Mandy

I'm probably a biased reviewer but this hit the spot for me on so many levels. 4.5/5.

I went into it completely blind but having heard generally good things about the book. Immediately, I was immediately caught by the trope of “female academic in a (sometimes fantasy) field in an AU of historical Europe”, which is something I've generally enjoyed in the past starting with Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody series (studying Egyptology), Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series (studying butterflies), and also Marie Brennan's The Memoirs of Lady Trent series (studying dragons). All of these female academics, as well as Emily Wilde, are generally curmudgeonly and a little prickly, with a bit of the modern 21st century “strong independent woman” vibe, but tampered with a hilariously sardonic voice that often makes their perspectives very enjoyable to read. Plus, most of these female academics are generally too busy ruminating about their field of choice in the book that there isn't too much time to keep dwelling on female independence and hitting the reader over the head with it - I prefer messages like this to be a normalized background theme rather than being too on the nose. The male love interests in these books always develop a healthy respect for the female protagonist (primarily because there would be no realistic way she could fall in love with a person who didn't), and having to keep a respectful distance from them and letting the love line develop on both people's terms.

So all that was done and great. It was only half way through that it suddenly struck me for the first time that this book was... basically a retelling of Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, which also happens to be one of my favourite books of all time (and was before the film even came out). I later learnt that this was confirmed by the author in an interview, but I was really happy that the parallels were subtle enough that it took me half a book to figure it out, but obvious enough that I could feel the strong influence for sure even before I read any interview with the author. I've read so many HMC retellings at this point and feel that the best ones are the ones that don't market themselves as such, so I was delighted that this came through so subtly and so creatively too. As the plot develops, the book's parallels with HMC became more and more obvious, but I wasn't mad, and frankly I enjoyed the book even more after that.

The narrative of this book is generally quite slice of life, as it should be given that it is a journal of an academic in the field. There is a lot of information about the faeries in her world, but I thought it wasn't too info-dumpy and gave a lot of substance to the world-building. In particular, I enjoyed the kinds of faeries that inhabited this world too. Faeries are a pretty popular fantasy race to include in books these days, but they're often just another variation of the uber-hot elf trope. But in this one, faeries are much closer to the ones you might come across in actual fairy tales from the centuries ago. They're at best tricky to deal with, but can be downright dangerous, horrifying, cruel (and not in a oMg-sO-hOt way), and sadistic. Some of them are even described as looking like nightmare fuel. I love that, not everything and everyone has to be hot humans in a fantasy romance book.

And then, of course, there's the romance. I liked a lot about how understated it was, there wasn't any particularly huge dramatic moments, and we don't have the female protagonist conveniently but unrealistically not guessing a lot of things about the male love interest. She's intelligent and she's a scholar, so of course realistically she's going to have suspicions about certain things, not least his feelings for her long before he declares it, rather than be caught by surprise. It sacrifices the drama of the moment a bit, but I much prefer this.

So overall I really enjoyed this one. I am a little worried about the sequel though - often times a book that uses a tried-and-true formula from another book tends to flounder when it has to carry on from there onto a sequel because then they're on a bit on untested ground, but nevertheless I'll definitely be reading it when it comes out next year.

I'm left wondering what the whole point of this book was. The plot is basically what you read in the blurb, and even if you went in without reading the blurb, you could probably tell how the story's going to unfold within the first few chapters anyway. It took at least 25 agonizing chapters for the story to reach a pivotal moment that we saw coming from the beginning. I definitely found the second act of the book a lot more engaging than the first, where we finally get past that long-awaited moment in the story and can finally get on to finding out what happens to the characters after.

There's probably a deeper point to this story that I'm not getting. I didn't hate it, but I'm not really sure if I'd reread it again. I give it 3 stars because I quite enjoyed the writing style, especially in the first few chapters before we embarked on watching a train wreck happening in extreme slow-motion.

4.5 stars. Science fiction is a genre that I've been slowly trying to read a bit more of recently, and this is an incredibly refreshing entry to read. Unlike most science fiction novels which tend to ruminate on the effect of technology on civilisations and/or broader galactic politics, Small, Angry Planet instead concentrates on imagined alien species and what makes their cultures tick. It's heavily character-focused and is so wonderfully imaginative that I'm absolutely here for it.

Before properly going into this book, I read a review for it on here that described its action as “episodic” and that term has stuck with me throughout my read. There isn't really a huge amount of plot - the crew of the Wayfarer undertake a job to deliver cargo to a planet that's undergoing civil war. It's as straightforward as that. There aren't a lot of plot twists along the way, but that isn't really what the book is here to do. The book is primarily interested in the lives, personalities, backstories, and respective cultures of the Wayfarer crew.

The book does a masterful job at pacing. I loved how we aren't just thrown into the deep end of things, but instead spend a good part following Rosemary Harper, newest member of the Wayfarer crew, and also sheltered Human who doesn't know enough about other alien species. She makes a great self-insert for the reader to slowly learn about the other crew members from scratch, their dynamics, and their respective civilizations.

The crew of the Wayfarer aren't anything to shout about at first, but we slowly get to know each of them on deeper levels that by the end of it, you don't really want the book to end because you don't want to leave the new friends you've made. Each of them brings something new and interesting to the table: Ohan the Sianat Pair makes us think about using plural pronouns for an entity, Sissix the Aandrisk makes us reexamine our concept of the parent-child bond and the sanctity of biological vs found families, Dr Chef the Grum lets us think about how gender fluidity might have evolved in an alien species.

I like to think of this book as F.R.I.E.N.D.S in space, except much more character-focused. It doesn't take itself too seriously but exhibits so much creativity when it comes to imagining alien cultures and their inter-species dynamics. It's got everything I've always found lacking in a lot of science fiction: a celebration of the diversity of life and cultures that could potentially be found out there, and of these species coming together to work, cooperate, bond, and just having fun and cracking jokes at each other.

3.5/5. This was a re-read for me but I first read it so long ago that I've completely forgotten everything about it.

The pacing for this one was a little off - it felt mostly slow through the whole novel, but then really ramped up very quickly at the end. There were some plot twists at the end that I really didn't see coming so I bumped it up to 3.5, though originally I would've given it 3.

Miss Marple is supposed to be the detective for this one but she really hardly has much to do with the whole mystery, with a lot of the groundwork being done by Lucy Eyelesbarrow and Inspector Craddock. Miss Marple does turn up during the denouement and magically whips out the answer out of nowhere, though. Nevertheless, I did enjoy Lucy's character so I wasn't too pressed about that.

Overall it was a pretty enjoyable, dare I say even comforting, mystery to pass the time and was great for that purpose, though definitely not in the same league as Christie's more famous works.

3.5/5. Well, this was... a trip. This book had a lot of interesting ideas, but ultimately it quite often felt like a drag to keep reading. Our protagonist, George Orr, is as wishy-washy as his last name. His psychiatrist Dr Haber is even worse. The only person I could remotely feel some liking towards is the lawyer Heather Lelache.

This story kinda feels like it probably inspired Christopher Nolan's fever dreams. It had some elements which seemed like it might've inspired Inception, Interstellar, and sometimes even Avengers: Infinity War. Those elements were interesting in themselves, but I also wanted to think about more. Le Guin gave us tantalizing glimpses of the Taoism that is such a major influence on most of her works, but we never really get down to the meat of it to discuss these ideas and how it should impact our perception of reality.

What i found most compelling about this book was how plausible Dr Haber was. He wasn't an out and out villain. Sure, he's a manipulative asshole, but when he was talking to George you could really feel his charisma somehow. He reminded me a lot of Thanos from Avengers (and also the population-halving snap!) because he always seemed to have such altruistic motivations for what he was doing with George. Even though i found him mega sus straight from the start and even after I knew for sure he was a manipulative asshole, when he kept talking about making the world a better place, i could still feel seduced by his speeches despite myself - so no wonder George couldn't resist, as mentally battered as he was.

So ultimately I'm in two minds about this book. I love the premise, I love some of the ideas that it seemed to start, but I wasn't a fan of how everything went down in the end (the last quarter was pure chaos) nor can I shake off the feeling that I'm not sure what I'm walking away from this book with. I really enjoyed what I've read so far of Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle from the fantasy genre and thought that even in the first book of that series, I got a better sense of the really thought-provoking Taoist ideas that informed Le Guin's outlook on life than in this one.

This book was an odd mixture of tropes that I'm personally already a bit sick of, but with a fairly compelling mystery at the back of it all. I did want to keep going and find out the solution to the mystery, but by the last quarter of the book I was starting to skim - a lot.

