Nadine K
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)
2.5, I'm not even angry about it, more sad.
I cannot fault the writing. The writing is good, the characters well developed and rounded, the flow and language great, the story solid.
However, if there is a more pessimistic book I have yet to read it (as far as I remember). I would give it points for realism but it's realism is entirely one sided to the worst parts of society. Children are abused, the abusers get away with it, the greedy get rewarded, the weak suffer, the world turns, just another day in a life, move along nothing to see here. Sick.
I didn't like any of the characters. Note, they are well written, but in such a way that they are all either terrible people or boring. What they all have in common is their strong sense of individuality, that is to say, every one of them is selfish. There is no sense of community aside from when they are working as a collective to cover up a scandal. If there is a lesson to be learned I have missed it entirely.
Additionally, many reviews talk about the humor of this book. While I didn't find anything funny about it I did find large chunks of it horrific. What a let down, ESPECIALLY after reading Demon Copperhead.
Also CW: Sexual Abuse, Heavy Drug Use
My last book for age 27 😭.
Beautifully written as always. Ray Bradbury's works always reads poetic and lyrical. Sometimes you forget that this book was published in 1950 but OTHER TIMES you are very reminded.
It's wild how different times were when this book was written. It's wild that this imaginative author could imagine a Martian society a decade before humans first reached space but could not imagine a desegregated US just a handful of years before the first laws against it were put into motion. (Let's be clear this book is very much anti-racist, it just says a lot for the beliefs of the time.) Also, widely America (US) centric, which is another thing I blame on the time it was written.
First reread since I've first got into Narnia when I was a kid. Made me emotional and nostalgic for a time in my life that wasn't the best but saved through this series.
I fear what will become of me when I finish every single Realm of the Elderlings book. I still have some way to go but I already miss it now that I'm halfway through.
I want to know why this book has a 3.5 rating on here. Like, explain? Is it coz Nevare is a realistic privileged teen boy with realistic privileged teen boy views and opinions? My boy is trying his best lol :')
As always, Robin Hobbs writing is impeccable. Never let them guess you're next move, queen.
It was fun, will read the next one.
Really should've read this trilogy before the Tawny Man Trilogy but reading it after the Tawny Man Trilogy is really it's own fun too.
I LOVE Bradbury's writing so much. He is one of my all time faves and this book is no exception. Something about how he writes is so deeply personal to me. Have you ever read the words of someone who saw the world through eyes so similar to your own?
One summer a young boy comes to the startling joyous realisation that he is alive. That same summer he also comes to the shocking terrible realisation that he will one day die. This book is the concentration of the mighty highs and lows of this one summer in Green Town and many of it's inhabitants. A series of interconnected short stories that make an effort to make a fleeting season eternal.
Everyone talks about how important it is to romanticise your life, if you wanna do it right learn from Ray Bradbury.
Stunning.
It's not groundbreaking, it didn't blow my mind, it didn't make my heart ache or my eyes tear up, but I enjoyed it.
Far from King's best work, I'm sure (though I've only ever read one other). It scratched the same itch in my brain that reading Shounen Manga does.
There was a lot of bullshittery towards the end (both teenage boy bullshittery and less than stellar writing bullshittery) but overall, I had a lot of fun.
It was very fun :)
Extremely charming, wicked funny. Both fantastical and mundane (in the best way). A book to fall in love with.
Movie watchers wondering if the book is worth it, WITHOUT A DOUBT. It'll make you love the characters you already know so well more while also opening your heart to the stories of so many other lovely characters.
Howl, Sophie, and Diana Wynne Jones own my heart.
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.
4.5 stars tempted to round up because of that feel-good ending. (I’m a sap.)
It was good! Well written, great characters. Perfect ending.
But what it really says to me is that I need to read The Imperial Radch trilogy.
I’m sure my reading of this book would have been much elevated if I had prior understanding of this universe.
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.
Easy read. I thought it was a solid and fun book. It was pretty easy to guess who the real bad guys were from the moment they were introduced, but seeing as the book opens with a reddit post from these guys I don't think it was meant to be that hard to figure out anyway. It didn't take away from my enjoyment.
I'm gonna be honest I didn't think about the book too critically coz I like my horror fun and simple. As long as the story made sense, the characters were believable, and it took me along for the ride, I'd probably enjoy it.
My only complaint is that there were A LOT of characters with detailed backstories. I am horrible at names and take a while to familiarise myself with characters so trying to remember which final girl had which horror villain was a nightmare. I had to go back and reread pages and pages to figure out who this person is. But that's mostly on me and my inability to match names to faces lmao.
R. F. Kuang played me like a fidle but damn if she didn't make fucking good music.
Unrepentant
Vicious
Unhinged
All words to describe Juniper Song Hayward and the book she inhabits alike.
Let this review be my personal love letter to REBECCA F. KUANG. I think I've been in love with her since I read The Poppy War in 2020 and I am gobsmacked by everything about her.
She is an author of strong and unwavering principles somehow without being self-righteous. Confident and self aware and painfully in touch with the cultural zeitgeist.
She has such a strong grasp on story beats. Tell me how I start the book ROOTING for the downfall of the protagonist but when the thing I want most to happen finally happens I felt almost crushed?
Here are 3 things I know about her writing:
1. Her protagonists are not heroes, often they do things that some would say are villainous (looking at you Runin, my love.)
2. Her books will not end in a whimper but with a bang. Not just a regular bang too, a catastrophic one.
3. She is good and she is getting better.
My heart is racing as I type these words. The grip this lady has on me. I have made the executive decision to go stupid.
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.
God dammit, Tatsuki Fujimoto has been good at manga since age 17...
Every single story is fantastic and different but also so similar. It's absolutely fascinating to have a compilation of your work from your younger years and we as readers can really see his progress. His comments ok his past work are also great. How lucky it is to have that kind of relationship with your past.
In his closing words he talked about how he wrote when he felt powerless and helpless and that helped me pinpoint what exactly it is I love about his stories. While they are all in helpless situations the characters themselves try so hard to stay away from becoming bleak. There is a balance of humor that he strikes so well within the fatalism.
I'd say this man is a manga genius.
I don't have words. They finally made it there. I'm crushed and relieved. It was all very good.
Good bye :')
4.5 stars!
I need more. I love these characters.
Some bits dragged on but somehow i got it in my head that it was part of Peter Grant's charm.
I am biased.
It's not a bad book, it's not even a bad story. But something about it feels off. I don't know, I've been trying to figure out what felt off the entire time I read it but I'm drawing a blank. Maybe I just wanted it to be outstanding where it was just okay.
I wanted Stephen King's The Institute set in Victorian times but got something more akin to Miss Peregrines.