zilver
Phew. That took longer than it should have. The last 300 pages of this book seemed to drag on forever, though I'll admit that's probably more my fault than the book's. I read the first 700 pages so easily during the holidays that not being able to read for very long at a time made the last 300 pages go so slow.
This was a long book. A 1000 pages is a lot of words is a lot of information is a lot of time to keep a book interesting. I was never completely blown away by this book and I hardly ever felt like I really had to keep reading. It took its sweet time, which is fine, but also long. The whole thing with the footnotes felt very weird to me – I kept wondering throughout the book if those would turn out to be really important in the end and if I should pay attention or if they were supposed to be a fun addition. So meh, that felt unnecessary at times and at the same time I was sometimes left with so many questions. Sometimes the book felt like it was being long for the sake of being long because the more information you put in a book, the more interesting it becomes (no!!! stuff doesn't work like that!!!).
To me, this book was not fireworks.
It was, however, fun, well written and very original. The way magic and magicians were regarded in this book was great, very different from what I've read before. I was a huge fan of Strange and his story arc, becoming more independant, with his own ideas about magic and the way it should be handled. I thought the conversation he had with Norell before he left him was great, just as the way they acted around each other when Strange returned to England in the end. I liked the growth and the continuity in both the characters.
Also, there were some side(-ish) characters that I loved and that should have a special place in this review – Childermass, Arabella, Segundus: you were all lovely.
If I weigh the good against the meh of this book, the good wins. Maybe it could've been shorter or clearer and maybe the longness and vagueness are part of the charm. In general, this was good. Not I-want-to-scream-it-from-the-rooftops-fantastic, but nevertheless, good.
So yeah, to me it was clear this was definetely not 5 stars, but I'm a bit more tempted to give it 4 than 3.
((First time I actually posted a review on here. Hopefully I did okay.))
more 3.5, really a nice addition to the previous books, though it didn???t draw me in quite as much - maybe because of the more dispersed narrative? i liked all the characters but didn???t feel as much drive in myself to follow where they were going. but even so i still love becky chambers??? vision of space so much!
“Why are you so nice to me?”“Because I'm an angel.”“You are.” He stretched out his arm and patted me on the head. “And I'm platonically in love with you.”“That was literally the boy-girl version of ‘no homo' but I appreciate the sentiment.”
key words: neRDS, welcome to night vale but not, Internet Behaviour, friendship!!!!
So it's page 20 of this book and our main character Frances has told us at least 8 times straight up that she's a nerd and that she knows that her life is pathetic and she's a big Loser because she's a nerd and she likes quirky podcasts and studying and she's head girl (that's a thing) and it's all so sad and pathetic and she keeps. pointing. it. out. Just so she knows YOU know she knows. And it's annoying because in the mean time we're simply being told all of this but she's not actually, really, showing us the kind of person she is. It just felt a little too in your face.
Apart from that, though, this book is really cool. We got some good good rep, a bi character, two gay characters and an ace character with a ton of anxiety. We got university fears and hopes and dreams being crushed and found again. We got FRIENDSHIP!!! REAL ACTUAL FRIENDSHIP THAT WAS REALLY IMPORTANT TO THE CHARACTERS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND THEIR WELL BEING!!! d a m n
sixth read (2023): i said. No Comment.
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fifth read (2022): literally the best book in the world idc
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fourth read (2021): i???ve been reluctant to mark this as read even though i finished it last week because i want to find a way to write a review for it and i keep coming up short. this will have to do: these characters stick with me through everything. the impossibility of their fight, their kindness in the face of cruelty, their resistance to become what they???re expected to be, the realisation of their own worth. it pulls at all the right strings and draws me in wholly, until i am (gladly, happily) enveloped in it once again. i think i???ll stay here a while.
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third read (2019): me: really past me? five million stars?
also me, adding some more stars in my heart: did i stutter
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second read (22/01/17 - 29/01/17): five million stars
“Fight because you don't know how to die quietly. Win because you don't know how to lose.”
jfc i love all of the foxes so much?? like i would protect them forever until my dying breath and then even in the afterlife i would Find A Way??
not sure i can write a coherent review for this book because my emotions are all over the place but i am just. so proud of all my kids. so proud of kevin. so proud of andrew. So Proud of neil (basically the embodiment of the “started from the bottom now we're here”-meme). always of all of my girls & of wymack.
i love the slow burn so so so so much. it's done so well, so in character, i totally knew it was coming and i was still Shook???.
also i will literally love this series forever but also?? so few other books can live up to the high standards i have now. anyway. i can't believe it's over again?? i legit wouldn't mind just rereading it again right now. my body is still radiating pride. i think i'm just going to cry for a couple of hours. i think that might be what i really fucking need right now.
