Goran Lowie

What a fantastic book. Way less “pulpish” than I was expecting, if that makes sense.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. There were parts of it I really liked, but at the same time it was a slog to get through and didn't really captivate me all that much.

It's an unconventional book. It reads more like a connected collection of short stories. There's an entire chapter which consisted of a PowerPoint presentation and, although I found it a bit gimmicky at first, quickly became my favorite chapter of the book because it's such an interesting and new way of telling a story.

I loved the concept of the book. I loved the writing style. I loved the themes. I loved the PowerPoint chapter. In short, I loved the idea of the book. The actual content itself– the story, especially the characters, bored me out of my mind. While the story and its characters are forgettable, I liked the book overall.It's worth the read, at the very least.(it's also another reminder for me to finally pick up In Search of Lost Time!)

A muddled plot with a style that wasn't for me at all (I don't care for too modern language in my fantasy to begin with, but when mixed with all the internet and meme humor... just no) and worldbuilding that felt interesting at best and terribly inconsistent at most.

I always see people praising this for being original but I just see all the stuff that feels heavily borrowed and a lot of vagueries in terms of characters and plot.

Figured I'd stick it out because it was still decently fun at times, but this was definitely an unpleasant surprise for me. I'd been saving it for some time now and figured fuck it, I won't wait until the entire series is out. Really wish I'd liked it more!

Made me think about so many things I've never really thought about. Fantastic book.

Like many collections of short stories, this is a bit of a mixed bag. I adored Clarke's very long Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and I loved her shorter Piranesi just as much but maybe for different reasons, so I was very curious to see how she would be in the very short form.

There's some great moments here, and I really liked some of the stories (particularly many of the footnotes, but overall this didn't entice me as much as JS&MN and Piranesi did.