Dawn

I felt almost guilty to enjoy this strange, surreal novel that swirls into a nightmare.
Set in an anonymous city, almost definitely in Scotland, and narrated by “Holly” - a woman with an unknown past and a fake name. Every page felt dirty and sticky as I was pulled deeper into the world of The Paradise and the Hell that it becomes.
Beautifully written with a encyclopaedic knowledge of film, this will haunt me.

3.5* rounded up.

An original take on a police enquiry as a team is joined by an Artificial Intelligence Detective Entity. Working on a couple of cold cases to test the algorithms things start to spiral out of control.

Dealing beautifully with the complexities of bereavement this was a surprisingly moving read. It was also an interesting look at the ways science can be used to assist us and be misappropriated. Combined with both these angles was a terrified kidnapped kid whose short chapters were a horrifying reminder of why the team were investigating.

A book about writing and racism apparently influenced by the author's experiences of publishing. Unfortunately I found it all just a bit “meh”. Everyone is slightly unlikable and borderline awful which makes it hard to care. I didn't enjoy the social media stuff and the reveal at the end wasn't worth the work up. Worst of all, our protagonist learns nothing and off she goes planning to write more “me, me, me” tripe.
I think I'd rather have read The Last Front, it certainly sounds like a more interesting read.

A re-read where I'd forgotten the details from the last reading. That meant I got to experience it all again. Not so much of an “enjoyable” read - although there is joy in Jack's love for his mother and the only world he's ever known. It deals well with some difficult adult subjects by having us see them through Jack's eyes. Definitely better than I'd remembered it being!

Like the narrator this masterpiece is neither one thing nor another. An epic Greek tale and/or a modern American novel. I didn't know what to expect from this, looking solely for a Pulitzer prize winner to read I was intrigued by the cover. In retrospect the clues were all there in the hyphenated title and the classical illustration but I really did not expect what I found.
No spoilers here but the big reveal comes in the first sentence and Eugenides had me hooked from then. Cal's story crosses oceans and generations, brushing with revolutions and revolutionaries. It is full of history and knowledge and science and poetry - worthier poeple than me will have reviewed it with much better words. Deserving of prizes and praise it's a tale of acceptance of self and others and I loved it.

I saved this for Christmas, I don't know what I was expecting... It's definitely not a happy, jolly little Christmassy tale with cocoa and snow etc. I should have known it would have been a painfully truthful representation of family life. It shows just how easy it is to forget or ignore each other, particularly at a time when we should be expressing our love and acceptance. It's a good read, a necessary read, but don't expect baubles and happy-ever-afters. Oseman doesn't really do that kind of thing!

Not so much a memoir as a collection of stories from her life. I've always enjoyed Driver on screen and it was lovely to discover that she is as lovely and “normal” as you'd expect.
The writing was exceptionally good, a real surprise, I had expected interesting stories but not this obvious literary talent. I hope she continues to write and publish.
The heartbreaking final chapter is generous and will strike a cord with all.

This was up there with Solitaire for me as one of Oseman's best works. I found the characters were fully believable and was completely invested in them. It was pretty emotional at times and definitely led to dampening of the eyeballs! Nice to see some familiar faces pop up too

3.5*
I enjoy Page's screen work and didn't know much about his life off screen. Memoirs are difficult because either they are written for the author or the reader - seldom for both. I feel that this was definitely the former, a cathartic acceptance of self that everyone deserves but doesn't always make the best read. There were moments, to do with both general and trans acceptance, that were heartbreaking. Elliot comes across as a very pleasant chap and I'm glad he has such great friends and a good support network.
The fantastic title is definitely the best thing about the book.

My second Slaughter read and it was fine, some unexpected events and a little bit of tension at times.
She seems to be very interested in family dynamics, particularly those between female relatives, going by the two novels I've read.
I'm not entirely enamoured with her work but I like that everyone is at least a little flawed. They're quick and easy though, which is appreciated on a nightshift break. I'll definitely read a few more of them but foresee getting bored with her worlds fairly quickly.

Big Library Read: this was a freebie on my library app and I'd have been unlikely to read it otherwise. However it was such an enjoyable read that I'll be looking out for the author's other work.
Stories within stories and worlds within worlds. It pulled me into a place I'd never visited before and made me care.
Towards the end things got a little too muddled, but that didn't really detract from the pleasure I got from the overall read.

Again, it was fine, good to get closure. Too many sex scenes though. Don't imagine I'll read anything else she does.

Probably a 3.5 rather than a full 4 but 3 seems cruel as I did really enjoy reading this. But already it's slipping away and I doubt any of these stories will stay with me. I wasn't enamoured, endeared, engaged or invested in anyone. Generally they were quite an unlikable bunch except for Eleanor and her mum, who were sweet. The writing was good enough, there were smatterings of almost poetry and some lovely language (but also some rather hideous imagery).

So, I enjoyed this good fun witchy novel with a queer core and some modern twists.
I'm always up for a bit of magic and it was good to read something that wasn't all white and cis - just because it's fantasy doesn't mean it can't reflect reality (or not - seems to be some people here who found it too preachy and others saying it wasn't diverse enough - hey, everyone's a critic!).
Anyone, it was fun, I flew through it and what an ending!!! Can't wait to read the next one.

