Nadine K
4.5 stars tempted to round up because of that feel-good ending. (I’m a sap.)
It was good! Well written, great characters. Perfect ending.
But what it really says to me is that I need to read The Imperial Radch trilogy.
I’m sure my reading of this book would have been much elevated if I had prior understanding of this universe.
CW: Sexual Assault, Violence
4.5 stars
Great read great ending, love when bad things happen to bad people.
The writing was great too and I glided through it while still experiencing the mounting dread that made me feel like this book deserves to be labeled secondarily as a horror.
I wouldn't say it was perfect but I wouldn't say it's flaws are major enough for me to drop a star. There are things Hart could have added to make me love it more but nothing she did made me like it less.
Oh what a beautiful ending. What a beautiful book.
I was confused, at first, at all the comments talking about it’s slow pacing because I thought it was paced just fine. Then that last 200 pages hit and we were suddenly in a mad sprint.
How enchanting, often funny, overall a great joy.
Susanna Clarke, the woman that you are. After this and Piranesi, I am devoted to consuming all your writing for the rest of my mortal life.
Solid 4 stars. I enjoyed it!
Definitely beautiful and had moments that pulled hard on my heartstrings. It's crazy that all this happened so recently. I'm just imagining what my parents were doing at the time, preparing to get married, preparing to start a family, meanwhile in the background the regime was kidnapping, torturing, and murdering student activists. With this image in my head, reading this was like a tale of two separate Indonesias interposed atop one another. Masterfully told and devastating.
However, the prose was just too flowery for me. While I love poetic writing (One of my faves is Ray Bradbury) I feel like all 'serious' Indonesian literature has this same style whether appropriate for the topic and tone of the story or not.
I also hate how the women were described, specifically Anjani with her pale skin, tiny hands, tiny feet, tiny face, tiny teeth. She's so small and petite and beautiful but she can eat like crazy and still be tiny and feminine and adorable. Risih aja si wkwkwkwk.
Additionally, I feel like the epilogue was too long and watered down the ending. It should have been just the letter from Laut or the sea burial with Asmara.
But a solid 4 stars!
AND IF I WEEP????
10/10!!!! 5 STARS!!!
I see Ray Bradbury wherever I go (and I'm not complaining). Uncannily reminded me of a mix of Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked this way comes, two of my faves but, as I read on, it turned into something absolutely fantastic and uniquely original.
This book takes its time, not a second more and not a second less. Slow like molasses with intense payoffs. I was charmed immediately by the end of part 1.
To quote the book directly:
“It meandered like the river, and you never knew where you were going until you got there, but the journey was sweet and deep and left you wishing for more.”
And I cannot stress how much it means to me that this book called “Boy's Life”, after hundreds of pages of the magic of “boyhood” ends in an epilogue where our main character is all grown up with a family of his own, with a daughter, and says that it's a girl's life too. It does mean so much to me.
I'm a sentimental person (hence the Bradbury fangirling) and this is just what I needed.
An aside: Sad that magical realism in americana is always relegated to coming or age or childrens stories. Plausible deniability probably. Westerner's wouldn't be caught dead believing in magic.
2.5, I'm not even angry about it, more sad.
I cannot fault the writing. The writing is good, the characters well developed and rounded, the flow and language great, the story solid.
However, if there is a more pessimistic book I have yet to read it (as far as I remember). I would give it points for realism but it's realism is entirely one sided to the worst parts of society. Children are abused, the abusers get away with it, the greedy get rewarded, the weak suffer, the world turns, just another day in a life, move along nothing to see here. Sick.
I didn't like any of the characters. Note, they are well written, but in such a way that they are all either terrible people or boring. What they all have in common is their strong sense of individuality, that is to say, every one of them is selfish. There is no sense of community aside from when they are working as a collective to cover up a scandal. If there is a lesson to be learned I have missed it entirely.
Additionally, many reviews talk about the humor of this book. While I didn't find anything funny about it I did find large chunks of it horrific. What a let down, ESPECIALLY after reading Demon Copperhead.
Also CW: Sexual Abuse, Heavy Drug Use
Great characters and lovely romance. Sadly could see the ending a mile away.
Charming like a fairytale if you can let go of the anachronisms that come with Sanderson's world-building. (Personally, I just roll with it.)
Hoid is not nearly as clever or charming a narrator as he believes himself to be and that took me out of the story at some points. Also I hated the character illustrations so much.
I must admit, Sanderson is not the best writer technically speaking, but he is exceedingly good at one-liners. His work feels like the Marvel Studios of the fantasy world, not necessarily a diss. He's enjoyable and fun where it counts.
That is to say it was a good simple read and exactly that I needed to take my mind off THAT book.
Insane how something written so masterfully, so beautifully, with such care and thought could leave me with so so so much psychic damage.
