Mandy

I have come to realise that Shirley Jackson's brand of horror doesn't revolve so much around things that go bump in the night, but really around things that are more real, and therefore more terrifying, than that. This is a 3.5 to 4 star read for me.

Mary Katherine Blackwood, known as Merricat to her family, is an 18 year old girl living a secluded life with her sister Constance and her ailing Uncle Julian in a big, empty house. Most of their family are dead. Ugly rumours swirl around the Blackwood family in the nearby town, amplified by the gulf in socioeconomic class that separates the old and prestigious Blackwood family from the rest of the villagers.

The entire story is told from the perspective of Merricat, who, though 18, has the psyche of a much younger child. It is almost as if her psychiatric state has stagnated from when she was 12, when a major event happens that upheaves her entire family. Because of this child-like voice, we never quite get the feeling that we're seeing anything close to a realistic picture of what is happening - we're seeing the events of the plot through the lens of a child's very vivid imagination.

But the horror in this book, or at least the main source of repulsion for me, stems partially from the cruel persecution suffered by the Blackwoods at the hands of the villagers, without any apparent provocation other than that they are the Blackwoods. Any chapter of the book where the villagers turn up became automatically that much more unpleasant to read. The rhymes made up by the children of the village targeting specifically at the Blackwood sisters just smacked of the thoughtless cruelty that children inherit from their parents.

Another source of irritation was the introduction of cousin Charles, who appears with apparently reconciliatory intentions but quickly reveals himself to be a money-grubbing relative eager to get hold of any fortune the Blackwood sisters may have lying around the house. There is quite possibly some feminist undertones in the dynamics between Charles and the sisters, where he immediately asserts himself as the head of this household he had only just recently invaded, and attempts to control and arrange everything as he pleases simply by virtue of being the only male in his prime in the household and by attempting worm his way into Constance's affections, no matter what anyone else thinks.

If you're looking for straight-up supernatural horror, this is probably not the book for you. But if you enjoy the brand of horror that explores the uglier sides of human nature, this book might be right up your alley.

The Flesh Hunters fills a much-needed space in the local literature scene – in being an entertaining romp that asks some thought-provoking questions that aren't politically motivated. While it has its flaws (particularly in having an overabundance of ideas and somewhat losing focus on the central questions it asks at the beginning), the book is a commendable debut novel nevertheless and hopefully a harbinger for better things to come from Jocelyn Suarez.

This is a sweet comfort read more than anything, really. I'm not sure if it delves very deeply into a lot of topics (as far as I can tell, at least), but it was entertaining enough and just - a sweet depiction of rural life, particularly centering upon family.

Silas Marner is a linen-weaver in the town of Raveloe, where he's regarded as a bit of a harmless loner oddball. He is unexpectedly burglared one night, an incident that makes its rounds throughout the town and earns him some sympathy. Even stranger still, an unfamiliar woman dies of cold just outside his door, leaving behind a 2 year old baby girl who Silas immediately opens his heart to and adopts. Unbeknownst to Silas, these incidents are all entwined and will eventually be unravelled.

I found this particularly easy to read for a piece of classic literature written in the 1860s. It's incredibly short, and the action is perpetually ongoing. Excepting a couple of obligatory chapters with old men gossiping in a tavern in convoluted English accents, which was a whole lot easier to grasp with the aid of an audiobook and a good narrator (thank you, Andrew Sachs), the story flows extremely smoothly and there's something happening in every chapter.

The story in itself is easy to follow and there's a nice sort of symmetry to it (i.e. Silas losing his gold, but then gaining back "gold" in the form of Eppie and her golden curls, but then later when he does recover his gold back, he almost loses her again). It's all kinda rural farm life sweet, but also lacks a certain punch to it that I would've expected. I don't know how else to describe it. Aside from Dunstan Cass, who was thoroughly repulsive but doesn't have a lot of page time in the book, all the other characters were all such well-meaning, mild-mannered farm people. Despite the drama, everything seemed to be pulled off without a hitch. Even the ending denouement resolving the central conflict lasted barely a chapter. I was legit surprised that the ending was basically just: Gordon Cass staking his claim on Eppie, Eppie saying nope sorry, and Gordon Cass retreating with his wife and both of them finding it in themselves to be happy for Eppie's choice to stay with Silas and to marry Aaron.

On some level, I'm not really complaining, because sometimes I just need a nice, short perk-me-up of a book that gives you all the good vibes in the vehicle of a serviceable story with characters that work, and this is really what Silas Marner is about. If you're looking for something with a bigger punch, or which dwells a bit more on social commentary of the mid 19th century, this is probably not it.

What a sweet, wholesome book. This made me cry. 4.5/5 stars.

Count Rostov is a Former Person placed under house arrest at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow, when the Bolshevik government takes over Russia. There's a whole lot of Russian history happening in the background here which I'm still not super clear on the details of so I won't dwell on them in this synopsis. The book sees Count Rostov spectating and indirectly participating in the political upheavals of the nation through the comings and goings of the visitors of the hotel.

This was a beautifully written book that perfectly balances the fairly sweet and casual ramblings and small domestic adventures of the Count in the foreground, while still somehow keeping the atmosphere poignantly oppressive and dreadful with Towles giving us relevant historical context that doesn't feel like it was too shoehorned in.

Through the Count, we meet the various characters of the hotel - Andrey the maitre d, Emile the head chef, the Bishop, Marina the seamstress, and some memorable long-term guests. This isn't a book to go in expecting an intricate character ensemble. Instead, we see everyone through Count Rostov's eyes. Indeed, we are really only privy to his perspective - we see Russia's history unfolding through his lens, the differences between his former life as a member of the Russian nobility to his current state being essentially incarcerated indefinitely in a hotel.

The Count, and almost by extension the entire Metropol Hotel itself, essentially functions as the single spot of constancy in the entire novel. This book spans a long time period in history, almost 30-40 years, during which Russia's leadership changes hands a few times. The world outside the hotel is ever changing, and all the characters the Count (and us, by extension) meets eventually wander out into the wider world to be subsumed by it, but the hotel and the Count never seems to change.

The highlight of this book for me occurs in the second half, which I will elaborate further in a spoiler below. In summary, it is a beautifully written non-romantic relationship that turns up in the Count's life unexpectedly, which deepened the poignant bittersweetness of this whole book for me. I'm talking about the Count and Sophia's relationship. I really liked that "indulgent father" vibe that he had with Nina, but who knew that it would be magnified a hundredfold with the more amenable personality of Sophia? The chapter "Adulthood" drove me to tears. There wasn't anything outstandingly sad about it, but even that semi-hilarious conversation where the Count was upset about how low the back of Sophia's dress was, and how the Count had to face up to the fact that Sophia had now crossed the threshold of becoming an adult woman in her own right - everything just gave me so much feels.

Overall, a really brilliant read whether you're interested in Russian history in the early 20th century, or just want a wholesome and bittersweet story to lose yourself in.

“In the end, during our brief moment in the sun, we are tasked with the noble charge of finding our own meaning.”

Brian Greene's central thesis to this book is that: everything in this universe (and in fact the universe itself) is transitory, so let's examine this somewhat miraculous phenomenon that is us, springing up for what would be less than a blink of an eye in the cosmic timeline, and examining ourselves, the universe around us, and then - most probably - to fade into oblivion once again.

I love that. Sure, it fills one with existential dread, but this is why I love reading astrophysics. I love reading about our insignificance in the cosmic scale, not because I want to bask in how life is so meaningless, but because I like that recognition that we assign meaning to our lives because the universe is so completely apathetic and will rise and fall with or without us.

Greene's writing can be a little heavy-going at times, but his analogies can be spot-on. I thoroughly enjoyed the “drop a bag of pennies on a table” analogy in Ch 3 to explain entropy, as well as the “if every floor of the Empire State Building was an exponential increase in number of years since the Big Bang” analogy to really drive home the vastness of the cosmic timescale that we're looking at (the Sun would fizzle out by level 10).