This book is chock full of tropes, but one of the most annoying of all is having an apparently 19th century heroine espouse 21st century values - all too common in this historical fiction genre nowadays, sadly. Genevieve grows up poor and struggling with her mom to put food in their mouths, which is why they began this business of being spiritualists to begin with. When she is basically thrown into the employ of Mr. Pemberton, Earl of Chadwick, and is invited to Somerset Park, his luxurious manor, Genevieve goes on a few tirades about how unfair it is that the privileged should have everything while there are so many who have nothing. Now, this sentiment isn't exactly nonexistent during the Victorian period, but it's clear that this was written with a very 21st century lens, which took me out of the story a bit. Granted that this isn't meant to be an incredibly accurate historical piece, but I just felt like it was shoved in there to soothe 21st century sensibilities about the very strong class hierarchy system in this setting without really giving it serious thought. Plus, the whole message is undermined by how the plot develops (true for this book, but also a trope across the whole hist-fic-romance genre as a whole): Genevieve supposedly laments about how unfair all this class system is, but in the end she falls in love with a rich, titled Earl and not only that, she comes into her own money and ends up a rich woman in her own right. So... it seems like you only need to be bitter about it when you're the one who's poor, but it's totally fine once you're in the position to reap the benefits of the very system that you apparently set yourself against all along. I also find that it really undermines the whole thing when you have a heroine who hates inequality but chooses to fall in love with a rich, titled man in the end, it'it's almost never someone from a lower socioeconomic status, or even if he is he wouldn't stay that way for the rest of the book.

At the very least though, this book stays away from some tropes that would've made me DNFed immediately, like insta-love/lust, or overexplaining the setting to the audience and being overly conscious about how “period” it is, so I could at least sit through the whole book. The mystery was really the saving grace through this book and was the one thing that kept me going. I didn't feel attached to any of the characters at all, but at least I also wasn't incredibly annoyed by any of them. For someone who grew up in a brothel, though, Genevieve is incredibly prejudiced against sex workers. I would have expected that she would at least have a more nuanced view, and understand the hardships that come with being one, and how most of them usually have no other choice. At the very least, she directed her anger to both the women plying it and the men demanding the trade, rather than just to women.

It was an overall serviceable time with a decent mystery at the heart of it all. I'd recommend if you're in the mood for Gothic murder mysteries and don't mind the tropes of contemporary hist-fic.

I don't know if it was because I just came off another romance-focused book that didn't quite satisfy, but I kinda enjoyed this one, despite the chaotic energy. It's a novella that may actually have been served better if it had been a full-length novel. There's so much of this world to explore here, but Polk only dips in and explains just enough for us to get the gist.

Helen is a warlock. I'm not sure if it was explained or if I missed it, but warlocks seem to be magic-doers who gravitate more towards demonic arts and therefore shunned by the Church. She takes on a job by her patron, Marlowe, who also happens to be a demon, to hunt down a serial killer, the White City Vampire. She initially wants to reject the job, but Marlowe dangles a carrot that Helen cannot resist - she'll return her soul if she successfully tracks the Vampire down.

We also meet Helen's partner, Edith, who is harbouring a secret of her own, as well as Helen's estranged brother, Theodore aka Teddy, part of the religious order who shuns Helen and her kind.

Helen and Edith were really sweet, but I did kinda wish we saw more of their origins. At the beginning of the book, they were already an established item. As it was, though, I was at least somewhat invested in them, but I also wished we saw how they built up their chemistry together, instead of simply being told about how in love they already were.

I also wished we saw more of Teddy and the relationship between him and Helen. Without divulging any spoilers, they have a lot of water under that bridge, we only really see a snapshot of their relationship in this book. The rapport between them was sweet though and I appreciate that Helen wasn't solely focused on a romantic partner in the whole book, that she was equally willing to risk her life for her brother as well.

As I said, the world was pretty fascinating. From the angels and demons that we meet, to the “magic system” as it were. I was also pretty interested to know more about this angel-hosting business which we saw a glimpse of with Matilda in the asylum. I wish more was explored there!

So overall, there's a theme to my review here: I wish this book was longer, and I wouldn't even mind a longer sequel. It was a great time.

I first picked up Wilkie Collins's The Woman In White many, many years ago under the misinformed assumption that it was a Victorian horror story. (I may also have mixed it up with Susan Hill's The Woman In Black...) How wrong I was. After the titular woman in white appeared and after it was certainly established that she was a very real human being, I put the book away with such disappointment that I think I've lost my original copy.

Fast forward to the present, I have developed a better taste for classic literature and wanted to revisit The Woman In White even if it may not involve supernatural beings. I started with listening to the free audiobook from LibriVox and got so caught up in the narrative that I had to continue with the book. This time, I was very far from disappointed!

The first thing I noticed about this book is the amount of foreshadowing and suspense used. According to Wikipedia, “it is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first in the genre of sensation novels”, so perhaps it was the first novel that used foreshadowing in the way that we commonly associate it with today. It's a novel told from the first-person perspective of many different characters (all somewhat unreliable narrators) in the story, and usually written at a later date, so the characters always refer to some mysterious unknown later event like: “Thank God I agreed, after what would happen later.” It made me want to just skip to the ending and find out what happened, but I persevered.

This book takes a while to warm up, though. The half, I would say, is spent mostly in expositing background story, establishing characters and just paving the way for the excitement that was to come. I don't know if it will be to everyone's tastes, but I enjoyed it. This is my first time reading a novel by Wilkie Collins and I'm rather taken in by his writing style. It's humourous, it's satirical and it's powerful in terms of evoking emotions. Once you pass the halfway mark and when things start coming to a head, however, the book becomes a real page-turner. I took about 1.5 weeks to get through the first half (mostly by audiobook when I'm driving), and less than 2 days to finish the second half. In fact, I have to confess that I stayed up till 6.45am this morning just trying my utmost best to finish the book because I want to find out the damned ending!! (In the end, I gave up and went to bed, but finished it the next day at about 6pm)

Of the characters, my favourite has got to be Marian Halcombe. I was rooting for her from the very beginning, though Walter Hartright (our first and main narrator) described her as looking almost like a man. She is the heroine of the book, through and through. Although the mystery and adventure centers around her pretty half-sister Laura Fairlie's interests, I felt not even half as much interest in her. Laura Fairlie came across to me as a bit of a Mary-Sue, and I would even go so far as to feel that she was a little dim-witted. The two characters that got on my nerves the most were Mr. Frederick Fairlie, Laura's rich uncle, and Sir Percival Glyde. In Mr. Fairlie's case, he is one of the most self-centered characters I've come across in a while. Other malevolent characters may also act purely in their own self-interest, but for Mr. Fairlie, he is both indolent and self-centered, which meant that he doesn't act for anything at all. Somehow, that irritates me even more than active malevolence. At least in a book. As for Sir Percival, to list out his wrongdoings might be to spoil the plot a little so I won't do so here. Suffice it to say that he's the worst sort of coward.

On one hand, I would say that Marian Halcombe presented an interestingly feminist portrayal of a woman. In the Victorian times, the “ideal” woman would be someone like Laura Fairlie - pretty, somewhat empty-headed and can't do anything to save herself. Marian Halcombe is none of these things. She is confident, intelligent, affectionate and also incredibly resourceful and courageous in adversity. This portrayal is probably why I always found myself firmly in #TeamMarian, but yet the way she kept belittling her own sex and being described by others as “being like a man” or “looking like a man” disturbed me a little. She would keep saying, “even though I am a helpless woman”, “even those these hands are a woman's”, etc. as if to acknowledge that she is frustrated with being a woman and feels restricted by her own gender. I would like to see a woman who is comfortable with herself and her gender, and then to be independent by her own right, and not because she resembles a man, but I guess I have to make allowances for the time that this book was written, and the fact that the author was a man.

For a Marian Halcombe with an arguably feminist portrayal of a woman, there are always the Laura Fairlies and the Madame Foscos that reverse this feminist portrayal. Laura is pretty much always helpless, relying either on Marian or Walter Hartright to save the day. Madame Fosco, meanwhile, went from being a headstrong, opinionated and outspoken girl with feminist ideas that Laura and Marian remember from their childhood (she is Laura's aunt), to being a completely submissive wife with literally no mind of her own. She always looks to her husband for instructions and is completely at her husband's disposal and leisure. Neither kith nor kin had any hold on her if her husband said to the contrary.

I found the ending of the book satisfying, though I have read reviews from people who found it rather anticlimactic. However, keeping in mind the social context in which the book was written, I would say that the Secret is sufficiently shocking enough in that time and era, even if it may not be so today.

I also read someone on Goodreads saying that Wilkie Collins is a double-edged author. If The Woman In White doesn't get you, The Moonstone will. Well, I have already purchased The Moonstone in readiness, as well as No Name. I can't wait to dig into more of his work!

