Zayden
The translation was fine but a bit too old - made references I didn't know and had some word structure I wasn't used to. The Grossman translation is better if you're not used to reading old books.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
This contains many nature poems and some love poems, and also poems about other things. And a mystery poem.
The mystery, The Restoration of Frost, is slightly unsatisfying as a mystery, but is a nice poem. It has several really good lines, and some pretty funny ones. “Time never brought wisdom, only made me old.” is one that stands out.
The nature and love poems both vary in quality- the best of them I would give 4.25 stars, and the worst 2 stars- but those are rare.
Some of these poems made me shed a tear, and some impressed me with technical skill.
An Autumn Dell gives a beautiful picture of nature, and has a lovely line- calling frogs ‘as mournful as remembrance'. Coming Home and New Spring are both love poems which evoked great emotion in me- such a beautiful thing to say that past memories ‘will hold a wistful mind at ransom'. Old Charts is a wistful, hopeful, lovely thing. And there are many more almost as good.
But there are some weaknesses too. Some few poems just seem to say nothing, but more are kneecapped by weak endings. The Ancient River has a last line that comes out of left field, almost spoiling the poem. Music in Winter gets weaker and weaker as it goes. Many others also suffer from weaker endings.
There are some words which appear in multiple poems, which is a bit of a jarring experience if you're not used to them beforehand. Scudding, quotidian, and gloaming come to mind.
On the whole I think this is a pretty good and skilfully written book.
3.5 stars.
Does not have a chapter on ‘Face' in the culture section, and I'd have liked a bit more information on some things. Still very informative.
Very well written.
But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
A sad book.
The prose was good, and the quotes were good. I can see the author's reading history. But in some ways the book feels unfinished - as, I suppose, it is. Some parts feel like they should have been expanded upon, or failing that, not been in the book at all. The arrangement of topics within the chapters also feels somewhat clunky.
But, that said, this is still a book that made me tear up several times. Its goal was to introduce the reader to how it feels to deal with a terminal illness, and it succeeds at that pretty well.
One of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. At once informative, intense, accurate, gripping, and readable. Almost nothing here can be criticized.
As a book that is an evoker of emotions, this is excellent. As a book that is a carrier of communication, it is not even good.
The relationship between the boy and the tree is deeply unhealthy. The revelation of how unhealthy it is comes along with much sadness, so the book does indicate that.
But then, the ending, and especially the last page, spoil everything. The whole point of the book seemed to be that one should not just take and take and take from love, and it even showed the tree to be unhappy at one point, supporting that.
But then the last page voids all consequence and destroys the message. Is it about unhealthy relationships? The love of a mother for her child? The human exploitation of nature? In no case is the message any good.
One of the worst books I've had the displeasure of reading.
The male lead, Alex, is an overly emotional, stupidly edgy, emotionally unstable, cruelly controlling, callously criminal parody of himself. He growls and prowls and snarls and shouts like a child's idea of ‘cool edgy genius'. This is not how real people are.
He falls in love with the female lead on the flimsiest of grounds. He acts so stupid the entire book, one wonders if his claimed 160 IQ is actually even in the triple digits. He doesn't like art because boohoo, my life is so sad.
The backstories of the two main characters are needlessly complicated for the sake of unnecessary drama. The female lead, Ava, is the product of cheating by her mother. Husband of said mother tried to kill Ava (twice), thought better, and she conveniently lost her memory.
One of the side characters is a princess for no real reason.
All through the book, most women are treated merely as shells who chase after Alex because he's so hot. They have no personality except for wanting to fuck him. I did not remember to apply the Bechdel test but this book almost certainly fails it.
Part of the book is wasted pretending to be a thriller, with kidnappings and espionage and murder happening willy-nilly. There are secret fixer groups, hackers, black market poisons, all used as if every CEO in the world has also worked in the special forces. Stupid.
The sorry excuse of a romance has no basis, no progression, and no joy in it whatsoever. It starts on a whim, contains no emotional intimacy, consists entirely of sex and breaks up based on a justification which reads more like a joke. Then Alex spends an year basically stalking Ava, almost the entirety of which is timeskipped and where most of the reconciliation happens. Disgusting.