The only thing that dropped this book down a star is probably the middle chapters, around Ch 4-8 where Greene delves more into anthropology and into subjects like language, story-telling, arts, religion, music, etc. to think about how and why humans evolved in this way. That's fine and all but I guess I wasn't here for subjects like that. While I did eventually make it through those chapters, I wasn't really sure overall how it contributed to his thesis.

Nevertheless, the first few and last few chapters centering on Greene's expertise of astrophysics were particularly stellar. It introduced concepts to me that I had never know about, like Boltzmann brains, and the ever present possibility of complete annihilation of all matter by a shifting of the Higgs field. It helped me get a better grasp on concepts I had heard of before but never quite understood, like Hawking radiation, the heat death of the universe, and even something fundamental like what entropy really is. His “entropic two-step” really helped me understand just how stars form, and why their formation doesn't necessarily decrease overall entropy in the universe.

Overall, this book was a thoroughly enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to exploring some of his other more astrophysics-focused titles in the future.

Overall, probably a 3.5/5 for me. The writing was beautiful, and it's the sort of book that would probably stick around in your mind for a long time. Recommended for fans of gothic bleakness a la Bronte sisters, where everything is horrible but in a weirdly lyrical and beautiful way.

Ten-year-old Gideon Belman is uprooted from Bath by his parents to live with his uncle and family in their hometown of Ormeshadow. His father, John Belman, tries to make the transition easier for him by telling him the family mythos of the Orme, a nearly immortal dragon upon which the entire village of Ormeshadow, and their farm of Ormesleep, rests upon. Through the fantastical lens of this mythos, Gideon navigates through a lot of farming family drama and tragedy while coming of age himself.

I'm not sure why the most popular genre allocated for this book was Fantasy because it was certainly more historical fiction to me. The fantasy elements were just occasional, almost rare, sparks in the background of the story and doesn't really play a solid role in the events of the plot. The time period of this book is never quite pinned down, and honestly could span any time between the early 1800s to a very rural 1950s even. This caused me a bit of confusion because I was never quite sure what I should be expecting in terms of gender roles and social mores.

A lot of characters in this book were just downright awful, and made more awful in the fact that they are so real. A lot of times, villains or annoying characters are at least a little caricature-ish, and it's easier to appreciate how evil they are from a distant because they're also so un-lifelike. Not so for the ones in Ormeshadow however. One character in particular (Thomas "he's for burning" Belman) was just so vile that I I was getting visceral reactions whenever the action involved him. It is interesting, however, that even for this character, they were getting some points of redemption (Thomas's love for his dogs really confused me, because we/I typically associate animal lovers with compassionate, kind people, which Thomas is most emphatically NOT).

I'm on the fence when it came to the portrayal of female characters in this book. We have two main ones: Gideon's mother, Clare, who is icily beautiful and holds herself above everyone but who is emotionally unavailable to both Gideon and the reader - we never really quite understand what she's thinking, how she's feeling, or really get to know her as a person because we only see her through Gideon's perspective. Also, his aunt Maud, a plain, long-suffering wife to his uncle Thomas, who can only find her place in the family by being a subservient mother, wife, and housekeeper. Of these, my heart went out the most to Maud, likely because Gideon did too, and we are experiencing this from his perspective. He is never close to anyone in this very dysfunctional family setting (except perhaps his dad John), but he clearly had a lot of pity for his aunt, even more so than his mom.

My favourite part of the book was really the whole family mythos with the dragons. I kinda wish that was explored and interwoven more with the unfolding of the plot. It did sort of come through in the ending, but I'm not really sure if it worked that well for me. We never really got a clear insight as to why a major event happened in the ending, and perhaps that was a deliberate choice from the author. I just wish things were just a little bit clearer though, just so the ending would be a bit more satisfactory.

Review incoming because this is such a dense book I need extra time to crystallize my thoughts.

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”

The storyline of this book is not very complex. Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man just in his first bloom of life, his beauty captures the attention of a painter, Basil Hallward, who invites him to sit for a portrait. He perfectly captures Dorian's beauty on the canvas. Dorian, after speaking to Basil's enigmatic and thoroughly hedonistic friend, Lord Henry, suddenly realises just how fleeting and transient youth and beauty really is, while simultaneously becoming jealous of the painting's immortality that he cannot enjoy. He fervently wishes that it was the painting that grew older and more sinful instead of him - and his wish is fulfilled.

It's been a long time since I last read this book, and I think I had a fairly neutral impression of it. After growing older and also having had the advantage of taking a module on Victorian literature since, revisiting this book was an absolute delight. There's so much to unpack and discuss about this book.

A huge theme of this book is the idea of art and beauty - obviously. What exactly does justice to beauty? Is it in an immortal preservation in a frozen “original” state, or is it in molding something already beautiful into an image that further fits one's standards and ideals of beauty? At the very beginning chapters of the book, I kinda felt sorry for Dorian because, due to his beauty, no one seems to treat him like a human individual but as a subject on which to project their own ideals.

Basil, though he is extremely fond of Dorian, nevertheless wants to preserve him as much as possible in an “unspoiled” state, as if he could freeze the human being in a snapshot in time just as he had done on the canvas when painting him. It's simultaneously exalting but also dehumanising at the same time, when you refuse to let a person be the person they are, and just want them to be this ideal muse in your mind.

Lord Henry is both self-centered and also more callously apathetic in his treatment of Dorian. It feels like he wants to create a sculpture out of him, almost in his own image. In Chapter 4, when Lord Henry is musing about Dorian and says “to a large extent, the lad was his own creation”. He preaches a lot of his own hedonistic principles to Dorian, swaying him around like a rag doll but also just apathetically watching how things unfurl (“It was no matter how it all ended”).

Even Sybil Vane, Dorian's first love interest, is satisfied not even knowing his name. She simply calls him Prince Charming, and projects onto him all the ideals of the heroic male lead in the plays that she acts in. There is certainly something tragic in the way that, because he incited passion for the first time in her, it drew its source from her talent for acting, and that in turn caused his love for her to wither away.

Though this book is short, at less than 300 pages, it feels so much longer - but not in a bad way. Every sentence is so thought-provoking, and Wilde doesn't waste a single word. This is one of those rare books that I actually wanted to read on an ebook/physical copy because I wanted to slowly digest each line. Whether Dorian Gray can simply be written off as a “villain” by the end of the book is really so, so up for debate which I don't really want to go into here in a review. Nevertheless, this book was such an excellent introspective read about youth, immortality, art for art's sake, hedonism, morality, and conscience.

Eh. Love the cover, was excited to read some historical-pharmacist-murder mystery but it was none of those, basically.

In present-day London, Caroline Parcewell is taking a solo trip to London to recover from the shock of finding out about her husband's infidelity. While mudlarking on the River Thames, she finds a mysterious engraved vial that leads her on an investigative journey to find out the truth behind an “apothecary serial killer” from the 1790s.

While I never felt that the central mystery was boring per se, and I never felt like the book dragged, at the same time I also had no burning desire to find out anything about the characters, their relationship, or the answers to anything happening at all. The dual timelines happening here felt a little unnecessary, and I kind of wished that we had simply one linear timeline with more horizontal development for the characters and issues there.

I went into this a little worried that this was going to turn into a blanket “all men are trash” hate-fest. I'm all for female empowerment and exploring issues revolving around women, but I don't feel that this has to be achieved at the price of falling back on just another form of sexism. The book skirts around that, but luckily doesn't quite toe the line there, IMO. The narrative just shies away from going all out on the misandry, although there was certainly a lot more of that in the historical timeline (although understandably so given the gender inequalities of that time period).

What the book perhaps lacked doing was having actually more redeeming male characters. There were only two prominent male characters here (Mr Amwell and James) and I thoroughly hated both of them. The one and only redeeming male character, Tom Pepper, was barely around for 5 pages. I was also largely indifferent to the main female characters, Eliza, Nella, and Caroline. While both their timelines took turns being the more interesting one, I never really felt attached to any of them. The writing for Nella's perspective felt a little too involved, over-serious, and overwrought in a way, that I was either annoyed, or couldn't take it seriously. Eliza was slightly better, but nothing much happens with her or to her (aside from that horrifying incident with Mr Amwell which was thankfully averted - I really would not have wanted to read about that). Caroline and her marriage was just a constant source of frustration and annoyance to me throughout the book, although she got more tolerable as a character as the book wore on and as she drew further apart from James.