Spoiler section:
I was incredibly frustrated with the Walter/Laura love-line. I can find no basis for such deep and lasting affection besides Laura being such a pretty young thing. I suppose I am affected and influenced by our modern ways and mindsets, as well as my own slight dislike for Laura. I confess I was rooting for a change in the wind and the ending to become Walter/Marian, but I wasn't optimistic. Fidelity in mind and in action was utmost in Victorian novels, and since Walter had carried his flame for Laura for a whole year despite his self-imposed exile to Central America, I knew it was hardly likely that he would suddenly change his object to Marian instead (unless Laura died - but even then, that's doubtful). Even more so in the last third of the book, when Walter and Marian are engaging in all these secret to-dos to bring down their enemies, they were so reliant and dependent on each other, they understood each other so perfectly, while Laura was basically treated (and enjoyed being treated) like a child. I was so frustrated!Laura had zero input in the entire adventure. The only few times she had a backbone and I had some semblance of respect for her was when she opposed Sir Percival in the signing of the legal document, and when she opposed him again in supposedly following Marian back to Limmeridge. It just struck me that Laura was actually incredibly like Anne Catherick, not just physically but also mentally as well. They described Anne as being half-witted and incredibly fixated on ideas once they got into her head. Perhaps Laura isn't quite as half-witted as Anne, but she never seemed to show any kind of quickness of wits or intelligence as Marian does. Also, Laura was incredibly devoted to Marian (the few times she opposed Sir Percival was either instigated by Marian, or for her own concern about her) as well as to Walter, much like how Anne was devoted to Mrs. Fairlie even though she had only met her briefly once, and forever wore white simply because Mrs. Fairlie had said she looked nice in it. So I guess Laura and Anne actually shared more similarities than simply the physical resemblance that was acknowledged in the book.Regarding Sir Percival's shameful secret, I tried to imagine it in a modern context: a CEO who got his position by forging his credentials. A current reigning monarch (enjoying riches and taxes from the people) discovered to be an illegitimate child and having forged his/her parents' wedding certificate to claim the throne. Seeing as the aristocracy back then were always well-off and lived in the lap of luxury without doing a day's work in their lives, and how Sir Percival had claimed his place amongst this class by illegal means, I can see how and why this Secret would've been seen as a shocking one at the time the book was published.

Originally published on Unravellations.

I loved the premise of this and have to give this some kudos for doing something that most fantasy books in the early 2000s would never - have a POC protagonist who is half-Indian and whose Indian heritage actually plays a major part in the plot. There were some issues in this book that stuck out to me however.

Colonialism. You can't avoid this topic if you're talking about Indian characters living in Edwardian London. I have mixed feelings about the way it was dealt with here. As I've already said above, I appreciate that Lackey was pretty progressive for her time in even having a half-Indian protagonist being aided by Hindu gods. I loved the idea that there was a different type of magic in India which was separate from that of the English. What I didn't like, though, was the fact that the antagonist was also Indian and Hindu. Shivani's whole motivation behind her crusade was to get vengeance against the British for colonising India. No matter how twisted and deranged Shivani might be, she ultimately killed a microscopic fraction of the people the British did when they colonised India (and many other countries), so taking this motivation of vengeance and casting it in a villainous light just somehow didn't sit right with me. Obviously I'm not saying that we should all become murderers to seek vengeance and violence is never the answer, but I'm also not a fan of casting a colonised subject as a villain in that light - it smacks too much of a “people should stay in their (subjugated) place” message to me.

Women's rights. It's also hard to avoid this topic in Edwardian London when your protagonist is a very, very progressive female doctor in a world where the suffragette movement is in full swing. I thought this theme was much more well-done than the one about colonialism and I would've actually preferred if we had perhaps had more emphasis on this one rather than the other. Having an average-sized book deal with two such heavy themes was just too little pages for too much to say, and I felt like the book could've been more focused.

Chemistry was non-existent. Again, too little pages for too much to say. There was so much about the above two themes and establishing the magic system that it kinda squeezed out the romance. I'd typically be fine with that, but I've a feeling the romance was supposed to be a main part of the story so I was a little confused here. We didn't really see Maya and Peter spending a lot of time together apart from Peter giving her lessons on magic, and that's about it. They didn't seem to have much conversation (as far as we saw) with each other outside of that. The bit where their feelings were made known to each other also felt incredibly abrupt and out of nowhere, and so I couldn't quite buy into everything that followed.

Ending felt rushed and almost anticlimactic. The book kinda felt like it was over before I knew it. I was anticipating a much longer confrontation and with more conversation between the antagonist and our main characters, but we didn't really get that. I was also expecting something of an “aftermath” chapter where we have the characters reflect about what happened and maybe also round up a bit of the themes that were explored in the book like the colonialism bit or women's rights - but we also didn't get that.

Overall, it was fairly enjoyable and I might pick up the next book. I really liked the premise of retelling the fairytales but all within the same universe and with the same magic system as a base, but I felt like the themes and storytelling could have been tighter.

3.5/5, but I'm more inclined to round it down to 3 stars instead. This book had a really great premise but there were some flaws about its execution that got more and more glaring as the book went on. If these were improved on in the subsequent books, the overall arch of the trilogy might be very interesting to keep up with.

Here are some of the issues that I had with the book:

Info dumpiness - The book does a lot of telling, not showing. More often than not, when it's time for the reader to learn more about something, a random tour or conversation or lecture will happen where a character basically just says everything. For example, after the hazardous ride to the Institute, when Alice Quicke wakes up after being in a coma for a few days, she is immediately brought on a school tour by Mrs Harrogate. Why though? Alice is not a prospective student and even if Mrs Harrogate decided she owed Alice some explanation about what her job had been helping them do all along, surely it didn't need to extend to a physical tour around the school? It just seemed like a contrived way to introduce the readers to the Institute. Another example is the one and only time we actually accompany our main characters into class with Miss Davenshaw. She suddenly makes Komako and the other older students answer apparently very basic questions like what are the different groups of Talents, etc. Again, it seemed like a contrived way to spell out the lore and the magic system of the world.

Pacing - The first maybe 30ish% was actually not bad. It was all very engaging until they finally escaped from Jacob Marber at the end of their train journey and reached the Institute. After that, things dragged majorly and didn't pick up until the last 25% or so. I found myself getting less and less interested in picking the story back up during that entire middle portion, even though there were still a lot of lore being explained and revealed at that part. That brings me to the next point...

Overwhelming details - I don't usually shy away from expansive books with lots of world-building and lore and characters. I usually love them. But it does take a lot of finesse to be able to craft that kind of world without completely losing your reader in the ocean of details, which I think this book was just very slightly off the mark here. It got to a point where I was so overwhelmed with details that I read the ending with only about a 75% understanding of what was going on. I think important parts of the world building only creates a deeper impression when I actually see things in action, rather than being told. It works the same way like in classes: you often learn things better when you experience it hands-on rather than just listening to your teacher talk about it. Same idea here.

Scattered questions but no central hook - This book creates a lot of mystery around certain things right from the get-go, including but not limited to: What are the Talents? What kind of powers do they have? How do they exist? What is the Institute? What is Jacob Marber's purpose? The problem lies however in the fact that there isn't one Big Question/Mystery that we are trying to find the answer to. It's like playing a game with many side quests but kinda seem like they're pushing you towards the endgame, but you have absolutely no idea what the bigger objective of everything is. I was interested enough in these little questions to keep going but I kept wondering what was the bigger point of it all. Because you don't know the Big Question overarching everything, you also don't really have that build-up of tension leading to the book's climax.

POV shifts at the worst times - This isn't unique to this book but it does this thing that is becoming a pet peeve. I don't mind multiple POVs in a book and usually can handle it. I don't even mind following multiple groups of characters going around doing different things in different places. What I take issue with is when one group of characters we've been following for the past 2 chapters suddenly land themselves in an imminently dangerous situation, e.g. they spot Jacob Marber coming towards them, then the chapter ends and the next one shifts POV to the other group of characters. It's not only frustrating for me the reader that the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, but also terrible for building up tension because now that I have to spend another 2 or 3 chapters with another group of characters, by the time we cut back to the original group that had been facing the danger, I've completely forgotten what it's all about so whatever happens subsequently barely feels tense or exciting to me. Sometimes, but not all the time, this book does a worse version of this where when we cut back to the original group, we find out that the danger that they had been facing in the cliffhanger actually wasn't that dangerous after all, so it was basically a pointless cliffhanger that was just there to add cheap tension for no good reason.

Writing felt a little rough around the edges - Honestly, the writing wasn't bad in itself. It was certainly engaging at some points, but I did feel like there were parts that felt a bit repetitive or overdramatic. Another round of editing might have been enough to improve this part.

So having spent a whole long review expounding on what I didn't like about the book, I would just end by saying it's not entirely bad. I really did like the premise of it and the world has a lot of potential. The writing won me over in the beginning as well, though the other issues crept up along the way. The book started off being about 4 stars in the beginning, and then dropped to 3 stars in the middle bits especially after our characters got to the Institute, before climbing up to about a 3.25 or 3.5 again by the ending.