“This was everything he wanted, everything he needed, and Neil was never letting go.”
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first read (17/03/16 - 18/03/16): five stars
really wanted to enjoy this more than i did. i think maybe my main gripe with it, and the reason i had a hard time really getting into it, isn???t even the story itself but the way it was told.
the reasoning behind the story being made up out of fragments pulled from different characters??? experiences/stories is that this is all being penned up by a scientist who became themselves slightly obsessed with the story and attempting to piece the events of this one night together. i hate to pull a ???this isn???t realistic??? in a sci-fi retelling of a shakespeare play, but the way this account is made up is just. NOT REALISTIC. bad journalism. bad science. the way it???s being framed as if this is a serious article/book (in universe) that???s being published??? really frustrating because i???m willing to suspend my disbelief a lot!! esp for shakespeare!! but somehow this was too much for me.
i honestly think that had liu just chosen to lose the frame narrative entirely i would have gone along with it much more.
honestly might have to reread at a later point knowing what i???m getting into to see if i can decide to focus more on the actual story.
it was just so cute and fluffy and Soft. and i honestly thought about giving it 4 stars because maybe it wasn't mind-blowingly good but it just made me so happy?? like heart-beating-out-of-my-chest, having-a-hard-time-not-smiling happy.
10/10 would recommend, esp. for lovers of ari & dante and carry on
nighteyes ????????????????
i was always fond of kettricken and verity and burrich but this book made me even more so. it???s so lovely to read a slow paced book (and it really is quite slow) that still feels so intentional. as the story expands and i grow more familiar with it, it feels like a warm (painful) blanket
second read 5 made me cryfirst read 4.5 the cold. the small town. the community. their values. it???s all so nebulous and strangely tangible at the same time. incredibly well written little novella. should???ve probably read this while it was snowing closer to christmas, but i did the next best thing and read it this afternoon as it was pouring outside.
???No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.???
key words: minecraft but Cooler, the internet is forever kids, charlie & the chocolate factory but with gaming and john hughes movies.
DISCLAIMER: don't read this book if you're looking for well shaped characters who go through a lot of character development throughout the story. You're not going to find it here. Do read this if you're looking for a fun ride filled with ‘80's references and gaming.
I think that's the best way to describe this book. It's fun. It's high levels of fun are why I'm giving it four stars. It was just a fun, cool, easy read. Really enjoyable. The characters weren't that special, but the story was refreshing and exciting. It really was a little like reading Charlie & the Chocolate Factory but with less chocolate and more tech. It had a lowkey love story that I didn't really care about but also didn't really mind so that was fine. It wasn't completely surprising but not predictable either. It was just a lot of fun. I'm going to stop saying that now and just end with that this book is a nice in-betweener. It's nothing heavy. Just fun. (LAST TIME PROMISE)
4.5 stars.
i loved the short stories and i loved the people explaining what libraries meant to them. how important they had been while they were growing up. because the public library next to our house was one of the most important places in my life for the 10 years we lived there. i'd come there daily, sometimes. the people working knew my name and smiled at me when they saw me come in. i participated in all kinds of reader programs. i love that library. (i wrote loved at first but that isn't true. just because i haven't thought of my love for that place in a while doesn't mean it doesn't exist anymore.)
i don't think i've been back there for a long time. while i was in school the pressure of having to read books inside a three week time span somehow felt like too much.
it's been years since i have borrowed a book from an actual library. i have library friends now (you know who you are). but reading this book made me remember what an amazing place a regular library can be. how much it meant to me before. so i think i'll go visit soon when i get back home.
it???s a 3.5. i definitely had some issues with this book but the ending so made me feel like 4 stars that i can???t in good faith give it only 3. i???m gonna try and write some more about this later.
