zilver
“She was unmoored and her memories were eroding in the sunlight, and she was rendered shy by the strangeness of this new fast life.”
i'm a bit in two minds about whether it would've been better to read emily st. john mandel's books in order, but i actually think i can appreciate this earlier work more having read some of the later stuff.
this book is the start of the ESJMLU (emily st. john mandel literary universe) and it shows. there are so many themes and motifs here that we see her return to again in station eleven and the glass hotel. the traveling protagonists, the dipping our toes into the mystical parts of the world, the importance of cities and homes. it's really cool to recognise these things as things she is interested in exploring in her work, and it's extra fascinating to see how she's grown and developed when it comes to telling these stories.
there are a number of things that are slightly underdeveloped or unresolved in this novel in a way that i think glass hotel-emily st john mandel wouldn't let them be. but i think precisely because i know where she is heading, those things don't bother me that much. i'm sad i didn't get more than a couple of glimpses of some elements, but at the same time she's already so good at setting up this open world that it isn't hard to imagine the developments yourself, if you want.
i also think it's funny that it's in this first book there is a line that encapsulates her recognisable style so well: “This was a skittish, almost catastrophic life, in which nothing was certain; paradoxically, Lilia was unusually calm.” i like having it so explicitly said here, knowing the way her later work will spark that feeling so naturally.
“How much loss can be carried in a single human frame?”
and despite it's flaws, there are so many things here already - in earlier shapes and forms, sure, but here nonetheless - that draw me to mandel's stories. the mysteries she sets up and guides you through. you never feel like you know too much or too little - even if you want to know more you trust that she knows how she will get you there. and she does. it's a very comforting feeling.
3/5 books read. i'm living a good life working my way through emily st. john mandel's bibliography.
3.5 my first gibson, and a difficult one to review. i think it's necessary to divvy up my rating, because it's a 5-star read in terms of concept and world building, which deserves to be said. it fell short for me both in terms of actual story and character (would give it 3 stars for both of those, maybe). my dad - a real gibson aficionado - tells me this way of building a strange and new and only (very) partially recognisable world, and dropping you into it without a warning or an explanation is a very gibson-y thing to do. i can't confirm or deny that, of course, it being my first gibson, but i can tell it's something he does well. both the world he crafts are fascinating and vast and distinct and both clearly a result of our world, and entirely strange from it. it's hard work, reading this book and trying to keep up with it. i think that's why i enjoyed the middle part the most - i'd worked through the first chunk and finally gotten to a place where i felt a bit more settled in the story and the characters. where i could read a page and was able to place every weird concept without too much trouble (only to be uprooted again during the last chunk, of course). i'm a very character-focused reader. if the characters and their relationships and development are good and interesting, i'll forgive a lot of things. on the other hand, however, if i feel like those things aren't that well developed, i'll always feel there's something distinct lacking in this story. i felt not real connection to any of the characters. i didn't feel like any of them had a real arc throughout the book. i really liked the parts where we got descriptions of wilf and lowbeer and ash's complicated relationship with their future - how they hated it and appreciated it, how they wanted it to be different, how they longed for the past. but in the end, those things we learned about them and their thinking never really seemed to be developed further than those surface feelings. and the story... just left me confused, to be honest. maybe because i wasn't invested in it at all. very possible that that's entirely on me, but i had to read the wikipedia page to get a grasp of why half the story was happening and even that didn't really clear it up for me. again - may be me lacking the braincells, may be gibson dedicating so much to the world that he's missing some of the rest of what the book needed. in the end i'm left feeling like i put a lot of hard work into understanding a book and didn't really end up getting enough out of it to make that hard work feel entirely worth it. and i think now i need something that doesn't make my brain feel like my laptop's cpu when i'm playing sims with all the packs installed
4.5 “actually, several of us who???d been thinking a great deal about that doubleness, that knowing and not knowing, being honorable and not being honorable, knowing you???re not a good person but trying to be a good person regardless around the margins of the bad.”i finished this yesterday afternoon and i think i'm going to be processing it for a long time. the glass hotel feels like the kind of book you immediately want to read again because you know there is so much in there that you haven't gotten out of it yet. and there's a Lot in this book. it's about wilderness vs stylised life, about private vs public, about what ifs, about the restriction of poverty and the restriction of richness, it's about what we imagine our lives to be like and how things never turn out the way we thought, it's about invisible barriers between people and places and classes, it's about where you belong and what you long for, it's about illusion and delusion, it's about the ambiguity of humanity. it's about looking at the world from a distance, and looking from up close, and figuring out what the difference is. i don't know how to review this book, really. it was good. really good. i love emily st. john mandel's writing style. it's so clean, and economic, and yet so rich. i like that she likes to write about disaster as if it's not disastrous. the disaster in this book is, it's true, disaster on a relatively smaller scale than in station eleven, but it's disaster nonetheless. it's destructive in many ways. it makes for a before and after. but it's like st. john mandel can process all of that, and stay calm at the same time. it's almost gentle, the way she leads you through it. she knows not everything needs to be spelled out. it leaves you with a very open world to explore and interpret. last thing: i kinda love subtle references to characters from other novels like this. it's really only there if you've read other work, and it's fine if you miss it, but i think it's just a nice touch to give some readers that glimpse of recognition.