Also like, what the heck happened to Eliza??? I was rooting for her so much in Ch 1 and fully expected to at least get a glimpse of her by the end but there was absolutely nothing? Please don't tell me that she's just out of the story like that because I would be pretty pissed. Why spend the whole effort of introducing her so intimately in Ch 1 but then not have her turn up again forever?

What worked for me in this book:- I thought Lady Whistledown's Society Papers were a great little treat. Like an early Gossip Girl, if you will.- I read this book at the same time as reading Julia Quinn's latest work [b:Because of Miss Bridgerton 25657772 Because of Miss Bridgerton (Rokesbys #1) Julia Quinn https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1458871065s/25657772.jpg 45479802] and I found this one a lot more structured with better flow.- I am absolutely in love with Violet Bridgerton (the mother) and the badass way she keeps her grown-up sons in order. Reminded me of Molly Weasley.What didn't work for me in this book:- I felt that Daphne and Simon's chemistry was rushed and I didn't quite understand why they would either of them fall in love with the other.- Some scenes felt a little forced and contrived, and such scenes increased in frequency as the book progressed.- That non-consensual scene when Daphne pretty much forced Simon to finish inside her, and then being almost completely non-repentent about it, and the whole thing being swept under the plot carpet like it was no big deal. That was really disturbing.

Originally published on Unravellations.

WOW I'M FINALLY DONE WITH THIS BOOK.

I began this book with very high expectations and it didn't fail me for the first half. But for some reason, my attention and interest started wavering around the middle and I was stuck on it for a really long time - I felt no urge or excitement to pick it up and continue, but I didn't want to abandon it either. I'm trying to cultivate a habit of not abandoning books halfway unless it really called for it, which this book, thankfully, didn't. I finally sat myself down on a gloriously empty Sunday afternoon and finished the second half of the book in one sitting. The thing is, when you're actually reading it, it's not too difficult to get the momentum going.

Anyhow, A Darker Shade Of Magic is the first of the Shades of Magic trilogy by author V. E. Schwab and introduces a fascinating magical world that caught my attention and interest the moment I read the synopsis. It introduces a universe where there are 4 alternate universes: Grey, Red, White and Black (not official names, just the nicknames given to them by the main magician, Kell). Each London has varying degrees of magic flowing through it, Black being the one that had been so consumed by magic (a powerful force with a mind of its own, but that is delightfully neither good nor bad, and one that had to be wielded and dealt with with caution), White being almost like a troubled, chaotic and parched world, Red being a thriving “goldilocks zone” and Grey (our human world) being the one with the least/no magic at all. As different as those worlds can be, they have certain fixed points within them that change minimally throughout the 4 dimensions - one of them being the city of London.

Kell hails from Red London, but being Antari, a special and rare breed of magicians that are born with magic in their blood (non-genetically inherited), he is able to move between the different Londons, carrying messages and other things. Things go to shit when he is tricked into picking up a dangerous artifact and an equally foolhardy street urchin from Grey London, Delilah Bard. They spend the rest of the book attempting to dispose of said artifact a la Lord of the Rings, Mount Doom, “THROW IT INTO THE FIRE, MASTER FRODO” style.

This book thread a fine line and could've sank into a cliched sort of plot line but it always narrowly misses that, which I appreciate. Despite some criticism about Lila, I didn't find her characterization overly annoying or stupid. Yes, there were times when she needed saving, but so did Kell and every other major character in the book. Whatever sexual tension or romantic interest may have been breeding in the book was kept to a very subtle minimum and didn't feel too much like insta-attraction. I thought some things about Lila could've been improved or explained (was she a kleptomaniac?) but she didn't fall into the usual pitfalls that would've made me give up on or dislike this book immediately.

Kell was suitably mysterious as the main character. I sometimes found him a little over-dramatic about things, and too much in a rush to (attempt to) kill himself for the sake of others. He's proven that he's smart enough, so why doesn't he think of alternative plans to save everyone which don't involve him dying in the process? But oh well, I guess he won't be in a rush to be killing himself any time soon after what happens at the end of the book.

The action was all right, although I guess it got a little draggy in the middle. I'm not sure what it was about it - I simply felt no urge to know what was going to happen at the end. It felt a little - predictable? I knew something had to happen to the stone for it to be gotten rid of by the end of the book, and even though I couldn't tell whether Kell was or was not going to go along with it, I couldn't find it in myself to care. To be fair, by the time I reached the end, it did upheave some of my expectations and things turned out slightly different from what I thought it would be.

Would I recommend this book? If you're a huge fan of period-setting magical worlds and fantasy, yes. It has its flaws but it was a much better-written work than many others out there. But as a point of note, this book doesn't quite hold back when it comes to violent deaths, of which there are many. Would I continue reading the trilogy? Maybe, I don't know. I realise that the next book is going to be set on Lila's adventures, and I'm not sure if I'm interested enough to know more about what's going to go down with her. The short excerpt of the next instalment didn't really excite me either.

And now, for the spoiler section!

One of the foremost things in my mind right now is: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED WITH HOLLAND? I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that Kell simply put the stone into Holland's hand and basically Portalled him out into Black London. THAT IS SUCH A BITCHTASTIC THING TO DO. I actually thought Holland might have some redeeming factor - I mean, yes, he killed Barron (though I didn't buy into the whole Lila sentimentality thing so I didn't really care) and he tortured Kell and all that, but Schwab spends a lot of Holland's on-page time talking about how he was compelled to do all these nasty things and all that. He was even described as looking "relieved" when Kell finally decided to kill him, which I think breaks his soul seal or something and releases him from the spell that the Dane twins cast on him?? Anyway even if it didn't, Kell had already killed the Dane twins so I assume that would've broken the seal too? So Kell basically sends a barely-alive Holland who had the potential to regain his health and consciousness and MORALITY into the abyss of Black London along with the stone?!?!?!?! I don't know, but Holland could've at least restored some balance to White London????? What was Kell thinking????? WHAT?That bit made me so uncomfortable and bewildered.I also really enjoyed Rhy and Lila's bantering at the end, but being a mainstream junkie like I am, I still kinda hope Lila and Kell would end up together.I was secretly hoping Lila would remain a magic-less Grey Londoner but be able to somehow wield her barren magic state into an interesting puzzle piece within the magicky Red and White Londons. I thought that perhaps that was the reason why she didn't seem infected with the black stone's magic. Like how fire can set many things alight but won't affect stone much? I was even a little disappointed when Tieran told her that she had unnurtured magic within her. I feel like we need some characters who really and truly possess nothing to come into their own with the people who appear to have been born with everything (like Kell), instead of abruptly discovering that they had a well of talent buried in them all along.

This book is crying out for a movie adaptation. And I'm going to champion for Eddie Redmayne to take the character of Kell, and Tilda Swinton the character of Astrid Dane.

Eh. I just reread Fall of the House of Usher earlier this month for Spooktober so I was really excited to dig into this one. A retelling of one of the most iconic horror stories of my childhood and by an author whose work I have been very much enjoying in the past couple years? Everything about this screamed a yes. Unfortunately, this fell a little bit flat for me, so this would be a 2.5/5. I felt like the whole plot reveal at the end was super obvious from as early as the 10-20% mark of the book, so I spent most of the book just waiting to see if I'm right or not, much to the detriment of the tension in the book. I will however say that the climax of the book was at least still well done and engaging enough.

Our story opens with our protagonist, Alex Easton, who is answering a letter from childhood friends, Madeline and Roderick Usher, stating that Madeline was in critical condition from a sudden mysterious illness. Along the way, Alex also meets a mysterious English mycologist, Eugenia Potter, as well as an American ex-medic soldier boarding with the Ushers, Denton.

The plot here only vaguely follows that of the Fall of the House of Usher and deviates from it more and more as the story goes on. A lot of things have been inserted into the story here, which I don't normally mind in retellings. I don't even mind if authors wanted to insert a new message, characters, or settings into their retellings of an iconic piece of work. What I did take issue with here is how random and meaningless the insertions seemed to be. A major new element here is the protagonist being from a fictional European country called Gallachia, in which apparently people who serve in the military are “gifted” with new gender-neutral pronouns, kan and ka, in order to distinguish themselves as a soldier. Alex being a sworn soldier uses those pronouns and it's used liberally in dialogue and narrative in the middle of English sentences: e.g. Alex checked kanself. Ka was bleeding. It just felt really really clunky and contrived. My bigger issue with this is that it never served any purpose in the story, not even to convey any sort of message, so I was really confused why this was even added in at all except maybe to chalk up diversity points.

Another more minor point is having Eugenia Potter as the aunt to Beatrix Potter, who is mentioned in a nudge nudge wink wink moment only once in the story. In the first place, I thought the presence of a mycologist, and a female one at that, self-admittedly rare as all hell in the time period, on the scene just seemed way too convenient as well. Then, we had another pointless reference that led nowhere, mentioned in my spoiler above.

