Remy Sharp

Engaging from the very first pages, brilliant writing and ideas with some sci-fi without the need to explain absolutely everything. Loved it.

If I'm honest the title is what attracted me to the book and I had hoped it would be a brilliant read - and it absolutely was!

The story kicks off immediately into the first few pages where people have start to lose their shadows, and the knock on effect is that they forget, they forget all sorts of things, then they forget their name, or forget their parent's names, or that they had a husband or wife or children, then forget how to speak. Then more mind bendingly, they forget that a thing is a thing, an in doing so reality changes around them - such as forgetting that a place exists then all of a sudden that place really doesn't exist taking all it's inhabitants with it.

The story follows a few key characters dedicating chapters to telling each of their story and the effect this epidemic (of sorts) affects their lives. So the story is very much about humans even though it lives inside an almost magical epidemic.

I like that the story doesn't particularly try to explain how the shadows are lost or why and why it affects some people faster than others.

A wonderfully written book that swept me along. Definitely recommend.

Sad. Heart breaking. Beautiful.

The story of Leon, a (nearly) 10 year old boy who has his family pulled apart. Set during the 80s in England where social services are struggling, the threat of terrorism is present, and racism is still commonplace.

We follow Leon as he moves through foster homes and tries to find a way back to his family.

The writing employs a technique whereby the style is told from perspective of Leon's 10 year old mind, typically I'm not a fan, but it works well for this story. In particular the last section of the story, Leon finds himself in a rioting scene and the torrent of words and fear and confusion roll right off the page - I finished the last 1/3rd of the book in a single (1am) sitting.

I liked that this was something different for me to read, and a relatively short-ish read (without feeling short). I also liked that the story didn't try to wrap a neat little bow on the end of the story, this isn't a fairy tale - but something that feels real and it ends in a way that's tinged with sadness and happiness at the same time.

A lovely read.

Good to read aloud to the kids (took about 15-20 minutes), and a beautiful message in the story, whereby the adult reading...me...might have caught a frog in their throat!

The truth pixie lives a life of loneliness because she always tells the truth, and that truth can get her in to trouble. She decides to leave home and during her adventure meets a girl who is sad because she's going to be moving home away from friends and everything she knows.

The truth pixie tells her that it will be sad, and there will be times in life that she'll be lonely, but that life is full of wonderful moments and love and warmth. A good message to remind ourselves of during the day to day grind of life.

Also beautifully illustrated.

Skip Skipping Christmas.

I read this based on a recommendation on social media and somehow missed checking the existing reviews. Also because I hadn't read John Grisham before I expected something even mildly challenging. I was completely wrong.

Skipping Christmas doesn't have a single decent character in it. They're all first class privilege selfish individuals with zero character progression.

The writing is also extremely basic, written exactly as if I were watching a screen - which I'm not doing - and trite to boot.

Aweful. I won't be reaching for a Grisham book in a hurry!

Beautiful prose but no idea what it was about!

I've been collecting both recommendations and books that “we should have read” and it's really amazing to find that this book was written in the 1920s, before 1984 and A Brave New World.

The book was originally written in Russian and banned from publication for many decades. The version I've read is apparently a faithful and good translation but I do always wonder if the language has been modified or not (in one section I found a reference to electric toothbrushes - something that was invented some 30 years later).

None the less, the words to this book really are poetry.

The problem I had is that I really wasn't sure where I was in the story. The character thinks he's going insane, but he's actually discovering he has a soul, but often it did read like a madman and hallucinations.

It does end predictably, but only because I've already read the likes of 1984. I can't imagine the impact on a reader reading this back in the late 1920s. It's also worth adding that the writing really does hold up nearly a century later, which is baffling amazing.

So, great stuff for nearly 100 years old, but “just okay” because I struggled to fully follow the character.

Brutal.

Having read The Handmaid's Tale in 2017 and watched the TV adaptation (and then the subsequent series 2) - the world of Gilead was still petty fresh in my mind.

The Testaments, as the outline says, picks up 15 years after the Handmaid's Tale. The book uses the records of three characters' account to recount Gilead in it's more mature state.

