Nadine K
A cute story, wholesome.
I liked the game, I liked clock island, I liked Jack.
I did not like Lucy, I didn't think it was realistic, and I did not like the romance.
That being said, I'm not a romance reader and I need a very fleshed out and textured relationship for me to fully enjoy romances in books.
But overall, I enjoyed most of it and I liked the authors writing style. Had some scenes that I felt pretty touching.
It is HARD to immerse yourself into this story. It's like wanting to dive into a pool only to realize the top is frozen solid ice. This obviously leads to a lot of problems. 70%, 80% 90% into the book I still felt like I barely know who these characters were and the depths of their relationships to one another.
It's not that they are two dimensional or the world is underdeveloped. I have a feeling the opposite is true. The author has this entire world and story fleshed out in her head but had trouble translating the complexities and details into text. She seems to have forgotten that the rest of us are unfamiliar with this world and its rules and therefore need some sort of explanation to the concepts and cultures she presents. (Or maybe I'm just giving her too much credit coz I wanted desperately to like this book).
There is barely any cultural context to anything that happens in this book and the author doesn't seem interested in answering any of the questions she leaves us with. (Again, I chalk this up to her knowing all of these in her mind and tricking herself into thinking that it's common knowledge).
There are so many stories I would rather hear about in this world than the one she told us. Tell us about the war between the Demons and the Saredi and how Grandmother ended it. Tell us about Bashasa and the rise of the Rising World coalation. Tell us about the first coming of the Heirarchs and their full story until their defeat. Tell us about how Kai lost his demon body or Grandmother lost her human body and what that means to them and how the world sees them.
The story we got felt flimsy and pointless in comparison. The high points fell flat. The reveals, boring. I just wanted to finish reading this book and move on to the next.
What else? The pacing is bad. There is no sense of the passage of time. The dual timelines of past and present feel entirely too separate. I cannot for the life of me tell you where the climax of this story was.
I feel like there is a good story somewhere in here if you just restructure, focus more on certain events, give us a little bit more insight into the motivations of some characters, and leave less things up for interpretation.
Overall, I was very very disappointed. But I won't give up on you, Martha Wells. I will continue to read The Murderbot Diaries.
Solid collection. Lots of hits, an equal amount of misses.
I picked up this book because of the title and premise. Never whistle at night is also a Javanese belief (superstition?) and I've always loved stories from indigenous populations.
That being said, here is a list of my faves from this anthology in no particular order:
- White Hills by Rebecca Roanhorse (sooo insidious)
- Quantum by Nick Medina (highly disturbing)
- Behind Colin's Eyes by Shane Hawk (made me have a physical reaction while reading (but some of the dialogue is cringe))
- Scariest Story Ever by Richard Van Camp (wholesome)
- The Longest Street in the World by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (kinda funny in that dry way)
- Uncle Robert Rides the Lightning by Kate Hart (this one definitely being my FAVE)
OH WHAT AN ENDING!!!!!! Empathy conquers all made me tear up ngl. Full review in the morning!!!
Morning after edit:
The best possible ending was achieved beyond my imagination in a sardonically hilarious way.
I am a character driven reader, more than plot more than themes, so it took me a while to get through this 600-pager where I barely connected with any of the characters but it was all so worth it for that ending.
Inventive, smart, and so full of grace for these flawed sentient monkeys (and spiders). Approach with patience and you will be rewarded greatly.
Oh I'm never getting over that ending, I love it so much.
Art, gorgeous. Colours 💯, character design 💯, style 💯.
Story was good but it really suffered being a oneshot. It did not have the space or time to tell the story the way it deserves to be told. But I do understand the constraints of a graphic novel, so I’m still impressed at what they did with what they had to work with.
🍉
Review of full series:
SOOOO GOOOD!
It took me 3 tries to finally start reading this series for real. The first two times I just couldn't get into it because I couldn't see if it was going anywhere but third time's the charm and I pushed through (mainly to see Izutsumi because I loved her from the screenshots I've seen). No regrets at all.
The series itself didn't really pick up for me until Volume 5 (which was 29 chapters in...) but afterwards it was a blast.
The art is fantastic, the characters really grow on you, and I loved loved loved their development. Fantastic manga. Glad I didn't give up on it.
3.5 stars
I liked it, the ending was pretty satisfying. Something about it felt flimsy though. I may be comparing it to the Farseer trilogy too much. In all of Girton's text, I was looking for Fitz.
I thought the political intrigue was fun but imagine how much juicier it would have been had I actually loved the characters.
It lacked the depth I needed from stories like this but I did like it well enough. Might pick up the second book one day.
(I also noticed how much RJ Barker enjoys older women master characters, I appreciate it even tho Merela is almost identical to Maes from the Bone Ships)
4.5 rounded up!
I liked it a lot, it tapered off at the end a bit hence the .5 but overall I really really liked it.
