Mandy

Ugh, this book just... punched me in the feels so hard. I'll try to ignore my sore and bleeding heart to give some objective comments first before I give way to my spoilery rants. Overall, this book was amazing. It had a tight plot with lots of twists and turns, distinct and solid characters that have you rooting for them or hating them and wishing their downfall, sets up a lot of questions to be answered in the rest of the series while still remaining a fairly satisfying standalone, and at last a main character in a fantasy series that isn't annoying without being a Gary-Stu either. This was a 4.5 star read for me.

Trigger warning: Pet and animal deaths. This aspect of the book was the hardest for me to read and the reason for my bleeding heart, but at the same time I have to acknowledge that Hobb writes them compellingly and not gratuitously or lightly, so you know that they aren't there for random shock factors. It still hurts very much though, and I'm still a tiny bit mad at Hobb for making me sit through that and not even be able to just DNF the series, because she also writes animals so beautifully and endearingly, it's clear that she also loves animals and dogs especially very much, but then she takes that knowledge and really wrenches our hearts with it, UGH WHY!!!! I absolutely cried when I got to the part where we see Nosy again, and found out that he lived a long and happy life with an affectionate master.

I've been reading so many great high fantasy series lately and this definitely counts as one of them. I love the world already, it's so different from all the others I've been reading with such a fun magic system that's engagingly written and explored. Unlike most “apprentice” books where I feel like we barely spend much time actually feeling like the main character is apprenticing because they spend more time doing other plot things than learning whatever skill or craft they're meant to do, this one hit a great balance in giving us that “apprentice” journey while also not boring us with the monotony of lessons because something new happens chapter.

Fitz is also a sympathetic and relatable main character. He's not perfect, he goes through a lot, and he deals with them in a way that isn't obnoxiously annoying and realistic for his age at the time. He sulks like a teenager, he's susceptible to flattery and trickery sometimes, he gets buoyed up by pride, but also can fall into the doldrums of low self-esteem. You just want to root for him and protect him from the politicking of the court. You eye other characters askance because you can't trust them to do right by Fitz. The fact that the book is written from a first-person perspective of an older Fitz looking back on his life also allows some narrative tension. I love the epigraphs before each chapter, which served the dual purpose of introducing some foreshadowing by hinting at events to come but also helps to set up and explain the backstory of just that segment of the world we're about to see in the upcoming chapter, without coming across as too info-dumpy.

This book isn't grimdark, but I feel like it kinda flirts at the edge of one sometimes. There are some good-hearted characters in here that you can trust, but there are a lot who aren't as trustworthy, and Hobb has shown that she isn't afraid to kill off characters, even just as you think they're being set up to be a mainstay in the whole trilogy.

In summary, a definite blanket recommendation for any and all fantasy fans, although I'd also recommend seriously checking out the trigger warning above cos that shit took a toll on me.

3/5. This book was way too long for what it wanted to do. A lot of plot developments in it was pretty unbelievable as well. I will just say that the book did make me want to keep on reading though - up to a point. There was a good amount of suspense, but also just too much description of landscape and nature scenery. The whole mystery and hunt for Dracula was definitely my favourite part of the book, it unfolded almost painfully slowly but it was so atmospheric that I didn't quite mind that.

It often felt like Kostova was mainly interested in writing a sort of history/travel literature piece about the Eastern Europe to Turkey region, but with some Dracula flavour to it to... give it some mass appeal? Unfortunately, I didn't really quite appreciate a lot of the Eastern European bits of the book, simply because it isn't a region I'm familiar with.

I also couldn't really get behind a lot of the character decisions, particularly the two main romances in the book. Paul and Helen's romance I already found a bit contrived because they had nothing in common besides being colleagues on the same academic journey, but what I really couldn't understand was the narrator's romance with Bartley. It felt completely random? I can understand if, as teenagers, they decided to sleep together or have a fling because they were just thrown together for a while and found each other attractive. But by all accounts they seem to have actually developed a romance despite their rather short relationship. I didn't understand why the protagonist's name had to be kept secret. Literally every other character in the book is named, and plus the narrator isn't even an important part of the story at all! It just felt like a meaningless and unnecessary gimmick. Ending spoilers: I didn't understand why Helen decided to abandon Paul and their baby daughter so suddenly and dramatically out of nowhere just to go hunt for Dracula. It again felt really unnecessary. Even if she decided she had to leave, couldn't she at least write to them telling them what she needs to do and why she needs to be away from them, and just keep her location a secret? Unless she doesn't trust Paul to do the right thing and abandon their daughter to search for her. I didn't even get why Dracula had to kidnap Rossi of all people. Rossi himself raised a good objection. Dracula says Rossi was the first scholar to find him, but Rossi's like, uh no I didn't, you brought me here. and Dracula's like, yeaaah details. His reasoning is that Rossi decided to try investigating him a second time but... I don't believe Rossi's the only scholar who reopened the investigation into Dracula a mere second time through like 500 years. Scholars are notoriously curious people! So it all just felt like a gimmick to get Paul and Helen on their epic journey too.

Anyway... I'm glad I finished it. If this book was more focused on one thing - either the hunt for Dracula or history/travel literature - I feel like it'd have been much more successful in finding its audience.

4.5*. This story was such a breath of fresh air. A steampunk fantasy AU of 1912 Cairo, Egypt, where our protagonist is a female investigator (something of a rarity in the story, apparently), where two out of the three significant characters in the story are Muslim and actually talk like Muslims, while investigating the death of a djinn. There's also a cult of people who worship the ancient Egyptian gods too, and I get a whiff of a non-heterosexual relationship possibly coming up in future instalments. Amazing.

This short story (I wouldn't even call it a novella) packed a lot of world building details and I see it as a primer for the subsequent stories in the series. The actual plot is pretty straightforward, which is fine because the intention here is clearly to immerse the reader in this incredibly rich world and lore of this universe that the author is building.

The story is available for free on Tor's website and if you're a fan of fantasy and historical fiction, there's really no reason why you shouldn't give it a go. Highly recommended!

I casually picked this up from Goodreads' Romance Week recommendations, expecting just a regular run-of-the-mill romance but with m/m - and boy, was I wrong.

This was everything I've been yearning to find in romance novels for so long (and I usually read m/f 99% of the time). It's a book about an actual honest-to-goodness relationship blossoming between two people. They are certainly physically attracted to each other, but it's not just about that - and I think that's where this book truly shines. You can really feel the actual chemistry between Silas and Dominic, and most of that is outside of the bed. Their relationship feels deeper than just physical intercourse. K.J. Charles does an excellent job really sculpting the interaction between these two people, having them act realistically and logically. They may have a hierarchy in the bedroom, but you can feel that despite their class difference, these two people have such complete respect for the other and they treat each other as equals on every level.

Best of all, their relationship is also situated in the world that they lived in. I guess it helped that I recently watched a documentary on the Regency era and know a smattering of the real events referred to in the book, such as the Peterloo massacre and the Cato Street Conspiracy. K.J. Charles managed to weave an entrancing and compelling historical piece seamlessly and intricately into the romance that I never skipped or skimmed a paragraph. Dominic and Silas stand on opposite sides of a class war, but through them we really appreciate why that divide brewed in English society to begin with. Coming away, I felt like I had a deeper understanding and appreciation for the social setting during the Regency - and it's so wild that a romance novel taught me that!