It's Aunt Lydia's account that I really enjoyed. The character in The Handmaid's Tale was pretty horrible and tricky to relate to, but I felt like the TV series somehow added a much more complex layer to Aunt Lydia and now The Testaments gives her a voice, and I love it.

Aunt Linda tells of the time the Gilead comes into being and how she came to hold such a powerful position.

What's particularly brutal and scary about The Testaments and the stories of Gilead's inception is how it skims so closely to our own reality with its own fear of the different and long time brewing of hatred, racism, sexism and homophobia. It doesn't take a great leap to see our own reality take a turn like this to result in a repressive state such as Gilead.

The real only glimmer of hope is that, like The Handmaid's Tale, the story is being recounted in the future inside of an academic environment and lessons are to be learnt the same way we might study Nazi Germany. The Testaments has the same reflection and study of a society that has ended.

The Testaments both looks at Gilead's time of creation but also it's downfall.

I found the book to be a really enjoyable, challenging read. I also definitely benefitted having had The Handmaid's Tale in recent memory. I'd highly recommend.

Thought provoking, some interesting ideas, but a tough act to follow.

I had read “Story of your life and others” and I fell in love with the book. Chiang is an amazing creative writer with ideas that are so beautiful I found myself constantly telling others about the stories.

Exhalation is very much the same ilk: beautiful ideas and mostly well executed. My star rating is based in context of “Stories of your life and others” which I know is unfair in some ways, but it's what it is. It's more 3.5 stars rather than 3.

I found I was really craving some more lengthy stories from Exhalation and (I think) there were about four of the total short stories that gave me that. Although each story was inventive, amazing and beautiful, I kept feeling like the endings were falling short, or ending too soon...or maybe just giving up.

“The Lifecycle of Software Objects” I thought approached some really interesting ideas and asked me, as a reader, to expand my mind and preconceptions of what could be, but the way it ended, I felt as if I'd missed something. It felt true to life in that it just ends without any big bang, but as a story, I wanted to come away satisfied, or shocked, or with some emotion, but it just ... kinda ended.

I think “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” was my favourite story and I loved the setting and the idea that the past can be revisited in the way described in the story.

Exhalation is definitely a good book, but for me, it just didn't shine as brightly as Chiang's first collection (which was 5 stars). That said, I'll still rush out to buy anything else Chiang publishes - his stories always make me feel like my mind is being expanded!

Heartbreaking and thought provoking.

I'm fairly sure I saw the film adaptation of Flowers for Algernon with Matthew Modine when I was in my 20s so I had a general idea of the basis of the story: a man with an exceptionally low IQ undergoes an experiment, his IQ soares, crescendos and then descends rapidly.

However the book really explored a much more interesting aspect of the character development: as his IQ increases beyond the level of everyone around him, his emotional level and experience struggles to keep up, if at all.

As Charlie Gordon gets more and more access to his mind and recalls (and accounts) his childhood memories, we see how badly he was treated and how heartbreaking his childhood was. The book is as much a psychological exploration of his childhood as it is a sci-fi - and for that it makes for a really heartfelt story.

There is one, large, aspect that doesn't track. Bare with me because I know Keyes wrote the book was written in 1966 (based off his short story written in 1958), but Charlie's emotional feelings towards Alice (and women in general) doesn't quite make sense.

Charlie had severe learning disabilities. He struggled to understand a lot of context in the world around him and we know that he has an emotional of a child.

If a child, a boy in particular, were to, suddenly, today have their IQ accelerated, their behaviour towards women and girls wouldn't suddenly be that of an adult man. Specifically they wouldn't behave like the men that expect women to pay them attention, or expect women to be sexually available just because they engaged in conversation. This behaviour isn't part of men's DNA.

Yet Charlie's character behaves this way when his IQ jumps. And yes, I'm overthinking it, but the fun thing about reading a great sci-fi is that it lets me ask more interesting questions about my world. And yes, this is rather woke thing to bring up about a book!

On the flip side, something I loved about the book is when Charlie does go back into his memories, it made me ask the question: do we have the ability for 100% recall?

Is it possible that we all have photographic memories but the majority of us can't access that part of our mind. If we do have the ability, doesn't that suggest that memory recall, for the most minute detail, is entirely possible - even to recall the details in something that was in our peripheral vision some decades ago?

