, given that her own relies on it, but at the same time having to balance that with the horrific events that unfolded during this time period. A period that said ancestor is very much a part and product of. That's the premise of the book without spoilers mind you and it sets up very complex interracial relationships with themes centered around power dynamics, guilt, bigotry, racism, trauma, comparing modern sensibilities to past beliefs etc.

Every once in awhile I'll read a book where I don't really understand the praise it has received. Typically even if I think a book's not for me, I can understand why it's well regarded. This is a case though where I don't get it. The prose is nice albeit long winded at times and I feel like Yanagihara has done a decent job capturing some of the behaviors that may be exhibited by people who have been abused. Some of the content is for sure heartbreaking and even I shed some tears.

Yet, I dislike this book considerably because of how sensationalist it is. How exaggerated aspects of it are and how contrived the story is. I couldn't help but feel as a I read it that Jude was suffering just for the sake of suffering. To me, it actually began to feel like the author was reveling in said suffering. I don't believe every story needs an uplifting message, but if your characters are going to go through trauma it does need to feel organic and that is where I think this novel fails as it comes off as very emotionally manipulative imo.

It's too bad, because there is a great novel in there under the mountain of melodrama.

I read this because I thought the premise sounded interesting. We get a lot of stories about poisoners in fantasy whether it be assassin's or what have you. It was interesting to me to see a premise about a family that proof's the chancellor's food and drink i.e. tests them for poisons before consumption.

In the end it wasn't quite what I expected as it was more of a mystery then anything else, but said mystery was interesting with nice world building and a few fantastical elements thrown in there. Nothing really blew me away, but I thought it was very solid. 

For a little context, I rated the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy very highly overall. I did this despite having complaints that I mentioned in the reviews about the characterization, the casual sexism, and the info dumps. But I still loved the series, because there are few Science Fiction authors better than Liu Cixin at taking a hypothetical or theoretical principal, inserting it into a fictional setting and building a world out of the things that aren't solvable today or that are dreamed up today.

In that trilogy the plot was so incredibly compelling and the atmosphere of fear and this heavy blanket of bleakness...I ate it up. So even though I have a lot of complaints, I gave the books a 3, 4, and 5 as I became more and more invested in this first contact story with it's incredibly interesting Scientific and imaginative idea's.

This review isn't about the trilogy, but it highlights how something very flawed can still be loved immensely. That is not the case for Ball Lightning. The same complaints exist for me (which given this was written before the trilogy isn't surprising), but the things I enjoyed in said trilogy are gone as well. There's a plot line, but not one that is very interesting,  get the same flat characters in both characterization and dialogue, even more info dumps (some points feel like a textbook), the great atmosphere from the trilogy is gone and hell there's not even an antagonist to root for or against. To me it is very much a book where the hard science fiction was given precedence over the story and the story suffers for it.

I don't like reviews to be all negative though. So what I will say is had never heard of the phenomenon Ball Lightning. So because of this book I had a fascinating time researching more about that. So I did at least get something from the novel.

I feel that this series has gotten better with each subsequent book culminating into an amazing finale. That being said Death's End was still a novel of two tales for me. On the one hand you have some of the most brilliant future science fiction out there. Idea's that absolutely capture the imagination and you see how humanity progresses and regresses over such a large time scale. It's incredibly enthralling.

Then on the other side, without going into spoilers, you have certain decisions that Cheng Xian is making through the novel, but some of them have extremely weak reasoning and are not very compelling. It gets to the point that it's actually bit frustrating.

So again I didn't like the character writing...is basically what that amounts to. Story of the three books there. Yet, I found the science fiction aspect so captivating and enjoyed the unfolding of this incredibly bleak story to such an extent that it not only warrants 5 stars despite any flaws it may have, but it will also hold a place on my favourites list moving forward. 

I'm not a big romance reader and they tend to fall into one of three categories for me. Those being cheesy, wish fulfillment/fantasy based or unhealthy relationships. This one falls into the cheesy category. This could very easily be a Hallmark movie if you toned down the sexual tension and relationship down slightly. So there are some romance tropes in there I don't really care for and some drama that I didn't really find interesting.

