GrumpyMonday
Interesting core plot with intriguing "contact" humans get to make. However, the PoVs, the pacing, the character work was all over the place and I couldn't really get a good handle on them.
First 100 or so pages were not really pulling me along. After that the pacing and story fluctuated quite a bit. Quite an uneven piece of work. Ultimately the core plot was interesting enough to finish.
4 after initial reading and thinking about it more it's probably a 5. It's not really a western, it's more about life in general. Grand themes, really well written characters.
It takes time to go through it but really enjoyable read. Early on I didn't like the misogynistic take that everything seemed to have. I was annoyed by how everything with these men seemed to be about women and how they were afraid of them, yearned for them and still treated them in those ways. And I was left wondering could it really have been so in those times. Might be. Overall it served the story and the women characters were ultimately given a lot of respect in the story.
It was a bit uneven in my mind, somewhat drawn out at places. I'm not sure the mysteries were able to carry the book enough. There were bits and pieces revealed throughout the book, but now, at the end, I'm not convinced that the overall package was a compelling one. The animal "deity" approach was maybe not landing for me fully. Overall, okay, but perhaps too long for me.
I mean it's a huge achievement of a book. I don't like to rate it a 3 but I think you can get to what the book was after with significantly fewer words. With less pages it could easily be 4 or even 5. I cannot give it more now because I have to enjoy the book pretty much throughout to give 4 or 5.
I liked the characters and I liked the story. I think people misrepresent "when it picks up", It's much closer to the last 100 pages than the last 300 pages.
Those last beats of the story were good. But to get there was really drawn out. I have the next one, which I will probably continue with at some point.
This was very enjoyable. For some reason I was expecting something along the lines of magical realism, which hasn't really landed for me. Coupled with praises this has gathered I was quite sure I wouldn't be able to give this a proper go.
Really enjoyed the characters in all of the crazy ranges we get to see and meet. Circe herself was really well done. I enjoyed the writing style and the story was interesting. May help that you sort of have a feel for the characters from other works, but still well done here.
The philosophical ponderings of what life and family are about were well integrated and interesting parts of the styling and storytelling.
DNF @138. Occasionally ok. Some interesting scenes here and there but it's too slow for me. I'm not feeling the urge to pick it up once I put it down. It didn't have any compelling factors that would pull me to read it. The plot jumps around without any jumps having strong story elements or strong characters. Prose is I guess ok, but feels like it's not consistent throughout the paragraphs, which also makes it feel muddled for me. Overall feels like magical realism is quite a hit or miss for me.
Contains spoilers
It was ok. It really is a report of sorts about a woman who lives together with animals she meets and how she survives with them in a world where she might be the only one left.
It's quite simple and I'm not necessarily bought by its possible transformative nature. It doesn't have too much introspection, it's mostly just her account how she lived in the Austrian Alps and what she did daily and how she loved her animals.
At 160 pages I decided to skim towards the end, but the report mode continues the same and then it just ends. No dramatic conclusions or anything.
Good read, not meandering like too many fantasy books tend to be. When you think it might start to hit a slump something interesting happens to pull you along.
Occasionally brutal with terrible antagonists. Against some other reviewers I sympathized with the protagonist's devastating backdrop and felt that's the reason he didn't necessarily want to talk too much of his past with his wife.
Overall an enjoyable read.
Enjoyable read. The prose and the plot flowed very nicely from different PoV to another. Liked that the story spanned decades and centuries for some of the characters. The characters were interesting with complexity. The last few chapters lost me a bit. I got what Simon was going for but I think what he was building to took a bit too long and didn't grab me enough. Still the ending was good.
GGK has not yet convinced me. I had to drop the first book in Fionavar Tapestry. A Brightness Long Ago was great. This was ok. The first 400 pages were ok. Meandering here and there. I didn't really connect with the characters. Few typical of GGK scenes were great every once in a while. The last 100 or so pages were great and pulled everything together beautifully. But I want to enjoy the whole ride, so therefore an OK/ good rating.
Good pacing, even though generally you could point to some pacing issues but it was never dull. I really liked that whenever you got a feeling that, now we are going into a slow descriptive wordbuilding chunks or enter into a bunch of side quests there was a surprise, or another interesting story or character twist that kept you along. Normally humour in books doesn't really work for me and early on I was a bit annoyed at it, but by the end I enjoyed it and had a chuckle or a smile in many places. Overall an interesting book and a bit different take on the genre with wild world building and characters.
Big book, maybe a bit too big. It has interesting layers and lots of good scenes. Multiple interesting characters. Even though I do feel that it was too long, the overall plot was something I was interested in seeing through to the end. Horror aspects come from various violent, even disgusting and quite horrific scenes, which don't appear too often.
There were areas of slow burn and scenes with a faster pace. It was quite unbalanced from that point of view. Too much slow sections with not a lot of pull. It took me surprisingly long to finish. Still overall ok. Like said, they could've edited it for much more balanced package.
It has an interesting premise and intriguing characters. I was keen to see where it goes. Unfortunately, nothing is resolved, no revelations, no interesting plot movements. I guess you could be very interested in this if you try to look for some allegories or comparisons to different themes. Unfortunately I'm not about that and therefore I did not ultimately like this. Boring, melancholic piece of work that will definitely interest people who are pulled to these types of novels.
This was an interesting look at McKinsey. Few thoughts on it bulleted below. I don't think we can blame everything on McKinsey, even though the book feels like projecting that view. There are faults on both sides of aisle.
1. Ethics: a company will need to decide whether it values its ethics and values and has the want and courage to uphold them. Book's message is that McKinsey does not respect those internally on a consistent basis. The company has a lot of conflicting positions and grey areas.
2. Buyers responsibility: Governments and companies need to understand what they are buying. The book has classic cases where consultants recommend something they've been asked to recommend. It could stop there. However, companies go to great lengths in implementing, many times poorly, suggestions done on slide decks that are on theoretical level. Practical implementation is a few degrees off from PowerPoint visualizations. Also in this day and age many issues mentioned in the book would be avoided if the buyer would also have strong ethics values in the buying process and follow strictly ESG screening when buying these types of services. Sure, idealistic thinking, however if we want to stand for something both sides would need to improve a lot.
I'm not sure how to interpret everything. But the atmosphere is good and I enjoyed and hated some of the characters, which is always a good sign. Also the layered plot left me wondering quite many things as I closed the book. I think this needs a reread, like many have done. But in conclusion think I'll need to read some more of Mr. Ishiguro's books after this.
I think it was good. Catriona Ward must have used some ideas from this book and transformed them into her excellent book "The Last House on Needless Street".
Several things I liked here, weird vibes of the characters, the obscure mystery in the background, odd narrator. I'm struggling between putting this as Good or Very Good.
You will likely enjoy reading this through if you enjoy creepy atmosphere in stories.