As I mentioned, I pretty much guessed the whole mystery of this one from very early on in the book, not that the book was really trying to be subtle about it with the very first lines of the book opening with talk about fungi, and the actual book cover having so many mushrooms on it... it's not that hard to guess. This made the whole middle portion of the book feel a little draggy because - I feel like I already know what's going on, why can't the protagonist see what's super obvious in front of their eyes, can we get on with it already? It took away from the tension of the book, which is integral to creating horror.

I will give credit to the ending of the book which was still pretty engaging and still packed a few punches even though there wasn't a twist that surprised me. I had guessed it about the zombie fungus, but had imagined Madeline to be a complete puppet. Instead in the end it seemed like she retained some kind of consciousness of herself, even if it had been completely poisoned by that of the fungus. Or who knows, maybe it was the fungus itself pretending to be Madeline and talking to Alex? Also the part about Roderick having killed Madeline and thus her romping about with a broken neck was also a little bit of unexpected horror. Again though, didn't need Eugenia to come traipsing with her magnifying glass to tell me that those filaments are fungus... Would've also liked it if we had ended it with all of them getting infected rather than a deus ex machina element where we find out that they've actually not been drinking from the lake all along, and somehow sulphur was enough to kill all the fungus there. Just tied it up a bit too neatly imo.

Merged review:

Eh. I just reread Fall of the House of Usher earlier this month for Spooktober so I was really excited to dig into this one. A retelling of one of the most iconic horror stories of my childhood and by an author whose work I have been very much enjoying in the past couple years? Everything about this screamed a yes. Unfortunately, this fell a little bit flat for me, so this would be a 2.5/5. I felt like the whole plot reveal at the end was super obvious from as early as the 10-20% mark of the book, so I spent most of the book just waiting to see if I'm right or not, much to the detriment of the tension in the book. I will however say that the climax of the book was at least still well done and engaging enough.

Our story opens with our protagonist, Alex Easton, who is answering a letter from childhood friends, Madeline and Roderick Usher, stating that Madeline was in critical condition from a sudden mysterious illness. Along the way, Alex also meets a mysterious English mycologist, Eugenia Potter, as well as an American ex-medic soldier boarding with the Ushers, Denton.

The plot here only vaguely follows that of the Fall of the House of Usher and deviates from it more and more as the story goes on. A lot of things have been inserted into the story here, which I don't normally mind in retellings. I don't even mind if authors wanted to insert a new message, characters, or settings into their retellings of an iconic piece of work. What I did take issue with here is how random and meaningless the insertions seemed to be. A major new element here is the protagonist being from a fictional European country called Gallachia, in which apparently people who serve in the military are “gifted” with new gender-neutral pronouns, kan and ka, in order to distinguish themselves as a soldier. Alex being a sworn soldier uses those pronouns and it's used liberally in dialogue and narrative in the middle of English sentences: e.g. Alex checked kanself. Ka was bleeding. It just felt really really clunky and contrived. My bigger issue with this is that it never served any purpose in the story, not even to convey any sort of message, so I was really confused why this was even added in at all except maybe to chalk up diversity points.

Another more minor point is having Eugenia Potter as the aunt to Beatrix Potter, who is mentioned in a nudge nudge wink wink moment only once in the story. In the first place, I thought the presence of a mycologist, and a female one at that, self-admittedly rare as all hell in the time period, on the scene just seemed way too convenient as well. Then, we had another pointless reference that led nowhere, mentioned in my spoiler above.

As I mentioned, I pretty much guessed the whole mystery of this one from very early on in the book, not that the book was really trying to be subtle about it with the very first lines of the book opening with talk about fungi, and the actual book cover having so many mushrooms on it... it's not that hard to guess. This made the whole middle portion of the book feel a little draggy because - I feel like I already know what's going on, why can't the protagonist see what's super obvious in front of their eyes, can we get on with it already? It took away from the tension of the book, which is integral to creating horror.

I will give credit to the ending of the book which was still pretty engaging and still packed a few punches even though there wasn't a twist that surprised me. I had guessed it about the zombie fungus, but had imagined Madeline to be a complete puppet. Instead in the end it seemed like she retained some kind of consciousness of herself, even if it had been completely poisoned by that of the fungus. Or who knows, maybe it was the fungus itself pretending to be Madeline and talking to Alex? Also the part about Roderick having killed Madeline and thus her romping about with a broken neck was also a little bit of unexpected horror. Again though, didn't need Eugenia to come traipsing with her magnifying glass to tell me that those filaments are fungus... Would've also liked it if we had ended it with all of them getting infected rather than a deus ex machina element where we find out that they've actually not been drinking from the lake all along, and somehow sulphur was enough to kill all the fungus there. Just tied it up a bit too neatly imo.

This was pretty fun. 3.5 to 4 upon 5. I really enjoyed the first half where it felt like a lot of tropes were being subverted and expectations turned on their heads. I liked learning about the world this was set in, the country seeming to be influenced by Middle Eastern culture. I liked how we had a proper problem at the center of it all that was intricately linked to the economics of the place, and Kadou our protagonist having an exceptional talent for touch-tasting metals as well as knowing a lot about economics. I even liked how the romance began as a slow burn.

I did however feel like the second half was somewhat weaker than the first. Certain tropes started coming in, and then I thought the romantic moments were eclipsing and taking precedence over plot development. The set-up for the underlying political conspiracy was such a huge deal in the first half, but the resolution fell rather flat and seemed resolved almost a bit too quickly in favour of having more limelight on the romance. Some parts felt a bit too draggy while other parts felt a bit too quick. It also felt like development for some other side characters were also very much stunted for the sake of the romance. In particular, I was interested to see how Tadek would fit into the dynamic because I had him pinned as a villain from the start, but then I was pleasantly surprised in Ch 5 when he showed enough genuine attachment to Kadou to acknowledge his part in the hunting incident. By the end, it felt like Tadek got reduced to being a sort of jester-like campy sidekick whose purpose was solely for some comic relief, which seems like such a far cry from the depth of potential he had at the start.

Nevertheless though I did really enjoy this book overall and I was pretty engaged with the romance and the dynamics between the two, and I'd generally recommend this to just about anyone looking for a m/m romantasy. The fantasy element in this one is very light though, with Kadou's touch-tasting abilities being the only hint of magic here and even that only comes into the story very rarely.

Been on a quest to read the Four Great Classics of Chinese literature and this is one of them. This was unexpectedly more engaging than I thought it would be, but in a very gossipy sort of way. I'm always struggling to figure out how old these characters are because they seem plenty young to be having so much ummm... activity.

Some parts of these were really engrossing, but some parts seemed really long and irrelevant. I was a little surprised at how much homoeroticism there was in this book. One would associate 1700s China with homophobia but apparently that was not the case. At least the men in this book seemed to have no qualms about having sex with male or female partners, and it wasn't remarked as unusual at all for boys and men to form close bonds with other males, whether it's based on physical attraction or an emotional affinity.

There're a whole ton of female characters in this book and while it's far from being feminist, the girls and women in this book are also not entirely passive. They have desires, they have agency, and they aren't afraid to use whatever position and power they may have in this patriarchal society. Dai-yu remains my favourite character so far, although it's not saying much since all the characters are not as fully fleshed out as I am used to.

This is only just Volume 1 out of 5 so it all feels like a lot of set-up for other things to happen. A longer and fuller review will follow when I'm done with the entire series.

3.75 rounded up to 4. Overall I had a fairly good time with this one, even though it definitely had its flaws. What was the most enjoyable aspect of this book was really the hilariously witty banter between the two protagonists, as well as their chemistry, which counts for a lot in a romance novel.

Nora Stephens is a busy career woman carving out an almost fearsome reputation for herself as a successful literary agent. Her younger sister Libby is the opposite, having married and settled down early, and is pregnant with her third child. Feeling herself growing distant from her sister, Nora agrees to go on a month long vacation with Libby to a small town in North Carolina, the setting of Libby's favourite romance novel, where she bumps into Charlie Lastra, asshole editor with whom she had crossed paths (and swords) with a year earlier.

This book wasn't entirely free of tropes or all too convenient plot drivers, but in the face of the entertaining couple at the forefront, the other factors were much easier to ignore and dismiss as simply a function of the genre. Charlie and Nora's conversations had me laughing out loud way too many times than I can recall. This was easily the best part of the book imo. I'm also used to, but dislike, insta-lust and love in romance novels - Charlie and Nora have a bit of that but there's still something believable in their chemistry. Being able to get behind the main couple naturally counts for big points when I'm reading a romance novel. With a lot of romance novels, I always feel like the couple becomes less interesting once they properly get together - there's less tension, less banter, and a lot more un-realism. This somewhat still happened in this book, but wasn't the worst.