All in all, one of the best romances I've read so far.

This was a 3 or 3.5 star read for me. I don't usually read a lot of middle-grade fiction right now, I have read some others that I thought were more unique and which I liked better than this one, but overall I had a good time and it was a quick and engaging story to sink my teeth into. I do think that the second half of this book was much more exciting than the first, and I was also pretty impressed by the overarching mysteries and plots that unfolded in the last 10-20% of the book.

Of all the characters, I was surprised by how much Brock stood out to me. I'm not sure if I like him yet, but he's certainly the most interesting. He's fiercely loyal and protective over Zed - in fact it almost seems like all his major decisions in this book stems from his desire to protect his friend, up until the very last bit where he rejects leaving the Adventurers Guild - but he's also very scarily manipulative when he wants to be. Unlike his other friends who have pretty straightforward paths and, I suppose, character development, Brock is the one that's most caught in between factions and allegiances so it'll be very interesting to see where he goes with that in later books.

Zed was colourless at first but I did find him increasingly endearing in the second half. Typically an ostracized character would have some spunk in them, but Zed just felt like a very naive and innocent child - no wonder Brock is so protective! He's only just discovered his propensity for sorcery so I really wonder where that's going to go. I liked the whole thing he had with Makiva - perhaps she's Silverglow herself... or something?

I liked that we had some strong female characters in this book, most prominently Liza and Frond but also others like Jayna. I do kinda wish that we see more from their perspectives though! We only swung between Brock and Zed, so I hope that later books we'll see more from the other characters.

The book also swung quite wildly between a fairly simple life in the guilds (no bullying, no treacherous plots from all sides, no assassinations), to some really crazy scary monsters in the wilderness. I expected most of the Dangers to be something more like wild beasts or the kobolds, but the monsters that appeared in the Shrine to Zed as well as Mother Brenner's final form in the end was just wow nightmare fuel that I wouldn't have expected in a book for this age group.

Overall, this was a pretty fun read and I'm glad that I got around to it!

Originally published in Unravellations.

Since this is my very first introduction to the Inspector Pitt series, I get this feeling that I've missed out a lot, but the book explains its own sprawling backdrop and history pretty well and I never found myself confused, though I did find myself extremely curious. I am going to set about tracking down the very first novel in the series once I work my way through the pile of library books I've borrowed and need to finish.

As fate would have it, though, I think this book is a nice inflection point in the entire story arc as a whole to start off a new beginner with. Inspector Pitt has now been newly promoted to the Head of Britain's Special Branch (something like an internal security department) and consequently the problem(s) in this book have much more far-reaching political ramifications. Anne Perry wields her strong knowledge of the history of European politics to great effect here, and I am impressed and drawn in by the political web that she weaves around the central mystery. Now this is what I call a “stunning backdrop” to a piece of historical fiction, rich with exquisite detail but yet not overwhelming at the same time.

Allusions drawn to Inspector Pitt's past as well as the detective and policeman he used to be made me guess that perhaps books prior to this one would deal with more home-grown detective mysteries. As such, I'm pretty glad I started off with this book, because as a starter I can appreciate it on its own without comparing it to previous stories. I'm sure that my love for familiarity and my comfort zone would lead me to lament the more serious direction and political concerns that the plot arc has taken with this book. However, having started on this book and appreciating it for what it is, I can happily continue on chronologically with the Inspector Pitt series with all its political intrigues, and check out the earlier Inspector Pitt stories with its traditional detective mysteries. I'm really excited about both of these different threads.

Anne Perry's writing style is elegant and confident. She does not aim to make this novel sound like it came out of the Victorian era. Her language is generally modern, but written with a self-assured and well-practised hand so that it does not contrast too jarringly with the era she is writing about. Her focus is not on replicating the era itself in terms of linguistics, but in revolving around the human drama as well as the restricting hierarchies of society at that period. Her narrative style takes one into the minds of several different characters, jumping from Thomas Pitt, to his wife Charlotte, to his ex-boss Victor Narraway, to his aunt-in-law, Lady Vespasia, and so on. We are told the story from the perspectives of several different characters, and as such have a peek as to how they see the problem, themselves, and other characters, while also finding out what other characters think of them in turn. Though the narrative jumps around to different characters, I never found it confusing or hard to follow.

The plot in itself centers around what appears to be two different lines of mysteries. The first one is uncovered by Charlotte's aunt, Lady Vespasia, who is informed that her former friend and acquaintance, Serafina Montserrat, is unwell and unlikely to recover in her old age. She visits the ailing Mrs. Montserrat, who is not only suffering from the pangs of dementia, but also the paranoia and fear that she might let slip dangerous secrets in her memories to the wrong person when she is unaware of whom she is speaking to. The entire scene, describing the bitterness of aging for such a once-brilliant personage, was heartfelt and impactful. Lady Vespasia, however, is not inclined to completely dismiss Mrs. Montserrat's fears, although she mostly thinks it might just be pure fancy. She brings it forth to Victor Narraway, ex-Head of the Special Branch, who sets about doing his own investigative work just for the sake of having something to do, having lately resigned from a post he had held for 20 years previously.

Meanwhile, Thomas Pitt, now Commander of the Special Branch, is informed of some suspicious increase of interest regarding train signal points, and is led to believe that a possible assassination attempt might be made there against a minor Austrian Duke, due to visit England relatively soon. Though the Duke himself holds no political significance, but his assassination on English soil would carry with it widespread repercussions throughout Europe, with England at the heart of the mess. He finds trouble getting the Foreign Secretary, Lord Tregarron, to take his fears seriously. These two threads of mysteries seem wholly separate and irrelevant to each other at first, but as the book progresses, they are brought closer and closer to each until their intertwined nature and connection is revealed.

I particularly also love how Thomas Pitt encounters some very realistic problems with taking over a new, powerful position. His ex-boss, Victor Narraway, had held the position of Commander of the Special Branch for nearly 2 decades before him, and as such is given the respect that his post calls for. Thomas Pitt, however, finds that people generally think he might have been promoted before his time, and that he did not have what it takes to fill Narraway's shoes, which consequently raises self-doubt within him. Most interestingly, Pitt reflects that perhaps it might be his own humble beginnings as a son of a gamekeeper that had held him back in gaining the social standing that his post deserves, rather than experience and skill as people claim. Victor Narraway, after all, was born a gentleman, and after his retirement from the Special Branch, was inducted into the House of Lords. Indeed, various allusions as to social standing is drawn through the novel, giving the world Anne Perry creates yet another facet.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book, though admittedly it took me some time to really get into it. Once the momentum started though, it was impossible to put down. I would definitely be finding more of Anne Perry's books to read.

