Kate
3.5 stars.
This is Sherlock Holmes fanfic, and with fanfic as the baseline for judgment, it's delightful. Crow, the Holmes character, makes so much more sense as a non-human who is puzzled by the basics of human life. Whereas Holmes (at least in my memory of the original) might be offputtingly brusque, Crow has an alien-like curiosity and interest in people. It's a nice change from the anti-hero House-type main characters that are currently popular.
[Spoilers below]
Putting fan-fic aside, I don't think there's enough framing of why Crow is an angel. There's a hint of an overarching narrative that could be neatly tied up, but it never really happens. A lot of questions go unanswered.
A fun read. I was especially in awe of Anjeli's politicking. The whole romance angle got old very quickly though. The love interest had a reputation for being unfaithful, and that reputation seemed to be warranted, so why the main character was interested in him and why the reader would want them to get together was beyond me.
I loved this book. It's more like literary fiction than fantasy, but don't let that dissuade you.
I could see myself in the protagonist, Barrie Anne Blythe, which I usually don't find to be the case.
The book opens mid-story (as it should). Barrie has a small farm and survives by selling produce and eggs at the market. Her competence and the joy she takes in farming reminded me a bit of Andie McDowell's character in Green Card. If you like gardener protagonists, this is gonna be your jam.
Anyways, the farming is interrupted when Barrie's dog brings her something, something so unusual that it will change her life forever. So Barrie calls in support, in the form of her Aunt Charlotte, a artist (with her own strong backstory) who raised Barrie. (I loved the Aunt Charlotte character and I thought her interaction with Barrie rang true.)
As Barrie deals with the fallout, we learn more about her life through a series of well-situated flashbacks set during her high school and college years during World War II. We find out how she met her now-missing husband, Will. The backstory is woven expertly until it and the current day meet in an exciting climax.
I usually don't really like literary fiction, because it seems to be depressing on purpose, and who wants to read that. But the characters were so true in this book, and the writing so good, that I didn't feel like it was a meaningless suffer-fest for the critics. It felt like a study of what it means to be a woman, and what it means to forge your own path, regardless of the evitable hardships. Highly recommend.
Edit: saw that other reviewers thought that Will, the husband, was an unrealistic character. All I can say is, lucky you. If I had married my first boyfriend, I'm not sure it would have been that different.
Major spoilers ahead!!
I really liked a few things about this book. The tie-ins to Jane Eyre were delightful and spare. The aunt getting rid of Jane/June was, well, kind of understandable after June burns most of the house down by experimenting. And, the brooding Mr. Rochester is on a planet, alone, and it's only after a fire in the night that you realize his role.
I loved how June is so believably interested in science. I loved the difference in the narration and her agency from when she is 12 to when she's an adult. She goes from narrating as some sort of alien examining human life to competently living her own.
There were a few things I didn't like. The book ends abruptly, maybe making room for a sequel. The love interest is rather monstrous, but less morally excusable than Mr. Rochester is. Because of this, it's not a romance. I had no hope of a happy ending in the usual sense. (Tbh I kind of wished the love interest would die off.) Perhaps this was intentional: the only way in which the book/series could have a happy ending is if June fixes her uncle's technology and saves the crew that's in jeopardy. That's pretty feminist, and maybe that's the point? June's looking for family and her accomplishments let her find it? Maybe.
For what it's worth, the lack of quotes didn't bother me. It wasn't simply that the author dropped them. It seems like she means to allow the narrator to paraphrase, and I thought that was a cool way to experience things from the narrator's perspective more than usual. We don't know what the other characters actually said, as we would if they were quoted. We only know June's interpretation.
I loved the earlier books, but I didn't have an emotional connection to this one. It seemed like there were (unintentional?) red herrings in the plot. For instance, Fiona seems like she is going to affect some large change during her stay in the temple, beyond capturing the blackmail material. Yet, I don't think we ever find out what the actual purpose of that festival is.
I loved the characters. Uncle Earl and Simon were fabulous. I especially loved the scenes where the ex-husband calls and Kara doesn't give a shit because there's much worse stuff going on.
I felt like the other world was a letdown. I would rate this a three if not for the characters and Kingfisher's writing. Creatures that want to kill/eat you and can know where you are if you think about them. That's overdone.
I read The Twisted Ones in a tiny studio in Kyoto on the eighth story as a typhoon raged around me. That book scared the pants off me. This one wasn't as scary. I'm not sure why. I know the willows are a reference, but willows that change position aren't particularly scary. Things whose danger is known because Simon says so aren't particularly scary. I think what was missing was a feeling of malice - if new characters who could have been saviors actually were evil, or the item that caused it all had been more alive/humanoid. It's hard to attribute malice to willows.
If you love Robin McKinley, you'll love this book by [a:Intisar Khanani 5780445 Intisar Khanani https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1520258584p2/5780445.jpg].I really liked Thorn by Khanani, so I was looking forward to reading this, but Sunbolt blew me away. It was like having a new [a:Robin McKinley 5339 Robin McKinley https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-6a03a5c12233c941481992b82eea8d23.png] book (possible spoiler: fans of Sunshine will especially like this one).
Absolutely fabulous. One of my favorite reads of the year.
The book explores so many things - what happens when people can “consent” to be, effectively, slaves? How can one escape such a sentence? What would life look like with constant access to a personal AI? What if everything is 3D printed? What would the backlash against it look like? If the world is taken over by corporations? What do the rich act like in a world with this much technology?
On top of all of that, there's a fantastic detective story.
The premise of the book is that technology has created too much communication. You might expect a thoughtful Black-Mirror-like reflection on our tech addictions and anxieties. Instead, you get a story written by someone who apparently does not know how Facebook works. Or Twitter.
At one point, one of the characters says, “I'm guessing you don't want to be seen coming home on a Sunday morning dressed like that... Especially since one of your neighbors is bound to be on Facebook.” How does Connie Willis think Facebook works??? It's truly astounding.
In another section, a character has invented a way to delete tweets. That's right. Delete tweets. Which you can do right now. The characters also seem to think that you send a tweet like a text message, to an individual person. In which case, having trouble deleting them actually makes some sort of sense? I don't know, but I tell you, it is fascinating.
Also, the main character, Briddey, turns off her phone when she doesn't want to talk to someone, and then is unable to use her phone for other things like directions. This is actually part of the plot.
There are other flaws: Briddey has no concept of boundaries. She has given most of the other characters in the book the KEYS TO HER HOME. Part of the plot hinges on her not being able to go home because someone whom she is avoiding might be there. (MAYBE DON'T GIVE THEM YOUR KEYS.) What's more, soon after this, she says that it would be been easier for her to communicate with someone if she had given them a key to her apartment and then put a note on her bed. REALLY.
More: The love interest continuously lies to her for her own good and this is deemed acceptable.
Even more: Briddey seems incapable of sorting out “look what you made me do”-type arguments and believes she's the cause of other people's bad actions. She acts like an abuse victim, but the book doesn't seem to notice.