Mandy

I came off a slate of fairly heavy and intense novels in January and just really wanted something light-hearted but not completely shallow to give my brain a break. This book really hit the spot. As usual, Dunmore's romances make a great attempt to strike a balance between feel-good romance tropes and hard-hitting social issues that are still relatable for the readers of today. In this one, we explore socioeconomic inequalities and how even something like the suffragette movement, controversial as it may have been at the time, may yet still be a privilege to even be part of when contrasted with the struggles of working-class women who don't have the time, attention, or luxury of fighting for a vote when they're just fighting to put food on the table.

The romance in this one pays a slight homage to some famous literary tropes: Hades and Persephone, Jane and Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, even Anne and Wentworth in Persuasion. Both of the central characters have traits I don't completely agree with, but these are slowly worked through in the course of the novel. My interest in the romance fluctuated through the book, but overall I ended up pretty invested and enjoying them by the end of it.

I did find the author's notes very fascinating, in how she took inspiration from the real-life disaster in a Scottish coal mine during the 19th century, as well as how photographers of the time were more preoccupied with the “nudity” of the women working in those mines (they wore pants instead of skirts for ease of working, which would be as good as naked in those times).

This was a good, even better than average romance novel and I enjoyed myself thoroughly, but I didn't give it a complete 5 stars just because it was just shy of leaping past the ”wow, this is amazing!” barrier. There were a lot of tropes, a lot of convenient developments, and a lot of 21st century values in this one which makes the book more comfortably formulaic and pleasant, but not something that breaks the mold. Nevertheless though, this is the perfect choice for pick up if you're in the mood for something comfortably formulaic but without being obnoxiously shallow or misogynistic as some romance novels (especially older ones) can tend to be.

This was a pretty fun, wuxia-inspired fantasy world about carving out a destiny for yourself. I picked up this book because I'd like to support more LGBTQ+ authors from Singapore, and I'm very happy to find that this is a series that I'd definitely want to read more of in the future.

Mokoya and Akeha are twins born to the cruel, ruthless Protector, leader of the Protectorate. They grow up discovering that they each have their own talents, though it is Mokoya's gift of prophetic dreams that catches their mother's attention. No longer willing to be a part of their mother's machinations, Akeha strikes out on his own, aligning himself with the Machinists, the rebels fighting against the Protectorate, and realises that he can swim against the black tides of heaven.

This book is largely told from Akeha's perspective and is very much a coming-of-age story. In this world, all children are gender-neutral until they are old enough to be “confirmed”, that is, choose their gender identity. When Mokoya eventually decides to be confirmed as a woman, Akeha feels a sense of loss and struggles with their own gender identity until they eventually decide to be confirmed as a man. I suspect that some of the struggles that Akeha goes through might also have been a bit of an authorial self-insert, given that they are queer and non-binary in a society which is largely ignorant of such movements.

Then there's also the question of how far one should go to carve out an identity and a path for oneself, even when one is bound so intimately with a twin who is more like a soulmate. Akeha is always treated as the spare, the one who isn't even a disappointment because his mother does not have any expectations of him at all. This might be any journey of self-growth but I read in this specifically the journey of a LGBTQ+ person trying to break away from the status quo and deciding to go against the grain.

Overall, definitely a series I'd like to continue and would recommend to anyone looking for wuxia fantasy or just simply a bildungsroman with a gender-fluid protagonist.

“To be yellow in America. A special guest star, forever the guest.”

4/5. This book is probably best read as only semi-fiction. There really isn't much of a plot, and what plot there is really just functioning as an expansive metaphor for the place that Asian-Americans have in American society today. When taken in this light, this book does have a lot of really sharp and provocative insights into the Asian-American experience, the glass ceilings and the box that society continually puts them in.

“You're here, supposedly, in a new land full of opportunity, but somehow have gotten trapped in a pretend version of the old country.”

Black and White

“Chinatown and indeed being Chinese is and always has been, from the very beginning, a construction, a performance of features, gestures, culture, and exoticism. ... Figuring out the show, finding our place in it, which was the background, as scenery, as nonspeaking players. Figuring out what you're allowed to say. Above all, trying to never, ever offend.”

“The two words: Asian Guy. ... Two words that define you, flatten you, trap you and keep you here. Who you are. All you are. Your most salient feature, overshadowing any other feature about you, making irrelevant any other characteristic. Both necessary and sufficient for a complete definition of your identity: Asian. Guy.”

”... while your community's experience in the Uniteed States has included racism on the personal and the institutional levels... you somehow feel that your oppression, because it does not include the original American sin—of slavery—that it will never add up to something equivalent... Your oppression is second-class.”

“Why doesn't this face register as American? Is it because we make the story too complicated? ... If we haven't cracked the code of what it's like to be inside this face, then how can we explain it to anyone else?”

Probably closer to 3.5/5 for me. This was a pretty entertaining high school mystery-thriller that is occasionally a little hard to read with the hard-hitting social commentary that it includes. It touches upon the injustices of being Black in many Western countries around the world, but specifically America in this book, while also appealing to a YA demographic with a touch of Gossip Girl in the mix.

Chiamaka Adebayo is the Queen Bee of her high school, the prestigious Niveus Academy, and she's worked hard to get there, hoping to continue on her perfect life to Yale and then med school. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have social outcast Devon Richards from a single-parent family struggling to make ends meet and only affording his tuition fees at Niveus on scholarship, hoping to make it to Julliard one day with his talent with music. Despite having nothing socially in common, Chiamaka and Devon are inexplicably targeted by Aces, an anonymous cyber-bully spreading malicious gossip about them shortly after school begins, but then things start coming to light that are more dangerous secrets than just mere gossip.

From the beginning, I thought Chiamaka's chapters were easier to get into but also more annoying to read especially since it's contrasted with Devon's chapters. Chi's problems stem mainly from how to be the best and most powerful Mean Girl in school, and being very cognizant of the social hierarchies that she actively climbs in order to get to her present position. But these chapters are interspersed with those from Devon's perspective, where we see him dealing with loneliness, ostracism, keeping his homosexuality in the closet at home, the vicious cycle of poverty and lack of opportunities that he's trying desperately to break out of even if it means having to suck up being in a school he absolutely hates, and how the system forces people like him into crime and prisons. His chapters are harder and more unpleasant to read, and also make Chi's chapters sound really frivolous and silly. I'm not sure if this was the author's intention though.

The book also felt a little draggy in the middle. There's not a wealth of secrets or plot twists in the middle, so the whole process of events unfolding for Chiamaka and Devon inevitably felt rather slow. Even when the anonymous Aces releases another piece of news, we pretty much already know what are Chi and Devon's secrets already so there's a lack of tension there.