Perhaps a divisive aspect of the book is how much it focuses on Nora and Libby's relationship. Personally, I didn't mind it and thought it at least gave us good depth of character for Nora, even if it didn't advance the romance between her and Charlie much. I did enjoy seeing Nora grow as a character through the book, and eventually take a few more steps towards getting closure for some regrets she had in her past. At some points, I thought Nora was overly indulgent towards Libby but later in the book I wondered if her indulgence stemmed from a more selfish place. Especially around Chapters 31 to 33, Nora's distress at Libby deciding to move out of New York felt pretty self centered to me. In the first moments after the news, all her thoughts was about what it would mean for herself, how Libby was breaking up an image of home in New York that only existed to Nora. I was glad when later on she realized Libby was going to be so much happier in Asheville and didn't put up too much of a resistance to the idea after. I did kinda wish *someone* wouldve called Nora out for that bs though, instead of Charlie just giving her the usual “you're so perfect” pep talk. While I don't have personal experience with that kind of incredibly intimately close sibling bond, I did like what I was reading in this one and was invested in seeing how the eventual crisis was going to shape their dynamics.

A lot of things came together all too conveniently to make a perfect neat resolution in the end. This would normally lower my rating by a lot more than this, but I won't begrudge a romance novel too much. I'm also glad that they didn't go for a long distance relationship that miraculously works just because they're magical and special, cos that would be super lame. It wasn't an ending that blew my mind or which I cried about, but I was overall satisfied.

I would consider myself fairly hard to please with romance novels and more than a little jaded with the tropes of the genre. Despite the tropes in this one, I enjoyed myself quite a bit and that counts for quite a bit with me. Recommended to anyone who enjoys contemporary romance novels with a side of sibling reconciliation.

2.5/5. I'm honestly a little conflicted, I kinda feel like this didn't work for me as much as it did for so many other people, given the amazing reviews on GR. Timey-wimey plots are always a hit or miss with me, and more often a miss, but that wasn't actually my main beef with it.

Firstly, I felt like there were so many interesting messages and themes that were touched on but then never explored - like the criticism against British colonialism at the beginning, and then it suggested an interesting link between the pandemic crossing borders with how colonizers brought diseases to indigenous peoples across the world. But then we barely got time with that thought before we go into some timey wimey plotline.

The time travel plot is fine in itself but I also feel like it wasn't as much explored as it could've been and I guess by the end of the book, I was just left with a deep sense of, “What was the message here? What was the point of this book?” If we're meant to just read this as a simple time travel plot without any reference to the larger commentary, then there's so much about the worldbuilding and storytelling that I couldn't get behind. I couldn't quite connect with any of Gaspery's motivations because it all just happened so out of the blue without any in-depth explanation. Why did he give up on his degree of criminology? Why did he want to join the Time Institute and why was he suddenly so passionate about it at the drop of a hat? It all seemed so convenient that a completely unqualified person like Gaspery without any necessary qualifications only needed a shoo-in interview with Ephrem to become what seems to be a highly skilled and professional job like being a time traveller.

I was also really confused about an entire segment (basically the whole part with Mirella and Vincent. I know Vincent played some part in the main story here but there was so much time spent on Mirella and her husband and the Ponzi scheme and Vincent's mysterious disappearanceThen I read some GR reviews and realised that this whole thing was basically a trailer leading to St John Mandel's *other* book, Glass Hotel, which I haven't read and therefore all of this didn't make sense to me. That was a bit annoying tbh... I like intertextuality but it's still gotta make some sense to people who may not have been exposed to that other work, especially since this isn't a series and isn't advertised as a continuation of anything. While the events referred to didn't turn out to be an integral part of this plot, to me as someone who hasn't read Glass Hotel, it felt like a plotline that could be important enough to warrant so much time spent dwelling on it by the characters but ultimately just went nowhere. The Station Eleven reference was a bit more subtle and therefore better, but both of these references still felt more gratuitous than anything. I feel like the author was trying to break a lot of 4th wall here, cos also why did one of the characters need to have a "double-sainted" name besides making reference to herself? I don't mind authors breaking the 4th wall but a lot of this just all felt frustratingly gratuitous and not actually serving any purpose.

This book has given me a lot of mixed emotions. I almost DNFed it at the beginning because the protagonist, Valkyr or Kyr as she's not-so-affectionately known by her teammates, was so so so intolerable and annoying. It was only because I put it down and read another book that annoyed me even more that I eventually went back and finished this. Indeed, Kyr remained unlikeable and annoying for at least the first half of the book. Almost every other character was more interesting and easier to listen to on page than Kyr was.

I mean, I get that there was a reason for Kyr's unlikeability, and it makes her overall character arc/development more satisfying. But I also kinda wish that the annoying parts weren't quite so long as half the book, or that we got more of a hook, something to keep us hanging on to the hope that Kyr's going to get better at the end. When she was annoying, she was really annoying. A whole lot more annoying than Avicenna was, and he's supposed to be the most annoying person on the whole ship.

The book kinda sorta improved after that halfway mark, I guess? Until then I thought the book was moving along in a very predictable sort of fashion, and a lot of my guesses sort of came true. Until they didn't. And then they really didn't.

The second half of the book was a really wild ride. The concepts that they're using isn't incredibly new but there's still something inexplicably fresh about some of the corners of world-building here. Even now that I've finished it, I still can't 100% tell you what exactly happened because I'm just as lost. Sometimes I'm not even sure if Tesh knew fully the details of what was going on either. Nevertheless, it was all right in the way it played out. Not incredibly mind-blowing in the end, but also not unsatisfying.

Spoilery thoughts about the ending: I thought Jole's death was such an anti-climax. After all that, they didn't even have a proper showdown? But I appreciated the foreshadowing and how Jole's death mirrored that of the soldier Kyr thought about when she first went down to the core with Avi in the earlier parts of the book. I thought it was Magnus deserved more character development, but with so much time jumps in the book, it's really only Kyr that gets all the development since everyone else pretty much starts anew whenever the Wisdom reset her to another moment in history. I thought the ending dragged on a bit too.

This was more like 3.5 stars, which is a bit of a shame considering the first book was a solid 4.5 to 5 stars for me. I did still enjoy Blake's writing and her character works, aspects that stood out to me in the first book, but I found that this story lacked a central hook and was generally overburdened by too much abstract philosophizing between the characters for a vast majority of it. It only got exciting to me in the last 25% of the book and that kinda saved it, but having to get through the first three-quarters of a book to get there is a bit of an ask.

What I really enjoyed about The Atlas Six was how beautifully the characters were written, how delightfully fleshed out they each were and how much their personalities is interwoven with their magical abilities. Sure, they were none of them very likeable but I don't really care about likeability in characters. In this book, I found that the characters got more and more insufferable. They seemed a lot more like angsty teenagers trying to put up a devil-may-care front but struggling with insecurities and loneliness inside. There's nothing wrong with that, but I felt like it kinda contradictd with their really vivid personalities that had been established in the first book. In knowing each of the characters more, I felt like they were all blending into the same almost psychopathic but “secretly lonely” archetype of a rebellious teenager.

The only character that stood out to me was one who was relatively on the sidelines. Belen Jimenez was the only character that wasn't entirely self-absorbed in this book and was actually motivated by something concrete that's not herself. I don't 100% agree with her extreme methods but can relate to a lot of her motivations, and can also see why constantly being ignored made her activism more and more extreme over time. I'm not sure if she had died in the end or if she had simply fainted? I really hope she's coming back in future installments.

For the most part, I was struggling to figure out what I was trying to look out for in the plot. In the first book, the gimmick was clear from the start - one of them has to die before their year was up, so the whole thing became a competition to see who that would be and what alliances were forged. In this second one, it's not so clear. We have the predicament that Libby was stuck on another timeline (something that I honestly didn't feel engaged with), and then something about Tristan trying to discover more about his powers, and then a bit about Dalton's mindscape and...? Everything just felt a bit disjointed and I didn't know what I was supposed to be paying attention to because there didn't seem to be a main thread to follow.

I also felt like the entire first Part of the book started off incredibly slow and low-energy for a sequel, especially when we're riding off the high of the first book's ending. I didn't mind the scene of the initiation ritual that much, but felt like we really didn't need so many chapters from almost every character's perspective about it. It felt like so so much filler. And that's kinda how I felt for a lot of the first 75% of the book - there was so much unnecessary prose and whole scenes that didn't further my understanding of the characters or the plot. Yes, we get that Callum is trying to dose himself into a stupor to numb himself from his own insecurities. We get that Reina has a complex about her family. We get that Parisa is beautiful and dangerous and almost-heartless (but not really because she has feelings too!). We just didn't need so many repetitive descriptions of that.