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update: okay let's see if i've become any better at writing comprehensive reviews.
what i think is this: this book had a lot of great moments. as a whole, though, it didn't feel like a great story.
in many ways, this book felt rushed. and to be honest, it just kinda is. if i'm not mistaken, it literally only spans a couple of weeks. i don't entirely remember whether simon vs did too (very possible tbh, i have horrible memory) but from what i remember it didn't feel like this. and i'm not a very big fan of rushing things. i'm more a lets-let-this-character-figure-out-their-shit-in-peace kind of person, and i didn't feel like the characters in this book got that.
i'm not even talking about the ending because to be honest: was super cheesy but i also mega loved it and just like simon vs, this deserved a cheesy, over-the-top ending. and yeah, in basically any other book, i would've wanted the scenario that leah describes in her head nearing the end where they figure everything out more slowly and take their time, but with this book, i'm okay. i love cheese.
one thing i read in a lot of reviews is that people found leah too much all over the place and i have to be honest, i didn't have that much of a problem with that. and i think that might be a really personal thing because i totally understand people who do but i think... i'm just a little tired of expecting a teenage girl to be completely in touch with her feelings and be good to everyone around her. do i want her to be, yes? but she wants herself to be too, and i think a lot of teenagers are unintentionally mean or angered or get defensive quickly. it sucks for the people around them and it doesn't excuse that, definitely, but personally i'm just a little tired with getting angry over something like that. teenagers are a mess. so much shit was going on and she clearly wasn't dealing well with a lot of it. i'm tempted to just kind of... let that go.
then i do want to say that i was really disappointed that there was no scene and no space for leah to apologise to abby after that horrifying coming out scene. that was really necessary and for it not to be there... yeah idk. that just really sucks.
another thing that sucks was the fact that nick had the personality of a teaspoon in this book. he was just there to be mopey and shitty and drunk (why??? so unnecessary) and for someone who was so in love with & hung up over abby he suddenly moved on from it so quickly. it wouldn't have been so bad if we'd actually gotten to spend some time with nick and flesh his feelings etc. out a little more complexly, but again, there wasn't space.
having said all that. the ending left me feeling so warm and lovely and happy. i know it was cheesy but shit man. it was good. i couldn't help but be smiling and yelling at julia as we both read it. i wanted that happiness and it made me feel great and i just have to acknowledge that as well. and there were a lot of moments that made me smile like that. basically every line that bram said was beautiful and perfect. simon was lovely and oblivious and adorable. i love roadtrips with crushes. so yeah. there's that as well.
anyway, this got very long and rambling and in the end it comes down the second line of this review sorry if you read all this.
4.5 muir what happens in your brain that makes these books go galaxy-shaped. muir please tell me. in short nona does love me and i DO love nona. you only get a semi-coherent review from me upon reread i???m afraid, after the last quarter of this book i need to go chew on some sand (like nona??????)
“They are beyond me. These humans. With their brief lives and their tiny dreams and their hopes that seem fragile as glass. Until you see them by starlight, that is.”
key words: AIs with feelings, pretty decently chatting teenagers, mega-corporations battle in space, references gallore
The amount of regular prose in this novel is basically non-existent and to be completely honest, I wasn't sure how that was going to work (or how it was going to work for me). Boy, was I pleasantly surprised. The file-format really added to the feeling of figuring out what was going at the same time as the characters.
You'd think it'd be difficult to get to know characters if you're given relatively little space to really delve into their heads, but the amount of conversations between characters, the diary entries and their actions speak for themselves. I'd never expected to get so emotionally attached to an AI (though I probably should've known better after reading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet). Damn you AIDAN.
I really liked the fact that we started the romantic relationship (which was definitely not as dramatic or central to the book as the cover made it seem) in the middle, instead of going through a will-they-won't-they-of-course-they-will phase. It made room for a whole different kind relationship development which was a really nice breather.
My only complaints would be that at times, the pacing felt a little off, and while the format worked really well for the most part, that combined with a slightly too fast-paced part would at times come off as a little strange. That, and the fact that the very last bit of the ending was just a tiny bit “eh”.
In the end though, this book was interesting and fast-paced and thrilling until the very end. It felt meaningful.
“The universe owes you nothing. It has already given you everything, after all. It was here long before you, and it will go on long after you. The only way it will remember you is if you do something worthy of remembrance.”