3.5 ???We want some chaos. We want havoc. Bring us hell.???One of the epigraphs of this book is a Jennifer???s Body quote (???Hell is a teenage girl???), and I feel like that tells you a lot about this book. Sideways (it???s a nickname - thank god) Pike finds herself at the party of three of the most untouchable girls in her year. At school she???s mostly known for her witchery, and that???s exactly why she was asked here, to perform some magic during the halloween party. Freak everyone out. Sideways enlists the help of said untouchable trio - Jing, Daisy & Yates - and by doing so, unravels the magic the other three girls all hold inside, and binds the four of them together. ???The magic snapped back like a rubber band. It struck hard and all at once ??? A jagged, painful pulse reverberated from my lungs to my core, and I heaved in a breath through my teeth, wheezed a cough. There was a whistling in my ears loud enough to rupture my skull.??? I love how visceral magic feels. Sideways senses it in her entire body, and the writing is so reflective of that. At times it was a little overdone, but overall I think it really contributed to the atmosphere, this sense of magic being a full body experience. It brought it really close, and made it almost tangible. I think the style is one of the things that really won???t be for everybody, but it was for me. ??????Can girls not be soft and still be powerful???????Girls can. Girls are.??????I???ve seen some people comment on the immediacy of their friendship, but I think an event like the one they went through together is exactly the kind of thing that binds you together. And I believe in the magic of this created world enough that I can imagine if you feel magic the way they did, you???re not just going to walk away from the person who instigated it. The closeness of the girls was one of the things I liked most about this story. They???re all very different, but the way they care for each other and take care of each other without flinching, without hesitation, really appeals to me as a reader. I liked that they weren???t clean-cut, but a little (or a lot) ragged at the edges. I liked their anger, and how justified they felt in it. I liked their loyalty. ???Feeling witchy is a large part of successfully being witchy, and nothing makes you feel powerful like surrounding yourself with gigantic dripping candles.??? Lastly I want to point out the worldbuilding. It???s one of the things I feel ambivalent about in this book, but I???m going to start with the positives. The ideas we got - regarding covens, and spellbooks, and devils, were really interesting and exciting to me. I love when magic changes overtime, so the idea of older versus modern witch covens and traditions I think is really cool. Really liked Mr. Scratch as well - a lot of Calcifer from Howl???s Moving Castle vibes. And a small thing I wanted to point out that I very much enjoyed - the chapter titles. Not enough books make good use of them these days, and I really liked all the references. Very fun.???There was something repugnant about the absence of rage in me. I wanted my fury back.???Then in terms of negatives??? Starting where we left off: the worldbuilding did take very very long to really get a grip on. Really just the last quarter of the book we were introduced to these concepts that I think the story as a whole would???ve really benefited from being introduced earlier. Especially because they are so fascinating! I want to know more about them! I want these girls to know more about them! Show us what they mean! Secondly, and I think most importantly, the plot feels flimsy. I called the ???reveal??? in the first chapter and I don???t know if I was meant to, but if I was, then it just feels frustrating to have to wait until the absolute last moment to have it be revealed to our main characters. There are all these things happening that could be forming a plot, but they???re threads that kind of dangle. They???re not pulled tight, like the author didn???t have a good grip on them. When Sideways gets kidnapped by some weird, religious family, it???s obviously terrifying and dark, but we hear almost nothing of it after she escapes. It???s left almost entirely untouched until the end of the book, when all the threads are suddenly pulled taut, supposedly coming