If we do indeed have this ability, assuming Charlie's operation can unlock this part of our mind, does this mean we can potentially time travel inside our mind as those recalled memories become so visceral that they become reality during that recall.

Very cool stuff.

Then within the sci-fi and the character study of Charlie's psyche, we have the heartbreaking story of his childhood and whether it's possible for forgiveness all those decades later. Beautiful stuff.

Fun writing but does end up being a game by game review.

I've been taking long walks through nostalgia and revisiting my childhood days with the Spectrum, so this book looked fun.

It's well written and Dan Whitehead has a fun way of writing - very much in the ilk of the spectrum games of the day. There's a briefish introduction to the history of the spectrum that I had wished there was more and then the book goes through some of the poignant games from the 80s that ran on the speccy.

The game chapters weren't so much as reviews but a dig into what made the games interesting either from the player's perspective or a technical achievement for the day.

I would have preferred more stories from the history of the speccy, but that I guess is an entirely different book.

Still, a fun read, some bookmark worthy game titles with some useful web resources at the end.

Good lord I miss this woman. I could read and listen to her stories all day.

The book starts out as Carrie Fisher retelling some of the days leading up to her joining the cast of Star Wars in the late 70s, but then as the title suggests, she found some long lost diary pages and quite literally puts them in the book.

It's very much hearing about her life at the time, but Carrie Fisher is such a huge character with such a way of telling stories that I really enjoyed reading her accounts.

One thing that really suprised me was that she would write poems as part of her diary, and the poems are really good. It amazes me that someone can just throw out a thoughtful and well written poem and it's casually added to a diary.

Everytime I read Carrie Fisher or see her on the screen I wish that she was still in the world. But I am grateful of the legacy she's left behind.

Innocent and beautiful and left me wanting to take pause when looking around.

I first heard, to my shame, of The Little Prince on Netflix and the short part that I watched (I watched it with the kids and stopped around the 20 minute mark) I felt that it was especially unique. So when I saw it was indeed a book, and a particularly famous one at that, I realised there must be something special in here. I wasn't let down.

I'm not quite sure what the Little Prince is, I want to have this great epiphany about the story but if I had one, I can't articulate it.

The tale is certainly beautiful in a way that makes me remember to forget all the serious stuff (and numbers) of adulthood and remember the time I used to wonder whether an entire universe could exist inside a raindrop.

It's a romantic escapism of a book and I hope to share the book with my children one day soon.

This is a hard book to read, partly for the confused start, but also the very real ending. A deep insight into clinical depression.

I have to admit that in reading this book I really struggled to enjoy it - and not because it of the nature of the book, but because it felt like I was bouncing around inside of Sylvia Plath's head in a random jumbled up, non linear fashion.

In fact, I'd say the first third of the book is almost entirely that. The mini stories that occur don't really finish, and as we were journeying through one recounted story, I'd find we'd quickly make a sharp turn and begin a new journey.

The middle third starts to become a bit more pieced together but the book was struggling to win me over. Esther Greenwood (which I'd read earlier The Bell Jar was semi-autobiographical) wanted to kill herself. The way that this third goes on read almost childish and, for my shame, I was beginning to hope the character “just get on with it”.

It was also that the first section of the book painted an extremely successful character and the character in the second part was very much the opposite end of the spectrum and the different was jarring and hard to consolidate (as a reader).

Suffice to say, she does indeed attempt suicide. For the final third of the book she is institutionalised and undergoes therapy but also electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The ECT isn't glorified nor is it vilified which was interesting and challenging (particularly with the story being semi-autobiographical).

The last third takes its time and walks gently through the journey that she takes during her institutionalised. None of this part of the book is glamourised and she doesn't make some magical recovery.

It's slow, gentle and unsure. Even as Esther finally reaches her board review to see if she can leave the institution, she herself is unconvinced that anything has changed, but something is certainly at rest in her.

The last part of the book definitely calls for reflection and helped to give me an insight into those who struggle with existing. There's rarely some grand purpose that drives them to death by suicide, and indeed in Esther's case there's nothing that particularly explain why she wanted to end her life.

