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I absolutely ADORE The Martian and Project Hail Mary. There were moments in this book where I could barely believe it was the same author. Some points which were borderline offensive? I think I agree with others, that Weir should stick to writing white men.
Definitely the weakest of Weir's that I've read, but at least Project Hail Mary came after this so we know he didn't have one hit then became shit.
Still, it was a decent sci fi book, just didn't live up to my expectations.
I didn't enjoy this as much as Howard's End- Lucy is a bit of a nothing character to be honest, although she does get slightly better. George and Mr Emerson are so interesting and we hardly see any of them.
I swear to god I've basically had the exact conversation that Lucy had when she broke off her engagement with Cecil. And my guy also turned to hating me/women.
This is perfect blend of educational, heartfelt, factual, and human. Like John, I was ignorant about the prevalence of tuberculosis and thought it was a disease of the past. John's narrative makes learning about the reality of tuberculosis, the history of consumption, and the racist and classist healthcare system simple and accessible.
Unfortunately didn't love this quite as much as Magpie Murders or Moonflower Murders. Both had their own charm that felt like it was missing from this book. I know there was a nice little One Year LaterĀ for Susan, and it was lovely but it felt a bit forced? I'd still recommend it for fans of the first two books, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations.
I liked this more than Us Against You, so at least there's that.
It is quite long but I would say it didn't feel like a slog to me. I had criticised Us Against You for over explaining what happened in the previous book too much, and this fell into a similar trend, although it was in general less noticeable/annoying.
I do also think the foreshadowing got a bit old. Benji's death hit me hard, but I think it would have hit me harder had I not been expecting it since the start of the book.
All that being said, I loved the direction the story took, and as always, Backman gives us amazing, complex, loveable characters.
Such a brilliant book, I absolutely tore through it!! Mark is a delightful narrator, and Weir mixed drama and humour impeccably.
I have a funny anecdote to tell about this book. In 2015, when I had just started sixth form, our deputy head of year gave a talk about resilience, and used this book as an example of someone with incredible resilience. During this, he gave the whole plot away. That same month, the film adaptation came out. He received so many complaints from sixth formers for ruining the ending that he had to send a mass apology email.
Almost DNF around 20% of the way in but I pushed through.
After reading Madeleine Miller's Circe and Costanza Casati's Clytemnestra, I was looking forward to reading another modern retelling of a Greek myth.Ā
Firstly, the inconsistencies between this story and the original myths was incredibly annoying. The author says that the myths are not set in stone, but most of the deviations from the myths are pointless? She says she hated how Psyche's sisters were depicted in the myth, so instead of giving them some dimensionality she just erases them and invents a whole new branch on the family tree of Atreus (except Atreus no longer existed either?). The whole storyline involving Troy didn't really have any significance either.
I also don't see this as a feminist retelling at all. Psyche doesn't need to be a āheroā to be a significant, well rounded protagonist. It feels to me that the author insists that most of the other women in Psyche's life (besides Atalanta) are āweakā because of their femininity, and Psyche is better because she's a strong independent woman.
Eros' chapters were more interesting than Psyche's, but all in all I didn't really care for the characters.
