Marley
Meh. It's a romantic drama about cheating. Like, there's no actual mystery or thrilling happening like the title suggests. I didn't hate it, but I probably wouldn't have remembered it if it wasn't just sitting in plain sight on my bookshelf.
This book deserves a million stars. It's made me cry, it's made me howl with understanding frustration, and it filled me with a new fire to live for myself and nobody else.
A set of different stories, some happening at the same time, some in succession or overlapping. Felt a bit like it was trying to be Cloud Atlas.
This book is about 100 pages worth of plot, the other 328 are a man exposition-dumping onto a woman. I'm serious, this has about 100 pages of non-stop monologue.
Four actual events happen over the course of about 100 pages in total.
The writing style is reminiscent of high school essays at times; “she did this. She went to the door. The door was already open. She was surprised.”
It also absolutely loves to repeat previously given information, every single time it is relevant; I have ADHD and even MY attention span feels insulted.
This should have been a 124 page book.
Really wholesome yet informative, and as a former Blackwell's bookseller I was absolutely delighted by the parts of Simeon's journey taking place there
A plot twist similar to that of the film “The Others”, but minus the ghosts. Not really a spoiler as such, but enough to justify the tags.
I quite enjoyed the mini-biographies of the philosophers mentioned! Just wish we'd stop using “he or she” when “they” exists; it's shorter, still grammatically correct, and more inclusive too!
While I disagree with pretty much everything Bolton believes in and stands for, knowing how immensely frustrated this man was with how Trump is as a person as well as a president does raise some form of sympathy. The chaos was so much worse behind the scenes!
This was my favourite book as a child, and remains so to this day. Somehow the author managed to cram a whole world different from my own AND a thrilling chase adventure into 104 pages. Still kinda baffles me to this day.
Hard to swallow moments, beautifully written, could not put this book down. I'm looking forward to Cherie's next novels!!
Lovely take on the classic “whodunnit”, kept me guessing between three suspects until the very end.
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Would have loved for the excerpts at the beginning of each chapter to have been secret clues if read chronologically as per the date stamps on them. Bit of a missed opportunity there, I feel.
A primary school girl's best friend's body is found, and she decides to take matters into her own hands as the grown-ups are taking way too long. There is a supernatural hint here and there, which I didn't entirely expect, turning the otherwise light-hearted writing -from the girl's childlike perspective- quite dark and eerie.
I particularly loved the way her mother handles the mishap; she didn't get angry, instead they talked it out together.
”Demons to some, angels to others” isn't true anymore, the Priest (“Pinhead”) is just straight up looking to take over the world and hell itself. The random mentions and descriptions of various creatures' genitals just felt out of place and in most cases entirely irrelevant to the scene. Barker's worldbuilding is still top notch, thankfully, and the main characters are well written and fleshed out (pun intended). I guess I just expected more ambiguity regarding the Priest
Permanently eerie, you're never quite at ease. It's like walking into your own house and someone's moved all the furniture half an inch; it's not something you notice, but it somehow makes you feel like something is wrong or off.
While I understand that this was not the focus of the book and its research (perhaps another data gap to add), trans people weren't mentioned a single time, not even in the medical chapters. When obviously they should be included, especially since other intersections were included (such as race and social class).
Just a really cute story about siblings and how extroverts and introverts react differently to things, as well as addressing outward confidence vs inside insecurities
Trans history is rich and long, we've always existed in some form of another. This book gives clear examples of people in history who did not perform and/or identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, and how well or poorly they were accepted by their society and outside societies.
..talk about an anti-climax after the sudden plot twist. On page 54 I theorised that Freddy was Uncle Paul, something which Meg herself wouldn't suspect until page 210 or so. Which is also when the plot finally gathers some speed, but then hits you with ALL the twists all at once. The bits that were good were REALLY good, but overall it was a bit of a drag to get through.
He took physics and made it not only accessible but using very poetic language, and easy to follow diagrams. This book is also an ode to Dante.