The ending was unexpected and pretty interesting, though I would say a bit flawed and absolute. I'm not mad at the way it ended though and do think there's a lot of real-life validity in how Àbíké-Íyímídé decided to wrap up the story than how it may initially appear. Spoilery thoughts: I'm not sure if I liked the plot twist about Aces being not just one person but the whole school, but I guess it was a pretty acceptable way for things to go. If it had just been one person, it would've undermined Àbíké-Íyímídé's message that Black students aren't being just targeted by one specific person but in fact by the whole system that they live in. It was a rather heavy-handed way of conveying that message IMO and also runs a high risk of overgeneralization, where people (especially younger audiences) may fall into the trap of painting entire groups of people with the same brush, but I do think the message itself is valid. There're a lot of things that had the dramatic factor dialed up to eleven for entertainment purposes, like the school values lining up to make an acrostic message, or having the masked person turning out to be Belle's sister who Chiamaka had “run over” beforehand when presumably she doesn't attend the school so why would she be the one running the errand? And also Belle adding Chi to her Facebook but Martha not thinking that Chi would see her profile when she commented on Belle's photo? I mean, the whole idea of a school banding together to specifically target 2 Black students every decade just sounds super over the top (although I guess sometimes fact is stranger than fiction, so who knows if this might be a possibility?).

This was entertaining enough though, and I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a YA high school mystery-thriller.

Pretty fun and short course about medical mysteries through the ages. Presented by Dr Roy Benaroch, M.D., the cases in this one are of famous historical figures whose names are obscured so that you can try to guess who it is before Dr Benaroch reveals the answer at the end of the case. It's a simple but interesting gimmick to teach you medical conditions that you never knew these historical figures may have suffered from. Recommended for anybody who enjoys medical information and history!

This was a really fun read. It did have some issues that I imagine would not have been issues at all at the time it was first published (in 1990) but seem pretty glaring today in 2023. Overall though, if you take it in the context of the time of publishing, this pushed the boundaries for what was considered “done” at the time.

In fact, the concept of “what is done” is pretty prominent in this book. For our protagonist, Princess Cimorene of Linderwall, she has spent literally her whole life rebelling against what is “done” for princesses. She tries to take up classes for magic, juggling, cooking, etc. but her parents the King and Queen veto-ed this, saying it wasn't “done”. Instead, she has to go for dancing, embroidery, and protocol classes to prepare herself for marriage. The last straw comes when Cimorene is almost forced into an arranged marriage with Prince Therandil, who is princely and handsome enough but Cimorene isn't looking for marriage in the first place. She runs away and comes into the service of Kazul, a dragon.

The first few chapters took a bit of adjustment because there was something “not like other girls” to Cimorene, which didn't go down well with me. She holds herself apart from her sisters and other princesses, who are depicted as empty-headed, bimbotic, and blindly compliant to the expectations of society and the lives their parents plan out for them, i.e. marrying a prince for the sake of the kingdom. This was probably a refreshing take back in 1990, but today it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. Cimorene is crotchety and pretty much annoyed with just about everyone except the dragons - I don't really know why she finds herself so loyal so fast to the dragons.

The concept of dragons having princesses to serve them is also somewhat problematic in this time and age. Cimorene stumbles into the dragons' den and volunteers herself to be a princess for one of them to avoid getting eaten. The whole system is founded upon the fact that dragons kidnap princesses (except Cimorene, who only volunteers under duress anyway) who then have to serve them pretty much like a slave. Though Cimorene serves willingly and happily enough, it's clear that princesses aren't allowed a choice in the matter nor are they allowed to run away without consequences. The only way a princess can leave a dragon's service is either by escaping themselves, or waiting for a prince to come and save them. Perhaps this is trying to turn the trope of “dragons holding princesses hostage” on its head where we have a princess who is enjoying her time with the dragons, but it doesn't quite endear the reader to the dragons in 2023. Even Kazul, undoubtedly the dragon we get closest to in this book, does sometimes bristle at the thought of Cimorene “running away”, and also never once asks Cimorene whether she wants to stay with her or leave. Dragons keep princesses as a sort of status symbol, as described in the book, which just smacks a lot like a system of slavery even if it's heavily sugarcoated with our protagonist sidign with and eventually saving the dragons at the end of the day from the intrigues of the real antagonists, the wizards.

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the writing of this book. The characters were vibrant and lively and there were some truly comedic moments in here. The setting and plot was a little absurd, almost in the vein of Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones, so fans of these authors may still enjoy this book like I did. The story does subvert a lot of classic fantasy tropes at the time, and does a good job at it. It was a short, easy read, meant for middle-grade audiences, and was also light-hearted enough that it helped me through a reading slump.

This still had the same brand of fun and introspection that I enjoyed in the first book, but personally I felt like the first book hit harder with the insights.In this one, Sibling Dex and Mosscap begin to make a tour of the human cities left in Panga, introducing Mosscap as the first robot to make contact with humanity since the crisis event long ago in their history. In each city, we meet different people and situations that have Dex and Mosscap questioning the way they view life and the world around them.In the previous book, we had seen Dex and Mosscap meet and then travel together in the wilderness to a hermitage. That leaves a lot of room for conversation. Because it was also their first time meeting each other, there's also a lot more exchange of ideas and mindsets between them, a sort of catching-up between robots and a humanity that has largely thought them only the stuff of legends. Because this book focuses more on Mosscap's interaction with other humans and how Dex facilitates that, I feel like there's a bit more plot and a bit less time to reflect.We are also introduced to a semblance of a currency system in Panga, where pebs are exchanged. This are basically pebbles that are given to someone who renders you a service in order to show your gratitude for receiving their aid, and which you aim to then pay it forward by rendering a service to someone else and possibly getting pebs in return. Ultimately - this seems a lot like regular money but with an element of gratitude and a big dose of an honour system since nothing is actually priced. I found this ambitious and perhaps unrealistically utopian, although I could somewhat excuse it in this book. Panga is itself unrealistically utopian - to even think humanity could learn a lesson and try to avoid mistreating technology and robots after a crisis event! I just didn't think that, if a peb system existed in the real world, we could find any community that was devoid of some people who would abuse it.On a little side note, Mosscap reads a book in Ch 3 called “I, Myself” and that would be an amazing reference to [b:I, Robot 41804 I, Robot (Robot, #0.1) Isaac Asimov https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609035271l/41804.SY75.jpg 1796026] if that had been intended.Overall, a great continuation to [b:A Psalm for the Wild-Built 40864002 A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) Becky Chambers https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600789291l/40864002.SY75.jpg 63655961] and a cozy enough read, but not ultimately essential reading either.

Surprisingly entertaining and informative, even for a lifelong Austen fan like me who's read so many biographies on the author. This didn't rehash tired old tidbits about Austen's life, but in fact challenged a lot of our modern preconceptions about Austen (that she was relatively penniless and anonymous during her lifetime, that she led a boring, sheltered life holed up at her writing desk, that she was a prim spinster with a stiff collar that wouldn't have flirted a storm at balls).

The lectures didn't just concentrate on Austen and her life, but also talked about each of her six novels in detail, gave some socioeconomic contexts of that era, and also delved into her legacy and how our image of Austen has been curated and molded by her nieces and nephews, who themselves were the sources of Austen's first biographies.

Definitely recommended for anyone who is an Austen fan or at least curious about the author. Be warned though, that in discussing this lecture series will spoil just about every thing that Austen has ever written, including her lesser-known works like Sanditon and Lady Susan.

This was a pretty fun romp that serves as an origin story of Lift, a character that's likely to become more important later on in the main series of the Stormlight Archive, as well as establishing some other small little nuggets of lore.