Originally published in Unravellations.Once I got into the hang of this book, I couldn't put it down. I had to find out what was going down with this mysterious mystery surrounding the murder of various Porters and who was behind it all. It was a fortuitous chance that I picked this book up along with [b:The Eyre Affair 27003 The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1) Jasper Fforde https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1419904150s/27003.jpg 3436605] (not having heard of either of these titles before, and only happened to chance upon them while browsing through library shelves) because their premises run along the same lines (book magic, basically).The tone of this book was decidedly darker than The Eyre Affair, though not so much that it dims the pleasure of reading (I usually prefer a light-hearted narrative tone unless it is incompatible with the plot). This book deals with libriomancy, a nicely crafted magic system whereby naturally talented users (libriomancers, of course) can reach into books and access the book's world. Unlike The Eyre Affair, they do not actually immerse themselves into the book's world and interact with characters in it, but depending on what page they flip to, they may be able to pull out various useful items from the books (a lightsabre, anyone?). While The Eyre Affair dealt mostly with classic literature, Libriomancer was more focused on the current pop culture books (vampires known as ‘sparklers' make a cameo appearance...), which made it very relatable since it was only published 3 years ago.I think there was room for character development, although perhaps Jim C. Hines was planning to save that for a later book in the series. Isaac Vainio was a field agent for the Libriomancers, but suddenly because he accidentally tapped into some kind of power while on a job, he's been forcefully resigned from the field and pushed into a cataloging desk job in the library. He meets Lena Greenwood (although they've apparently met before, though I'm not entirely sure where - Dr Shah's office?) and they're plunged into a top-speed adventure.Thoughts on characters (mostly Lena):It's clear that there's more to Isaac than meets the eye, probably even more than he realises at the point of the novel's closure. Gutenberg, having only made an appearance nearer the novel's ending, seems primed to play a bigger role in future novels either. I'm also not sure whether Isaac's decision to spare Gutenberg's life at the end would play a part in future books. Gutenberg, meanwhile, turned out to be a more pleasant character than I expected. I thought he'd be a grubbing, secretive and suspicious old man but when he did wake up, he turned out to be a more neurotic version of Dumbledore.Anyway, the character that I felt could open a lot of discussions was Lena Greenwood. She's a dryad (tree being) that Isaac assumed was born out of nature in the real world, but she eventually turned out to be a sort of male fantasy creation pulled out from a steamy romance novel by an untrained amateur in libriomancy. That means that she's "written" (or programmed) to sense desire, lust and to shape her personality and character traits into what would most attract her mate. On top of all this, however, she also harbours some pretty strong nature magic that saves both her and Isaac's asses plenty of times in the book, though I wouldn't call her exactly the motorcycle-riding, ass-kicking dryad that the blurb on the back cover describes. For one, she barely rides a motorcycle in this novel.The first time she started making advances on Isaac and when we come to realise that Lena is part of a romance novel creation, a lot of feminist repulsion came into mind. Was this going to spiral into predictability and romance-novel stereotypes? But I continued reading. Lena is a pretty complex character for someone who could've turned out to be just another stereotype. She has long bonded with her lover, Dr Nidhi Shah (I applaud this book for daring to put in a lesbian, interracial relationship), but Dr Shah's kidnapping threw all of this off-balance. Because Lena is written to shape herself according to her lover's needs and wants, she is afraid that she might be used for darker purposes assuming Dr Shah has been lost and turned into a vampire, she decides that she needs to find a new mate - Isaac. Seriously, at this point, I started re-thinking what this novel was about.After a whole bunch of flirting, some near-sex, the startling conclusion for this love triangle is that: Lena wants both! Not because she's a nymphomaniac (hah, but she's a nymph though), but because when she feels torn between two lovers, her personality can't direct itself into one particular direction and so it comes closer into something that belongs to neither lover, and something she can call her own. OK, interesting and non-stereotypical resolution!I think the idea that this female character is written to shape herself according to her mate's desire (I'll not say a man's desire, because her relationship with Nidhi Shah, an Indian woman, is 9 years long before the novel even starts) and to be closely associated with sex, desire and lust because had me reeling for a while. I'll admit that feminist alarm bells were ringing for a bit. But then I quieted them and tried to read deeper into Lena. I realised that she could have easily turned into a sex-obsessed dryad who just wants to get into Isaac's pants now that her previous mate is MIA, but then I also realised that there's a lot more to her than that. I know internal struggles are also a romance-novel stereotype nowadays, battling with the conscience and all, but the ones that happened in this book were believable and not at all cringe-worthy.I know loads of people have criticized Lena, calling her a "sex slave" and all that, but I think there's more to her than that. In fact, if we apply it to the real life, there are women out there who are - we'll not say written as in the book - naturally inclined to having lover after lover, and each time tweaking a bit of their personalities to best suit their partner. Are we to call them sex slaves too? There is nothing inherently wrong with such a behaviour. Lena, in a sense, wants to hold her own, and to develop her own personality (hence the resolution of having 2 lovers at once), essentially making the best of what she's been given and what she can't change.Oh, I like also that Lena is described as veering more towards the ancient Grecian ideal of beauty, being on the more voluptuous and plump side. At one point, an emaciated vampire calls her a "fat chick". Rather than singling out that one moment of what some would see as body-shaming, I'd like to highlight that throughout the entire novel, told from Isaac's perspective, he finds Lena nothing less than extremely attractive and desirable, despite her figure being what some others would call "fat".I'd recommend this to anyone who is looking for an adventure story with some comic moments, a well-crafted magic system and most importantly, who loves reading. A critic's blurb on the back cover said something about this book being written for those who love books, and I have to agree with that.P.S. I LOVE SMUDGE. I don't think I've ever had any affection for any kinds of fictional spiders before but Smudge is such a darling despite us not having any idea what he's thinking.

Originally published on Unravellations.

It was all right. I skipped over some pages with what I found to be unnecessary details. Not sure if I'm just an impatient mystery reader or if I'm just not used to Wentworth's style of writing. I've been reading tons of Agatha Christie before, so while there are elements of similarity, the narrative style and plot structure are significantly different.

The mystery in itself was somewhat interesting. I agreed with the main character Hilary when she said, “Too many alibis all over the place”. A man is shot ostensibly by his favourite nephew, the case is closed and said nephew has already served his jail sentence for a year before the action of the novel begins. I found that the details of the mystery was repeated just a tad too much, though. I get that things have to be clarified and details emphasized for the reader (also so they might have a go at picking out fishy loopholes for themselves), but I found myself skipping pages because the repetitions were getting tedious and boring.

Regarding the characters, we have Hilary, who is this nephew's cousin-in-law, and her on-and-off-again fiance Henry Cunningham, are the main characters. Hilary and Henry's relationship dynamics tended toward a chauvinist male and trying-to-be-spunky-but-failing female which was a common enough trope in the 1940s, but it wasn't overly irritating to me. I particularly remember a line where Wentworth described Hilary as having flashes of thoughts about the inquest: “There was of course no logic in this, but Hilary had not a very logical mind.” Couple this with the fact that Hilary is impulsive and reckless, apparently heedless of potential dangerous situations, constantly getting herself into scrapes, and then generally requiring the assistance of her man, Henry, to get her back to safety... I guess I shouldn't expect much more from a novel from the 40's.

Miss Silver only appears in the middle of the book. While Christie's detectives tend to have some point of interest or memorable quirk that engages me and gives me a pleasant pattern to look forward to in future stories, Miss Silver appears to have none of these. I don't mean to say that Christie's detectives are the only allowable type of detective characters, but I found nothing about Miss Silver to engage me or make me interested in reading more of her cases. The plot and action really revolves around the main characters, who certainly won't be recurring in other novels and therefore also give me no reason for me to continue.