3.5 ???Our end will bring our beginning to light.???I need to start of by saying that reading this book with this pandemic playing out in the meantime does make the whole prepping for the End Of The World As We Know It business a whole lot more reasonable. Maybe it always was. That being said, I kinda really dug this non-dystopian dystopia story. Because of how ingrained the prepper lifestyle is for all three Juniper sisters, it really feels like you???re on this precipice the entire story - the apocalypse might really happen at any time. It???s a bit strange to say, but it was refreshing to read a story where the apocalypse is approached with as much calm, distance, and preparedness as in The Last Girls. It???s like this: it???s likely the shit???s gonna hit the fan sometime (especially with copious amounts of references to an unnamed POTUS who keeps starting wars and tweeting his bad decisions out to the world) and the Juniper sisters are ready. They know plan A, and B, all the way until Z. And then some, probably. The setting for TLG is one of the things that makes the story so intriguing. The amount of detail and care that went into describing the compound, the way it works, the way Honey, Birdie and Blue???s brains work as a result of the way they???ve been trained, is really fascinating. And we all know I???m a sucker for a strong sibling bond in any story, so I was pretty certain this book was up my alley in that respect, and I was right. It was the other strongest part of this novel. The idea of despite all that???s going on, we are each other???s first priority, is just super appealing to me. That combined with the literal found family trope we had going on??? britneyyeah.gif. When there are two storylines you know are going to intersect at some point during the story that just makes for a really exciting prospect, and the chapters surrounding that moment in TLG definitely had me on the edge of the couch. ???You trained us to be soldiers, to protect what???s ours, and that???s exactly what we did.??? That also leads me, though, to some of the stuff I had issues with. Because despite enjoying a lot of the story, when I sat with it after finishing the book I also felt??? unresolved. And I think one of the reasons for that was the pacing of the book, because despite really liking the idea of the two different storylines, I did feel like it took too long for them to intersect. It meant that I was left with the sense that the resolution of this pretty major plot point and event in the characters??? lives was rushed. The other thing was, and I think this was pretty major in my final feelings about the book, that I felt like a lot of the characters could have been developed a lot more. It especially struck me when it came to Blue, who, while unambiguously beloved by her sisters, is just [says something prophetic][embroiders clothes][has cool pet bird] all the time. Even Honey isn???t able to say much more than ???wow, what Blue just said is even weirder than all the stuff she???s said before.??? Blue doesn???t seem to have any friends, or relationships besides her sisters/mother. And when she???s supposed to be one of the core people to this story, makes it just a bit harder to get into. Also all the antagonists remained really flat. Their motivations remained really unclear, they were just bad, angry, mean people, without there being really more to it than that. That in combination with the amount of things that were supposedly going on in the second half of the book, the violence, the paranormal (???)... It was just a bit too much for me. It feels like a case of less would???ve been more. It would???ve given some more space and depth for plot/characters that I think really needed it. Still, I think The Last Girls surprised me in a lot of ways, and made for a really interesting story with an original setting. I???d definitely recommend it to people looking for something really fresh and exciting.I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
halfway through got into slight ???oh nooo don???t go there??? territory and then pulled it back in the last third. it???s sappy but it???s good. had a little cry even!
???The problem has always been this: When I look at you, I taste lime, and I see light on water.???
4.5 to me the most fantastical and inventive and interesting and heartbreaking instalment of the series yet. a magical delight
“She was unmoored and her memories were eroding in the sunlight, and she was rendered shy by the strangeness of this new fast life.”
i'm a bit in two minds about whether it would've been better to read emily st. john mandel's books in order, but i actually think i can appreciate this earlier work more having read some of the later stuff.
this book is the start of the ESJMLU (emily st. john mandel literary universe) and it shows. there are so many themes and motifs here that we see her return to again in station eleven and the glass hotel. the traveling protagonists, the dipping our toes into the mystical parts of the world, the importance of cities and homes. it's really cool to recognise these things as things she is interested in exploring in her work, and it's extra fascinating to see how she's grown and developed when it comes to telling these stories.
there are a number of things that are slightly underdeveloped or unresolved in this novel in a way that i think glass hotel-emily st john mandel wouldn't let them be. but i think precisely because i know where she is heading, those things don't bother me that much. i'm sad i didn't get more than a couple of glimpses of some elements, but at the same time she's already so good at setting up this open world that it isn't hard to imagine the developments yourself, if you want.
i also think it's funny that it's in this first book there is a line that encapsulates her recognisable style so well: “This was a skittish, almost catastrophic life, in which nothing was certain; paradoxically, Lilia was unusually calm.” i like having it so explicitly said here, knowing the way her later work will spark that feeling so naturally.
“How much loss can be carried in a single human frame?”
and despite it's flaws, there are so many things here already - in earlier shapes and forms, sure, but here nonetheless - that draw me to mandel's stories. the mysteries she sets up and guides you through. you never feel like you know too much or too little - even if you want to know more you trust that she knows how she will get you there. and she does. it's a very comforting feeling.
3/5 books read. i'm living a good life working my way through emily st. john mandel's bibliography.