The refreshing thing about Lift is how she just doesn't seem to take anything seriously, not even her own powers, or the fact that she has a sentient being that only she can see following her around and nagging her all the time. She's only in her pre-teens and often behaves that way, but sometimes she displays thoughts and maturity that are beyond her years, and makes me wonder whether Lift has a lot more in her past and history than what is even shown here. Sometimes, though, I found her wilfull rebelliousness and nonchalance a little wearying but overall it wasn't too bad.

Wyndle, imo, was the star of the show. BranSan enjoys creating quirky little side characters and it's clear that he had a lot of fun here. Wyndle is some sort of plant being, but essentially behaves like a very reluctant babysitter to Lift, bemoaning that he was selected for this task of accompanying her and fondly reminiscing on how he could have been a gardener instead of this. His presence really adds a much-needed voice of reason while still maintaining the light-hearted comedy of this story.

There's definitely even a mini-Sanderlanche in this one, with some small plot twists here and there. I'm looking forward to seeing more of a character introduced in this novella that grows to be more important towards the end of the story and, I hope, will be more prominent in the later SA books, aside from Lift and Wyndle, of course.

This book isn't usually something I'd pick up on my own but did anyway because it was a friend's recommendation for a book club (thanks, Denise!) and wow, am I glad I did it. What an engaging, moving, and eye-opening novel. Without being too draggy or gratuitously depressing, without being too one-sided as well, this book manages to really shed light on the cultural trauma that have faced generations of African immigrants, which continues today in the systemic racism that they face - this novel focuses on America in its second half, as the author speaks from her own experience being a first-generation Ghanaian immigrant herself.

The story starts in the 1700s with two half-sisters who are oblivious to the other's existence. One is married off to a British governor, while the other is sold into slavery. We then follow generations of their descendants through the ages, as they navigate the politics of African colonial rule on one side, and the politics of being slaves or having once been slaves in America.

“No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free.”

with

“Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth?”

agency

“It'll be the white man's word against no word at all.”

This book surprised me. I went in expecting a pretty standard YA retelling of the ballad of Mulan awash with the usual YA tropes, but this was more than that. While there were aspects of it that were a little contrived, a little too convenient, this book just felt more authentically Chinese than a lot of East-Asian-inspired YA stories out there now and it was a pretty good time. It did a pretty good job balancing being accessible to a modern 21st century English-speaking audience while also being somewhat true to the social mores and values of the time and of Chinese culture in general.

Although I grew up with Disney's Mulan, I also always knew that Mulan was much more than that, since I'm ethnically Chinese and my upbringing has been strongly influenced by Chinese culture. I knew Mulan's story was a lot more to do with military strategems and almost nothing to do with any kind of romance at all. The most memorable story of Mulan I had to learn in Chinese lessons was talking about when her (male) friends in the army drop by her home after the war is over to catch up with an old friend, and that's the first time they realise she is a woman. There's no love interest or princeling here. Going into this book, I had a good hunch that it wasn't going to be following the Disney version (and the first chapter already pretty much proved me right) but I wasn't sure what way it was going to swing - was it going to lean into the military bits of the story, or was it going to go full out YA romance? I was happy to find that the book manages to establish a happy middle.

Some of the obvious flaws of the book: There were some parts that were just plain unrealistic or too convenient. Mulan as a random conscript gets noticed and enlisted into the princeling's entourage simply because she was just too good at her swordsmanship. Not only that, but this random addition to the entourage gets taken in from the very beginning under the princeling's wing, dining with him one-on-one in his rooms and even sharing his bed (Of course, we eventually find out there's a good reason for that, as Kai had known from the start that this was Hua Mulan who is not only his opponent but also a woman, so while the reasoning makes sense, the fact that it didn't draw more attention and suspicion when he made that decision is weird). The fact that Mulan could even pass muster to get into the army in the first place when I assume some basic physical examination must be needed. Though there were some of these bits that were just a little too convenient, generally I didn't find them ostentatious and annoying and could live with them.

What I did enjoy about this book was how authentic it felt. I'm not saying that this book is at all historically accurate, but I felt like Chinese history and culture weighed more in the story rather than just pretty backdrops for an essentially 21st century story unfolding with 21st century Western-like teen/young adult characters. This was evident from the dialogue to the values that Mulan and Kai espouse. Flowery, self-deprecating language is used which was the standard accepted polite speech back then, and is still sometimes used in extremely formal settings in Chinese culture now. People refer to themselves in the third-person as a way of being polite (”This lowly servant is grateful to receive instructions.”) which is something that even I have been taught to do when speaking with my grandma (of course not referring to myself as a “lowly servant”). Despite Mulan's fraught relationship with her father, the values of filial piety and respect is almost unshakeable, something that resonates more with my Chinese upbringing than exposure to Western pop culture.

Despite the Chinese-ness of the book, I do feel like it still brought something accessible to the table. It is all too easy in this time and age to rewrite Mulan to be a 21st century girlboss. There are a few moments of nods to 21st century feminism (such as when the Emperor comments that Mulan speaks like a man, and she corrects him saying that she speaks like any rational person) and those are just few enough to satisfy without bringing the reader out of the story too much. Because 21st century feminism would be extremely out of place in this era of Chinese history, even just having not just Yuan Kai but even the Emperor knowing about her gender, not only not punishing her but even approving and rewarding her for it, is honestly a little unbelievable. Thomas wants these points in there for her 21st century audiences, but doesn't dwell on those to still keep some vague believability of the historical context. Honestly, kudos to her for having been able to balance those two rather opposing forces pretty well.

Thomas also clearly had done her research on the military history of this period, vital considering Mulan's story is entirely about war. She takes the chance here to ruminate a bit about how the history of all the minority-nomadic tribes that have been at war some time or other with the Han Chinese have only had their stories told by the Han Chinese, and how history is not just told by the victors, but by the predominant ethnic group that survives the longest into modernity. These are points of Chinese history I've known about but never really quite thought about, and it took me by surprise that this of all books provoked me to think about these things.

The romance in this one was also pretty well-done. I like that the entire plot of the novel was really about something other than the romance - the subterfuges and schemes of a war and Mulan being caught up in those - but the time spent together helped to deepen the chemistry between Kai and Mulan. Those are my favourite types of romances really! I find that it usually works a lot better in making me root for a couple rather than when the whole story revolves around the burgeoning attraction between these two characters right from the every beginning. I also liked that we saw Mulan and Kai as very vulnerable characters - they both weren't just invincible, brave, and fearless warriors. They both made mistakes during battles, and had moments of near-cowardice in the face of a war they never wanted to be a part of. I like that relatability and how human it makes the characters feel.

Overall, this is one of the most well-done and authentic East Asian-inspired YA novel I've read, and certainly one I'd recommend to just about anyone. I learnt a few things along the way about Chinese history.

Maybe kinda nearer to 4.5 stars? Honestly this book was just such a fun time from start to end. One of the quotes on the cover of my ebook copy compares it to a “Hollywood blockbuster” and frankly I can see it. It's just got the right amount of action, humour, personality, plot, and everything in between.

While the book does have its serious moments and has a few amazing quotes, the plot flirted with being formulaic - but just enough so that you have a frame of reference to know where you're probably going before the rug is pulled under your figurative feet as Corey brings the story in a direction wilder than anything you expected.