I just didn't understand what was the whole point of the adventures, both in 1790s and in the present-day, and why they were supposed to relate to each other? I get that Caroline had some character development in the sense that she went from gaslighting herself about how she felt about James, to properly realising that she needed to pursue her own dreams and get away from him - that's fine, but i don't feel like it was clear how that related to her whole adventure with the apothecary's bottle. I'm even more unclear about what Eliza's role was, aside from her last sacrificial act and magic trick of turning up alive again. Also, how did she make such a strong, amazing, and effective tincture to protect her from drowning and frigid waters on her first try?! She barely got any tutelage from Nella before this! I just felt like the connection between the storylines in the 1790s and present-day wasn't very strong.

The central mystery with Lady Clarence just really fell flat for me. When I checked my progress and saw it at about 75% through, I was like, “Wait, you mean this is the main mystery of the book?!” It all felt like a side story leading up to something bigger because the stakes never felt high to me. The overall ending was okay - I didn't even expect it to be super mind-blowing but it still fell a little flat for me. The twist about Eliza surviving her fall just felt a bit... eh whatever. And we never even really found out what happened to Nella after she reunited with Eliza at the end.

I was also super confused about this whole big deal they made out of this “apothecary serial killer” in both the blurb for the book as well as in the story itself. There wasn't a lot of focus on the whole apothecary aspect aside from those two poisons that Nella made. There wasn't a ton of serial-killing-ness as I was led to believe either since only two men died in the whole course of the book, really. In terms of the narrative, how on earth did she become associated as a serial killer or having it termed as "murders" when the police really only knew about her involvement with Lord Clarence's death?. The book felt mainly focused on these 3 women struggling with individual issues around their relationship with men, which is fine but definitely wasn't what I expected going in and didn't come through in the blurb of the book. Even then, I also felt like that wasn't properly explored because all those gimmicks around it regarding the dual timelines, the apothecary murders, etc. really distracted the narrative from that, so everything felt really disjointed and “what's the point of this?” in the end.

All in all, I'm hovering between 2 and 3 for this one. In the first 2 chapters, i was already feeling a 3/5 but hoped it would prove me wrong. Oh well.

I remember watching the movie first, being really obsessed with it, and then being somewhat disappointed by my first reads of this book. This was also many, many years ago. I decided to pick it up again this time knowing that I now have some distance from the movie and also that my reading preferences and tastes have changed in the intervening years, so I was curious to see if my opinions may change. Boy, it sure did. I think I might've rated this around 3 or 3.5 stars before but I'm bumping this up to 4 and even 4.5 stars.

In the village of Wall somewhere in Victorian England, Tristran Thorn sets out to find a fallen star to impress his lady love, Victoria Forrester. He goes through the Wall from which the village derives its name, into Faerie. He doesn't understand why Faerie seems so familiar to him, or how he's managing to find his way to the fallen star without any guidance, but he does. He just didn't expect the star to be a very, very sassy lady made even more irritable by a broken leg from falling from the sky. He attempts to convince her to come back to Wall with him to be presented to Victoria. Along the way, they meet several witches, unicorns, devious brother-princes, and lightning-harvesting pirate ships in the sky.

The events of the book and the movie were generally almost the same, so I really need to give Gaiman some props for having come up with such a rich, beautiful, fairytale-esque story that translated so well into the movie that I still love. What is the point of contention here, and what really drove me to have such different impressions of the book during my first and current read, is everything else - the storytelling, the setting, the whole vibe of the story. While the movie is light-hearted, campy and family-friendly fun, the book has a distinctively more adult-fairytale feel, which I was disappointed with before but now am delighted by.

This book also explores the idea of consent and boundaries that was way ahead of its time, and which also sadly did not translate into the movie.

“I was a wood-nymph. But I got pursued by a prince, not a nice prince, the other kind, and, well, you'd think a prince, even the wrong kind, would understand about boundaries, wouldn't you?”“You would?”“Exactly what I think.”

I also kinda weirdly love that parting scene between Yvaine and the old lady that used to be the witch-queen. Even though she's done so much harm and killed the poor unicorn, somehow Yvaine found it in her to be just the right amount of forgiving - not to the point of trying to save her from her sisters' wrath, but also just letting go of the past and leaving her be since she's lost the capacity to harm her. I did kinda wish that Lady Una would've been the next Ruler of Stormhold, that would've perfected the book for me.

3.5-4 stars. This basically reads like a regular children's fantasy book and would be very nostalgic/familiar to any readers familiar with Enid Blyton.

Princess Irene is an 8 year old little girl who one day stumbles upon a long-lost ancestor, whom she calls her grandmother for simplicity's sake, just living in a corner of her castle. Later on, while out with her nurse Lootie, she meets the young son of a miner, Curdie Peterson, who teaches them that goblins are nothing to be afraid of. They later find save each other from goblins.

Make no mistake, this is thoroughly a standard-fare children's fantasy book. There're so many books that read like this nowadays that on first read, it doesn't immediately feel particularly fresh or amazing.

But I think the full impact of it is best appreciated when reading more on the context of the book's production. Macdonald was seen as the founding father of modern fantasy. he was a mentor of Lewis Caroll (and his children's positive reception of Alice in Wonderland encouraged Carroll to publish it) and apparently influenced even Tolkien in the depiction of goblins in the Legendarium. i don't even think there were fantasy books like this before Macdonald (although I am not an expert on the history of this genre so I can't say for sure).

Being a standard Victorian fairy tale, the book was full of moralistic “good values” for children, although it doesn't feel so grating somehow, probably because I lived and breathed Enid Blyton growing up. I thought the values that it tried to bring across weren't overly preachy - Princess Irene was never proud or encouraged to maintain a divide between herself and a “lower class” person like Curdie. In fact, she reprimands her nurse for trying to get Curdie to call her “Your Royal Highness”, which she thinks is “name-calling only for rude children”.

In the case of Irene's grandmother, there's a very complex situation there where Curdie is unable to see this lady-ancestor even when Irene brings him to her room. He's also unable to see the magic thread that the grandmother has spun for Irene to hold on to in times of trouble, which is the only reason why she manages to find Curdie when he is captured by the goblins, and lead him out to safety. Curdie is rude to Irene, who thinks that she is simply getting carried away by her fancies and “taking him in” - he is reprimanded by his mother who thinks that just because he can't see it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Irene is rude to Curdie as she's offended, but then she's also reprimanded by her grandmother who says that he can't help not being able to see what she is able to. This is an unexpectedly complex situation that I think would go over the heads of most children, but might still stick around in their subconsciousness for years to come.

If you're picking up this book expecting something that'll blow your mind, you will be disapopinted. Rather, I'd recommend it for anyone looking to (re)visit moralistic Victorian children's fairy tales, or if you're a fantasy buff and would like to experience this really simple children's story that started the domino effect and set the historical stage for works like Alice in Wonderland and Lord of the Rings in the century following its publication.

This was a book. I've never read anything quite like it. It occupies that rare, weird spot where I appreciate what Dickens was trying to do with it, I thought the concept was interesting and I acknowledge the impact the book did have on actual society at the time of its publication, but I can't decide if I personally enjoyed it and I certainly wouldn't give this as a blanket recommendation to just anyone.

In a nutshell, the crux of the plot lies in two conflicting wills disposing of a significant fortune. One favours a Mr Jarndyce, while the other favours his distant cousins, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. Not wanting to sow discord, Mr Jarndyce takes in Ada and Richard as his wards while the legal battle between the wills is wrought. We see all this through the eyes of our sometime narrator, Esther Summerson, a girl whose parentage is unknown and was also left in Mr Jarndyce's care as his ward and brought up in a boarding school, from which she was asked to live with Ada as her companion.