together, even though it feels messy and unearned. In addition, the writing of the characters constantly teetered on an edge for me. I know I said earlier that I really liked the writing style overall, and I did, but only just. Sometimes, the prose got too much, and I could feel myself cringe at it. Sometimes, the teenage-ness of the girls felt performative. Look, the author seemed to say, I know how teens these days act and speak. Look! Look! Look! I don???t want to have to look. I want to notice. I was on a similar edge when it came to the depiction of the girls??? queerness. I love them, I love having multiple queer girls in one gang, I???m totally here for it. But especially Sideways??? own inner monologue when it came to her attraction to girls felt sometimes a little bit too much like the author was like, hey, that joke you people on the internet always make about disaster lesbians, look! Here is one! She can???t think straight when she sees a girl! Again, I want to note that as a reader, I don???t need it shoved in my face. And obviously I don???t mean I don???t want queerness shoved in my face. I???m saying that as a queer girl (though not a lesbian) I felt the depiction really was on the edge of being performative in its intensity. As of right now, I am planning to read the next book in this series. I really hope it will flesh out the world and the plot, and be a more coherent story (and make this book a more coherent part of the series). I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.
I kind of hate that I didn???t like this book. It looks so promising! A fun, cute, light, summer-y read. We need those! But honestly, this book read like a Disney Channel movie. And not in the funny way - in the cringey way.
I???ll start by mentioning some things I enjoyed: the feeling of summer it brought about; the fact that the main character, Emma is very secure in her sexuality and (besides a horribly homophobic and toxic mother) this isn???t made into a big deal any time it comes up; that Emma gets to stand up to said mother; I suppose the idea of this book???
Oof. I think the main problem is that I???ve read this entire book, and I still feel like I know nothing about any of the characters. They are all two-dimensional, not fleshed out, bland characters. Everyone???s personality relies on being a) sarcastic, b) nice, or c) a bully. Generally, I do consider it quite a problem if no one, including your main character, seems to go through any kind of development. Any details regarding characters??? lives and feelings were always handed to us, and we were expected to take them at face-value. Even major things like Emma???s depression and anxiety, which are mentioned a couple of times as being something that influences her life greatly at times (and understandably so!), are kept completely at a distance. At some point she mentions to her father on the phone that she???s having a bad day, and I just had the thought that I would not have gotten that at all from any of the other descriptions of what had been going on that day. The panic attacks she experiences happen, and are brushed off afterwards, not to be talked about again. Their effects or causes are left untouched upon.
Besides that, the decision-making, the way basically everyone acted, was quite ridiculous constantly. Again, Disney Channel movie vibes. No one???s actions really sense. Multiple times when characters pointed out other characters??? motivations or thought-processes I was genuinely thrown because I would just not understand how they got to those conclusions at all. I'd blame it on the fact that the characters are young but honestly? All of them are around 18. Not to say all your decisions should be logical and sensible all of a sudden, but they also shouldn't be... this. And the relationships... I don???t know, but Emma keeps saying she???s bad at making friends, and I???m inclined to agree with her, because despite saying that Gwen is her, and I quote, ???soulmate???, she knows literally nothing about Gwen except that???s she???s peppy and kind. Same with Vivian, our love interest. After 300 pages I know nothing about her except that she goes to college, where she acts ???differently??? than she does at camp, and that she likes order. But then again, after 300 pages I know not much more about Emma, so.