Holden and Miller make such a great duo, each complementing the other's flaws and crabbiness. Holden is almost your stereotypical white knight, believing wholeheartedly in his ideals with an almost annoying naivete even when it leads him to make decisions that screw people over. Miller is your jaded detective straight out of film noir, coming to terms with the fact that people now see him as a has-been and that he's not as ahead of the game as he thinks himself to be. When they do eventually meet, they both dislike each other for obvious reasons but do come to form a partnership that is convincing and, dare I say it, even heartwarming.

Naomi is also one of the stand-out characters that I've become fond of, much more so than either Holden or Miller. She's just the right amount of spunky but without trying to behave like she's a #girlboss or that she's independent and doesn't need companionship. She's not even above admitting that she has a crush. She's literally the voice of reason in the whole book - we might as well have Holden and Miller wearing “What Would Naomi Do?” bracelets.

I also loved the Solar System politics in this one. It's a little confusing at first but quickly becomes legible. Although human beings have colonized Mars and the Kuiper Belt for so long that the descendants and now-natives of these planets/asteroids have become their own faction with their own cultures and even physical builds, there's something still innately human about all of them and Corey utilises this humanness to build up some very realistic politics between the 3 major forces of the Solar System.

I'm a pretty new reader in science fiction but I've come to enjoy it because I liked how philosophical and abstract a lot of it can get. Leviathan Wakes is nowhere near as philosophical as other sci-fi books and series, but it's taught me how a damn good space opera can read on the page too. Absolutely will check out the rest of the series.

This book had a lot of meaningful things to say but I'm not a fan of period-less prose or a writing style that might be too convoluted for an average reader to parse. Art and meaning should be accessible IMO, but that's a conversation for another day.

The story and the prose certainly provides a wealth of meaning to slowly wade through and is really good for a book club pick. Some parts and even whole chapters were almost incomprehensible to me, but overall I think there was at least some action that drove the reader along through the book. Some themes that I was interested in reading about were the fragility of memories, the hollowness of nostalgia, the often-disappointing experience of reliving an experience you had previously put on a pedestal, the conflict between capitalism and compassion, and indiscriminate exploitation for material gain. I kinda wish that we could just pick one or a few and develop those more fully though.

The last couple of chapters were particularly exciting and I actually couldn't put it down, which is not something I would've expected for this book. I'm not sure if the ending really drove home the points that Krasznahorkai had raised through the book but honestly I'm not mad at how dramatic everything went down. I felt like the book needed more drama.

This is a really hard book to review at all. I gave it 3 stars not because it's just average overall - it had aspects that I thought were impressive and well done, but also other aspects that ranged from tropey to lowkey problematic. Overall though, I think this was one of the best efforts at an Austen retelling I've read in a long time, even if it had its fair share of flaws. While the execution is a bit problematic, I have to give this book (and its author) props for being ambitious with the world and society it seeks to create and realistically transpose the story of Persuasion into.

I'll leave the better things to last to end this review on a more positive note, because while I'm not the biggest fan of this book, I do find the author, her writing, and her world-building to be very promising and want to keep up with her other books in future.

So... the things I didn't like.

The age of the characters were absolutely ridiculous and took a lot away from the retelling of a story like Persuasion. I know it's a thing for YA stories to age down their characters - a character could be behaving like an adult in an adult situation, but for some reason they're suddenly like 18-23 years old even though I can't imagine anyone in that age group behaving in that way. I usually can close an eye to this, but this decision in this book did not make sense imo.

Persuasion is a story about two people who did not make the best decisions and judgement calls when they were younger (I believe they were about 18 or slightly older in the original), and then they come together a whole decade later (in their late 20s to early 30s) after having been through life, accumulating experiences, and coming back together as more mature people who have come to recognise their own folly all those years ago but also the way the other person has grown as well in the interim. It's beautiful because it talks about second chances through maturity. In Darkness, the characters are aged down to a ridiculous extent. Our protagonists are only 18 years old in this story, and they were a paltry 14 years old when they made that decision to separate. Firstly, you cannot tell me that the mental growth and maturity between 18 and 28 in the original book can be equivalently compressed into that from 14 to 18 - it just does not make sense. Secondly, the fact that the protagonists in Persuasion were 18ish when they made that silly decision is testament to the general consensus that human beings are not at the peak of our maturity at 18 (it's physiological: our prefrontal cortices that make decisions and judgements in our brains does not fully mature until we are 25). I really cannot take a “second chance” love story seriously if the protagonists are getting back together at eighteen. After only four years. It really took some seriousness away from the retelling imo.

Also, in a slight spoiler, the fact that 18 year old Kai was romancing 14 year old Olivia was also really creepy imo. I know they kept repeating that it works differently for Posts and whatnot, but it's still creepy c'mon.

The romance was also pretty flat and tropey imo. I got pretty bored with the repetition of Elliot pining after Kai, and still pining after him literally despite every mean thing he does and says to her, and even after she tells herself for the millionth time how much she's over him. Their backstory is also built up by a series of letters that they have been exchanging since they were much younger children, and which intersperses the chapters. I'm not sure how effective a medium this was in building up that romance because honestly I was never really invested. I didn't really see a lot of chemistry in the letters, just perhaps some good friendship. Then we just get a lot of one-sided pining in the present time. As a result, I just found that I couldn't quite care much about how their romance was going to turn out.

One of the bigger eyesores in the book is the way it handles intellectual ableism and it's hard to explain this without explaining the whole society. This is hidden behind spoiler blocks just in case, but does not spoil the actual plot of the book and only explains the context of the world: Human beings were once split into two camps, one who tried to modify their own genes by a process called ERV which was meant to basically unlock all their latent potential and basically make them superhuman, and the other camp who believed that God-given DNA should not be messed with (the Luddites). The technology-loving camp, called “the Lost” by the Luddites, ended up with a major backlash from the ERV procedure which made their subjects “Reduced”, i.e. an intellectually challenged population unable to do much beyond manual labour and incapable of complex speech and thought. The Luddites see this as a sign of God smiting the Lost for daring to use technology and manipulate genes. A war and several generations later, the Luddites have “inherited the Earth” and make use of Reduced labour on their farms while also shunning technology and any kind of advancement. The Luddites adhere strictly to technology-shunning and strict social hierarchy “protocols” that they believe keeps them and humanity safe from another disaster like the Reduction. They believe the affliction of the Reduced is carried in their genes. In the present day, the Reduced have been increasingly giving birth to children who have ‘normal' levels of intellectual ability, who are called CORs (Children of Reduced) or Posts (Post-Reductionists) as they prefer. Despite this, they are typically still treated the same as the Reduced with the same rights. Many Posts escape the estates that they were born in and form Post enclaves, which has its own social problems.