There's a moment with her medical supervisor where Esther says that she hates her mother. This is after their last encounter - and her mother isn't bad in the slightest, it's that her mother wants to know what she had done wrong to have not been able to help protect her daughter from these feelings. The supervisor (slash therapist) says, “I believe you do”. She doesn't try to sympathies or give Esther another point of view. This line surprised me, in a believable way.

And as the book ends, Esther is reunited with her mother, and her mother, naively says she just wants to forget about it all and move forward from this, healthier time. To which Esther writes that her mother may want to forget and that perhaps Esther might forget those feelings:

> Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But they were part of me. They were my landscape.

Having dealings with depression myself, and shock grief of the worst kind, it really doesn't go away, and it isn't forgotten. It's as Plath writes: it becomes part of your landscape.

—

This is a hard book to read, partly for the confused start, but also the very real ending. Made harder by knowing that Sylvia Plath died by suicide the same year of this book's release.

Plath described the book (to her mother) as:

> a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown.

Indeed that's the experience of the last third of the book.

A well told tale of magic and adventure. And more of a starting point for its movie counterpart

The Stardust film is amongst one of my favourite of the modern films I've watched in my lifetime, and so I've seen the film a number of times and know it well. I was a little wary of pre-expectations but the novel did well to bring something new to the story of Stardust.

However, since the movie is so close to me, there's no other way for me to review the book other than in context of the movie (sorry to those who haven't seen or read either).

I will say I still probably enjoy the movie more (but movies are my jam and the movie got my affections first). However, the book on it's own merits is also really quite good.

The novel follows the movie (or rather the movie followed the novel) fairly closely for the 2/3rds of the story but the movie diverges significantly from the book for the ending, perhaps going for a wilder ending with more “movie going climax”. The book ends more in a way that wonders out into the sunset with a tidy, but kind, epilogue.

I can't honestly say whether the novel is split into acts (as a movie might be), but we follow Tristran Thorn as he promises to return a fallen star in exchange for “what his heart desires” of Victoria.

The prices of Stormhold are off to retrieve the topaz the 81st Lord of Stormhold threw into the night sky (inadvertently knocking Yvaine out of the sky) to claim their position on the throne of Storhold.

Whilst at the same time, The Lilim, three witches, get wind of the fallen star and send out the Witch Queen to retrieve her heart to bring them back to their young.

The story, in novel form, is a sort of travelling adventure slow moving story through the magical world of Faerie (which I'm sure I've read before in a Gaiman book...). In retrospect it does feel like some of the supporting characters are a little sidelined and certainly (probably because of the movie) expected more from the Witch Queen.

But a nicely told tale all the same (except perhaps when the Witch Queen slices off the head of a Unicorn that's already had a spike rammed through it's eye socket!).

Solid reading, what I've come to expect from Hunter.

Having now read three of the Adam Fawley books, albeit in reverse order, I've come to expect a certain level of story telling from Cara Hunter and this as the first book does not disappoint.

Having recently read the 2nd book (though the order isn't crucial) the twist device was a little familiar but it didn't distract from the story, nor did I predict any part of the story.

Enjoyable as a British based modern investigation story that leans more on (what I imagine is) police work rather than glamorous whodunit style reveals.

Looking forward to reading the fourth installment.

My first Christie book, and it did not disappoint.

As kids one of my closest friends would read Agatha Christie like it was going out of fashion and I would struggle to read just a few single pages from a comic or magazine. As an adult I've finally found my way to read (using a Kindle with the right font, size and line height) and have finally entered the world of Christie.

I was quite surprised at how easy this book was to read (written in 1939), how easy it was to just keep reading and how it kept my interest. A wonderful murder mystery that initially had me guessing and unsure, then around half way decided that I knew who ‘dun it, and by 75% I was at a loss again.

The book doesn't go deeply into word prose, but keeps the pace on who would end up under the chopping block next leaving us guessing: who, when and how!

I do also wonder how much of modern day media bases it's murder mystery on Chritie's work as I could conjure up images of the characters and the scenes quite easily in my mind.

Good stuff. Will be adding some of her popular books to my reading list.

The hate crimes make this for brutal reading, but, as always, incredible engaging.

I'm not big on book series. I'm not big on police crime novels. And yet I've read all the books that Cara Hunter has released, all of which from the same police characters and all linking to each other (although I managed to read them as 3, 2, 1, 4!).