I think this book had a lot of potential, and unfortunately it just didn???t live up to any of it for me.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
3.5 ???Our end will bring our beginning to light.???I need to start of by saying that reading this book with this pandemic playing out in the meantime does make the whole prepping for the End Of The World As We Know It business a whole lot more reasonable. Maybe it always was. That being said, I kinda really dug this non-dystopian dystopia story. Because of how ingrained the prepper lifestyle is for all three Juniper sisters, it really feels like you???re on this precipice the entire story - the apocalypse might really happen at any time. It???s a bit strange to say, but it was refreshing to read a story where the apocalypse is approached with as much calm, distance, and preparedness as in The Last Girls. It???s like this: it???s likely the shit???s gonna hit the fan sometime (especially with copious amounts of references to an unnamed POTUS who keeps starting wars and tweeting his bad decisions out to the world) and the Juniper sisters are ready. They know plan A, and B, all the way until Z. And then some, probably. The setting for TLG is one of the things that makes the story so intriguing. The amount of detail and care that went into describing the compound, the way it works, the way Honey, Birdie and Blue???s brains work as a result of the way they???ve been trained, is really fascinating. And we all know I???m a sucker for a strong sibling bond in any story, so I was pretty certain this book was up my alley in that respect, and I was right. It was the other strongest part of this novel. The idea of despite all that???s going on, we are each other???s first priority, is just super appealing to me. That combined with the literal found family trope we had going on??? britneyyeah.gif. When there are two storylines you know are going to intersect at some point during the story that just makes for a really exciting prospect, and the chapters surrounding that moment in TLG definitely had me on the edge of the couch. ???You trained us to be soldiers, to protect what???s ours, and that???s exactly what we did.??? That also leads me, though, to some of the stuff I had issues with. Because despite enjoying a lot of the story, when I sat with it after finishing the book I also felt??? unresolved. And I think one of the reasons for that was the pacing of the book, because despite really liking the idea of the two different storylines, I did feel like it took too long for them to intersect. It meant that I was left with the sense that the resolution of this pretty major plot point and event in the characters??? lives was rushed. The other thing was, and I think this was pretty major in my final feelings about the book, that I felt like a lot of the characters could have been developed a lot more. It especially struck me when it came to Blue, who, while unambiguously beloved by her sisters, is just [says something prophetic][embroiders clothes][has cool pet bird] all the time. Even Honey isn???t able to say much more than ???wow, what Blue just said is even weirder than all the stuff she???s said before.??? Blue doesn???t seem to have any friends, or relationships besides her sisters/mother. And when she???s supposed to be one of the core people to this story, makes it just a bit harder to get into. Also all the antagonists remained really flat. Their motivations remained really unclear, they were just bad, angry, mean people, without there being really more to it than that. That in combination with the amount of things that were supposedly going on in the second half of the book, the violence, the paranormal (???)... It was just a bit too much for me. It feels like a case of less would???ve been more. It would???ve given some more space and depth for plot/characters that I think really needed it. Still, I think The Last Girls surprised me in a lot of ways, and made for a really interesting story with an original setting. I???d definitely recommend it to people looking for something really fresh and exciting.I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
3.5 this book is jonathan swift???s ???a modest proposal??? level of satire and is completely upfront about that. it makes clear pretty early on what it sets out to do, and then just does that! the message is so extremely in your face, but also, it???s a good message, so why not? very enjoyable overall
“I think the best stories feel like they're still going, somewhere, out in story space.”
when i was younger, i always said that if there was one magical world that i could visit, it would be the night circus. i love that now that i'm older, i can say the same about the starless sea.
it's important to mention that years have passed since i read erin morgenstern's last book, because i think where i'm now in my life influences the impact this book had on me a lot. i think i would've enjoyed it greatly when i was younger, but i don't think it would've meant as much to me as it does now. maybe i just felt like its protagonist was extremely receptive to me projecting onto him.
so, erin morgenstern writes about worlds that i want to live in. about magic that i wish was real. the world that zachary ezra rawlins ends up in, is arguably the ideal magical place: books, mystery, puzzles, and an abundance of cats. everything about the magic in the starless sea is what i would want magic to be, and what i would expect magic to be. it is greater than its characters are, and more than they are, and it is too much for him to know. so many parts of the starless sea and the worlds above and below it are not explained or understood, and it's fine. you drift along with it, as zachary drifts along with it, and it's okay because the magic itself is so comforting. there are no stakes for the magic. there are high stakes surrounding the magic and surrounding the people surrounding the magic, but the magic has no dog in that fight. and the magic will not be used for anything but itself. i think there is something immensely soothing about a benevolent force like that that is simply exuding stories.
