zilver
i usually struggle listening to audiobooks because i am ~easily distracted, but all the familiar voices in this one really helped (david tennant<3 michael sheen<3 arthur darvill<3). i also often find the narration quite distant and unnatural, but rebecca front did a wonderful job and was so fitting as the Narrator. (probably also helped that i knew the story from the show and so didn???t have to spend as much brain power keeping track of the various storylines). overall great fun and honestly just really made me want to 1) read more neil gaiman and terry pratchett and 2) rewatch the show
i feel feral. i love jean i love jeremy i love cat i love laila i love neil i love kevin. that???s all i have to say right now.
liked the first and the third story the best. these ones that don't really have a singular throughline struggle to keep my attention unfortunately.
fuck it. five stars. so delicious in so many ways. ticks so many of my my time travel-loving boxes. loved the narrative tension (it made me feel tense). wonderful cast of characters who are all a little bit (or a lot) in love with each other and i???m in love with them. that???s all
listen. i LOVED the kingdoms. but this was a train wreck i couldn't look away from. i finished it but i had to keep stopping and looking into the distance and saying “what” to myself.
i simply do not understand why natasha pulley and the multitudes of people who must have read this before it was published never sat down and thought: if this is a book that is extremely reliant on one specific analogy and it is a pretty all-encompassing, essential one, maybe... the analogy... should be good... and not, in fact, terrible.
feel kinda speechless. read the top reviews of this for people who have valiantly put into detail why so much of the execution of this book is SO messy. but wow. just wow.
sixth read (2023): i said no comment.
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fourth read (2021): “my child is fine” your child is giving the raven king 5 stars while still in tears
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third read (2019): 5 mcfreakin stars
you???d think third read would be the charm and allow me to finally write a real proper review for this book but honestly i just want to scream because it???s so good and i care about these characters so much bye
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second read (13/01/17-21/01/17): 5 stars
DONT MIND ME IM JUST CRYING IN THE CLUB RN
honestly i'm!!!! such a goner for this series. i know i keep saying it but i love my foxes and their family and EVERYTHING
this is how you do trilogies. i'm so wary of trilogies these days bc so often they let me down but THIS. this is how you do character development. this is how you allow people to grow. it takes time and nora sakavic gives her characters time and space to change. it's happens, subtly, and then suddenly it hits you. hard. this series just keeps getting better with every book.
i can hardly talk about how much this book hurts me & how much i love it. i'm just. not coherent enough. but all of them mean the world to me and That One Scene still murdered me even though i was expecting it. and the ending. goddamn.
also neil has some a+ roasts again in this book 10/10 would recommend
on to the rooftop cigarette times now.
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first read (15/03/16-17/03/16): 4 stars
probably more like 4.5 “Veins turning to gold. As quickly as it quenched one fire, it sparked another, a fire that torched through her whole being. And the heat cracked her open, like the clay she was, and made her body cry out to the world. All around her, the world answered.”this book wat such a breath of fresh air. it's been literal years since i last read a proper high fantasy epic and getting back into it with this book was both a great and a horribly stupid decision, because while i absolutely loved it, it's also set the bar way too high for what's to come. first of all, the world building is just so cool. i love the world, it's so vast and huge and strange. it unfolds over the course of the story but it always feels like there is more to explore and more to see. i really liked the dragons, the idea of there being different types of them and how those different types were also regarded in various ways by people across the world, and how those views become more nuanced as the story progresses. kind of in line with that, the red thread of belief and ideology, the way that one origin story being able to sprout multiple different religions or beliefs was explicated. i'm all here for characters forcing themselves to look past the boundaries their society has put up for them. second of all, it has to be said: there's women everywhere in this book, and it's almost stupid that that had to be such a revelation (i say almost because actually, it's not stupid at all, it's a very reasonable surprise that follows from personal experience with reading epic fantasy in the past). the thing with this book, though, is not just that there are a multitude of great, complex, fascinating women driving the story, it's that there are so many women around them as well, and the multitude of women around also gives way to so many different women. at no point do any of them feel like token characters and that's just really fucking great. kind of as an extension to that as well - i loved the relationships between characters. i loved that there were so many friendships. there are so many great, valuable friendships between women, bonds that actually carry a lot of weight and importance. and there are also a lot of great friendships between