Yet, I gave this book 4 stars. The reason for that is I find the relationship dynamics absolutely hilarious. I am a huge sucker for sarcasm and quick witted humour and this book has that in spades. Not only does it have it in spades, but it's done so extremely well in my opinion. I don't tend to laugh out loud often when reading, but this novel legitimately had me chuckling  and wearing a smile throughout a significant chunk of it. Nothing quite like a good laugh and for that, you get 4 stars.

 This one's a tad confusing for me. There are a lot of things I dislike about this book, but despite that it just has this vibe to it that kept me turning the page. That's vague I realize, but it is what it is. For starter's I actually like the main character. I mean she's very dislikeable, an anti-hero type for sure, but all her cognitive dissonance, rough edges, lack of empathy and sympathy and times...make sense to me given her life experiences. Life hits hard and it can really mess you up and I think she is the epitome of that.

The commentary on gender identity, the take on romance, and robots fighting monsters. There was a lot to like there. The big problem with the story for me is within the writing. The tendency to explain with info dumps rather than show, but yet on other hand at times be missing integral details important to character motivations or plot advancement.

The near insta-love between characters or the fact that every other woman but Zetian are painted in an incredibly petty and poor light were also sore thumbs for me. And finally the dialogue. It came off as very juvenile. Now maybe that's just me getting old, but given the setting for this novel you wouldn't expect internet slang and meme type language, but it's there in spades. Things like “You're the baddest of the bad boys. The ultimate alpha male” and other such one liner's. I would laugh in someone's face if they ever said anything half as cringy unironically. Can you even imagine?

But despite this long list of complaints, I was still engaged which is quite something. I can understand how someone could be fully immersed in this book. For me I'd say if the author's writing ever catches up to their creativeness, look out! 

My main complaint with the last book was that there was essentially no plot what so ever. In this book that's changed, however if I could sum it up in one word that word would be meandering. It's just incredibly slow moving and it feels like only a couple things of any real significance happen plot wise. Also there are what feel like weird time skips to me. The characters will be doing something at the end of the chapter and when it gets back to their POV whatever they had been doing is completed.

You expect this in epic journey's of course, because you don't want to read an inch by inch play by play. However, in this case sometimes it skips things that would seem to be things of great tension rather than mundane journeying. Just something I found off putting.

The small events that do occur though continue to drive the characters forward. Some of them get a good amount of development this go around, albeit some arguably too abruptly. Overall though the character writing is still magnificent, to the extent Glokta in particular, is currently one of my favourite characters in all of Grimdark Fantasy and high up there in Fantasy as a whole. That's not a slight on the rest of the characters though as the one's I love and hate (for all the right reasons) are numerous.

I found myself laughing when they're sarcastic or witty, scowling when they do something objectionable, smirking when one of them gets what I think they deserve and a wide variety of other emotions and reactions.  The last book was a 4.25 and while not perfect, I do think the improvements were enough to warrant a 5 here.

This memoir very much reads as the author trying to work through and process their own feelings about everything that's transpired and what it means for them to be Korean at this stage in their life. Because of that is has a raw authenticity to it that given the reviews obviously resonates with a large number of people.

The book doesn't work for me though based on my own feelings towards how I was raised. It's very hard for me to see lines like “there was no one in the world that was ever as critical or could make me feel as hideous as my mother, but there was no one not even Peter, who ever made me feel as beautiful” and chalk that up as being overly devoted or “small criticisms”.   That to me crosses the line of devotion and if criticism tears you down to that degree, then is it actually small? This and many other examples just spoke to me in an incredibly negative way that was always in the back of my mind, through all the heartwarming moments and the bittersweet. 

Enjoyed this immensely. I enjoy Weir's writing style, in particular his humour, but he has a knack for walking the line between not giving enough Scientific detail and giving too much. Everything feels believable (most of it is sound after all), but it doesn't feel so complex that it becomes convoluted and difficult to follow.

4.75 potato's out of 5.