My review sounds unfavourable so far, but the book redeemed itself in enough moments of suspense and excitement. The plot twists were somewhat good, though few in number. Though some points about the two main characters chafed me, it wasn't to the point where I found them outright annoying and difficult to swallow. Miss Silver was almost a non-entity besides providing an input for plot twists, so while she made little impression on me, she didn't annoy me either. I'm not sure whether I will continue to read more Miss Silver stories, I would recommend this book for those who love mystery stories from this era.

Wow, that ending.

It was just as frustrating as the world that Newland Archer lives in. His eldest son, Dallas, couldn't have put it any better.

"You never did ask each other anything, did you? And you never told each other anything. You just saw and watched each other, and guessed at what was going on underneath. A deaf-and-dumb asylum, in fact!"

Then, Newland Archer took his cue solely from the fact that the Countess Olenska's manservant kept the balcony awnings and closed the shutters - and left after thirty years of not seeing her. I'm just blown away.

Overall, this was a great book examining the slowly cracking facade of the New York social scene, and the interface between the generation obsessed with Society and the museum-like superficiality that its participants needed to live every aspect of their lives with, and the one that throws these things to the wind. Amazingly and intricately written, it was an engaging read that kept me going page after page, despite a lack of “action” in its traditional sense.

i have read absolutely nothing to do with Odyssey so while i may know the names (Odysseus, Jason, etc.) i know nothing about it. for the other “side stories” of Glaucos, Pasiphae, Minotaur, Daedalus, and so on, i only really know the most superficial level. i have never heard of Circe as a character or even as a mythological figure before, so i was really going in mostly blind to this. i found that i enjoyed it quite well, all in all! the writing was easy to follow, and although the driving point of the plot was kinda opaque for most of the book, the pacing and unfolding of the events were pretty engaging so i didn't really feel bored throughout (it helps that it's such a short read too). until now i have no idea exactly how much was changed from the mythology to the book, so i'm just gonna comment on the book as it is (i intend to read up more deeply on the mythology soon).

Circe is pretty much a god who struggles with (and even hates) her own divinity, and for the most part of the book, she's also just learning to understand mortals as well. the promiscuity, the ruthlessness, the sadism and general apathy of the other Greek gods was well portrayed imo, and it really gives you a sense of why Circe loathed her kind. i kinda wish that more had been done with the whole Pasiphae/Minotaur arc, when Circe had a bit of a truce with her sister after realising that they both hated the gods - it just kinda felt set up to lead to nowhere? the only plot-valuable thing to come out of that arc was Circe's fondness for Ariadne, which continues to stay on in her mind as how fragile mortality is.

i was also kinda sad that Telegonus would rather hear more about Odysseus's adventures than about his mother's, when he has never laid eyes upon him. and i was annoyed that Circe didn't assert herself more on that, and just chose to keep her life to herself in a sense. no wonder there's a gulf between herself and her son? when she would tell him sanitised and aggrandized versions of his father's adventures but not share more about her own. instead, she tells them to Telemachus. continuing from that, the ending was a little weird for me that she ended up with the son of her an ex-lover... i mean, i get that it's certainly not on the list of weirdest things in Greek mythology, but considering the fact that this was not part of the original mythology and was added in later on, it still feels weird to me.

as i've said, the writing was definitely engaging, but i had issues with how repetitive some sentence structures felt by the end. for example, “Full of pain, it was. Full of searing pain.” (not actually in the book) it was still easy enough to read though, and it didn't annoy me a whole lot, but it was obvious enough to notice and i was a little tired of it by the end.

If you're already into Wodehouse's style of writing and storytelling, this might be a fun filler read. If you're new to Wodehouse, DO NOT start with this book - there are much better ones out there from his repertoire.

Wodehouse's books, especially his standalone novellas (?), are always pretty difficult to summarise simply because his signature style is having a convoluted plot with multiple threads of developments that somehow eventually converge into a single satisfying resolution for the character ensemble involved.

Edmund Biffen Christopher, or “Biff” in short, is the unexpected heir of a rich uncle who has just passed away - on one condition: in order to preserve the family name, the will states that Biff must not get arrested, especially not for misdemeanor, before he turns 30 in a few weeks' time. Another relative and a distant uncle, Lord Tilbury, starts scheming to get Biff to break this condition just so he can get his hands on the fortune himself. Along the way, we also meet Kay Christopher, Jerry Shoesmith, Percy Pilbeam, and Henry Blake-Somerset with what feels like a dozen other love triangles, espionage, and plot complications.

While I decently enjoyed this book, I wouldn't recommend this for those new or skeptical about Wodehouse. The subject matter felt a little too frivolous and the story wasn't as tight as it could've been. This is for Wodehouse's standards, which already has the bar set pretty high - another writer could not have pulled off the plot even for Frozen Assets. At the end of it all, you are left with a sense of “What did I just read?” - this is something I could forgive for Wodehouse simply because of how irreverent and deliberately frivolous his works can be, although his better books are at least much more satisfying than this.

The characters were decent, but I never reached a level of attachment with them as I would've with, say, Bertie Wooster, Jeeves, or even Aunt Agatha. I was also a little disturbed at the men's way of courting girls, which is simply to “kiss her senseless” (even if against her will) until she says yes. I get that this was probably the gender dynamic back at the time this was written, but - eh.

Overall, a decent, enjoyable read especially for existing Wodehouse fans, but not anything super stellar considering the rest of his repertoire and not what I'd recommend for readers new to Wodehouse.

The Flesh Hunters fills a much-needed space in the local literature scene – in being an entertaining romp that asks some thought-provoking questions that aren't politically motivated. While it has its flaws (particularly in having an overabundance of ideas and somewhat losing focus on the central questions it asks at the beginning), the book is a commendable debut novel nevertheless and hopefully a harbinger for better things to come from Jocelyn Suarez.

I had a good time. While the beginning gave me YA vibes, it quickly turned not-YA over the course of the book. It was super action-packed and exciting, although I think I may have missed out on some details or just not have known the backstory from the original series since I haven't read it. Quite a lot of times I felt like this book was continuing a whole history that I'm not really aware of, like this great war between the vampires and the angels? How and why did Corinth kinda take away the vampires' vampiric natures? How and why is he a Nephilim? I think it's mentioned that he has an angelic father, so is Susan still his mother? If yes, how and why did that procreation happen? Why did Gabriel kidnap Zoey when she was 5? (Not sure if this was answered in the book or not) Is Zoey gonna turn out special like Corinth? I really thought Zoey was going to suddenly unleash and do some OP thing to defeat Angela and/or Trevor at the end, but that didn't happen. I also can't really believe Peter is dead somehow, I feel like he'll come back in the later books

What a rollicking fun ride. As long as you're not going into this book expecting the Opera Ghost to be any kind of romantic anti-hero as he might sometimes be construed to be in the musical, you'd probably have a ton of fun reading this book too.

The Paris Opera House is haunted by the Opera Ghost, who asserts a reign of tyranny over the performers and management alike. He is most interested in Christine Daae, a young and orphaned opera-singer whose talent for singing blossoms under his tutelage. However, the arrival of Raoul, Vicomte de Changy and Christine's long-lost childhood sweetheart, brings the Opera Ghost into a downward spiral of jealous frenzy which leads to dark and fatal consequences for everyone involved.