The plot finally crystallized somewhat at around the 75% mark and things started happening with more gusto at last, and that was when I started sitting up to pay attention. The ending was fine, but a tiny bit of an anticlimax for me. I kinda felt like the book ended just as things were finally happening that I wanted to find out answers to. It wasn't a complete dud, but I did feel a little frustrated that it ended just there without resolving a whole lot.

Overall, I think this book probably suffers from second-book syndrome, where you kinda need a lot of filler to drag out the tension of the overarching world and mystery so you can get to a (hopefully final) third book.

This was beautifully written with a recognisable “mystery” that isn't super twisty, but executed well so it was still a joy to read. I can't tell how this relates to [b:A Dead Djinn in Cairo|29635542|A Dead Djinn in Cairo|P. Djèlí Clark|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459173382l/29635542._SX50_.jpg|49993780], though. I don't think I recall any angels named Seeker in it, nor any characters named Aisha or Aliaa? I'm certainly continuing this series.

This is a compilation of mystery short stories by Agatha Christie featuring several of her famous detectives like Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Parker Pyne, Harley Quinn, and Tommy and Tuppence. There were some here that I don't feel like I've read before, but also some that I'm fairly sure I've read in other short story collections. The theme of the short stories collected here is, as the tagline says, “love stories”, although I find that term to be loosely defined here. Basically any mystery that features any sort of possible romantic couple qualifies.

The book was palatable enough, and true to Agatha Christie's tried and tested formula. I might've rated this lower because of how formulaic it was, but tbh the formula is what I read Christie for - it's comforting and I know everything will be solved in the end and the story will progress according to a certain pattern.

Perhaps the most standout story in this collection to me is “Magnolia Blossoms”, one that I haven't read before. It's not a mystery at all, doesn't feature any detective, and is really just a piece of drama. It features an enigmatic and almost undecipherable female protagonist, Theodora, who is caught between her husband and her lover. Because it's not a mystery, it doesn't follow any of Christie's usual formula and it had me wondering what was going to happen and how. Spoilery thoughts: Because Theodora was so wooden and unexpressive at the beginning when she was eloping with Vincent, I was certain that there was something sus with her. But then she turned around and went back to Richard despite not having any affection for him at all, simply because she felt it her duty as his wife to be with him in his time of need. Then finally, the ending where she walks away from Richard and chooses to be alone instead of going back to Vincent really caught me off-guard and had me intrigued by her.

A good read if you are already a Christie fan and looking for a palate cleanser from other genres and books, but not something I'd recommend to people just discovering Christie for the first time.

4.5 stars. This was actually more fun than I expected. It took a while to get going, but when it did I was hooked.

Right from the get-go, I was cautiously delighted by the sharp humour that characterizes Howard's writing style, particularly suitable for the atmosphere of this book. If I had to nitpick, I'd say sarcasm as a device was used perhaps just a tad bit too often and it made the book felt a little dated, but luckily it was nowhere near overused and insufferable, so I could close an eye to it.

The premise was pretty interesting too, although it took me quite a number of chapters to really get into the groove of things. Johannes Cabal is a brilliant scientist and necromancer who travels into Hell to make a bet with Satan - to get a hundred souls in the span of a year in exchange for his own soul back. To help him do it, Satan provides him with a diabolical carnival which he must run and use to tempt people to sign over their souls. Cabal enlists the help of his brother, charismatic vampire Horst Cabal, to help him run the place.

At first it felt a bit aimless, like I wasn't sure what I was waiting for and what the whole aim of everything was, but when I realised that this was going to be a somewhat episodic adventure where we follow Cabal and Horst as they meet different people and situations along the travels of the carnival, I felt like I could settle into that vibe and finally found the groove of the story.

The ragtag bunch of people/demons Cabal surrounds himself with are generally also quite memorable, if not endearing. The most outstanding of the bunch is definitely Horst Cabal, and the love-hate, push-pull relationship between Johannes and himself. I enjoyed their dynamic and the way Horst was written. Johannes himself as a character was also intriguing - we know he wants his soul back for a reason but he never quite reveals that reason until right at the end. We're given enough glimpses and hints along the way to want to continue reading though. Importantly, Johannes and Horst are also distinctive enough characters that they don't blend into each other, which forms the basis of having a believable and strong character dynamic.

Though this book wasn't without its flaws, ultimately it felt like everything worked out pretty well for me. I enjoyed the tone, the writing style, the premise, and the characters, and I'm curious to know what will happen next, so that's gonna keep me going for the next book!

Originally published on Unravellations.

Was Indiscreet disappointing? Yes and no. Yes, because it was pretty much submerged in every single trope and cliché of the genre. More alarmingly, it almost seemed anti-feminist in its way of handling certain issues like female consent. I have to admit I rolled my eyes tons along the way. But yet, it had to hold a certain kind of charm because I actually felt myself compelled to continue the story and to finish the book. Maybe I have a hardy stomach for some appalling anti-feminist ideas (“No” means “yes”). I can't tell you why I managed to make my way through it, but if I find myself racing against myself to finish a book (mostly because I wanted to find out Catherine's true background), I've got to give it some credit.

Social IssuesBefore I start on this huge area, I'm going to try to be fair to Mary Balogh and state that this book was published in 1997. This is nearly a decade ago, and this past decade has seen the Internet take a huge leap forward and greatly raise awareness about certain social issues around the world. So perhaps, perhaps, at the time of writing, certain mindsets which have since been attacked and weakened, had firmly been in place.That being said, I'm going to go ahead and list down all the problematic points of this book.Firstly, consent. When a woman says no, it means no. Whether she second-guesses herself or isn't sure about her denial is irrelevant. Here, though, it apparently doesn't seem to matter. Here, we are expected to give Rex, Viscount Rawleigh, credit for holding himself back from raping Catherine Winters, just because she's oh so desirable and he's oh so bored and needs some female company during his visit to Bodley. We are expected to find it manly and righteous that Rex takes responsibility for apparently ruining Catherine's reputation in the village, because he had insisted on bringing her back to her house (for which he had ulterior motives though not acted upon), despite her saying no. Sure, he could've done much worse to Catherine, and others before him have, but that doesn't make him a hero nor does it make him more attractive or admirable.It was humiliating and uncomfortable to see the author take pleasure in really nailing down how helpless Catherine is when even her dog Toby, whom she had been raising and feeding since he was a puppy, is more willing to take orders from Rex than her. Also, I don't think most dogs would behave that way. Catherine really had been "letting life happen to her", which is fine and dandy if that's the way she wanted it, but the few instances when she had expressed a preference of any sort, her consent or lack thereof usually gets steamrollered into oblivion by any and every male around her.The female objectification and issue with gender roles could be disguised or explained by the Regency setting of the novel, so I could deal with that. But when it comes to consent - it's just such a troubling issue up till today that I didn't feel comfortable at all reading a book with a premise based on men taking a woman's consent for granted.Secondly, male and female promiscuity. We all know that this has always been a salient site of gender inequality throughout history. We all know that since time immemorial, it had always been more acceptable for men to sleep around, regardless of their marital status, but if a woman so much as has the tiniest blemish on her social reputation, she is as good as done with society. What I had issue with in this book, as well as countless many other romance novels, I'm sure, is that they still continue to make these "rakes" appear attractive because of their promiscuity. Every leading male character in every romance novel is either a "rake" or still somehow more sexually experienced than the female (also regardless of her virginity status). In this book, they do call attention to how unfair it is for men to get away scot-free with their philandering but women bear the brunt of the shame and consequences, but what is perplexing is that the entire premise of this book precisely does the same thing. Rex is never censured or judged for his promiscuity, and in fact still applauded and admired for it, whether by his peers or by the author, whereas Catherine is forever relegated to the side as a helpless, aimless female without the ability to have an opinion or make any kind of decision without a man's help. There is in fact an entire passage in this book talking about how silly it was for rakes to still be so popular despite their potential for destruction and the unfairness of it all, and all I could think about during that passage was: ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU'VE BEEN TELLING US FOR THIS ENTIRE TIME?Thirdly, the issue of rape. Yes, this book should have a trigger warning. Catherine's past involves her rape by another rake, Copley, during her debutant Season in London, during which she got pregnant and gave birth to a baby son who only lived for three hours. Despite all this, however, Catherine is at first confused about where the blame lies. She blamed herself because she had consented to get into the carriage alone with Copley, though she is subsequently persuaded otherwise by Rex (because she needs a man to remove that burden of guilt and self-blame for her). And then despite her rape, she doesn't seem to have any fear or phobia of sexual acts subsequently. She goes straight into lusting after Rex from the first moment she sees him, and then muses about how she's new to all these overwhelming physical desires for men (or a man, i.e. Rex, because she can't be seen as a whore, right?) because she is no longer the innocent that she was. During their wedding night (because of course, all sexual encounters must take place within the sanctity of marriage), Catherine is a "passive lover" but she is described as having had a wonderful time and that it was an amazing night for her. How...? You would expect someone whose virginity was taken by an incident of rape would have developed a lot more emotional and mental trauma than that. It felt like the issue of rape was taken and bandied about lightly, and like just another plot device to make Catherine un-virgin, but yet also delightfully inexperienced, again via circumstances that she could not help (the female helplessness is so pervasive). If Catherine had any scars, visible or otherwise, from the incident, it was not shown at all in the book. She went immediately straight to becoming as sexual a woman as Rex could ever desire.Physicality and Insta-lust/loveNow, don't tell me it's not insta-love just because they apparently hated each other from early on in their acquaintance and had to grow into loving each other. From the first moment of their acquaintance, Rex and Catherine have been lusting for each other in a way that was almost embarrassing. Their emotions also go through this unexplainable rollercoaster. One moment, Rex cares enough for her to rush back to Bodley when he discovers he had accidentally ruined her reputation in the village. The next moment, he keeps declaring that he didn't want to get married to her in the first place (even though he had already offered it a few nights before when he wanted to bed her) and was just doing the honourable thing to salvage her rep. One moment, Catherine does not want to marry Rex because she was apparently done with men and marriage. The next moment, she cries herself to sleep after their wedding night because she's upset that he only wants her body. What on earth is going on here?! The emotions were all over the place and inconsistent from one moment to the next.Perhaps I am expecting too much, but I disliked how so many pages and so much verbiage was poured into detailing every single groin-heating, heart-fluttering moment of their physical attraction towards each other from the start, but yet their journey from apparent hate to love was cut short into a few brief lines to summarize how well they could converse with each other on intellectual topics. At one point, Rex muses on how Catherine isn't a woman to bed for one night, but a woman to accompany him for life, but I couldn't understand how he came to that conclusion. All we could see her do was talk politely to the housekeeper and ask to be introduced to the female servants, a gesture that was apparently enough to win her the approval and admiration of the household staff. There is literally no intellectual conversation going on in this book that we can see. There is no visible build-up to Rex and Catherine's affectionate relationship. From where I am as a reader, it just seems that marriage and sex were the only ingredients they needed to reverse their feelings for each other, which is so eye-rollingly incomprehensible to me.Even more eye-rollingly incomprehensible was when Rex offered to marry Catherine after ruining her reputation in the village, and Catherine's first response was "No, take me as your mistress, I don't want to marry you". What?! Why on earth would Catherine want to be his mistress? Was it supposed to show that she was at the end of her tether and didn't know where else to go besides being his mistress? That she was desperate enough that she was willing to essentially sell her body for a roof over her head? And then Rex, who had already declared that he didn't want to marry her at all, didn't take her up on that offer and instead insisted that she marry him - even though before and after this whole exchange, he continued musing on how he hadn't wanted to marry her at all, and he only did so because it was the right thing to do.CharacterisationHonestly, I never found Rex admirable or swoon-worthy. I also found Catherine vapid and helpless as always. I found Mrs Adams's viciousness lacking. I found Mr Adams almost entirely redundant throughout the story besides a few salient points here and there. Although I have to say, at least Mr and Mrs Adams had some form of character growth and development in the book. Rex remains Rex and Catherine remains Catherine throughout, annoyingly so. Almost all the characters were flat and lacked depth.I guess my favourite character is Toby the dog.Closing ThoughtsThere were a lot of stomach-turning and infuriating moments in this book, probably almost to put me off the romance genre but I will persevere. Perhaps I am being optimistic but one of the next titles on my list will be more recent titles by some renowned romance writers, written post-2010. I hope that there will be a better handling of the social issues as described above, and that it'll make for a better read. Maybe. Also, Mary Balogh's romances are one of the easiest to get into primarily because her book covers tend not to be the sleazy types with a half-naked man and a scantily clad woman in varying states of undress on the cover, which can be very embarrassing to hold and read, whether it's at home or outside in public.