the structure of the book fits all of this perfectly, as well. it's strange, and a little overwhelming, and a little confusing, and it leaves you aching for more, out of curiosity and fascination and captivation. but when it doesn't give you more, and often it won't (though sometimes it will), you don't feel resentment. this is the way it should be. you get a glimpse, a fragment, a page of a book. that's all. it's okay.
i want to read this book again, because i think only when i read it again will i be able to properly muse on the meaning of a story that is so intentional about stories, and i will properly be able to grasp what it means for zachary to be an emerging media major with such an interest in interactive storytelling. there's so much there, i can just feel it, but right now my mind is still entirely wrapped up in how this book made me feel and i think i'm just going to linger in that for a little while longer.
4.5 i love being surprised by books. given the reviews i was pretty sure i'd enjoy this, but i didn't know i'd adore it the way i did. this book defied expectations in so many ways. it skirts around cliches and tropes but manages to bypass them graciously almost every time. we have what could have been a ‘not like other girls' unpopular protagonist, claudia, who actually isn't either of those things. the way that she's not the most popular person in school isn't dramatised - she's still invited to events, she still has friends and people to hang out with, she doesn't eat lunch alone in the bathroom. she just wishes for a little more, a closer friendship, like the one she has with her best friend zoe. zoe, like claudia, and like claudia's brother, older sister and older sister's husband, is super into a world of warcraft-esque game. this is never made fun of, or belittled. it's actually set up to be a really valuable part of the way she keeps in touch with said older sister once she's moved out. after claudia accidentally witnesses the breakup of her school's it-couple, paige and iris (a wlw relationship that mills never feels the need to ‘explain' or justify, but that's just allowed to be), she finds herself having to work with the cold, standoff-ish iris on their school's production of a midsummer night's dream (and we all know i'm always here for shakespeare). claudia has to audition and is sure she won't do well - and she doesn't, but it's never a huge deal. she instead works in the wardrobe department with people who never doubt that that is just as valuable a part of the work as acting. claudia never looks down on them, or looks up at the players. in claudia and iris we get an enemies to friends story that i didn't know i needed, but i needed. it was so well done, the way we find out more about iris and she becomes a fully realised person who's still flawed and who still needs to work on shit, but who's also an avid TION (foolish hearts' staple boy band) fan - another thing that, while the subject of confusion on claudia's part, is never really ridiculed and even becomes an integral part of their friendship. it shows the value and importance of being able to share the things you're passionate about with the people you care about. and it also shows that friendships can manifest in different ways, and you can share one thing with one friend, and another with a second, and that's totally okay. lastly, just because i need to say it and because it was yet another thing that defied expectations: all the guys in this book (to be fair there are like 3) are genuinely so good. claudia's love interest is absolutely lovely - he's funny and always looks out for her without being overbearing, he backs off immediately and without guilt-tripping when she tells him she's not interested, he cares about his friends so incredibly much. having guys in a ya book explicitly say that they love their friends? radical. love it. give me more. anyway this book is heart-warming and sweet and genuinely funny. super recommend.
third read 5 mayhaps this IS the most comforting book of all times second read 5 first read 4-4.5 for someone who's been feeling really disillusioned by the state of the world at the moment this book was a lovely breath of air. it speaks of a lot of hope in terms of what we can change and what we can and will set our hearts and minds to, and i think i really needed to see and read that. it reminds me that there are so many people who are fighting, and that maybe there is a possibility we will come out on top. also i have to hand it to casey mcquiston: this might be the first book about people in their early twenties in which their online behaviour is actually reflective of the way people in that age range use and talk on social media. high quantity of memes and shady comments. also probably the first book ever that makes references to pop culture that doesn't make me want so shrivel up and die because of the cringe.
