Elissa

A Man Called Ove certainly deserves a content warning for attempted suicide, but its insight about the pain of grief, the unexpected delight of cross-generational connection, and the meaning of community tugs at the heartstrings. Here Backman, with the simultaneous pathos and comforting warmth that are his custom, provides a window into the life of a crotchety old man certain he has exhausted all joy life could ever have to offer him—until new neighbors arrive to seriously disrupt his routine. Despite his bleak outlook, Ove is one of the funniest characters I have encountered in fiction; his shameless frankness is endearing and laugh-out-loud hilarious, and I found myself rooting for him despite every effort he made to convince his neighbors, and the reader, to the contrary. Taking inspiration from Ove, I will bluntly say that this is the most uplifting story about an old guy constantly trying and failing to kill himself I have ever read.

On the one hand, The Midnight Library has the rare distinction of being a quick, compelling read that stirred me to serious introspection; I have always identified with Plath's fig-tree metaphor in The Bell Jar, and Haig's alternate take on the choices that make up our lives is an existentialist rebuke that resonated strongly for me personally. This is a page-turner: the chapters are short, with many bordering on abrupt (a stylistic choice that works well for the subject matter), and the prose is straightforward but contains more than a few pithy jewels. I loved the concept of a library wherein a visitor could flip through alternate lives as easily as through pages.

On the other, I found this book to be predictable, heavy-handed, and overly didactic. (The further the protagonist, Nora, progressed toward self-actualization, the more The Midnight Library read to me like a self-help book, especially insofar as I felt free to assimilate what I wanted and scratch the rest.) With as much telling as the book does, it seems to show something different with surprising frequency; for instance, the book spends a couple of pages explaining in no uncertain terms that Nora should prioritize her own wishes rather than those of others, but, from start to finish, illustrates that her happiness hinges on her impact on others' lives. I also think it's dangerous and offensive to imply (as this book does) that depression is, or is the result of, a choice; so too is Nora's unnecessarily stigmatizing aversion to any of the many lives in which she discovers she is on antidepressants, as though this were a personal failing.

Ultimately, I found this novel a largely enjoyable and thought-provoking use of an evening, but it's no surprise that it's polarizing despite its acclaim and continued popularity.

I found The Magician's Land not just a satisfying end to the Magicians trilogy, but the best book in the series: this final puzzle piece made sense of the story Grossman was telling all along. Those who can get past jaded protagonist Quentin's growing pains in the first two novels deserve this book as a reward. Ousted from the lush fantasy land of Fillory, Quentin begins to strive toward a new and singularly fantastic purpose, actualizing more than himself in the process; in the meantime, the Fillorian royalty struggle to save their land from a looming apocalypse. Grossman's worldbuilding in this series was both comforting in its evocation of Harry Potter and Narnia nostalgia and innovative enough that it deserves to be celebrated. He has built his own magician's land.

First of all, I mean no disrespect to the sisters who endured the horrors detailed within the pages of If You Tell. I spent most of this book viscerally disgusted by the fact that a human being could do any of this to other human beings, let alone her own daughters. I feel for them; the trauma they suffered should not be minimized, and their stories should be told, so long as they wish it.

I will give credit to Olsen where credit is due: this is an incredibly compelling story. However, the same cannot necessarily be said about the storytelling. The structure of the book puzzled me: it seemed linear, except when it wasn't. Too many of the approximately ninety chapters (no joke) largely seemed to restate facts that had already been covered, making the book a slog despite relatively easy reading. Olsen's frequent employment of line breaks for emphasis quickly became a pet peeve, as did his use of “at once” to juxtapose two essential synonyms (i.e.—and I'm paraphrasing, because I've already returned the book—”It was at once repulsive and disgusting”).

I only saw If You Tell through to the end because I had to know what happened next. Some people surely will—and do—love this book; ultimately, I was not one of them.

Although I often felt so adrift in imagery and metaphor while reading this epistolary novella that I had a hard time grasping the ancillary plot elements, this inventive work left a smile on my face. The prose poetry of This Is How You Lose the Time War, if at times abstruse, gleams even when describing the horrific, and especially when describing the beautiful.

Note: unless I missed more here than I thought, it is never once explained how the protagonists travel in time. Some other key details I'd have liked to see elaborated include the inner workings of the protagonists' unconventional letter-writing and, indeed, the reason for the time war itself; these were either implied, glossed over, or outright ignored, which rankled me. If you must be told the “why” and “how” to enjoy a time-travel story, this book is probably not for you.

This book's saving grace is that it is not actually about the titular time war. At its core, This Is How You Lose the Time War is a romance, one that the travel back and forth in time and space ultimately serves to facilitate. In this respect, it tells a brilliantly original story of the triumph of love in the face of the horrors of war. I can't say I enjoyed this book until I really got into the rhythm of El-Mohtar's and Gladstone's worldbuilding-by-implication, but when I did get into it, oh, boy, did I.