I'm in pain and it was horrifying and made me so sick I near cried. But like 5 stars I guess, fuck. The characters are fantastic and charming and all so lovable, which is exactly why they were able to devastate me so.
I'd write the trigger warnings but you can easily look those up. If I were given the trigger warnings upfront I don't know if I would have proceeded. (That's a lie, I totally would have on the merit of the writing and characters alone.)
To be clear, I'm agnostic, I believe in God but not religion. I don't think a single religion on Earth is right about God, and that's where I stood and still stand on the matter.
Oh what a beautiful ride this book was.
“My people are dead of trying, or headed that way, addicted as we are to keeping ourselves alive.”
Coming of age Americana with my favorite kind of character (self-hating, down on his luck, boy with a heart of gold). Inspired by Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, it is a study on class inequality in the modern US from a point of view rarely explored, rural Appalachians. Touching and full of heart as it is of tragedy. I personally am tragedy averse so I had anxiety reading through a lot of this book, expecting the worst, but this is far from tragedy porn. It is a story of perseverance and love.
Set in the mid-to-late 90's up until the early 2000's, Demon Copperhead tells the story of the titular character's life from his unfortunate beginnings, to his turbulent and violent ejection into young adulthood, to his stumbling missteps into his approximation of adulthood. He isn't alone in this journey, he has friends who come and go, a family who equally supports and rejects him, and many people both with good intentions and bad surrounding him. The story itself, told in first person with Demon's own words and memories, is later revealed to be his recovery journal as he recounts where it all went wrong in his road to the straight and narrow.
It ends on a high and hopeful note leaving the characters' future open just how we readers of his story have always wanted for him.
Gorgeously written. Realistic and heart-wrenching characters. A distinct voice. 5 stars no notes.
UNDENIABLY 5 STARS. One of the best books I've read this year and that is not an exaggeration. (Not saying best because I finished the Remembrance of Earths Past trilogy this year and that series changed me as a person on a fundamental scale.)
Chaotic and absurd. Hilarious and horrifying. Beautiful beautiful ending. Absolutely everything.
Scott Hawkins has an absolutely unique and colourful voice as an author. Just remembering his words as I write this review has my heart pumping.
In the beginning it reminded me of a darker more fucked up Umbrella Academy and as I progressed it reminded me of a more put together, focused Homestuck. Absolute banger. Perfect in every way.
Good ending (although there are more books in this series).
A solid completion of a character arc, I'm glad Murderbot made peace with the idea of a home.
A bit cheesy sometimes and not as funny as the first 2 books but I really enjoyed it. I relate to Murderbot too much and I think that's a problem. Accepting being cheesy and having emotions is part of the mortifying idea of being known (and human) so, in that sense, it and I are the same.
Will definitely read the other books but I think this was a good original endpoint and will treat the rest as either bonus content or a “new season” so to speak.
From the reviews this seems like a pretty divisive book but honestly, I liked it.
Klara is observant, optimistic, and relentlessly naive so I get how she could read as bland or annoying to many but I liked her.
It feels like she has full sentience without the full range of human emotions. She remains childlike and naive throughout her entire lifespan with minimal fear, anger, and sadness. Personally, I think that this was a nice choice (but maybe it's because I don't actively seek out emotionally challenging books). And while I agree that sometimes her perspective leaves much to be desired, I was still on board throughout the novel with Ishiguro's writing and the slow reveal of the world. Anyway, I still think she deserves better than the end she got.
There is one thing left vague in the novel that I don't know whether I like or not because it seems like a sudden departure from the genre, but it's give or take. I don't mind too much either way.
If you're looking for a sci-fi book that delves headfirst into the good and bad of human nature, this is not the book for you. It's reads more like one of those cozy books with a tiny kick.
That being said, I did like it.
Fantastic. Reminds me why high fantasy will always be my home genre.
RJ Barker’s superpower is his creative world-building. How every universe he breathes to live is so different from our real world and somehow also so unique from each other but still infused with humanity. From The Wounded Kingdom Series to The Tide Child Series to this new one.
Adrian Tchaikovsky author of the Children of Time series was quoted to say, “ One of the most interesting and original fantasy world I’ve seen in years” in reference to the Tide Child series and somehow the same can be said for this entry into Barkers newest universe.
It’s astounding.
One thing I’ve noted about Barker’s writing in the past is that the first books of his series do not do justice to how good the whole thing actually is. That is not the case at all for this book. Gripping from the start and hopefully til the end.
Still, that is not to say it’s without it’s flaws. The beginning of the book is a tiny bit messy, though this only lasted the first couple of chapters. Also, the dialogue can be cheesy at moments but I can let it all slide because I had so much fun with the story.
600 pages isn’t enough. I need Sanderson level page counts.
I eagerly wait for book 2. (I am frothing at the mouth.)