I first read this book more than a decade ago and I recall vividly that I didn't like it at all. I don't know if it was because I was a much more romantic person back then, because I was much less experienced with the tone and vibe of classic literature, or because I was a lot less familiar with the musical. In any case, revisiting it this time was such a great decision - I enjoyed it so much more in my current state of mind, and it gave me a lot of insights as to how the musical was adapted as well.

In a nutshell, it seems that the musical was essentially written for Andrew Lloyd Webber to do a self-insert into the character of the Phantom. The Opera Ghost in the book (he's never directly referred to as the Phantom, at least not in the English translation) is quite clearly a psychopathic murderer and an obsessive stalker. Leroux doesn't pull the punches when it comes to depicting the OG's toxicity in all its brutal glory. The Phantom of the musical, though, is much more toned down. It also helps that he spends most of the musical looking dashing in his dress-clothes, and only needs to cover half his face - the OG in the book has to wear a full-faced mask.

I enjoyed that the Opera Ghost's relationship with Christine wasn't romanticised or glorified - he was very clearly a stalker and their relationship was very clearly toxic af. It hit differently knowing that Christine in the book was already a naturally talented singer but her grief at losing her father had temporarily impacted her singing. It was only by coincidence that the Opera Ghost found out about her backstory and immediately took the chance to make use of Christine's superstitiousness and naivete, assert himself as the “Angel of Music” and thereby gained power and control over her.

The OG in the book was quite clearly an incel and a manipulative asshole. Christine is both afraid of him, but also admires and reveres him for the music that he is able to create. She wants to leave him, but sometimes is unable to bring herself to, and sometimes is just physically forced or emotionally blackmailed to stay. Gaslighting Christine is unsurprisingly also part of the OG's repertoire as well. This book really checked all the boxes for the hallmarks of a toxic relationship. We kinda get the sense of that in the musical, but it's definitely a lot toned down - the book puts all the brutal ugliness of such a relationship on display.

Overall though, the book is much more action-packed and humourous than I recall, and the second half is virtually un-put-down-able. I couldn't stop comparing it with the musical in my mind because it still is one of my favourite musicals ever despite everything, but I don't think the book was any less than the adaptation. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants an entertaining 19th century French romp, or to fans of the musical who want better insights into the adaptation process.

Wow, was this an odd book to read. I could write a long, long list of things I didn't like about it or which just didn't make sense, but at the end of the day - it was strangely enjoyable in a guilty pleasure, daytime soap opera addiction kind of way. This reminded me a little of The Count of Monte Cristo, except that the plot is a lot more convoluted and involved. I wouldn't recommend this to just anyone though, I feel like a lot of people would have a rough tedious time with this one and I wouldn't blame them.

The story starts with a bunch of boys in a prestigious boarding school and an incident that happens when they are swimming in a quarry. A boy drowns and the verdict is misadventure. Years later, this incident continues to haunt and shape the decisions of the people directly and indirectly involved, many of whom belong to the great banking family, the Pilasters. A lot of drama happens spanning across all the classes of society. Sex, murder, brothels, financial crashes, adultery, betrayal, political maneuverings - they're all in here.

I'll start off by saying that this is my first time reading Ken Follett, and I've previously only heard of his Pillars of the Earth series. I started with this one mainly because the book was a lot less thick and therefore less intimidating. His writing style in this was... interesting, to say the least. It was incredibly simplistic and matter-of-fact that it was almost jarring to read sometimes. It sometimes also took me out of the 19th century setting, where one would expect prose to at least have more pizzazz. I'm not sure if this is just Follett's natural writing style, or if this was a deliberate decision he made so that the writing did not take away from the events happening on the page, because there is already a lot.

The characters generally ranged from mildly annoying to downright repulsive, with perhaps one or two exceptions (Solly remains my favourite, Rachel Bodwin's pretty fun too.). Even our main protagonist, Hugh Pilaster, gave me secondhand embarrassment for the first half of the book. Luckily we do see some character development with Hugh throughout the book, which is more than we can say for most other characters here.

Character motivations also ranged from very believable to unrealistic. I didn't like how the main romance played out almost all the time.- The fact that Maisie could already be hankering after Hugh literally two days after Solly died? That's just weird and kinda puts them on the same level as Augusta and Micky, doesn't it? But I did like how the primary villains in the book each had their own weak spots. Repulsive and self-interested though they may be, they were ultimately saved from being a caricature from having just that one chink in their armour, which proves to be their undoing - Augusta's love and obsessive protection for Edward, and Micky's absolute fear of his father.

For a book written in 1993, I appreciate that there wasn't as much misogyny and homophobia as there could have been - although I wasn't a fan of the twist that Edward turned to have been harbouring an affection for Micky all along. We just don't need that “men being attracted to men is the nail on the depraved coffin” stereotype anymore. I liked that we not only had a lot of primary female characters, but that they also held a lot of agency in their own right and also existed along the spectrum of good/bad characters. I liked that Augusta and Micky were almost equal in their villainy and that, in the end, because Micky sought to prove his dominance over Augusta in that he was the one disposing of her as soon as she became useless to him, she turned around and murdered him instead.

Obviously, for a book about a banking family, you can expect a good amount of politicking and plot points to revolve around finance. This was actually interesting to me because I work in a sort-of finance industry myself, but I can definitely imagine all of this flying over my head and becoming just so boring to read about if I wasn't in my current job.

I find it difficult to think of a target group I'd recommend this to even though I quite enjoyed it myself. If you like a ton of juicy drama in a Victorian setting, then maybe check this out.

4.25/5. I really do think this book hovers between 4 and 4.5 for me. This isn't a book I'd recommend to people who are new to classics or even new to Victorian domestic novels, but if you're already somewhat used to Victorian novels and writing style and are interested in countryside socioeconomic politics revolving around a few families, this is definitely one to explore.

The blurb of this book makes one think that Mark Robarts and his story is the main plotline for this book, but that isn't very accurate. Framley Parsonage is in fact an amalgamation of many different threads, where we follow various different characters and their stories, with the one common thing binding them together is in how they relate to the vicarage of Framley. I almost DNFed this book at the beginning because it seemed pretty heavy going, but I'm really glad I kept at it and ended up enjoying myself a ton by the end.

It's been a while since I last read the previous book in this series or in fact any Trollope, so a lot of the characters that were mentioned or who were themselves protagonists in previous novels were not that familiar to me anymore. I have to say that I was really impressed by the representation of women in this book. We have your ideal submissive wife/mother/housekeeper type, but also women who are politically manipulative, women who are assertive and dominant, women who stand their ground against all odds, women who grit their teeth to carry their families through poverty and want, etc. In fact, I think the female characters in this book are by far more diverse and interesting and display more sense and virtue (different brands of it too) than the men, and I love that this definitely felt like a deliberate storytelling choice from Trollope. Overall though, I enjoyed that the characters really had depth and grayness to them, instead of being one-dimensionally good or bad.

If I had to rank the characters by how much I enjoyed reading about them, Mark Robarts was rank pretty low. If this book had indeed been primarily about his story arc, I might very well have DNFed it or given it a lower rating. He's not exactly villainous, but he was irritatingly blind and self-important at his most foolish and just didn't really show any endearing qualities in the whole book. I definitely loved reading about Fanny Robarts, his wife, and Lucy Robarts, his sister, a lot more. Fanny is the classic ideal of feminine virtue, the perfect mother, wife, and sister, but she is so somehow without being annoyingly Mary Sue-ish. Lucy is an interesting mix of meek and assertive, reticent but talkative. She makes a lot of interesting decisions throughout the book that earned my admiration and my annoyance by turns.