If any of the above sounds uncomfortable to you or is a trigger, then this is not a book you should read. It certainly does give a suitable pretext for Elliot (a Luddite) and Kai (a Post) to conceivably have that distance in hierarchy that prevents them from having a socially sanctioned union, much like how Anne and Capt Wentworth did as well in Persuasion. But while Anne and Capt Wentworth's troubles lay in a relatively simple socioeconomic class hierarchy prevalent in their society, the objections to Elliot and Kai's relationship stems from a much, much more problematic society that the author is building here, complete with intellectual ableism, segregation, slavery, and religious zealotry that exaggerates a science vs religion dichotomy. It is an incredibly ambitious world and honestly was just uncomfortable to read sometimes. It adds a lot more gravity and heaviness to Persuasion, which looks almost light-hearted in comparison and that's saying a lot given that Persuasion is often seen as the most serious of Austen's books. But oddly enough, despite the gravity of the issues presented, the problematic-ness of the society still isn't adequately confronted by the author (but not completely ignored either) since this is still a YA romance after all so there is some preoccupation with the pining and love lines here.

But I guess in this flaw I found something positive. Most Austen retellings are simply a rehash of the original story in a conveniently contrived and unrealistic transposition to another time/setting/world. Although I had a lot of things to complain and lament about the world and society that the author builds here, I have to give props to her for having been able to come up with what must have been a very ambitious AU to conceivably squeeze a Persuasion story into. The world was more fleshed out than most Austen retellings are, and didn't feel contrived. I still remain impressed by the ambition that drove the world-building here, and if the author had perhaps chosen a different route to establishing class hierarchy instead of with intellectual ableism, it would certainly be deserving of an even higher rating.

The author's writing was also pretty good, certainly better than average. There's nothing too cringey about her syntax or tone, which is a common problem with many YA stories. I did find that the pacing could have been a little faster and some parts felt a bit draggy, but the storytelling in itself was pretty smooth and easy to read.

I'm pretty interested to see where this author is going to and will check out her other works.

This was OK, kinda fun in some places, kinda draggy in others. As usual, there was some pretty heavy-handed religious allegory in the second half of the book, but without as much of a narrative drive as in Lion, Witch, Wardrobe.

More than anything, I felt that the personalities of the children here felt a bit more effaced compared to the first book. In the first book, Lucy was gentle, innocent, and pure, Edmund was self-centered, narrow-minded but ultimately repentant, and Peter was always noble and righteous. Susan was a bit of a non-entity in the first book, and she takes a different turn from her siblings in this second book, more on that later. In this book, I found that the children's personalities became more blurry, indistinct, and bland.

Lucy had her moments of being the innocent clinging on to her faith despite the mockery and disbelief of the world, as she did in the first book, but there was a bit less of her wonder and joy at being in Narnia. Peter was pretty much as he was in the first book, apparently always doing the right thing but there's nothing much to make him stand out. Edmund, who was one of the most interesting characters in the first book because he actually had character growth and a redemption arc which is more than any of his siblings did, became a pseudo-Peter in this one. He even manages to out-Peter Peter when he chooses to believe Lucy when the others would not. This might be part of his redemption arc but I wish more had been done with him.

By an unintended twist, Susan became a bit more interesting in this one. I couldn't really tell you what she did at all in the first book because she was just along for the ride and didn't do much else. In this one though, out of the four siblings, she is the first one to start choosing not to believe in Aslan - not because of any dramatic evil personae working on her mind like the White Witch did with Edmund in the first book, but simply because she... chooses not to? She doesn't turn evil or bad or anything, but it's interesting and a little saddening to see one's childhood incredulity and energy slip away so visibly.

The Prince Caspian storyline comes straight out of a fairytale and was just okay. It was entertaining enough but also nothing mind-blowing. What was most interesting about it was perhaps at the end when it's revealed that the Telmarines are actually descendents of real-world pirates who had somehow slipped into Narnia. It was a really wild story with them being stuck on an island and brutalizing the natives there and then somehow traversing a crack in the world into Narnia. I think there might be some message here about colonialism, not just in the real world with the pirates killing the natives of the Pacific island and “taking their native women as wives”, but also coming into Narnia and then colonizing Narnians. It all introduces a very interesting thread that I didn't think I would come across in the Narnia series.

Looking forward to go on to the next one.

What a sweet, sweet book. This makes me want to curl up with a cup of tea and just - exist.

“Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing?”

is

“Because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don't need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”

Overall, this series was a lot of fun and I look forward to checking out the Arrows trilogy some time soon. I was a little confused that the first book of Arrows spoiled something that only developed in this book, the last installment of the Last Herald-Mage trilogy, but yet Arrows was published before!

This trilogy was groundbreaking at the time it was published (the late 80s to early 90s) for not only having its protagonist as homosexual, but also imagining a world where this was normalized (although homophobia isn't absent entirely, which is fine because that sounds increasingly like our current modern society as well). Although Vanyel is homosexual (or shaych, as the book calls it), his sexuality is never fetishized and there isn't any gratuitous scenes revolving around that. Whatever love, romance, and physical intimacy is pretty much on the same level as any other romance in any other book.

I was a little worried I'd be completely lost since it's been a while since I last read the first two books, but Lackey does a really good job at very slowly reintroducing the reader into the world of Valdemar. Instead of being plunged into the deep end of things, which I have almost come to take as a default way for fantasy books to go, there was something soothing and refreshing about how slowly Lackey takes to re-introduce the reader into the world. I never once felt lost or like I need to read a summary of the previous two books to get back up to speed with the book.

The world of Valdemar is extensive and this series is just one out of many that Lackey has written for the universe. It's the predecessor to something like the Cosmere books by Brandon Sanderson, where everything links to one another and there're little nods and winks in each series to other characters and events that happen in other series, so that's really fun. I'm looking forward to re-visiting the Arrows trilogy after this.

Vanyel has grown so much since the very first book, where he came across as a whiney brat imo. In this one, he's around his late 30s to early 40s and clearly has worked through so much of his pain, suffering, and grief to come through as a much wiser man, though he somehow does not come across as jaded. Stefen was a nice foil to him, although the age gap between the two was a little eyebrow-raising - I guess this may not have been that problematic at the time it was written. I know Stefen is meant to be Tylendrel's reincarnation or something so that kinda explains why he's so young, since Tylendrel only passed 17-18 years before the events of this book, and the age gap will always exist if this reincarnation thing is going to happen.

The book really escalated quickly in the last quarter. Things, even dreadful things, start happening left right center and I could barely keep up with what's going on. Spoilery thoughts: thought Van's being the victim of sexual abuse was a bit unnecessary and almost seems out of character for this book, and indeed this trilogy, which hasn't been particularly sexually violent just until then. i was so happy when it turned out that Fandes hadn't actually died earlier though. I did wonder why so many important things took place "off camera" though, like how exactly Van and Fandes defeated Leareth, and we didn't even get to see Randale and Shavri die, or how Trev and Jisa's marriage panned out!

This is a series I'd definitely recommend to any fantasy lover, but I'd also give the caveat that this needs to be read in context of the time it was published. By today's standards, the homosexuality in this book is probably mild and nothing in comparison, but I can see how impactful this would've been back in the time it was published.

This is a classic so it's a pretty hard one to rate. I'm not here to judge whether it's good or bad, it just is and I'm here to observe how it does what it does.

Everyone pretty much knows, to some vague extent, what Narnia is about so I will skip any introductory blurb about it and produce some hot takes.

1. Is Turkish Delight really that delightful that you'd sell your siblings for more?

I've never had any so I can't say. This book certainly makes me want to try some but I gotta say the pictures aren't very appealing and I cannot understand the fervour for it in this book.