I wasn't fully involved in this, it passed the time but never gripped me. I did like the way Slaughter blended three seemingly disparate strands of plot into one story. Her writing is also good enough but I don't think she's really for me.

3.5* rounded up

Bookclub read [UoG]: There's a lot to like about this novel. As an amateur etymologist, I loved the literal power of words in this world. There's a kind of steampunk fantasy element that fascinated me and I love, love, love a library. It was also refreshing to read on family, friendship and betrayal without any irritating romantic love stories. I enjoyed the asides where we got a deeper understanding of the main characters. I found the world Kiang created was quite realistic with it's grubbyness and confliction. The cover is delightfully designed and illustrated - overall it is a thing of beauty.

On the dislike side - it's huge! I'm sure it could have been shorter and kept it together. The footnotes were distracting (and often unnecessary). Letty, as a character, was a scapegoat for the white ruling upper classes. Her Interlude purports Letty's discrimination by sex is comparable to the racial injustice experienced by her friends - “Leticia Price was not a wicked person. Harsh, perhaps. Cold, blunt, severe: all the words one might use to describe a girl who demanded from the world the same things a man would”. Yet she continues to come across as a selfish, silly girl who just cannot understand what her friends experience.

Nevertheless, it ended well and I will often ponder how the world was left, what it did to recover and how Victoire's tale continues.

If any book is going to make you feel rather conflicted about hoovering, this is it!

Terry Pratchett's first novel is indeed entirely novel. There are complete civilisations existing and warring between the carpet hairs. Unexpected heroes, strange creatures and some almost unpronounceable names.

My biggest problem with this book was that the characters just didn't grab me. It's not that I didn't like them, I just felt nothing for them. It was an interesting premise, written well enough with some twists but it's not going to stick in my memory.

Another great fun read, quickly pulls you into the story and doesn't let you go until the end. Osman creates such believable characters in incredibly inconceivable situations so that you need to stay with them to find out what happens.
These books aren't going to change the world but they are great at taking you out of it for a while.

More fun and games with Joyce and her friends. As with the previous books, it's quite improbable and genuinely funny. I know it can't last forever, they're not getting any younger, but I'm happy to keep on reading their exploits as long as Osman is writing them.

Beautiful, heartbreaking and sometimes terrifying. A book about love, and acceptance, and Glasgow. This spoke to me more than Shuggie Bain, I felt I knew this place and these people. Well worth a read and, more than likely, a re-read.

Bookclub read [UoG]: I found this well written but not always enjoyably so. Sometimes the phrases seemed too formulaic, causing the reader to focus on the creation of the text rather than generate emotion. I do seem to like a multi-generational tale and learning some of the history of a land I visited as a child tourist was interesting. I really felt I should have liked this book more but I struggled to give it the 3 stars. I just really didn't like the tree! I'm with Ada “your fig gives me the creeps”. Yes, I get it was a useful narrative structure (and, as we discover in the end, much more than that) bringing together tales, weaving history and situations that no one else could possibly know. But I didn't like it, I found it creepy and unpleasant and, although I had warmed slightly towards it by halfway through the book, I never really enjoyed it's voice. I also really didn't like the end... Wow, I'd better stop now – the more I write the more I'm tempted to knock stars off!!

While there were flaws and a bit of schmaltz, I overall enjoyed this. Perfect escapism in my breaks and post-shift. I'm sure if I think on it too much I'd start to cut down the stars, so I won't.

A fascinating read, beautiful and slightly messy. 3 people coming together to, perhaps, create a new family unit. Interlocking tales of queerness, womanhood, transgender experiences, detransition, sex, sexuality, gender, divorce, parenthood and, somewhere in there, love. Characters were flawed, nothing was perfect, sometimes it almost was but there was a seedy smirr around the edges. I loved how it ended but also didn't.

Bookclub read [UoG]: I was interested in the premise of this, having always loved words - their beginnings, uses and the way their meanings can change. I've never really thought about the gendering of words, how they can mean different things to men and women and how each has their own vocabulary (how this works in our more gender-fluid time I would be very interested to read upon). This book made me think about the words of my childhood, from my hometown and those of my parents. The special words that only mean something to you and those close to you. The new words you find as you grow and travel. The meanings you make for yourself.
Based on the true story of the dictionary's creation with the beginnings of the suffragist and suffragette movements and the First World War it's hard to believe that Esme is fiction. She seemed so real, well rounded by Williams' words and imbued with life. I wanted so much for her and felt her losses deeply. In some ways it is sad that real women of the dictionary remain as peripheral characters in this book as they do on the actual history of creating the dictionary. However, I appreciate Williams not wishing to take liberties with their narratives. The fictional women, were well fleshed out from the crass Mabel to the (almost) modern day Meg.
There was little joy to be taken from the lives of the characters, everything was permeated with a bleakness - perhaps due to the time it was set. However there was joy in the words, in the claiming of them and I will look differently at many of them since reading this.