3.75 stars. It's a bit of a weird rating but felt the most right. Dissolution had its flaws and had a little bit of some pre-2010 trappings, but ultimately I weirdly enjoyed myself throughout it all and may be continuing the series. I want to give a shout-out to Anton Lesser who narratd the abridged audiobook. His performance of the story was a huge factor in pulling me into the story at the beginning before the action starts.

Where Sansom shines is really the historical context of the story. He's apparently got some degrees in English history and it shows. Sansom goes into a visceral degree of detail about the sights, the sounds, and the smells of 16th century England, particularly London. The historical context of the English Reformation and the clashing of the Roman Catholic Church and the burgeoning Protestants in royal favour, both struggling with corruption within its ranks, was very well done and immersive. The first few chapters do take some time to really get things going though, and I almost DNFed at some points.

The central mystery, however, reads like text-based RPG. This isn't to say that it was unenjoyable. I weirdly liked it, but maybe it's because I like text-based RPGs to begin with. When our crime-solving hero Shardlake interrogates other characters, it's a very straightforward to-and-fro dialogue, like: “What were you doing in the infirmary?” “I was mixing herbs.” “Who were you mixing it for?” “Brother Francis complained of a sore leg, so I was mixing it up for him.” The above is completely imaginary dialogue, but that's basically how most interrogations went in the whole book. Once again, I didn't mind this style at all and I can't explain why.

I'm on the fence about our hero Shardlake. In some areas, he seems like a sympathetic character with a moral compass that most of the other characters around him lack, and is therefore worth rooting for. He also has some type of spinal deformity that makes him a hunchback, something that affects the way characters interact with him and also his own perspective about people and himself. What really annoyed me about him was the way he treated Mark and Alice. I didn't mind him developing a fascination for Alice, and it might've been fun if Alice had fallen in love with Matthew instead, but then when it's clear that Alice did not have romantic affection for Matthew but instead was into Mark, Matthew behaved in a bit of a spiteful jealous hypocritical way. The way he sought to change Mark's mind by representing to him the fact that Alice is a servant and therefore not "worthy" of him, but then turning around and pining after Alice himself and feeling happy whenever she said anything remotely sympathetic or comforting to him. It just felt so blegh. What redeemed it a bit for me was that at least Matthew admitted to himself that he was being a hypocrite, and it wasn't smoothed over in the narrative.

The book also brings us Brother Guy who is described as being a “Moor”. I can't recall off the top of my head now where he's supposed to come from, but he's a brown-skinned Catholic monk in England, so that's a pretty interesting and diverse choice to make for a pre-2010 book. I liked Brother Guy's interaction with Shardlake, and he's easily my favourite character in the cast. Of all the monks in the monastery, only Brother Guy seems to act and behave like he's a religious fellow. Every other monk in this one has some pretty atrocious behaviour.

On the treatment of certain characters: I was really, really worried at one point when suspicion was cast upon Brother Guy. If the only person of colour in the cast ends up being the ultimate villain and murderer, it would certainly have pulled my rating of this book down a few notches. I was therefore incredibly happy that Brother Guy remained the only role model of the cast here, perhaps even more commendably so than Matthew Shardlake himself. Another character I was really worried about was Brother Gabriel. I'm not a fan of the trope where the only queer character is represented as being perverse, depraved, and cowardly. Gabriel does get a bit of a redemption in the end when he sacrifices himself to save Matthew, but I could've done without the whole "secret voyeur jerking himself off to other men" thing that was ascribed to him. We do definitely have a bit of balance because the other monks were said to be lusting over women and sexually harrassing servant girls like Orphan and Alice, so Gabriel's not the only sexually depraved one here but yeah, still.

Overall, an enjoyable historical mystery which I'm keen to continue.

3.5 stars rounding up. This was a serviceable period Kdrama mystery with some YA tropey elements but not obnoxiously so. I'd also give extra points to it for at least attempting to stay somewhat true to a historical setting, even if not 100%. While there were parts of it that read a bit 21st century, they were things that I wouldn't have thought twice about in a regular Kdrama so I was also inclined to give it a pass here.

As our protagonist, Baek-hyeon is all right. She's not annoying, she's not passive, but she's also not a protagonist I might remember after a while. While I thought her romance with police inspector Eojin was unnecessary and sometimes a little contrived, I didn't mind it. The chemistry was better than a lot of YA novels I've read and I could get behind it.

The mystery and pacing was fairly well done. It kept me guessing throughout, even though I've read up on the historical figures that the story is based on and have a basic idea of what's happening. The solution to the mystery was just a little surprising but it wasn't a mind-blowing twist or anything. I was a little miffed that part of the surprise is that the murderer turned out to be a woman, for all the novel's preoccupation with vindicating the rampant sexism in this society. I was also very bewildered that Nurse Jeongsu seemed to go to extreme lengths to protect some random person and that was meant to be a red herring or a dead end. That bit could've been tied in a bit better imo.

If you're looking for a story taking place in ancient Korea or if you already love period Kdramas, this is definitely one to check out - bonus points if you're into murder mysteries as well. Definitely going to look forward to reading more from June Hur.