Lady Lufton is quite certainly the Titan of this book imo, as she should be given how big an influence she has at Framley Court and Parsonage. She is a more benevolent version of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and her close relationship with her son Lord Lufton was pretty heartwarming to see. Lord Lufton came pretty close to being your run-of-the-mill careless and self-absorbed young peer, but was saved by his dedication to his mother and to his cause when he decides to take it up.

A totally random thing irrelevant to the plot that struck me while reading this was how people in the 1860s were treating infection. We tend to think that people who lived before the early 20th century were dunces and had no idea about hygiene or infection, so I was surprised when this book dealt with characters understanding the dangers of close contact in a household when someone comes down with an infectious disease, quarantining people from that household in a separate lodging until they have been proven to not have that disease, and even “fumigating” letters coming from that household before opening them. Honestly, these are things I wouldn't have attributed to habits in the 1860s but I'm glad to have had my misconceptions debunked.

I won't go on writing about all the characters but suffice it to say that I had a ball reading about all of them. I was actually pretty sad when this book ended, I kinda felt like I wanted to stay at Framley forever and find out how everyone gets on. I'm excited to continue on to the next book of the series!

3.5/5. This was a pretty serviceable murder mystery. Nothing obnoxiously annoying or intolerable, a decent mystery hook at the core of it, a fairly satisfying resolution although nothing completely mind-blowing, and also with a dash of romantic tension underneath it all probably most relevant to those above 30. It was fine, I'm not sure how memorable it is, but it was fine.

Our protagonist is Jodie “Nosey” Parker, a former police officer turned cook and caterer after moving back to her hometown of Penstowan, Cornwall. She bumps into a very old school friend, Tony Penhaligon, and is engaged to cater for his wedding happening in a week's time, though she doesn't quite warm up to his bride-to-be, Cheryl Laity. On the evening before the wedding, as Cheryl is just about to give a welcome speech to their guests, Tony's ex-wife Melissa rugby-tackles Cheryl and an altercation ensues which Jodie breaks up. By the next morning, Cheryl disappears and a body is found.

Jodie Parker is a pretty decent protagonist and I've definitely read many worse ones that annoy me a lot more. I could actually get behind Jodie most of the time, even if I sometimes felt like her attraction to certain men in the cast felt a little too contrived. She does seem to stick her nose unnecessarily into the investigation sometimes but I guess it's a good thing that her nickname really is “Nosey Parker” and it checks out.

Of the two primary male characters, I thought DCI Withers was the more attractive one but I couldn't buy into his chemistry with Jodie, because they had always seemed more hostile to each other until it suddenly just switched to flirtation for no rhyme or reason. I think there's more substance to the chemistry she had with Tony, given their shared history and all that she's done to help him out, but I don't really like Tony as much as a character for some reason. Sooo... I guess I can see why she's stuck in between both.

I don't think any character really stuck out to me really, except maybe Jodie Parker but that's just because the whole book is narrated from her POV. Some of the antagonists in the book were slimy but we also don't really spend that much time with them to properly get a sense of how gross they were.

Overall, everything just felt fine and not much else besides that. I could see myself probably picking up further books in the series when I need another palate cleanser or time killer for sure.

Oh what a lovely read, this was a 4 or 4.5 stars for me. I don't remember liking it a whole lot as a kid but that's probably because most of the jokes would've flown over my head. I was very much more able to appreciate all that humour and wit now as an adult than I could as a child. Usually children's books are so sweet to read because it makes the world so simple and easy to digest, but this one was kinda different in the way that it taught kids about how complex the world was and how to appreciate that complexity, but in bite-sized pieces.

I think there were some lands that went by so fast that they felt almost irrelevant, like the Island of Conclusions. I did enjoy the opportunity it gave for more puns but it really felt a bit pointless sometimes. My favorite land had to be Dictionopolis with all the puns coming in fast and furious, but I preferred the Mathemagician to King Azaz. C'mon, a pencil as a wizard staff? Amazing.

My fave name in the book was Faintly Macabre the not-so-wicked Which, which will now be my next in-game character name, followed by Kakofonous A. Dischord. What I liked most about it was that it had several of those quotes that feels a bit too poignant for children to understand but which would really hit adults in the feels, the most memorable one for me was: “I think I'll continue to see things as a child. It's not so far to fall.”

Trigger warnings: Rape, homophobia, misogyny, sexual coercion, descriptions of torture, mutilation, executions by burning, infanticide

This was a very solid 3.5 stars for me, no higher and no lower. This book bamboozled me for the most part, so steeped in medieval Catholic theology as it was, but the mystery aspect of it was compelling and thrilling when it did shine through. It was a dense and sometimes difficult read and not one I would easily recommend to just about anyone. I only have extremely superficial knowledge of theology and almost none whatsoever of the religious politics of Europe in this time period, so a lot of the long, long debates and discussions in this book went straight over my head, but at least the mystery aspect kept me going.

The story is ostensibly told as if it had been a lost manuscript discovered some time during WW2, written by the monk Adso of Melk in 14th century Italy during his declining years. He writes of a time when he was a novice, probably around 14-16 years old, and under the mentorship of William of Baskerville. Together, they arrive at an abbey in Northern Italy where the abbot requests William to once again don the hat of an inquisitor and investigate the mysterious death of one of his young monks, Adelmo, who had apparently fallen to his death from a window. A series of deaths in the abbey follows.

I really don't know enough about the politics and theology of the time to comment much about the broader plot point of the book with all the different Catholic factions at each other's throat and yelling at each other that the other camp(s) were heretics and harboured the Antichrist. All that really struck me was that in this endless conflict, there is a ton of brutality of human against human, and so so often it's the innocent and the simple who are caught in the crossfire and made to pay the price despite having literally done nothing except being manipulated without knowing better. Deaths may have happened in this book, but none of them were near as violent as what was described in this book, of the deaths, torture, and executions that happened elsewhere.

Another thing that really bothered me was the incredible misogyny and treatment of women here. Perhaps Eco was going for a period-accurate mindset here, where women are mostly treated as “vessels of the Devil” simply because they present temptations to men (of course men are blameless /s). If they aren't diabolical vessels, then a woman must be an actual saint. There is no in-between. Period-accurate though it might be, it was just really really really annoying and discomfiting to read when it presented itself. The only little redeeming factor, which wasn't nearly enough to redeem the whole, was when Adso did call out the injustice that the village girl was condemned to death for what was clearly the fault and machinations of Salvatore and Remigio, but all he could do was really just cry himself to sleep and then forget about it. Even William couldn't do or say anything because that misogyny and injustice is just so deeply entrenched in their society that speaking out against it publicly would only have meant their own deaths in similar ways rather than changing anything or saving anyone.

On a lighter note, I was surprised by how much this book paralleled Sherlock Holmes and I don't believe it was a coincidence. It's kind of a random thing for Eco to add in to this book but I'm glad that it was there - if the mystery had been any less thrilling, I'm not sure if I could've waded through all the denseness of the theology in it.