This is only my third Dickens novel (and I haven't read him in years and years), so the writing style here was a huge problem for me. While I read a fair bit of classics, I still can't get used to the way Dickens writes. Bleak House has the advantage of having an unusual dash of humour that wasn't present in the other two Dickens novels I've read - I was surprised by how almost Wodehouse-ian the narrative sounded at some points. However, there were still a lot of convoluted sentences that required some re-reading to understand and as a result, I felt like I missed at least 20% of the important plot details by the time I had finished and had to supplement my reading with a quick gander through the Wikipedia synopsis. A quick example - while I'm not expecting anything so unpoetic as baldly stating, “He died.” Dickens chose to write this as “He began the world, but not this one. The world that sets this right.” It's not unintelligible, but it really is a hit-or-miss style of writing that could either bowl you over with how beautiful it is, or just make you go, “I'm sorry, what?!” I feel like I'm straddling the midway point there, and probably leaning a bit towards the latter.

Furthermore, the way this book was written was... phew. Thank goodness I read some GR reviews while I was about a quarter way through, which gave me an idea of what this book was meant to achieve. Bleak House, was apparently, Dickens's attempt to criticise the English legal system at the time for being long-winded, meandering, inefficient and bloated with unnecessary, irrelevant details. The way he chose to do it was to make the progress of Bleak House feel like a court case - long-winded, meandering, bloated with unnecessary, irrelevant details. In the first half of the book, I constantly felt like I had no idea what the hook of the story was. We kept switching perspectives between Esther's narrative, to third-person chapters of random scenes with apparently random characters. I much preferred Esther's thread because at least there was a semblance of a storyline to follow, whereas the third-person chapters felt so irrelevant that I probably skimmed quite a few of these.

Of course, Dickens finds a way to tie everything together in the end and some time in the second half, you realise that these random scenes and random characters are not quite so random after all. But I did have to persevere up to around the 65% mark before things started making a lot more sense and I was finally somewhat hooked. If I hadn't been reading this for a buddy read, I might quite likely have dropped the book some time in the first half though - waiting for the 65% mark before a long and meandering book starts to pull you in does seem to be asking too much for most readers unless they're already a huge fan of Dickens or are interested in the English legal system.

4.5 stars. The biggest questions that came to mind after reading this were: how is this not already a major movie franchise? Why isn't this a bigger thing in mainstream pop culture?

The Wizard of Earthsea feels like part-Tolkien and part-Enid Blyton. It tells about a precocious boy, known to most people as Sparrowhawk, who begins his tutelage under a mage after learning that he has a capacity for magical prowess that has rarely been seen. Pride, however, is Sparrowhawk's downfall and it unleashes a shadow that begins to hunt him down.

This is my first time reading Le Guin and, boy, people weren't kidding when they said her writing was beautiful. There's just something so whimsical and entrancing about the way she writes. It's reminiscent of Tolkien, except less dense and easier to follow - this is a book expressly written for teenagers after all.

This is surely a precedessor to modern icons like Name of the Wind and even Harry Potter. The magic system in this one places heavy emphasis on the concept of naming as a way to wield magic power over something or someone. To tell someone your true name is to show ultimate trust in them, for it gives them power over you. In Sparrowhawk's sojourn at the School for Wizards, we see an unexpected glimpse of the magic boarding-school element popularised by Rowling, complete with Masters (or teachers) and its principal, the Archmage, being one of the most powerful wizards in the world.

It's a simplified version of the common quest trope, but it is by no means watered down. While our hero is, as usual, powerful, precocious, and talented, he is not flawless. In fact, the entire driving force of the book is how the hero suffers a downfall, not from external circumstances like being thrown into the dumps by the villains, but because of his own internal flaws. He is brought down by his own youthful pride, the sense that he is invincible because he is both young and strong - something that I think a lot of teenagers can resonate with. The downfall triggers a domino effect, and Sparrowhawk is brought on a physical and mental journey that is so refreshing in its tenets and its eventual resolution.

Unlike so many popular books with a similar storyline, Le Guin's world doesn't harp on power, strength, and control. In fact, the most powerful wizards in this book preach about balance, empathy, and a lively appreciation for one's surroundings. Sparrowhawk's first and original teacher, Ogion, is almost monastic in the way he sits for hours in silence in the rain. One of Sparrowhawk's teachers in school advocates kindness to all living things, and not committing the usual human folly of thinking ourselves superior and apart from everything else in nature. It almost feels like we're learning about yin and yang, and zen.

From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later year he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from eyes of animals, the flights of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of this book (and why this isn't a straight up 5 star review) is in its representation of female characters, something that I've read that Le Guin regretted in later life. Female characters in this book are absent, unimportant, incompetent, or malicious. Furthermore, it seems like the major systems of magic can only be practised by men. The magic-wielding females in this book are all witches, and it was implied multiple times throughout the story that witches' magic is inferior and frivolous compared to those practised by mages, wizards, and sorcerors - who are all men. Normally, this is something that might make or break a book for me, but after finding out about Le Guin's reflection about her writing, and also being bowled over by the rest of the book, this is probably something I could close one eye about, especially since Le Guin has since contributed a ton of feminist literature.

It's getting late so I'll just summarise this whole review in a short and simple line: If you love fantasy at all, this is absolutely a must-read.

Review incoming.

Y'know what, I was prepared to give this book maybe a 4 stars until the ending hit me straight in the feels and I cried throughout the last 10-20%.

It's not even a particularly sad ending. Pratchett keeps the action and the plot light-hearted and completely absurd throughout the entire book. But Reaper Man really showcases how masterful he is in writing about such complex, deep, and abstract thoughts in such a light-hearted and absurd way. (Huge kudos to Nigel Planer whose narration of the audiobook and performance for each character significantly amped up my enjoyment of this book)

Reaper Man's plot is fairly simple - Death has been sort of “suspended” from his work and has gone to seek work elsewhere. In the meantime, all around Discworld, lives are ending but Death isn't there to take it away, resulting in an overabundance of life force which makes things happen.

The humour here is still very much on point, but what struck me as the biggest difference between this one and the first book in the series, Mort, is that it's more - introspective somehow? It's funny that this book is more philosophical and thought-provoking than actual philosophy or self-help books.

I don't know if it's just me being emotional or hormonal, but the themes in this book and the semi-abusrd way Pratchett dealt with them just went straight to my feels. This review is all over the place because this book is truly one of a kind. I'll end it with some amazing quotes:

Alone of all creatures in the world, trolls believe that all living things go through Time backwards. If the past is visible and the future is hidden, they say, then it means you must be facing the wrong way. Everything alive is going through life back to front.

“If people knew when they were gonna die, they'd probably lead better lives.”IF PEOPLE KNEW WHEN THEY WERE GONNA DIE, THEY WOULDN'T LIVE AT ALL.

Death travels inside that space where time has no meaning. Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it's wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds that darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

I randomly picked this up on an Audible sale or something very long ago and left it untouched for years. Boy, am I glad I picked it up now. What a hidden gem amongst Regency romances!

The story is sort of Mansfield Park meets North and South. Sophy Prescott is the illegitimate daughter of an earl, Lord Fairchild, and his children's governess. After an accident causes her mother's death, she is taken in by her father and his family and grows up in his magnificent country estate. When an accident throws her in the way of Tom Bagshot, a wealthy merchant who lives in the district but who is shunned by Sophy's family because of his lowly social status, she can't resist pretending to be more than she is.

This book isn't without its flaws: a lot of overly convenient plot devices, machinations that don't quite make sense, and some minor loose ends that never really get tied up. However, I appreciate that it steered clear of so many romance novel tropes while also creating a thoroughly enjoyable love story that I'm pretty willing to overlook those flaws.

For one, Sophy's family never mistreats her. Her half-siblings take her into their fold, and although Lady Fairchild is prejudiced against her at first (somewhat understandably so, since she is a daily reminder of her husband's infidelity), she eventually warms up to her and seems to treat her as a child of her own. This may not be the most realistic, but I'm also pretty tired of Cinderella stories where our poor protagonist is trampled all over by everyone, only to be noticed and saved by the hero at some point.

For another, our hero Tom is not a dashing duke, an entrancing earl, or a lascivious rake. His parents are from the merchant class themselves; his father, having made his fortune, attempts to bring Tom up as a gentleman, a mold that he constantly chafes against and which he eventually gives up all together at a crisis point, when his father finally relents and allows him to seek his own fortune aboard merchant ships. He returns as a wealthy shipowner himself, and has no desire to ingratiate himself with the snobby aristocratic Fairchilds who live in the same neighbourhood.