The sex scenes are boring, the prose is purple, and the eyes are described like the worst fanfiction. Emerald orbs and jade rings? I'll vomit. Ava makes a new friend, and the way we find out about how close they are is that Ava tells us they're close. Incredible. I don't think a single relationship in this book has on-screen growth.
Perhaps the only thing about this book which isn't worthy of the most assiduous attacks is Ava's friendship with her friends. This seems to be the only healthy relationship in this book.
I listened to the audiobook at 3x and it was still too excruciating. Do not read this.
The emails had a very strange tone- the characters wrote in length and in prose as if they knew they were going to be in a book. Perhaps this is true to the way email was written in 2000, but I had difficulty suspending my disbelief.
The relationship between the main characters progresses at a strange pace. In a week after first contact they are sending suggestive messages and making master-slave contracts, but then communication is cut off for a whole month? Given how desperate Agnes is said to be, this seems like too long a time.
Speaking of desperation, Agnes says she was suicidal, but there seem to be no signs of this other than the only time she says this - and that only to inform Zoe that 250 dollars have blown the feelings away.
The ending, moreover, does not feel like an ending at all. Perhaps the author wanted to make a point about how suddenly death arrives, or something, but it is not well done.
There is some nice horror in the later parts, but that isn't enough to make me like this book.
A well-written and well-researched book.
The author paints a skilful picture of the past, and there are also some references to historical figures thrown in for good fun. I required a dictionary for some words, but nothing was so opaquen as to not be understood from context.
The prose, especially in the first half of the book, is very atmospheric and evocative. As the book transitions into more of an action packed style, this slowly falls off- but does not disappear.
The author is very good at surprising the reader and subverting expectations. The surprised and reveals were a joy to read.
It was perhaps a bit too short to fully explore the fantasy aspect of the setting, or perhaps it was left unexplored for the mystery. Even at the end of the book, we are left with some unanswered questions, which was slightly unsatisfying.
The characters, too, are not very well explored, except the protagonist Thomas. The Moores' life stories do not explain how they are the way they are, nor other characters explained beyond what is needed. It is not too egregious, but it happens.
On the whole, a nice book.
A disappointing read.
Author does not seem to have heard of ‘show, not tell'.
Feelings are not felt - we are merely told that the characters have felt them. The descriptions, invariably of unimportant things, try to be cutely peculiar but come off as just strange.
It was impossible for him not to recognise that voice - as impossible as squeezing a hundred people into the Morisaki bookshop.
The four romances in this book - protagonist and Hideaki, Takano and Tomo, uncle and aunt, and protagonist and Wada - are mostly below par.
Takano and Tomo have the most realistic and best developed romance in the book, and they disappear after the first part. The aunt and uncle have a believable relationship, even though the aunt often acts rather extremely.
Takako's relationship with Hideaki is so flat, and the events thereafter so cliche, I feel as if the book might have been better off without the whole thing. Her sadness about the whole thing, as written, seems perfunctory and appears only once or twice.
Takako's second relationship, with Akira Wada, is only a bit less flat. He is introduced halfway through the book, interacts with Takako only a few times, and once they do get in a relationship - offscreen - he is promptly forgotten about.
Entire years pass between significant events, with no discernible change in the characters.
The author is not very good at writing. Sentence structures are repeated frequently, emphasis is shown in only a single way, and the conversations are... Stilted. Awkward. Unrealistic.
The main character, Mallory, is stupid - which is forgivable - and annoying - which is not. The love interest, Nolan, is so cookie-cutter and flat that it physically pains me. The middle sister, Sabrina, is like a parody of how teenagers are represented in media - except it's not a parody.
The romance occurs suddenly and with shallow buildup. The chess metaphors are inserted in a way that could not have been more hamfisted. Speaking of chess, this book commits countless crimes against chess. The author apologises for that, at least.
A few questionable choices in prose, and some of the exposition could have been slightly improved, but on the whole a good pop-math book.