2. Edmund is probably the most realistic child in this book, even though he was also the most annoying (maybe the point?)

I remember him being my favourite when I watched the movies as a kid and not remembering any of his annoyingness at all, but I think that's largely because I found the actor cute, and I liked the name Edmund anyway.

Reading this as an adult, though, I can simultaneously tell how biased and hormone-driven my pre-teen self was, but also appreciate Edmund in a different way entirely. Unlike Peter, Susan, and Lucy who all seem pretty idealistic in their own ways, Edmund is snotty and a brat almost all the time - but also the most realistic kid of them all.

Children are wired to act in their own self-interests and don't really develop a sense of empathy until much later on in life, if at all. To me, Peter, Susan, and Lucy represent the model children that always appears in fairy tales and which your teachers and parents tell you to behave more like. Edmund represents the real you, the one who would harbour spiteful thoughts about an older sibling who scolded you, the one who would often make stupid decisions to try and get an advantage over your siblings, friends, or whoever you have a rivalry with, and then afterwards try to justify that you hadn't really meant to be that mean or wish anyone real harm, and also the one that Jesus died for, apparently.

Don't get me wrong, I was annoyed by Edmund in this one too, but in a way I could appreciate how Lewis used him for his agenda (and he definitely had one in this book). He was the mirror through which kids may see themselves, whether or not they admit it out loud to themselves, and which then makes them aspire to be more like the other 3 model siblings. But more importantly, Edmund played an important role as the sinner in the Christian allegory that was the ultimate purpose of this book, and that invited children to insert themselves into that role as well. Sunday school and sermons may be too high-flown for children who aren't typically seen as sinners in the first place, but Lewis kinda brings that Christian story down to a child's level and makes it finally relevant and relatable to a child, through Edmund.

3. It's pretty surreal to have all this very heavy-handed and in-your-face Christian allegory set amidst a conventional fantasy setting that is very much influenced by Celtic beliefs probably native (or at least with a longer history than even Christianity) to England.

Whether or not I agree with Lewis's agenda is secondary here - I'm not here to debate about religion, I just want to see how well an author is able to deliver his message through a good story, and Lewis does do this very well.

However, I couldn't help mulling a bit about the vehicle that Lewis uses. We have magic, forests, witches, talking animals, Deep Magic, and Deeper Magic, and all manners of woodland magical creatures like giants and fauns. I'm not well-versed at all in theology but I'm pretty sure these are not parts of the Christian rhetoric, and would have been at some point in time be seen as pagan symbols since they seem to be more in line with the Celtic beliefs that Christianity drove out of England in the first place. So it's almost a little ironic to me that we have such an influential and famously Christian story basically using that to do its work.

It also called to mind the fiasco in the late 90s to early 00s when Christian communities were calling for the banning of Harry Potter (I have several friends who never read the books because their parents wouldn't let them for religious reasons). It was presumably because they were practising witchcraft and magic which was seen as going against Christianity. But then you have Narnia, which at least seems to be well-accepted in most Christian communities. Sure, witchcraft is villified in this one rather than endorsed like in HP, but there're a lot more magical things happening here than just the White Witch's magic. Even Aslan refers to Deep Magic that governs him and the whole of Narnia.

Anyway - it was a fun, quick, and light read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series this month!

What an end to Mistborn Era 2. I'm glad I was there the whole way and I think this actually be one of my favourite series of the Cosmere so far, Stormlight Archives notwithstanding since I haven't finished or caught up with that one yet. Naturally, this review would spoil all the books of Era 2 up to Book 3 before this one.

There's a more sober feel to this one, taking place several years after the events of Bands of Mourning and seeing Wax as happily married and a father of two. There're several mentions between Wax and Wayne about how they're “too old” for certain things (like getting exploded), so I assume they're in their 40s or so by this time. Wayne meanwhile is broken up with MeLaan and feeling desolate, worthless, and positively existential, pondering on the role he is playing and needs to play in the bigger scheme of things.

I didn't get why Marasi needed to have a relationship with Allik at all. I could understand why she perhaps needed a failed crush on Wax in the very beginning but I thought she was pretty happy going along by herself. Her relationship with Allik seemed a bit tacked on at best, since we barely see him anyway in this book. It just seemed to be there to tick a checkbox for Marasi's character development, which I didn't think was necessary at all.

The characters in this one are still a blast to read, with all the familiar brands of humour out in full force. Wayne proves himself to be a treasure as always with his wildly inappropriate and untimely interjections to the consternation of Wax and Marasi, Steris is still being Steris and writing out disaster preparation plans when she's bored, but I also missed MeLaan in this book since she strikes out early to go on another mission and doesn't return. That bit also felt a bit too obvious a device for conveniently removing MeLaan from the plot without actually having to kill her off or anything drastic like that, and again I didn't understand why that was needed given that MeLaan has been with them since Book 2. Luckily though, we still have some kandra humour from VenDell, although he's not an integral part of their operations as MeLaan was.

This book is one that really opens up a lot of questions about the Cosmere. I might even say that it ends with more questions asked than answered, at least regarding the Cosmere. With our characters on Scadriel, the plot has pretty much wound to a close. There are some little references to the world of Stormlight Archives in here, but it probably wouldn't spoil readers who haven't read or are halfway through reading that series (like me having only finished 2 books from SA). Or at least, if there were spoilers, I don't understand them and that's the same as no spoilers to me. I look forward to revisiting the Cosmere bits of this book in the future when I have caught up with Stormlight Archives so I can fully appreciate which bits are easter eggs and callbacks to other books, and which bits are new information entirely.

About the ending: I was really, really agitated when I read the ending. Here is the barrage of my emotional response: “this is some Sam and Frodo bullshit!! the sidekick is actually the real hero in the end!? i had a bad feeling when the book's prologue was a scene from Wayne's childhood, it just didn't bode well, y'know? but i'm mostly kinda pissed at Harmony for literally ignoring the hell out of Wayne for the entire series and then just swooping in to give him that final nudge to sacrifice himself at the end. that was such a bullshit move!!! and i'm also kinda pissed that it wasn't Wax, mainly cos i'm the least attached to Wax of all of them, but also cos like, it was always *building* up to him being the sacrificial lamb but for one reason or other, either cos Sanderson is attached to Wax or he has other purposes to fulfill in presumably Era 4, we just kinda shift the burden of sacrifice off of him and give it to Wayne instead, who had never asked for this and was never developed to be the end-game until this book.”Yeah, I really didn't like that Wayne was the one who had to sacrifice himself in the end. I didn't think it gelled well at all with what it was all building up. I definitely felt like it should've been Wax, if anybody. I know this book was dwelling a lot on who and what makes a hero, with Wayne always feeling like it should be Wax. Personally, this cliched but all-too-true quote sums heroism up to me: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Wax enjoyed great power, being almost a Chosen One when he was literally pulled back from the cusp of death by Harmony himself to take up the Bands of Mourning and enjoy unlimited Mistborn powers to reverse the situation and win the day. He continues to enjoy all the plot armour of a hero, but when I feel like the situation is called upon for him to pay his debts and to shoulder that responsibility of being a hero, that is suddenly shifted to Wayne in the end? I just can't stomach it! It's framed as Wayne stepping up and being a hero in his own right in the end, but it just doesn't feel right - it just feels like Sanderson couldn't bear to kill off Wax for whatever reason and decided to just shift it to Wayne instead.