It's also fairly rare that we get a “third party”, Capt Alistair Beaumaris, who is the cousin of the Fairchilds and a suitor for Sophy. Instead of just being a random prop piece that only exists to somehow benefit of Sophy and Tom's budding relationship, Alistair is an actual character of his own, wanting to marry Sophy for somewhat self-centered reasons but at the same time also actually feeling attracted to her. It's no surprise that he turns out to be the hero of the second book in this series.

The ending was also refreshing and satisfactory. We don't get any super amazing dramatic moment where Tom is somehow accepted by the Fairchilds and everyone lives happily ever after. In fact, Sophy does have to make an awful choice between her beloved family and Tom. She chooses Tom, but in so doing she does break off from Lord and Lady Fairchild. There are consequences, and even though things appear optimistically on the mend by the end, we don't get some perfectly saccharine reunion scene. I liked that there were actually consequences to their decision, especially when both of them came from such checkered backgrounds.

Having read some fairly heavy books in the past few days, this light-hearted romance hit the spot because it doesn't take itself too seriously, steers clear of tired tropes, and was just generally such a breath of fresh air. Strongly recommended for fans of the Regency romance genre, especially if you're looking for something that tries to do things a little differently.

Hovering between 4 to 5 stars. This is a very nuanced exploration of what it means for some of us to navigate the very confusing threshold between childhood and adolescence, and having then to come to terms with a bewildering and often very frightening adult self-identity.

Nancy is sent by her parents to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children after she returns from a trip to a magical land altered in almost every way. At first she thinks it's just an ordinary boarding school until she realises that all the students there have been to a different magical land of their own, have come back to the “real” world, and somehow have found their way to the Home to reintegrate themselves.

In terms of plot, there is a mystery that pops up rather unexpectedly, and while it operates decently enough to drive the story and the characters along, my opinion is that the plot really takes a backseat to what I find is the main attraction here: the exploration of each character's growth and individuality.

It doesn't take much to realise that the magical lands these children and teenagers have been through is a thinly veiled analogy for the confusion of puberty and early adolescence. A wide variety of personalities, sexualities, and identities are explored here: our protagonist Nancy is asexual and also probably a bit of a goth, Sumi might have some form of ADD/ADHD, Kade is a trans man, Jack is grappling with gender stereotypes forced upon her by her parents and instead wanting to pursue the sciences, while Christopher is... well, I haven't figured that one out yet.

What the book does best is the way it explores, slowly and respectfully, how each of these individuals navigated their individual journeys, how they felt when they were shunted back into the “real” world, why they each wanted more than anything to go back “home” to the magical land from which they have been expelled, and how they handled interacting with all these other teens around them who have been through the same thing but yet still can be cruel and vicious towards those whom they perceived went through a “lesser” world than their own.

I've never read a book quite like this before and I really appreciated the journey that it brought me on. I'd recommend this wholeheartedly to just about anyone!

If you're already into Wodehouse's style of writing and storytelling, this might be a fun filler read. If you're new to Wodehouse, DO NOT start with this book - there are much better ones out there from his repertoire.

Wodehouse's books, especially his standalone novellas (?), are always pretty difficult to summarise simply because his signature style is having a convoluted plot with multiple threads of developments that somehow eventually converge into a single satisfying resolution for the character ensemble involved.

Edmund Biffen Christopher, or “Biff” in short, is the unexpected heir of a rich uncle who has just passed away - on one condition: in order to preserve the family name, the will states that Biff must not get arrested, especially not for misdemeanor, before he turns 30 in a few weeks' time. Another relative and a distant uncle, Lord Tilbury, starts scheming to get Biff to break this condition just so he can get his hands on the fortune himself. Along the way, we also meet Kay Christopher, Jerry Shoesmith, Percy Pilbeam, and Henry Blake-Somerset with what feels like a dozen other love triangles, espionage, and plot complications.

While I decently enjoyed this book, I wouldn't recommend this for those new or skeptical about Wodehouse. The subject matter felt a little too frivolous and the story wasn't as tight as it could've been. This is for Wodehouse's standards, which already has the bar set pretty high - another writer could not have pulled off the plot even for Frozen Assets. At the end of it all, you are left with a sense of “What did I just read?” - this is something I could forgive for Wodehouse simply because of how irreverent and deliberately frivolous his works can be, although his better books are at least much more satisfying than this.

The characters were decent, but I never reached a level of attachment with them as I would've with, say, Bertie Wooster, Jeeves, or even Aunt Agatha. I was also a little disturbed at the men's way of courting girls, which is simply to “kiss her senseless” (even if against her will) until she says yes. I get that this was probably the gender dynamic back at the time this was written, but - eh.

Overall, a decent, enjoyable read especially for existing Wodehouse fans, but not anything super stellar considering the rest of his repertoire and not what I'd recommend for readers new to Wodehouse.

4 to 4.5 stars. This book was not an easy read, and I definitely wouldn't give this a broad recommendation to the masses for a variety of reasons, but it worked out for me and I appreciate what Carr was doing here. I do think this book should have some trigger warnings which I will list at the end of my review.

Told from the perspective of police journalist John Scuyler Moore, we meet and follow controversial but eminent alienist (an old-timey word for psychiatrist) Dr Laszlo Kreizler as he is called in upon the gruesome murder and mutilation of a teenage boy in 189os New York. This was back in the time when alienism, psychology, and psychiatry are fairly new and controversial sciences that faced a lot of resistance from the public as well as the powerful people in charge, including the police.

The subject matters of this book are extremely heavy and can be triggering to some. Carr doesn't hold back or sugarcoat anything when depicting the grim reality of living on the fringes of New York City society in the 1890s. There are graphic scenes and situations in the book, and you also get the full blast of ugly prejudices that were not only common but even seen as “normal” back then. If this book had been unrelentingly gloomy and morose, however, I probably would have DNFed. The silver lining here is that the book balances out these harsh realities by also showing us people who care to change these attitudes and the systemic abuses that was so rampant back then. There is some underlying note of positivity, encouragement, and hope in battling against the circumstances, rather than characters simply wallowing in resignation and indifference. I was also pleasantly surprised that this book even manages to pack in some occasional notes of humour which never felt disrespectful to the subject matter or out of place.

Although the subject matter will always remain triggering, I felt that the graphic scenes of the book were generally quite far and few in between, only happening whenever a new murder was committed (and this only occured less than a handful of times after the first one). Plus, the murderer doesn't switch MO, so we don't get fresh horrors every single time this happens, we get a new victim with new circumstances for our investigation team to analyse.

Besides that, I feel that the pacing of the book is also where a lot of people might trip up on. It doesn't simply concentrate on the action and the mystery at hand, but also goes off on short tangents/lectures on the cultural history of New York City, criminology, and the burgeoning state of psychology during this time period. I didn't mind these as these topics interested me and I didn't mind the writing style at all, but I can definitely acknowledge that this wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.

I generally liked all the characters - I didn't find any of them obnoxiously annoying or unrealistic. It's just odd that the one I felt the least connection to was the titular character of the series, Dr Kreizler himself. It might be because he was depicted as an almost Holmesian figure, generally detached and incomprehensible from our narrating character's POV, although he does increasingly become more and more emotional and real as the book goes on. I did like that the team wasn't entirely dependent on Kreizler, however. Kriezler had his expertise, but so did everyone else - they weren't just sitting around being his assistants or simply doing legwork.

The narrator, John Moore, was definitely personable and provided some comic relief in how slow he was on the uptake in certain things, although it wasn't frustratingly so. His complete confusion leads to some (minor) misunderstandings which only provided more humourous moments. It's clear that he was meant to be the John Watson to Kreizler's Holmes, and even suffers the occasional quip from Kreizler about his incompetence, but overall he was a fairly straightforward dude that you wouldn't mind rooting for.