Hunter's writing is solid, well paced and doesn't give away where it's really going to go. The characters are all well drawn and motivated and I'm looking forward to buying her 5th publication.

Perhaps because I read the Adam Fawley books in reverse order, and therefore the arcs are backwards, but “All the Rage” definitely ramps up the brutality of the crime. This book starts out with, what's suspected as a hate crime.

It's this initial hate crime that feels so ugly and disturbing that initially I wasn't so sure I was enjoying the book (or rather I might have elected to stop reading). The reason it's so disturbing is partly because of our current social climate but also because I have friends who have been at the sharp end of similar kinds of hate crimes.

I carried on and it's a good read and definitely engaging. I did also enjoy that although the main book character is (or feels like it is) Adam Fawley, there's definitely a sense that this piece belongs to the women in the story as they drive the story forward and rise up to the various challenges.

Although this story can easily stand on it's own (I mention it's a series, but there's no required reading), I do think that having more character backstory and context has helped my own engagement in these characters.

Suffice to say: good stuff. Definitely recommend if you like these types of novels.

Fun stuff, as always, but requires prior knowledge

I'm a big fan of the Murderbot Diaries the first story was so fresh and unlike anything I had before so I was particularly excited to read the full length novel by Martha Wells.

I was actually looking forward to recommending it to friends, but the one thing that surprised me and with mild disappointment is that you would definitely need to read the previous novellas. There's a lot of references to prior adventures, characters, outcomes and learnings - which makes it hard to jump straight into this book (I wouldn't recommend doing so actually).

However, I have read all the prior novellas and was able to pick up from where I left off, and SecUnit continues to be lovable, grumpy and extremely uncomfortable with emotions.

What was a real delight was the return of ART. We met ART in Artificial Condition (book 2) and I remember being disappointed that we didn't meet it again, but in this story, ART plays a main character - and it's beautiful.

I do also love how Wells writes about these characters. Firstly they're respectful of pronouns - somehow whenever I've thought of a robot, I've referred to them as “he” yet robots have no gender. Wells makes it pretty clear that a) this has never been an issue to the constructs, and b) always makes sure we're using the right pronouns, including always referring to SecUnit's mushy clients as “humans and augmented humans”.

If you're a Murderbot fan, then I definitely think you'll enjoy this. If you've not read Murderbot before, then I highly recommend it!

Pretty gentle and sensible introduction to assembly and machine code. I'm pretty familiar with 8-bit assembly already but this helped to lay some decent foundations.

The pace is a bit weird though. It starts and continues for a good deal of the book as uber simple, almost erring on the side of being patronising with it's weird 16 fingered alien - but it does just about work.

But then, as the later chapters go on, the author suddenly switches from nice and gentle to “obviously”, “just” and “simple” and it feels a bit like you're tossed into the deep end with no orientation. I found I had to re-read seemingly short and “obvious” chapters.

Frustratingly the chapters on audio and graphics were exceptionally short only referring to the out ports which is technically accurate but didn't offer much advice.

Then around 40% of the book is used to build out a Frogger clone which I'll admit I skimmed.

The appendix is very useful though, with a complete index of opcode to pneumonic and visa versa which I've used a number of times already.

Pretty much middle of the road read.

I had expected some mildly challenging literary content but this wasn't it. The main character, Cormoran Strike is well drawn, but it sort of reads like the name came first and the whole character was built up around that.

Frustratingly the book opens with a back and forth between Strike and, what I thought and hoped would be the relatable character and even the protagonist, Robin - and this lead me to believe the book would be told from both their points of view, but quickly after a few chapters Robin's character is very much tossed aside as very much inconsequential to the story... so why even bother?

It read like I was watching a program on TV, and not one that I'd put too much effort into watching. I had hoped for something more interesting or perhaps more challenging.

I'd imagine this might be useful as a beach read. Maybe.

I literally have no idea what I read!

This is far from any kind of review. I just finished the book but I really don't know what I read, or even if there was a story.

It was certainly well told, with weaving and turns and hand offs between characters but I couldn't tell you what it was about.