Overall, I really enjoyed this whole series and it has some of my favourite characters in the whole Cosmere so far, hands down. There's a high possibility of me revisiting this one in the future.

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.

4.5 stars. As usual, a memorable and death-positive book from Caitlin Doughty. In this one, she explores death culture from all across the world, from Indonesia to Bolivia to Mexico to Japan. She observes these different cultures sincerely, eager to take back all these death-positive messages back with her, presumably to further her work in The Order of the Good Death in the USA.

“Indonesia” was a fascinating chapter. Caitlin explores Tana Toraja in South Sulawesi, where families live with the embalmed corpses of their dead relatives (sleeping in the same room, in the same bed even) for years on end before eventually interring them. Even after burial, the coffins are regularly dug up for families to hang out with the mummified corpses, to clean them, talk to them, and just remember them for who they were. I've definitely heard of the death culture of Toraja before but Caitlin does provide some fascinating insights into their beliefs and practices. I searched up some photos too and it was all very fascinating (the mummies of babies and children were a little depressing though).

“Mexico” was an emotional chapter for me. I thought it would focus a lot more on the Dias de los Muertos but there were some hard-hitting bits about the death of fetuses, infants, and children. That's a particularly soft spot for me now, being a mom of a young child now.

“Japan” was incredibly fascinating! It's actually very much in-character for Japan but I had no idea that they had such high-tech temples and columbariums. The idea that you can just punch in a code to retrieve or locate a loved one's urn of ashes, or even tap a smart card, is just mind-boggling to me. I do wonder how much it removes one from the act of remembering someone though. I feel like there's a lot of distractions there, whether in terms of LED lightshows or figuring out how to use the technology in the first place, to spend your mental bandwidth in grieving for or just cherishing the memories of someone who passed.

This book also made me think about the death culture in my society and country. Much like the USA, it kinda just seems that there's only one viable option for most Singaporeans nowadays (aside from Muslims, who do get concessions to bury their dead per their religious beliefs) - embalming, cremation, and interment into a columbarium/temple (or having ashes scattered at sea which is becoming an increasingly popular option given the sheer costs of booking a niche for an urn anywhere). In a sense, I guess we've come to accept that route as inevitable for most of us, but this book, as well as Caitlin's own views, really widened my perspective and made me wonder what options do I really have in my country? Have we all come to just accept this one route simply because we all don't want to think about death (death-denial, as Caitlin terms it) and therefore outsource all the arrangements as much as possible? It's all very thought-provoking and I'm honestly really glad I read this book.

This was... kind of a weird but good time? Some parts almost felt a little tedious with how completely crazy it was all the time, but tbh I still had a good time overall and wouldn't mind picking up the sequel at some point.

The humour in this one was pretty reminiscent of Terry Pratchett, if he wrote urban fantasy, except it was missing a little focus and pizzazz. Nevertheless, I do think McDonnell's a bit of a hidden gem and can't understand why this book hasn't been more shouted about. It's got pretty quirky and humourous writing, vivid characters, a fairly compelling magic system and backstory, as well as plot twists that, while not earth-shattering revelations., still give you enough of a jolt to be enjoyable.

We have a bit of a character ensemble here. I don't think we really get close enough to any one character to feel particularly attached, but I think that's okay. I enjoyed the superficial tableau of how their dynamics played out against each other. There are stakes in the story too, so it wasn't completely without tension.

Overall, would recommend to those who love urban fantasy with some strong humour!

3.25/5. This was such an odd book to read! It kinda blends this epic, global-scale destructive backstory of Biblical proportions to a romance that kinda reads rather cliche and tropey. I went into this knowing it was a romance novel so I don't know what I was expecting, perhaps a bit more epic-ness. I actually quite enjoyed the premise of the Four Horsemen awakening and discovering perhaps their affinity for mortal women, and also really liked some of the discussions here about religion and God, so I'd probably read more into the series. I just didn't wasn't a big fan of the romance in this one.

The protagonist Sara Burns treads on a pretty fine line between mercy and violence. On one hand, she is portrayed as being compassionate to just about every human being she comes across, even those that think the worst of her and who try to harm her. But on the other hand, she keeps talking about how, while she didn't enjoy her gruesome take-down of Pestilence at the beginning, she'd do the same thing over and over again if it meant saving the rest of humanity. Idk, it kinda doesn't add up to me.

The Stockholm Syndrome trope plays a huge role in this story, given that Sara gets taken captive by Pestilence after her failed assassination attempt. I don't mind this trope but I also think it's pretty difficult to execute convincingly, and I don't know if this book manages to do that. Pestilence presumably keeps Sara alive to “make her suffer”, and yes he does “torture” her a bit by making her run and shooting her with an arrow and all that, but ultimately there wasn't really a believable reason why he'd essentially just keep her there with him all the time. To watch him take down other people? How would he know that that would make her suffer? What if Sara had been incredibly self-centered and just congratulated herself all the time that it was someone else dying and not her? For all of Pestilence's powers, I don't think mind-reading is one of them so I don't know how he'd know that watching others die would be painful for her. We experience the whole story through Sara's first-person perspective and I'm not sure if I'm a fan of her voice either. She's supposedly an adult but a lot of the slang she uses makes her sound like a teen, or someone trying to be one, which is a little weird.

The best part of this book for me was when they came across an elderly couple, Rob and Ruth. I was really hoping that Rob and Ruth would somehow show Pestilence that humanity might be worth redeeming after all, and that he'd spare them from the plague. Unfortunately, that didn't come to pass. I teared up when they eventually died of the plague! And that made me even more bewildered that, shortly after burying them both and being presumably melancholic and resentful about what was going on with the world, Sara and Pestilence could still take a bath together in Rob and Ruth's bathroom and get horny. Whut?! Way to ruin the only moment in this book with emotional depth.

More spoilery thoughts about the last quarter of the book: Sara had plenty of valid reasons not to marry Pestilence the first time he asked, but unfortunately I don't think the narrative was convincing about it. She could've said she was reconciling herself with the frankly terrifying idea of uniting herself with an immortal non-human entity, or someone who had kept her captive for the past however long, or even just that the idea of marriage after just one night of sex needed some getting used to, but no... Sara just basically falls back into the “it's not love, it's lust!” thing which is the flimsiest excuse ever and made her sound like she was just playing hard to get. I also thought it was a bit creepy that Pestilence would essentially stalk Sara to “care for her” even after she told him pretty clearly that she wanted to leave him and we're supposed to find this romantic. We also never find out exactly how and why Pestilence decided to... just stop being Pestilence? He said he fulfills his purpose but what's the end goal that he's achieved here? Does he get any penalties for no longer being a Horseman? What're all the logistics involved here??You know, I guess I shouldn't expect that level of world-building in a romance novel but I can't help it. The premise is of epic proportions and I think the set-up was not bad, which is why I'm just frustrated that we don't have any pay-off for that.

I've heard that this series improves as it goes on so I'd probably check out more of these and hope I like the subsequent ones better!