The ending was a little surprising to me and I did enjoy the analysis of it: When William calls out the fact that he (and probably us as readers too) was so easily misled by the seductive theory of an orderly method to the killings, that it was just one murderer behind everything and someone who had premeditated it to coincide with the trumpets of the Apocalypse. It all fit a very nice pattern which was turned on its head in the end. ”I should have known well that there is no order in the universe.” A very nice and apt conclusion for mystery readers who are used to expecting neat and orderly solutions to these things.

3.5/5. This wasn't the easiest book to get through, but also not the worst. It was engaging enough and my biggest issue with it is really not so much a flaw on the story's part but more of a personal preference thing. This is quite obviously an Arthurian retelling and I guess I hadn't realised how much this would hinge on what is basically medieval British military history. Nevertheless though, the story did a good job at a proto-magical realism sort of world, where people with some magical power can coexist with the threads of history.

The book starts with an old and wizened Merlin looking back at the very beginnings of his life and the encounter between his parents from whence he was conceived. He begins life as the bastard son of Princess Niniane of South Wales with a mysterious father whose name his mother never confesses even under duress. Even at the tender age of six, Merlin is already showing signs of having inherited his mother's gift of the Sight, a future-seeing ability that comes upon him in flashes and when he least expects it. Meanwhile he discovers a crystal cave near his childhood home and a mysterious tutor, Galapas, who helps to kickstart Merlin's journey into the thick of British warfare and politics, culminating in his part to play in the birth of the child named Arthur.

As a disclaimer, I am not intimately familiar with the Arthurian legend aside from what most of us would know from pop culture. I think this is probably my very first Arthurian retelling.

The writing of this book is very much of its time (from the late 60s). It sometimes even smacks a little of Lord of the Rings. There's a classic feel to the prose akin to LOTR, but yet mostly it's emerging into a more modern style that we would be more familiar of today, and reads a bit a bit like Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle, all of these being written and released within 20 years of each other. It is occasionally a bit repetitive when certain statements and events are repeated over and over again, but otherwise it's entrancing and fairly easy to read - certainly a good deal more digestible than Lord of the Rings was.

The biggest issue that I had with this one was just how so much of it was full of battles and movements of war and who won which skirmishes. Kudos to Stewart for either having done ample research on the subject or being able to make up all of these on the spot, but it wasn't really my thing to read. Even aside from the military bits, there was also a lot of long paragraphs, either of description or of action, that I felt were almost unnecessary to read, and I found myself skimming through a lot of these near the end.

For characters, I did like Merlin quite a bit and was very interested to see how he was going to turn from naive young boy to the incredibly famous wizard that we know of today. I was expecting some 80s training montage moment where he goes from zero to hero within a flash of a few years, but that actually didn't happen. Merlin does hone his skills of Sight but it's not spelt out for the readers how, and throughout the whole story he continues to protest that he is no prophet and cannot prophesy at will. He does perform some feats that dramatically improved his reputation in the region as an enigmatic magician, but a lot of it is actually due to his intelligence and quick thinking more than any real magic. After all, being able to see glimpses of the future doesn't help you build a whole structure as he does later in the book.

I did also feel like Stewart wrote this from a Christian perspective. As we know, during the time period this was set in, the territories around Britain were rife with a variety of religions and beliefs, of which Christianity is only one. Merlin, being from Wales, does in fact grow up with that plethora of religions available to him and for the first half of the book remains somewhat open-minded. In the second half of the book or so, though, Merlin becomes inexplicably pretty convinced that monotheism is the way to go. Whether it's Mithras or Apollo or Christ, it's all one and the same to him, and that his powers come from the one God whichever form people choose to believe he takes. Whether or not this reflects Stewart's own beliefs is anyone's guess, but I do feel like some aspects of this was definitely skewed a bit more to the Christian side of things probably as a function of the time and place it was written in.

Seeing that this is one of the few Arthurian retellings written by a woman, I went into this one keeping my eyes peeled for how women were treated. I know the original Arthurian legend is not exactly well-known for feminism and I didn't think that this book was going to rock the boat too much in that aspect, so I had my expectations tempered. There are only 3 notable women in this book, and I'm not sure I'm 100% satisfied with how they were written but in different ways.

Firstly, there is Niniane, Merlin's mother. She shows grit, conviction, and loyalty in the way she absolutely refuses to give up Merlin's father's identity, even when several characters in the book (some of them her own family members) are truly awful to her and threaten in so many different ways to spill the beans. She's also the only other person in the book to be able to use the Sight, but yet it is said that, being a woman, she only can use it in the matters of love. That was... really unnecessary. Why? Not all women are interested in love. Not all men are interested in war. Plus, Niniane barely gets any lines at all in the book and lives almost like a shadow.

Secondly, there is Keri, a girl who Merlin later meets and is the first girl who Merlin is actually romantically and/or sexually interested in. She is shown as being rather forward as well as being quite straightforward when it comes to sexual liaisons, but yet also mercenary and manipulative. Again, she barely gets any lines in the book.

Lastly, there is Lady Ygraine, the Duchess of Cornwall who will come to play an important role in the way history unfolded. She gets significantly more lines than either of the above two, but only properly appears in all of one chapter. Ygraine is by far the most interesting of the female characters. She has Keri's forwardness with sex and isn't ruthless or unfeeling, but yet she possesses ambition and intelligence befitting that of a ruler, which Merlin also acknowledges to himself. Yet, Ygraine is also depicted as also a little bit wily and deceptive, and implied to be akin to Helen of Troy, The Woman who brings (wise) men to ruin because she's such a temptation to them.

So all in all, not the best female representation imo, though I gave this book a lot of leeway given that it was written in the late 60s. I would consider reading the second book but the writing was so heavy that I feel like I need to have a good, long interval before continuing.

This was really fun and though this was the first Chinese book I've read in a while, the language and writing style was accessible and easy to follow. I've read a couple of stuff by Higashino before this one (in their English translations) and I've enjoyed them. I wanted to explore more of his works but then realised that a majority of his books have not been translated into English but all of them have been translated into Chinese, which is why I started off with this one, the first book in the Detective Galileo series and actually a collection of shorter stories.

Actually, it was because I watched (and was a big fan of) the Japanese drama “Galileo” based on this series that I came to even know Higashino at all. Because of that, I vividly recalled the very first mystery featured in this book, roughly translated as “Burning”. This was also episode 1 of the first season of “Galileo” so it left an impression on me. Luckily, I didn't remember the solution so I got the nice experience of finding it all out for the first time again.

The titular Detective Galileo is actually physics professor Dr Manabu Yukawa, who aids his university friend and now Detective Kusanagi Shunpei to solve criminal cases. (Of course, there're a few new characters added into this team to spice things up in the drama) It probably wouldn't surprise anyone to know that Yukawa and Kusanagi have a pretty Sherlock & Watson dynamic, Yukawa being the eccentric intellectual with poor social skills who is always “consulted” all the time, and Kusanagi being the well-meaning, energetic, but ultimately clueless sidekick/policeman.

Higashino's stories here are comforting and fun to read, but ultimately didn't blow me away as some of his other later works have (see: Malice). I don't think these were meant to do that though - they seem like short stories to flesh out some main characters, their dynamics, and just sort of experimenting and getting a feel of a formula. That's a-okay with me though. Mysteries that don't require a lot of time commitment and investment, and act out like solving puzzles with a satisfying conclusion are precisely the reason why I love cozy mysteries so much. Higashino's writing and formulas were also very clearly influenced by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but since I love those two authors, I have no problems with that.