men and women that (gasp) do not secretly rely on them wanting to get it on. loth's friendship with both ead and sabran, as well as some great sibling banter he had with meg was everything to me, i love him so much. also, tan??'s relationship with her dragon was the best, i love the focus on the equality of their bond, how much it was based on mutual respect and care for each other and the world around them. how tan?? had to do away with seeing her dragon only as a god, and seeing herself as inherently unworthy. then ead and sabran... the slow burn was HARROWING but in the best possible way, i gasped whenever hands grazed, whenever eyes met for the first like. 500 pages??? ridiculous. they had me whipped. i loved the way we got to see their relationship develop (bit of good lowkey enemies to lovers never hurt anyone). i loved getting to see ead's view of sabran change over time, slowly but steadily. i loved that theirs was the main romance and it was important to them, their development and relationship, but also helped to really give more insight into both their distinct personalities. the reason this isn't a five star read is mostly because of the kind of rough start - it's fair but there are a lot of characters introduced & there's a lot of world building happening in the first 100 or so pages. it's quite overwhelming and took me quite a while to really get a good grip on the world and its politics. also, in line with some of the other reviews i've seen here: the final battle was a little... underwhelming? maybe underwhelming isn't even the right word, i don't think i was even annoyed about it, mostly i was surprised by how quickly it was over. but i'm not gonna lie, it didn't keep me up at night: there was so much about this story and these characters that i loved that even the fact that it didn't 100% stick the landing didn't bother me that much.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask. “Because I want you to know,” she says, “that there is life after survival.”
Boy, was I worried for a second when this book did not immediately grab me. Let's face it, Monty at the start of this book is a snobby teen who's getting away with loads of stupid shit and while Percy and Felicity are both absolutely delightful 205% of the time, I was put off a tiny bit. Especially when it was looking like we were going to see snobby teen Monty getting drunk of his ass in multiple places in Europe.
BUT but but then everything shifted and my world changed and despite Monty still being a dumb shit at least half of the time suddenly my stupid heart was in it. Thank the stars that they got robbed in the middle of the road, amirite? Didn't help that his obvious crush was So Obvious and his lovely amazing beautiful best friend was so Obviously returning his affections but they were still! being! oblivious! It was such a fic trope and I loved every second.
Also Felicity Montague stitching herself up??? the most badass. I want her to marry me and tell me off when I do stupid things and impress me with medical facts thank you.
6th time reading: don???t comment. i know.
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4th time reading: do i even have to say it? this series has NO business being my comfort read and yet here we are.
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3rd time reading: still four point five your honour
LIST OF THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THIS BOOK THAT ARE WAY TOO (UNINTENTIONALLY) FUNNY
* neil literally runs out of the room in the middle of his first conversation with wymack
* only for him to get hit in the stomach with an exy racket by andrew for no real reason
* kevin suddenly appears out of darkness because he has to make a dramatic entrance as well
* nicky just randomly starts talking in german to aaron and andrew as they???re showing neil around for the first time
* when at the stadium for the first time aaron acts like he???s a magician when he just says ???lights??? and then someone else turns them on
* nicky calls riko a rat bastard
* when andrew tells neil he???s being a difficult bitch neil???s response is ???thank you???
* andrew calls neil a jock to his face
* a number of completely useless but very relatable paragraphs are dedicated to neil struggling to pick his uni courses and scheduling them all
* neil picks the monsters??? lock and bursts into the room like the dramatic he is
* at some point kevin grabs neil by the fencing on his helmet and drags him halfway across the field like that
* ???is your spine the spine of the righteous???
* after the first time in columbia nicky offers neil a glass of water and neil upends it on the floor
* neil falls asleep on his books the first time he tries to do homework
* andrew uses the word ???powwow???
* neil stabs himself with a pen to stay awake during class
* wymack makes kevin run up and down the bus to keep him awake
* neil ???can???t go around fighting people??? josten bitching at riko on national tv the first chance he gets
* neil and kevin sit in complete silence for HALF AN HOUR as they wait for the rest to get back with their drinks
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2nd time reading (06/01/17-11/01/17): 4.5!!!!
listen. i love this book a lot. neil “i'm fine” josten is my son and he deserves all good things in life.
it's actually really nice rereading this already knowing what's going to happen, because the first time around i felt like i was so full of adrenaline ALL THE TIME i probably missed a lot of detail (kevin is half irish???)
anyway i love my foxes and i would give my life for most of them. now time for the raven king aka time to Die???