probably more like 4.5 “Veins turning to gold. As quickly as it quenched one fire, it sparked another, a fire that torched through her whole being. And the heat cracked her open, like the clay she was, and made her body cry out to the world. All around her, the world answered.”this book wat such a breath of fresh air. it's been literal years since i last read a proper high fantasy epic and getting back into it with this book was both a great and a horribly stupid decision, because while i absolutely loved it, it's also set the bar way too high for what's to come. first of all, the world building is just so cool. i love the world, it's so vast and huge and strange. it unfolds over the course of the story but it always feels like there is more to explore and more to see. i really liked the dragons, the idea of there being different types of them and how those different types were also regarded in various ways by people across the world, and how those views become more nuanced as the story progresses. kind of in line with that, the red thread of belief and ideology, the way that one origin story being able to sprout multiple different religions or beliefs was explicated. i'm all here for characters forcing themselves to look past the boundaries their society has put up for them. second of all, it has to be said: there's women everywhere in this book, and it's almost stupid that that had to be such a revelation (i say almost because actually, it's not stupid at all, it's a very reasonable surprise that follows from personal experience with reading epic fantasy in the past). the thing with this book, though, is not just that there are a multitude of great, complex, fascinating women driving the story, it's that there are so many women around them as well, and the multitude of women around also gives way to so many different women. at no point do any of them feel like token characters and that's just really fucking great. kind of as an extension to that as well - i loved the relationships between characters. i loved that there were so many friendships. there are so many great, valuable friendships between women, bonds that actually carry a lot of weight and importance. and there are also a lot of great friendships between men and women that (gasp) do not secretly rely on them wanting to get it on. loth's friendship with both ead and sabran, as well as some great sibling banter he had with meg was everything to me, i love him so much. also, tan??'s relationship with her dragon was the best, i love the focus on the equality of their bond, how much it was based on mutual respect and care for each other and the world around them. how tan?? had to do away with seeing her dragon only as a god, and seeing herself as inherently unworthy. then ead and sabran... the slow burn was HARROWING but in the best possible way, i gasped whenever hands grazed, whenever eyes met for the first like. 500 pages??? ridiculous. they had me whipped. i loved the way we got to see their relationship develop (bit of good lowkey enemies to lovers never hurt anyone). i loved getting to see ead's view of sabran change over time, slowly but steadily. i loved that theirs was the main romance and it was important to them, their development and relationship, but also helped to really give more insight into both their distinct personalities. the reason this isn't a five star read is mostly because of the kind of rough start - it's fair but there are a lot of characters introduced & there's a lot of world building happening in the first 100 or so pages. it's quite overwhelming and took me quite a while to really get a good grip on the world and its politics. also, in line with some of the other reviews i've seen here: the final battle was a little... underwhelming? maybe underwhelming isn't even the right word, i don't think i was even annoyed about it, mostly i was surprised by how quickly it was over. but i'm not gonna lie, it didn't keep me up at night: there was so much about this story and these characters that i loved that even the fact that it didn't 100% stick the landing didn't bother me that much.
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW (but also this doesn't feel like a book that can be spoiled, really, so read on at your own risk)
i have very complicated feelings about this book. i was just talking about it with my mum and i think what i told her is the easiest way to say it: i liked parts of this book (quite dearly) but i don't think i like this book as a whole - hence the slightly ambivalent and careful three stars.
i don't think i can deny that sally rooney's writing style is really up my alley - i love the way her characters are allowed to think on the page, explicitly, complexly, full of contradictions and feelings and logic and inconsistencies. it's clean, in a lot of ways, without beating around bushes. that's refreshing, to me at least. i liked the ways in which connell and marianne were allowed to struggle with their identities and their feelings and their surroundings - things that are common and important and intense while you're growing up. mostly during the first half of the book i really liked seeing marianne's individuality come out during scenes with other people, such as during this one:
???nothing would feel more exhilarating to her at this moment than to say: they???ll be on their way shortly. how much terrifying and bewildering status would accrue to her in this moment, how destabilising it would be, how destructive???
???You think you???re so special, do you? said Denice. Marianne let her eyes close. No, she said. I don???t.???
???He???s explained it, or tried to explain it, in his emails to Marianne. For her the scholarship was a self-esteem boost, a happy confirmation of what she has always believed about herself anyway: that she???s special.???
“Would she ever be happy? And what kind of happiness would it be? ... But in the end she has done something for him, she's made a new life possible, and she can always feel good about that ... [For] her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once.”