Sara Howard was probably my favourite character of the lot. The only female in the team, and also one with the ambition of being the first female detective in the NYPD, she's independent, resourceful, and a thorough breath of fresh air. Sure, I don't know how realistic she is as a character from the 1890s, and there certainly must have been some modern progressive ideals behind her creation, but I honestly didn't mind. I loved the scene where she pulls a pistol on the team when they're trying to skirt around saying "shit" in front of her just because she's a lady.

I also really enjoyed the Isaacson brothers, who brought some unexpected comedy relief to the group - at least at the beginning anyway. It is through them that we learn a lot more about criminology and what techniques were most commonly used in the 1890s. For example, I never knew anthropometry was a widely accepted thing at the time, where identification of criminals was done by comparing measurements such as foot size, femur length, etc. while dactyloscopy (or, as we call it, fingerprinting) was seen as unsound and controversial at the time.

The central mystery was fairly complex and I was pretty satisfied with the pacing of it. I didn't feel like any part dragged, but that might also be because we spend half the time also dealing with the secondary threat of the people in power attempting to obstruct the investigation, and how it may not actually be in the interests of the rich and powerful if the crime was solved. That was a further opportunity for Carr to delve into the sociology of NYC at the time, and that was pretty interesting to read.

Overall, I thought that this was a very well-written and structured mystery that tackled much more about American history and culture than simply having investigators solve an isolated crime. It does, however, pack a lot of punches in terms of trigger topics and graphic scenes, so I wouldn't give it a blanket recommendation to everyone. If you could tolerate reading about the following trigger topics, and are interested in criminal psychology and investigation techniques from the late 19th century, this is certainly a book to check out.

Trigger warnings: Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children, child prostitution, graphic bodily mutilation and murders, rape

2.5 stars. My mistake in reading this book is going in expecting a mystery-thriller with some romance elements. In fact, it is a hybrid of full blown romance and police procedural mystery, swinging in between those two genres for most of the book. My mismatched expectations probably contributed to lessen my enjoyment for this book, but overall, it was a quick and decent read.

The book opens with a rather grisly murder of a “licensed companion”, Sharon DeBlass, who also happens to be the granddaughter of a US Senator. The murderer also leaves behind a calling card stating the Sharon is just one out of six murders. Lt. Eve Dallas is put in charge of the investigations, and is personally committed to preventing five more lives from being lost. The prime suspect of the case, Irish businessman and tycoon Roarke, also proves to be unexpectedly attractive.

As I've already mentioned, I might've enjoyed this book better if I had known beforehand that it was going to be half-mystery and half-romance. But I didn't. So I spent at least the first half of the book feeling a little confused at why there was so much emphasis on Dallas and Roarke's budding mutual interest in each other, and a lot less being said on the actual investigation or finding out more about other suspects besides Roarke.

A huge issue I had with this book was that - I just didn't like Roarke for most of it. The thing he had with Eve was pretty much insta-lust which is already a trope that I'm not really a fan of in romance novels. Then there's this male alpha dominant courtship style that is his way of flirting with Eve, which I am very repulsed by in general, although I can see why this wasn't so bad when the book was written in the mid-90's. This is, of course, very subjective.

He pursues Eve somewhat relentlessly even when she's pushing him away. It's best exemplified when he basically breaks into her house (he does own the building she lives in but honestly I don't think that made a difference in his decision) to wait for her to come home. Although he has no sinister intentions, and really only wanted to see her and give her food, this invasion of her privacy (which she does call out) doesn't seem to matter to him at all - in fact, when he tells himself that he's not going to snoop around her apartment to see her stuff, he thinks: “It was not so much respect for her privacy as it was the challenge she presented that provoked him to discover her from the woman alone rather than her surroundings.” Even when he's in her house, he starts smoking and she says, “I didn't say you could smoke in here.” and instead of putting out his cigarette, he just says, “You didn't arrest me for breaking and entering, you're not going to arrest me for smoking.” I meaaan... to each their own, but this style of aggressive male dominance just didn't sit well for me.

What was extremely confusing to me was how much energy this book spent on trying to establish Roarke as the prime suspect. I felt that it was clear, as the love interest, that he wasn't going to be the killer. I just wasn't convinced, from anything I've read in the book, that J D Robb was going to pull that sort of twist - and I was correct in the end. His status as a suspect was really just to create some added tension in the burgeoning romance between him and Eve, which I thought didn't work out very well. I spent almost the whole book feeling no tension whatsoever because, while there were other suspicious characters around, we didn't spend remotely enough time with them to know who else we could suspect.

The way the investigation was conducted was also very strangely lax. Eve wants to investigate Roarke's gun collection, as Sharon DeBlass was killed by a gun, which is considered an antique weapon to get one's hands on by the time this book is set in the year 2058, and it just happens that Roarke is one of the few rich people around who has a collection of them. She does so not by showing up unannounced and therefore with an element of surprise, but in fact makes an appointment with Roarke to meet him at his house to see his collection. Roarke takes this opportunity to wine and dine Eve, preparing a candlelit dinner and whatnot as a precursor to touring her around his gun collection. She accepts being wined and dined. What kind of investigation is this?! Later on, when she repeatedly asks Roarke the same questions regarding his relationship to the victim, he sighs in frustration and she takes this as “a very good sign of his innocence”. What?!

I'll say that the last 25% of the book got more engaging to me because Eve and Roarke are finally in some vague sort of relationship and I no longer have to deal with Roarke's male-dominance act, he in fact becomes a lot more tolerable and caring with Eve when he's not trying to court her and also because the story finally starts to become more focused on the resolution of the mystery instead of swinging between that and the budding romance all the time. The revelations at the end were quite heavy and might be triggering topics to some, but I felt that they were dealt with in a fairly in-depth way that didn't make light of the subject matter, an approach that I could get behind.

Overall, this was a decent read that had its pros and cons, although I wouldn't say it was an easy read at all because while it sometimes seemed frivolous, it dealt with some pretty heavy subject matters.