The Russian names definitely gave me trouble and the author really didn't like to refer to characters by a single constant name (which added to my getting confused).

I do like that I enjoy the Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil - which was inspired (quite clearly) by this book.

The idea is appealing: the devil is bored in Moscow. But I'm fairly sure there's more to the story!

Nice interesting take on storytelling.

A nice sweet short story told in a really interesting way. Though I can't help but feel this was a graphic novel rather than otherwise.

Always lovely.

Though kinda ends about 25% short of the actual ending, then it's a little dragged out.

The book starts out really well and strong. Though I wasn't entirely sure who I was supposed to be plumping for, each character had their own sadness.

There's a tech background to the book that I've seen face to face, not the AI/sentient bits, but the constant tracking and the BS fobbing off that people in tech (who mostly don't understand their tech) use. Certainly for the first half of the book I found myself chuckling away.

The story and outlook is pretty bleak: all privacy lost, super corp tracks your every move and uses that information to then manipulate your decisions. Pretty much what we face today, in the early 20s, with Google and Facebook.

For me, I felt like the book started to lose it's momentum around halfway and it felt like the story was stagnating. I wasn't really sure how the antagonist actually ties up with the story, or even if indeed the were the/an antagonist.

It also felt to me like it ended abruptly without really being able to say anything. Which might be because we already like in a world where super corp does indeed hold our privacy to random and there's really no escaping it and even then in the face of criminal behaviour (see Brexit campaign and Trump) there's no recourse that the either the law can apply or society seems to want to see actioned. That's to say: it's pretty messed up.

Couldn't get on with this book at all.


Got 20% the way through. Didn't care for the character at all. Felt like there was inconsistencies in his behaviour and I constantly felt like the story was nonsense. This left me utterly unengaged.

A big red flag for me was when we meet the first female character who is described only as “beautiful”, “stunning”, “sexy” etc (none of the male characters are described like this), and the description and indeed the female character serves no purpose to the story. I passed over this section (around 10% in I think), but the book just didn't work for me in the slightest.

Might work for you, didn't for me. This review is for my record only.

Predictable

Whilst I've come to highly respect Matt Haig and his books, even re-reading The Humans (which is unique for me), as I read this book I started to remember what I wasn't so keen on in his last book - which repeats itself in this.

The book reads like I'm watching a movie. That might be fine for some, but for me I want the written medium to challenge my imagination, not feed me visuals from a film.

The story in general is well written and is respectful of its subject: suicide. I've always been a little wary of female lead characters written by men (I've not had great experiences), but Haig does Nora Seed proud. Nora is a well rounded, messed up, individual and if I didn't have my personal dislikes for some of the story aspects or the method of story telling, I'd say this is a decent book to read on holiday (not that any of us are holidaying during the pandemic times...).

Nora Seed is depressed and lonely, and everything around her has failed in some way, and so she decides she wants to die. In her journey to death, she lands in limo, The Midnight Library, where she can (effectively) try on alternative lives where she had made a different decision and see if she would like to stay and continue that life instead.

The story inevitably leads to the idea of the multiverse but kind of does it in a half cocked way. Since Nora can switch universe and in she decides this isn't the life for her, she reverts back to midnight to reselect. This is also effectively time travel (though the book doesn't acknowledge it). So since she can time travel and jump universe, we're now talking about infinite space and time, which apparently Nora isn't allowed... it just feels a bit... like there's gaping plot holes.

But then after trying all the lives, she finds one that she believes she's happy in (which apparently the absence of anti-depressants is the main requirement) she feels guilt for having taken the place of a Nora mother and happy wife and successful educator. Inevitably she bounces back to The Midnight Library, confused, wanting, when it all comes crumbling down, she realises she wants to live. In the last desperate moments as the Midnight Library comes crashing down, she chooses her own “root life” (which also makes no sense in a multiverse) and chooses to live.

Sadly predicable. Throughout the book I didn't really feel like I was learning anything as Nora went through her journey.

Despite my lack of enjoyment from the book, one message did manage to work it's way through. Nora felt happy (and perhaps content) to know that she was capable of all the “successful” versions of herself. Though she doesn't particularly tread that path, she realises that she could have done and that notion itself is strong enough to dispell a lot (if not all) of her regrets.