Generally a solid but somewhat run-of-the-mill collection of mysteries here, I'd recommend it to anyone who just overall love the formula of cozy mysteries, or is already a fan of Higashino or the drama “Galileo”.

TW: Suicide, murder

I think it's fair to say that I'm getting pretty addicted to Higashino's mysteries. They're both comforting and refreshing at the same time. They use some pretty familiar formulas from the cozy mystery genre, but at the same time the solutions never fail to surprise me, and that's such a delight for me as someone who has read and re-read the Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes canon multiple times and have been “trained” to suspect the least likely character.

Unfortunately more than 90% of Higashino's works aren't translated into English, but luckily for me, they are mostly translated into Chinese and I'm able to read in that langauge. This is one book that doesn't have an English translation so bear with me as I try to give my own translation of the case titles here. This is the second installment in the Galileo series, following physics professor Yukawa Manabu's reluctant assistance with his friend Detective Kusanagi's murder cases. (For newcomers to the series, Prof Yukawa is the titular Galileo, nicknamed as such by Kusanagi's colleagues in the police force). I hadn't even realised that this was a collection of short stories (like the first installment) until I got into it, but I was pleasantly surprised - I really love very short and contained mysteries, it never feels too draggy. In this one, a recurring theme of the short stories written here is seemingly paranormal circumstances surrounding the crux of the case, but which generally get debunked by Yukawa in the end.

In “Dream”, the case surrounds a man who claims he has dreamt of his soulmate since he was 10, and even has put a name to her. He eventually meets and stalks such a girl, but this girl was born after he began dreaming of her. The second chapter, “Ghost Sighting”, a man who drunkenly saw a vision of his girlfriend outside a friend's window and becomes worried. He calls her colleague who lives in the same building to check on her, and she indeed finds her collapsed in the bathroom, apparently strangled. “Poltergeist” deals with a house who seems to have some kind of unnatural tremor at a specific time every evening, which only began after its owner, an old lady, passes away. “Strangulation” talks about a man who is found strangled in a hotel room, but all apparent suspects in the case have iron-clad alibis. Lastly, and perhaps most memorable, is “Prophecy”, where a little girl claims to have witnessed having seen her neighbour hang herself one night, only for her family to see the neighbour alive and well the next day and in seemingly good spirits. Three nights later, the lady does in fact hang herself.

As usual, a lot about Higashino's works needs to be taken in the context of Japanese culture. There's nothing overtly misogynistic here except values that have already been deeply entrenched in the society. I usually can't stand misogyny in my books, but this one I could close one eye to. As usual, Yukawa's solutions are always outstanding in the way it catches you off-guard, and all while using physics and scientific concepts.

I already borrowed 3 more Higashino books from the library so definitely will be reading more.

It's not this book, it's me - probably.

This probably should not have been my entry point to Virginia Woolf's works, considering that this is her last novel. Reading this novella made me feel a little stupid because I had no idea what was going on from start to end. I'm also getting intimidated for my plan to read The Voyage Out by her later this month.

A pageant is being organised at Pointz Hall by its crowd of guests, largely upper-middle class folks. The pageant takes the audience through the history of England, from the Middle Ages up to the Victorian era, which wasn't that far away from when this novel was written and published in 1939.

The writing here was almost absurdist in the way it was so, so messy. It flits around from viewpoint to viewpoint, character to character, and then rests inexplicably on apparently random things and situations. The dialogue doesn't seem to make sense, or are always being cut off by other people. Nobody seems to talk straight to the point.

But in a way, I can't help feeling - is it just me? Am I just not approaching this in the right angle to appreciate what this novella is trying to say? I literally had to go search this book up on Sparknotes after I was done to get some help deciphering it. Even though it was a super short and quick read, it felt so dense, like it was a long enigmatic cipher that I couldn't crack.

Northanger Abbey is one of Austen's earliest written works and it shows. Sometimes things happen a little conveniently, sometimes the pacing is a little off. But even at this young age, Austen's characteristic spark and wit shines through brilliantly. Even in this early work, we already see her astute observations about the foibles of humanity and the sharp delivery that accompanies them. Because this is written at a young age, we also see a playfulness in Austen's writing here that diminishes as she gets older. She doesn't take herself too seriously in this one, sometimes even calling out her own flaws, or those in her characters. I reread this one because I recently read The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and wondered if it might give me any deeper insight into this book - it didn't, so I wouldn't at all call it recommended reading. Nevertheless, Northanger Abbey is still a delightful comfort read at any time.

Between 4 and 4.5/5. This was such a breath of fresh air! Nevermoor had a lot of heart, colour, and just all around good storytelling. The fact that it is a middle-grade offering also makes this a great choice for a palate-cleanser: just formulaic enough to be comforting, but also imaginative enough to keep things interesting as you go along, guessing what's going to happen next.

As a protagonist, Morrigan is a pretty solid one. She's got a boatload of insecurities that possibly middle-grade audiences may find relatable, but it's also never over-dramatic or annoying enough to annoy me either (and I am a few decades away from being at the age for middle-grade). Her patron Jupiter North, however, is my favourite character. He feels a bit like a cross between Willy Wonka and Dumbledore - alternately goofy and wise, comedic and menacing. They're joined by a very colourful cast of characters that have distinct personalities: Fenestra the Magnificat, Hawthorne the dragon rider, Jack the eyepatch boy, Dame Chandra, Kedgeree, Frank the dwarf vampire, and so on.

Nevermoor felt a bit like Enid Blyton meets Harry Potter meets Umbrella Academy, while the titular Trials remind me of the Triwizard Tournament from HP Goblet of Fire. There's something very magical but yet down to earth about Nevermoor, almost a bit steampunk but without the machines. There's also something a little gothic about everything here too, from a celebration called the Black Parade to Morrigan Crow herself always being described as being deathly pale with black hair, black beady eyes, and always wearing black.

Despite all this and the tribulations of the Trials that Morrigan goes through, there's an element of child-like optimism throughout the whole story that isn't over-done. We don't get saccharine-sweet morals of the story, or having the world be so black and white that it doesn't feel real adults. Characters, whether they are “good” or “bad”, are always more than what they seem. First impressions can sometimes be an accurate reflection of the person, but often they turn out to be completely different from how Morrigan had first thought of them.

The storytelling here should also be commended. I picked this book up after a slew of books targeted towards adults but none of them had as solid a storytelling as this one. The structure, the pacing, the build-up of tension, the character introduction, the plot and character development, the revelation of twists, everything was just so so solid and well done. I was so pleasantly surprised and it was a breath of fresh air for me.

I also want to give a huge shoutout to the audiobook production. The narrator, Gemma Whelan, was such a delight to listen to and she really pumped in so much life to the story. She also gave each character such a distinct voice, accent, or tone that they really jumped off the pages. The audiobook also had short snippets of instrumental music in between chapters and I found that it somehow enhanced my experience getting into the story quite a bit.

I would certainly be continuing on the rest of the series for whenever I feel like I need a solid and reliable palate cleanser in between heavier or denser reads.