3.5 - 4 ???she was a story, not an epilogue??? what a good quick read! definitely 4 stars for the interesting world building - i loved that the way the worlds worked wasn???t bashed out at the beginning and you had to kind of figure out what they meant and were like through the characters that had ended up there and the way they acted. also, the kind of worlds were like nothing i???ve read before so i thought that was so creative and original and exciting. ???we notice the silence of men. we depend upon the silence of women.??? the characterisation felt a little iffy at times but then again, that does seem kind of in line with how chaotic all of the kids feel after returning from their worlds, so that didn???t bother me too much. if the book had been a little longer maybe these things would???ve had a little more time to be unpacked. apart from that, i really liked the characters in this - they???re so vibrant and distinct and interesting. plus: ace, trans and poc rep! in such a short book! it can be done people! overall, a really nice in-between read and i???m definitely curious to see what the sequels hold
???Then due to feeling ???luv,??? wud bend down, putting snout and lips to the heds of her pups, which was called: ???gudnite kiss.??? Which I got a kik out of that! Because that is also how we show our luv for our pups, as Foxes! It made me feel gud, like Yumans cud feel luv and show luv. In other werds, hope full for the future of Erth!???
what an adorable, stirring little book. told by fox 8, it narrates a small, dreemer of a fox??? perspective on his life and on the yumans that live around him. it goes from extremely funny to painful and from deep to dry in mere sentences. a highly recommended tiny read.
3.5 stars
I ended up not writing this review last night when I actually finished the book because I felt I had to give my brain a second to decide what it thought of this. I guess the first thing I need to say is that this book took me an uncalled for 3.5 months (even though I probably only read it for a week or two effectively) and that may be part of the reason I couldn't really get into the flow of this book.
Let's just start with this: this book has a great prologue. Very very intriguing, very makes-me-want-to-read-right-on, which, kinda what a prologue is supposed to do but okay, kudos for that one. I really liked the focus on the cult-aspect of Cordova's films, because, I won't lie, if he existed in real life I'd be fascinated with the guy and his stories as well. So then the mystery starts, young woman dies, reporter goes on a hunt with his two side-kicks, yada yada yada.
Thing is, right: I picked this book up again a couple of days ago after literally 3 months of not reading it, I didn't remember very clearly what specific ~mystery things~ had been happening because let's face it, I don't have the memory for that, and I didn't feel like I missed anything. Spent the next week wrestling through the middle section of the book until things picked up again nearing the 70% mark and I finished the last 30% in a day. So I guess I feel mostly like the whole middle section of the book could've been condensed drastically because you have build up and you have tedious telling the reader about what's happening and the latter just doesn't interest me.
Also, the characters? One dimensional. Mr Scott Protagonist is a dick for most of this book, very judgemental, supposedly a good reporter but that's debatable, bad father to his five year old child (literally takes her on trips that he knows are gonna be dangerous multiple times, uses her to get close to sources). And because most of the book is written from Scott's perspective, characters like Nora and Hopper, which seem to have potential, stay flat, one-dimensional people, their choices rushed (I don't even want to talk about the love story plotline that popped its head in for two pages 60% in, never to be seen again).
But alright, to be entirely fair: this is a mystery/thriller and while that obviously doesn't mean you shouldn't put an effort into character building it also means there's usually just more of a focus on plot, which, fine. And I will say that when I did get to that 70% mark, I actually got excited and curious again. For about a 100 pages, after which we suddenly take a dive into an ocean of exposition - and that wasn't even that bad. I think I would've given this four stars if it had ended after SpoilerInez Gallo tells Scott about Ashley's illness, if then he'd gone home, sought contact with Hopper and Nora again and maybe showed some fucking humility for ONCE about the way he felt he had the right to deconstruct someone's life the way he had. And then the final ending... I really wasn't a fan of the open endedness of it. I just wasn't interested for a second in the sudden personal development that's trying to be forced onto Scott in those last couple of pages and then we also don't actually get to hear from Cordova (a conversation I was lowkey expecting because I thought there were more pages left in the book)? I would've liked for Scott to see Cordova, realise he's a mere mortal after all, maybe see some humanity from him and hopefully be put in his place a bit by him. But nope, none of that. I think this book left me wanting for answers, but not in the good way, just in the confusing, annoying, trying-too-hard-to-be-mysterious kind of way.
Like some other reviewers said: the book mostly left me with an urge to watch one (or all) of Cordova's films. So I guess in the end, I ended up feeling kind of unsatisfied with a number of things.