Man, this book hit a lot harder than I expected it to. The only other book I've read by Doughty is [b:Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And other Questions about Dead Bodies 52672113 Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And other Questions about Dead Bodies Caitlin Doughty https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593186716l/52672113.SY75.jpg 68120089] which delivers death facts in bite sizes and presumably to children as a target audience. I kinda expected this book to be similar, just specifically about crematoriums. Boy, was I wrong. This book was instead more like a semi-autobiography of Doughty's time working in a crematorium in her early twenties. It's clear that this time was a transformative one for her, both in her attitude towards death as well as crystallizing what she wanted to accomplish in changing the modern American attitude to death. In turn, it brings us the readers just that little bit closer to that conversation and confrontation with death and mortality.We are all just future corpses.Preparing for death and how we would like one's body to be disposed after that is undoubtedly a difficult conversation to have with any of our loved ones, and probably an even more difficult one to have with yourself. In this book, Doughty raps hard on the “death-denial culture” that has sprung only in the most recent century or so, calling back on historical times when death has always been a lot closer to people, to homes, to families, and had been an integral part of customs and traditions. She argues that being in denial about what is essentially a fact of life is what is making death that much more traumatizing and difficult to accept and confront when it does happen. I love how she took as an example Siddartha Gautama, who attained enlightenment and became the Buddha of Buddhism because he went out in the world to witness life, suffering, death, and how we all become ashes and dust in the end, and not because he stuck to his sheltered life in the palace without any and every reminder that pain, suffering, and death exists.There has never been a time in the history of the world when a culture has broken so completely with traditional methods of body disposition and beliefs surrounding mortality.It's so timely that I'm reading this book while a Muslim wedding is being held at the public ground floor space of the residential block opposite mine. Because it's public and under government housing, that space is often used for Chinese funerals (wakes) as well as Muslim weddings, baby showers, etc. These occurrences have always been an everyday norm for me but which, I think, might be exactly what Caitlin is trying to advocate here in being less in denial about death.Accepting death doesn't mean you won't be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like “Why do people die?” and “Why is this happening to me?” Death isn't happening to you. Death is happening to us all.This passage in particular was so impactful to me and my own denial about death. I'm probably not alone in fearing mortality and having to confront it, both in myself and in my loved ones. I'm still not 100% there and still in the middle of the process of fully accepting it, but I'm glad that Doughty, through her Youtube channel as well as this book, has kickstarted me in the journey of accepting this ultimate and inevitable outcome of life.

This book was all sorts of things to me - confusing, frustrating, engaging, interesting. At the end of it all, I'm not sure I understood 100% what the backstory was supposed to be - I'm not even sure if we're meant to understand. It was such a weird, weird journey. It was enjoyable and fascinating, definitely memorable though I wouldn't say particularly endearing or really giving one the warm fuzzies of a new love. This was like a mish-mash of the Wizard of Oz, X-Men, and Doctor Strange and/or Avengers.

I've only ever read three books in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series and have enjoyed those well enough. I went into this one expecting a very different vibe from that one given that I had the impression this was meant to be more horror, more outright fantasy. I was a little surprised that the tone, the vibe of this one was very much similar to Wayward Children, especially at the very beginning when our protagonists are young kids. I can McGuire's interest in exploring that theme of childhood development and psychology, the traumas and struggles that children go through and the coping mechanisms that they put into place without even knowing what they're doing, and which may sometimes spill over into adulthood. This is still a huge part of Middlegame and though our protagonists eventually have bigger problems to deal with after they've grown up, they never quite forget or leave behind the events of their childhood.

The writing is engagingly descriptive, as McGuire's writing has always been. There's a lot of vivid imagery around here, especially when there're so much to perceive and tell in this world, like how Roger and Dodger experience their existences in completely different ways and how they intertwine occasionally. I did find that the writing got sometimes a little too dramatic and a bit repetitive, but that might just be a personal preference thing. During certain sequences, McGuire repeated certain phrases over and over again in the same passage or chapter to bring a point across. If done very minimally, I think this could drive a point cross, but I thought this was done a tad bit too much here that it dilutes the importance of each “important” phrase. Details: I got a little tired of reading, “There's so much blood.” everytime we skip back to the Book 7 interludes, and honestly I'm not really sure that the volume of blood was really all that important to the crux of the plot. What I liked much more was a bit of that repetition of, “How many times?” which I found more impactful and more relevant to the whole thing about Dodger and Roger having repeated their lives so many times, but that wasn't dwelled upon as much as “there's so much blood” unfortunately.

On a smaller scale, McGuire also uses that repetition to underline an emotional moment, for e.g. pulling a completely unrelated example off the top of my head and not quoting from the book: “... and she doesn't look back. She doesn't look back.” That's fine, I guess, I'm just not the biggest fan of that and it always sounds a bit too dramatic to me.

The pacing of the book was OK, though I always kept wondering if this could have been any shorter. This is a pretty long read and while the action never quite stops and nothing is really draggy, I feel like a large part of the length has to do with the style of narration and descriptions kinda dragging things out a bit. It's not a major problem, though I feel like it could've been perhaps more compact.

Roger and Dodger are the center of this book's universe in more ways than one. We spend almost all our times with them and watching them grow up, taking only an occasional jaunt to catch up on the book's antagonists. I did really like how fleshed out they were for most of the book, where we really delved into how childhood environment and circumstances can impact the way people, even those who are almost identical in every way, grow up. As the plot develops, they both kinda lose a bit of that human colour a bit when they become more aware of their talents, but I don't think I minded that because I was looking forward to some epic magical showdown. Erin was also a surprisingly complex character - dare I say even the most complex one in the whole lot? Leigh and Reed are fairly one-dimensional but we don't spend a lot of time with them so it's OK.

This is a very minor point but I was also kinda amused and just very slightly annoyed by how this book was meant to be encompass the world, the universe, reality itself - but we're so so centered in the United States. Heck, even when we were supposed to be separating twin babies “as far apart as geographically possible” (a paraphrased quote from the book), here I was expecting them to be somewhere in like Nepal and Canada, maybe. In fact, when Roger first says he's in Cambridge, I thought, huh having them in the USA and UK is kinda uninspired but okay. But no, he's actually in Cambridge, Massachusetts, so apparently “as far apart as geographically possible” simply meant on the opposite coasts of one country. There are other less obvious bits in the story that just felt very, very America-centric. I'm in two minds about this - on one hand, if McGuire didn't feel up to writing a character growing up in a completely different culture from her own experience, it makes sense that she just stuck to what she knew and I'd prefer that to half-baked attempts at trying to stick in, say, a South African upbringing if inadequate research was done. On the other hand, the cosmic scale this plot is supposed to be operating on just falls a little flat if we're just boxed up in a single country.

The ending was fine, although I actually kinda wanted to see a lot more, but I suppose it's not a bad thing if we didn't have some miraculous deus ex machina. Spoilery thoughts: I wanted to see Dodger and Roger really come into their manifestation and start pulling Leigh and Reed apart by math and reality alone, but I suppose it's not unrealistic that, still being human in some way, they couldn't possibly grasp the knowledge of how to use all their powers right from the get-go, even when they realized their potential for it. I liked the addition of Kim and Tim to their weird little family in the end, and I suppose that they'll have more of a role to play in the sequel.