Note to self: stop picking up books because they've been compared with [b:Howl's Moving Castle 6294 Howl's Moving Castle (Howl's Moving Castle, #1) Diana Wynne Jones https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407450489l/6294.SY75.jpg 2001], one of my favourite books of all time. I picked it up for this reason, but I think the comparison probably wouldn't do this book justice (HMC was just so much better in every aspect imo) so I'll try to leave it out of my review as much as possible.Honestly, I find it a bit difficult to review this book because I'm clearly not the target demographic nor is this a genre that I gravitate towards nowadays, so while I got annoyed at some parts of the book - should I have expected it going in anyway?Elisabeth Scrivener is a young apprentice at a Great Library, where they keep not only regular books but also grimoires, books that have some kind of soul and which are a cornerstone of magic in the world. One day, she is accidentally implicated in a disaster that strikes the Great Library and suspicion falls upon her as the perpetrator of the crime. A sorceror, Magister Nathaniel Thorn, along with his enigmatic butler Silas, is assigned to escort Elisabeth as a suspect to the Magisterium to stand trial. Shit happens, chaos ensue, a plot is discovered, and so on.Let me start on the weaker points of the book which just didn't work for me - whether it's a function of my preferences leaning elsewhere, or the genre as a whole just not being my thing, I'm not sure.Firstly, I was not enamoured by the protagonist Elisabeth Scrivener. I never rooted for her throughout the whole. She kinda seemed to me like your regular bookish clueless female protagonist who is almost wilfully blind to her own emotions and/or talents. The male lead and love interest, Nathaniel Thorn, is slightly better and that's mostly because his egoistic sense of humour was very clearly lifted off Howl from Howl's Moving Castle, whom I adored.Secondly, their romance was imo very clunky and unconvincing. In Chapter 3, we have a scene where Elisabeth pretends to stumble onto Thorn and they're suddenly very physically close - just so that she can touch his hair and find out for her friend whether he really had pointy ears and cloven hooves like the rumours said. Ummmm. Ok. Also, somewhere along the lines, amidst the urgency of stopping the main villain of the book, they somehow ““planned”” to go for a Royal Ball in order to confront said villain and we also have ye olde scene of Elisabeth revealing her ball gown and Nathaniel being all speechless heart-eyed stammering love interest. Why Nathaniel only sees her ball gown for the first time at the ball when they live in the same place and came together to the ball is a question I would rather not spend too much time thinking about.Thirdly, it was imo fairly obvious who the main villain was from almost the very beginning. At no point did I ever feel anything more than complete indifference to this person, because their motives were unconvincing and their behaviour and actions were just - eh. When the villain's actual master plan was revealed, I questioned, “Why?” When the book answered why, I was just like - eh. None of their motivations are ever set up properly in the book, so the villain always reads like a character going through the villanous motions because they have to be a villain so that the protagonists have a reason to get closer while planning to take him down and kissy kissy. Details under spoiler: So Ashcroft wanted to raise the Archon because he apparently wants to command him so that he can rid the world of poverty and hunger and whatever. Are you serious? That's the weakest shit I've ever heard. It's like when it became uncool for a villain to just be mindlessly power-hungry ("I want to take over the world and everyone will bow to me!"), the reaction is to make the villain mindlessly altruistic ("I'm going to kill everyone around me so that I can harness this power and make the world a better place!") Geez. Furthermore, it's also obvious that this reason for Ashcroft's mad plan was just shoehorned in for... lulz? Because at no point before he reveals this do we ever get the sense that he's concerned about the state of the world. Where is the set-up??Finally, that ending, and I'll try to detail my problems with it without spoiling. Chronologically, the final resolution could be divided into two parts. We spent way too much time on the first part which imo was far less interesting than the second part, which was almost a fade to black. I felt cheated!! Details under spoiler: I really didn't care about all that chasing after Ashcroft, I nearly skimmed through the whole bit. What really made me sit up was when Elisabeth freed Silas and he turned into some kind of post-demon monster, launched himself at Archon, and - what? They disappeared into the Otherworld and we never even get to see these two mighty demons battle? ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? I don't give a shit about Thorn's green whip or Elisabeth's powers (does she even have any besides conversing with books?).BUT. I will say that this book has some redeeming factors. It's like everything that happened in the foreground - the protagonists, the main plot, etc. - was largely what annoyed me, but then everything that was going on in the background - the magic system, the world of grimoires and sorcery, and most especially the demons - was really what interested me. The most fascinating thing to me in this whole book is summarised in one word: Silas. His moral grayness was surprising to me, being surrounded by all the inanity around him. He was at once devoted and competent servant, hungry and selfishly immortal demon, and potential apocalypse all rolled into one. I couldn't pinpoint whether he was going to turn out to be a force for good or evil, and as such he was by far the most interesting character in the book, hands down.To wrap up: I would not recommend fans of HMC to go into this book thinking that it will live up to the comparison - the parallels are there but imo HMC is by far the stronger book in every respect. If you're going into this book simply for the plot and you're very much into YA, you'd probably have a good time, and would probably love the main couple. If you have no idea what HMC is and don't like YA at all, why are you even considering picking up this book??

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Where do I start with this book? It's not by any means a perfect book - there are some flaws that simply can't be ignored, especially not when you're reading this from the 21st century. Even if we take out period-specific biases that litter throughout this book, it still has some flaws like overly convenient or just wildly unrealistic plot developments.

And despite all that, I still give it 5 stars for the sheer enjoyment value of it.

I'll admit that the first 20 chapters or so were pretty slow-going and I almost wanted to DNF. I took about 1-2 weeks to get till Ch 17, then I took a break from the book. When I picked it up again, I zoomed through Ch 18 to 117 (the end) in... 5 days. The book was un-put-downable at a very early point, every chapter was just so much juice and drama that I kept wanting to go on and on and on. I stayed up till 3-5am just reading this book because I wanted to know what was going to happen.

The Count of Monte Cristo has a very simple plot at its core, which is probably a huge part of why it remains so popular until today. A young man, Edmond Dantes, seems to have it all - at 19 years of age, he's an accomplished sailor well respected by his crewmates, he's on the brink of being promoted being naturally favoured by the ship owner, and he's about to get married to a beautiful young woman who has been faithfully waiting for him throughout his voyages. Of course, shit happens. Through a series of very unfortunate events and false accusations, Edmond ends up wrongfully imprisoned for FOURTEEN years, after which he crafts an elaborate and comprehensive revenge for the people who had robbed him of his youth, his prospects, and his marriage.

All of this happens in the first 20-ish chapters, and I was thinking: how on Earth is this book going to drag on for another 100 chapters? But it does. Oh, it really does.

There's daring swordfights and pistol duelling, treasure hunting, multiple betrayals, multiple secret identities, manipulation, so much bribery and corruption, broken marriages and broken-off engagements, secret star-crossed lovers, kidnapping by bandits, and so much more. Dumas also clearly has a penchant for only doing things at the last possible and most dramatic moment, so once you can suspend that disbelief and go along with that ride, it'll suck you in for good. This book is a veritable soap opera in text form.

That is, perhaps, one of its flaws although it's one that I am quite indifferent about. The book isn't even trying to be realistic, Dumas flagrantly enjoys the dramatic and he's going into it unapologetically. Sure, there're a lot of overly convenient and crazy plot twists but the book is clear that this is just alllll part of the drama, it's deliberately shocking you, and I'm here for it. So if you're going into this expecting social commentary or like any kind of realism, you will certainly be disappointed. Instead, look at this book in the same light as you might look upon something like Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson or Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne - it's a rollicking adventure book that requires some suspension of disbelief.

OK, let's address the elephant in the room - slavery - which will unfortunately have to go under spoiler tags as it only really becomes a thing after the first third of the book.

The Count takes on two slaves and both of them are extremely problematic imo. The first is Ali, who is described as Nubian/black, mute, and basically submissive. The problematic-ness of this is fairly clear, although perhaps not at all surprising for the time the book was written, around 1840. Ali is apparently a very competant and diligent servant, but his muteness means that he literally has no voice of his own, and he is shown unabashedly grovelling at the Count's feet. In Ch 46, when one 0f the Count's actual paid servants (I can't remember the name) says that he should emulate Ali more since the Count clearly favours him, the Count says no, because if the servant made a mistake, he would only fire him, but if Ali made a mistake, he would kill him and that Ali's life belonged to his simply because he saved his life. I get that this is probably regular fare for 19th century standards, but man is it discomfiting to read in this time and age.The second slave we get to know is Haidee, who is even more problematic to read about. Haidee is a Turkish/Greek young woman of only about 18 years old, who had once been a princess but when her father was killed, she was sold into slavery, whereupon the Count eventually bought her. From the very beginning, the Count refers to her as his "female slave", although it's clear that she is treated on a different level than Ali. While Ali does actual work for the Count, Haidee is referred to as "the young mistress" by the other servants. She keeps to her chambers and does nothing. At first, I was worried that there was some kind of sex slave situation going on which would be extremely gross, but luckily that didn't come true. When we first see Haidee interacting with the Count, she is joyfully relishing in their relationship as master and slave, always speaking submissively, worshipfully, and reverantly to the Count. We learn later on that the Count apparently looks upon her as a father would upon a daughter, which is honestly a bit weird as well, but OK. From the very beginning, there is a power dynamic between them that is significantly more unequal than even the standard imbalance that would already exist between men and women at the time. I was really disappointed when the Count ended up with Haidee at the end - even discounting their large age gap (the Count is in his early 40s while Haidee is still not even 20), I just can't get behind that ship at all with the grovelling way Haidee talks to the Count and how she relishes in submitting to him as her master in all senses of the word.

Some other notes about characters, which will also have to go under spoilers:
- Eugenie Danglars: Probably my favourite character of the book. It's left fairly open to interpretation whether she is homosexual or asexual, but she rebels against patriarchy and the institution of matrimony and doesn't get punished, which is amazing. Too bad she only appears for like 2% of the book or less, but I'm really happy that her character existed. I love that conversation she had with her father Baron Danglars where she coolly asserted her independence and self-will despite his threats. She was frequently described as being "manly", even by other female characters like Valentine de Villefort, just because she actually relished in having a strong personality of her own, but I'll overlook that because she is great and such a breath of fresh air.- Morrel and Valentine: I was OK about their romance, it was very Romeo & Juliet-esque and I feel like Morrel was such a drama queen almost all the time about this relationship, but it wasn't obnoxiously annoying.- Grandpa Noirtier: Amazing. Loved how he didn't let his physical disabilities and paralysis hold him down and stop him from executing some beautiful vengeances of his own.