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1st time reading (14/03/16-16/03/16): 4.5
i love this little book. i'd say it's a big expansion on her short time travel story mr. thursday (fun one to read ahead of this! it introduces a bit of the world and there's a cute little reference to it in the novel) and a small extension of the glass hotel, in the sense that it feels like this one is working through some things that maybe didn't fit into that novel. this book is like... one counterlife frame away from that world.
it's all very emily, which is to say that i think it's lovely.
“I think the best stories feel like they're still going, somewhere, out in story space.”
when i was younger, i always said that if there was one magical world that i could visit, it would be the night circus. i love that now that i'm older, i can say the same about the starless sea.
it's important to mention that years have passed since i read erin morgenstern's last book, because i think where i'm now in my life influences the impact this book had on me a lot. i think i would've enjoyed it greatly when i was younger, but i don't think it would've meant as much to me as it does now. maybe i just felt like its protagonist was extremely receptive to me projecting onto him.
so, erin morgenstern writes about worlds that i want to live in. about magic that i wish was real. the world that zachary ezra rawlins ends up in, is arguably the ideal magical place: books, mystery, puzzles, and an abundance of cats. everything about the magic in the starless sea is what i would want magic to be, and what i would expect magic to be. it is greater than its characters are, and more than they are, and it is too much for him to know. so many parts of the starless sea and the worlds above and below it are not explained or understood, and it's fine. you drift along with it, as zachary drifts along with it, and it's okay because the magic itself is so comforting. there are no stakes for the magic. there are high stakes surrounding the magic and surrounding the people surrounding the magic, but the magic has no dog in that fight. and the magic will not be used for anything but itself. i think there is something immensely soothing about a benevolent force like that that is simply exuding stories.
the structure of the book fits all of this perfectly, as well. it's strange, and a little overwhelming, and a little confusing, and it leaves you aching for more, out of curiosity and fascination and captivation. but when it doesn't give you more, and often it won't (though sometimes it will), you don't feel resentment. this is the way it should be. you get a glimpse, a fragment, a page of a book. that's all. it's okay.
i want to read this book again, because i think only when i read it again will i be able to properly muse on the meaning of a story that is so intentional about stories, and i will properly be able to grasp what it means for zachary to be an emerging media major with such an interest in interactive storytelling. there's so much there, i can just feel it, but right now my mind is still entirely wrapped up in how this book made me feel and i think i'm just going to linger in that for a little while longer.
did i add an extra star because i love baz luhrmann's film version so much? ... maybe.
this is probably one of my favourite shakespeare plays and while the above comment is kind of a joke, it's also kind of not because i think knowing the scenes beforehand really helped me enjoy the play more. oftentimes with other plays there's a lot of energy spent trying to figure out what the underlying message of everyone's words are, and that wasn't necessary here.
i absolutely love the language of this play. there are so many beautiful and intriguing lines, puns and metaphors. i loved how much i could enjoy and admire the word plays.
also just a side note that it lowkey highkey annoys me that people hate this play because the two kids fall in love too quickly or some shit. yeah they do. they're literal actual children. maybe i just never took this play as being a romantic tale and always focused more on the fact that it's tragedy how a family feud can bring so much destruction onto kids who had nothing to do with their parents' fuck ups. i know that sounds like i'm being pretentious as heck but i just. never understood it to be meant as romantic in the sense that young people thinking dying is their only way out is supposedly “romantic”. anyway.
second read - 2019 4.5 returning to the magic and strangeness of this world is familiar and fantastical at the same time. spooky month is really upon me with this reread in the works/first read - 2016
third read 5 mayhaps this IS the most comforting book of all times second read 5 first read 4-4.5 for someone who's been feeling really disillusioned by the state of the world at the moment this book was a lovely breath of air. it speaks of a lot of hope in terms of what we can change and what we can and will set our hearts and minds to, and i think i really needed to see and read that. it reminds me that there are so many people who are fighting, and that maybe there is a possibility we will come out on top. also i have to hand it to casey mcquiston: this might be the first book about people in their early twenties in which their online behaviour is actually reflective of the way people in that age range use and talk on social media. high quantity of memes and shady comments. also probably the first book ever that makes references to pop culture that doesn't make me want so shrivel up and die because of the cringe.