If you are looking for murderous sentient octopi this isn't the book for you. It's an exploration of consciousness, a reflection on the actions of human-kind, and a statement on social responsibility on a grander scale.
I think putting it under the thriller genre was the biggest mistake in this books marketing and why many of it's top liked reviews are so low. There's far more introspection and reflection than there are action sequences but as a Bradbury lover, I fucking love that shit.
ALSO I loved the abundance of South East Asian characters INCLUDING all the named Indonesian characters. A win is a win.
Anyway, I leave you with this.
“Communication is communion. When we communicate with others, we take something from them into ourselves, and give them something of ours. Perhaps it is this thought hat makes us so nervous about the idea of encountering cultures outside of human. The thought that what it means to be human will shift - and we will lose our footing. Or that we will finally have to take responsibility for our actions in this world.”
3.5 rounded down.
Love a good werewolf story, and this was an okay one. The illustrations by Bernie Wrightson were gorgeous but spoiled the story as I read it. The story itself was fairly straightforward and so easily digestible as most King books are.
I liked it and it will look pretty on my bookshelf. :)
4.5. It so fun.
Noticeably less cohesive than the previous installments but I still had a lot of fun reading it because I've become so invested in these characters. I can imagine hating this series if I hadn't connected to any of the characters lol.
I keep thinking that Brandon Sanderson is toothless when handling the Stormlight Archive, but I still scream whenever something bad happens to a character I like so I guess I'm glad he lacks the teeth to actually bite them to pieces (I'm looking at you, Fitz and the Fool Trilogy). The day he kills one of them off I think I may abandon the series but thankfully the next book is still in the works so I have a blessed break from the worry.
Anyway, it's fun. I had a lot of fun reading it and that's my primary area of focus when it comes to the books I read.
I imagine literature teachers would love this book. And as a former lit kid, I loved it too. I can picture me and my old classmates (a class of only 5 kids) picking this apart and having so much fun with it.
As Luen said, there's not a single wasted word in the novel. The selection of each word, the construction of the passages is absolutely brilliant. There are layers to this writing, it lends itself to interpretation and doesn't treat it's readers like idiots.
Within just a few sentences you know exactly what kind of character Control is. As the story progresses you get to feel what he's feeling. When he's losing grip the sentences start to fall apart. When he's confused the paragraphs can feel jumbled. When he's comfortable at home with his cat he wisecracks more often. It's masterful writing.
The story itself is atmospheric and interesting HOWEVER the abrupt ending threw me off. The last bit of the book was noticeably less gripping than the rest of it. I was forewarned that this book and the third should be treated as two parts of the same story so I'm looking forward to that.
Regardless, Jeff VanderMeer is very talented.
Brandon Sanderson is so good at creating consistently likable characters. I love Lopen, I love Rysn, I love Cord. His prose is so simple and easily digestible, I glide through it like nothing. Sometimes I don't need literature, sometimes I just wanna have fun.
ALSO, ANOTHER WIN FOR (partial) NAUTICAL FANTASY! My fave sub-genre. We need more fantasy books set in boats, we need more sailors, pirates, privateers with magic. I demand it, even.
My first non-fantasy or sci-fi book of the year and ALSO my first disappointing read of the year all in one!
I thought it was stupid, a melodramatic nothing-burger of a book. And this is what yall were hyping up? Damn.
My first note of the book was “I'm 30 pages into the book and I've read the phrase “the only one left” and “the only one alive” near 5 times which I think is excessive. I get it.” and at that point I knew I was not in for a fun ride.
My main issue with this book is that I hated the main character, Kit. She likes to assume peoples thoughts and she never paints anyone in a favourable light. Shes pessimistic, rude, self-centered, and close-minded. Joyless, humourless, dull. She's so bad at her job it's almost comical. She's SO BAD AT HER JOB.
I will concede that there were some good atmospheric moments that were kinda creepy so it gets to keep a star for that as well as SOME of the twists I didn't see coming (because they were stupid and felt like an add on).
I propose a whole new genre for this book, not a Thriller but an Irritator.
FUCK OFF THAT WAS SO GOOD.
Time, the great equalizer.
I think it was a perfect ending to this science-fiction epic. The scope of this book is insane from the setting to the concepts. I cannot adequately express how impressive it is, you just have to read it.
This book contained a scene that STILL gives me full body shivers when I think about it and one completely different scene that was so devastating that I had to put the book down for a bit.
Absolutely victorious. I feel like I ran a marathon.
If I had to rank the series it would be:
1. Death's End
2. The Three Body Problem
3. The Dark Forest
But you absolutely must read all 3. You have approximately 29 days from today to read all 1700ish pages before the Netflix series butchers it, if you do 100 a day you might just make it.
I'll just end with Cixin Liu is a genius and Ken Liu did a FANTASTIC job with the translation. Kudos to everyone involved, an absolute banger.