Finally, my thoughts about the ending: The ending chapters were, for me, a little weaker than the vast middle of the book. I didn't like how a lot of characters ended up, to be honest. I was super psyched when Cadarousse got his come-uppance and loved the dramatic way the Count went about it. I loved that the Count didn't just go around killing his enemies willy-nilly, but set things up properly so that they still had the option to take second chances and redeem themselves, but if they didn't then they would end up exactly where they belonged. The endings for Count de Morcerf and Villefort were pretty brutal, especially with Villefort, but I thought Danglars got off WAAAY too lightly, considering that he was literally the person who hatched up and instigated the whole scheme against Edmond in the first place. He not only escaped with his life and his sanity, but even 50,000 francs that Edmond gave him.A huge part of the ending that I wasn't too happy about was Mercedes. While she got off pretty lightly compared to some of the other characters, I couldn't help feeling that the book was still criticizing and punishing her in very mild and subtle way, but the punishment was still there. And all this, just because she was "faithless" and married Fernand when everyone around her (including Edmond's own father) convinced her that Edmond was dead after he got hauled off to prison? That is some shitty misogyny right there. I suppose it plays into the whole code of conduct system in that society, where people get laughed at for being cowards just because they apologise and call off a duel at the last minute because they realised they had been at fault after all. Also similarly, how committing suicide is more "honourable" than actually facing up to things like bankruptcy or just the consequences of your own actions. So I suppose it would've been seen as more "honourable" for Mercedes to have remained forever unprotected and alone, or even commit suicide herself, rather than marry someone else. Still though... I disagree with all of the above, and think that Mercedes deserved way better. I'm glad that the Count and Mercedes didn't part on bad terms, but I really wish that they had reconciled more intimately (even if not romantically). It's clear that both of them spent almost their entire lives living for each other even though neither of them knew what had happened to the other, and I don't think that kind of bond is broken off so easily. And in the Count's case, certainly not with a teenage girl who just wants to be his slave in every respect. Ugh.A minor point that was annoying about the ending was how the Count kept dragging revelations to "test" people, particularly with Morrel and Haidee. He made Morrel go through an entire month, and then go through some song and dance about suicide and whatnot, even giving him a vial that he pretends to be poison, before he reveals that Valentine is in fact still alive just before Morrel loses consciousness. Now, that is bringing the dramatic way too far imo, and all just so that the Count can "test" Morrel's strength of feeling for Valentine. Why is it up to him to test that?! Then he also goes through another song and dance with Haidee, giving her back her freedom just so that she can be all like, "I'll kill myself if I can't be with you." Errrr. How much stroking does his ego need? Apparently Haidee's feelings for him catches him by surprised cos he hadn't realised fully up to that point that she loved him romantically, but.. just how?!

Tl;dr of this book: Despite a lot of flaws and problematic bits in this book, it's still such a fun and dramatic soap opera of a novel that'll suck you in for hours. In terms of enjoyment level, this book is almost unsurpassed in recent memory. Close one eye to these problems and suspend some disbelief before you tune in!

This isn't so much a cosy mystery as it is a rather compact and elegant study of social group psychology in the setting of a plain, honest English boarding school for girls, specifically a Physical Training College, with some masterful writing of tension.

In fact, the actual incident of the mystery only happens after the 75% mark of the book. For most of this you're invited to slowly get to know our protagonist, honest little Miss Lucy Pym, a little sympathetic in how small her life is that she is taken aback by her sudden celebrity after publishing a book on psychology, and the cohort of Senior girls in the College, Lucy's alma mater and where she is briefly staying at as a guest lecturer at the request of her old school friend, Henrietta Hodge, now Principal of the College.

Josephine Tey was a cosy mystery writer writing from the Golden Age, and I'm well up enough in my Agatha Christie and my Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy Sayers to feel like I was well equipped to spot the typical formulae of the plot. This book pretty much turned that upside down. By 20% of the book, I was a little confused as to where the plot was going. By 40%, I was wondering if there was ever going to be a mystery at all, but felt strangely compelled to keep on going. Throughout the whole book, while you are getting comfortably settled in to this cast of characters, there's an underlying tension that is very subtly and increasingly alluded to as the plot moves on with sinister inevitability like an unstoppable slow train bound towards a cliff's edge. By the time the incident happens, you almost feel relieved. When the culprit is revealed, I'm pretty sure it doesn't take anyone by surprise - but keep on going, because Tey has more tricks up her sleeve.

This is one of those mysteries that should be wholly unremarkable on paper (even the incident in itself is not particularly dramatic compared to many cosy mysteries I've read) and where there just isn't a lot of action going on throughout the whole, but it really sticks with you. It's not only because of the masterful way the tension is teased out so slowly both within the text and as the reader waiting for the axe to fall in a mystery novel, but also because Tey focuses much more so on the psychology (or the popular concepts of her day) of her characters, the group dynamics, and their motivations.

This was an entertaining read and I enjoyed that it was taking some classic fairy tales and putting a new spin on it with a monster hunter going around hunting the monsters in these stories.

What i didn't enjoy, though, was the treatment of women and sexual assault and sex in general. I didn't like how almost all female characters had to be SOMEHOW connected with sex with a man, whether it was sexual attraction or rape or just sex or something else. Yennefer was by far the best female character in the whole book, but even then I was far from 100% happy with her characterisation. There's a LOT here to be improved on in terms of writing women tbh. When I found out that this book was published in 1993, it suddenly made a lot more sense but still - not really a reason for me to close two eyes and continue if it's getting on my nerves.

Whether i will pick up the second book remains to be seen. I definitely haven't ruled it out, but the general treatment of women in the first book is really not making me very motivated to check it out. I also haven't really seen enough of the lore and politics of the world to be sucked in to that in this one.

I was randomly seized by a desire to read Auguste Dupin, of whom I have heard a lot and whose stories are so famous, but I had no memory of whether I had ever read them before.

These 3 short stories were written in the first half of the 19th century - so basically some decades before Sherlock Holmes was even a thing (Doyle wrote him in the latter half of the century). Personally, I am much more familiar with the Holmes canon than the Dupin stories, so I inevitably made a lot of comparisons while reading it.

Dupin is certainly what I would call a Holmes prototype. He's extremely intelligent in a cold, calculating, reasoning way, and he habitually makes fun of the police for not being competent enough. The unnamed narrator whose sole function is perhaps just to give us a third person perspective of Dupin as well as to ask him questions about the mystery at hand is fairly devoid of personality and seems to derive all that he has from Dupin's own. Overall though, I would say that we don't really get to know Dupin and the narrator in much depth at all, and most of their conversations feels like essay after essay on criminal investigation and deductive reasoning, rather than showcasing a substantial personality behind them.

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” has long been hailed as the first ever modern detective story, and I can see why. I kinda wish that the solution of the mystery was more satisfying, but it definitely worked for what it was. This one and “The Purloined Letter” were the ones, I think, that influenced the Holmes formula of short stories the most. The only difference between these and the Holmes short stories is that we actually get to see some action and the mystery develop with Holmes, whereas with Dupin most of these stories generally take place in a room with Dupin just giving a lecture to the narrator about how he solved the mystery, and there's really barely any action involved.

“The Mystery of Marie Roget” really stood out amongst these three short stories because it was even more devoid of action. It was essentially Poe using Dupin as his vehicle to deliver his own criminal investigation essay, rebutt all the newspaper articles, and present his proposed solution to a real unsolved murder that had happened in New York around the time, that of Mary Rogers. This was the most tedious to read for me because Poe/Dupinreally delved into every single sentence published by the newspapers to roundly refute these assertions, even measurements of muslin and whatnot... There was just a lot of exposition, and barely any action, character work, or personality.

The Dupin short stories are still worth reading if you're a fan of cosy mysteries and Sherlock Holmes, just because of how iconic it has been in establishing the mystery genre, even if Doyle really took the formula and (in my opinion) improved tremendously upon it.