George D

Books like this are great to make you realise “damn these ideas I thought were fresh are hella old” and “how the hell did they predict that back then?”

I didn't realise going in how communist this vision of Utopia would be, for good and for ill. Don't know if that's intentional but I hope Engels gives some props to old Thomas More somewhere in his writings.

I'm not one for swooning but that letter had my limbs feeling quite faint. What a moment. Loved it.

The book is a delight, Ann is a complex character packed full of doubts even as she exhibits the usual Austen heroine traits of good judgement, excellent decorum and refined taste. The characters around her are the classic mixture of good, bad, and hilariously horrible.

It doesn't tie everything off into a satisfying tight little package like Pride and Prejudice but that isn't the point of this book. The central plot is based around a decade old missed opportunity, add to that the unresolved economic situation, the character threads left hanging, the strange unexpected matches, and it becomes a novel about the randomness of life, the moments that are passed by or that happen to come together.

I rate that.

A delightfully strange premise that had me laughing out loud at least a couple of times while reading it, always very impressive when a book manages that.

This book is A Confederacy of Dunces with a privileged white woman as the lead. It's a hard read until you realise she's a buffoon you're meant to laugh at the entire time.

She is smug, classist, and closeminded, the kind of person who genuinely believes they care about others but are completely incapable of seeing anyone elses point of view. Even after her journey of self discovery it's made very clear - with her attitude towards Harriet and Mr Martin - that she is still plenty classist and closeminded.

Maybe it's society conditioning me, maybe it's my own insecurities, but if I'm honest I kinda love her spoiled white ass.

WARNING: THIS IS HALF A BOOK

I was quite furious when I got to the end and realised there is literally no resolution to any story threads, it just stops at a completely arbitrary chapter. Infuriating, you've been warned.

Now that we're past that part and onto the actual content of the book - it's mostly great. Love that Pullman followed up Northern Lights with a direct rebuttal to anyone who took the series to mean rationalism is the be-all-end-all.

Will impatiently wait for the second half of the book.

An ending to a trilogy with the precision of a Swiss watch.

What a delight to watch an author improve in front of your eyes over a trilogy. This is Sanderson in his present form, for good and for ill.

If you love him in anything written after this book, you'll love him here.