zilver
Phew. That took longer than it should have. The last 300 pages of this book seemed to drag on forever, though I'll admit that's probably more my fault than the book's. I read the first 700 pages so easily during the holidays that not being able to read for very long at a time made the last 300 pages go so slow.
This was a long book. A 1000 pages is a lot of words is a lot of information is a lot of time to keep a book interesting. I was never completely blown away by this book and I hardly ever felt like I really had to keep reading. It took its sweet time, which is fine, but also long. The whole thing with the footnotes felt very weird to me – I kept wondering throughout the book if those would turn out to be really important in the end and if I should pay attention or if they were supposed to be a fun addition. So meh, that felt unnecessary at times and at the same time I was sometimes left with so many questions. Sometimes the book felt like it was being long for the sake of being long because the more information you put in a book, the more interesting it becomes (no!!! stuff doesn't work like that!!!).
To me, this book was not fireworks.
It was, however, fun, well written and very original. The way magic and magicians were regarded in this book was great, very different from what I've read before. I was a huge fan of Strange and his story arc, becoming more independant, with his own ideas about magic and the way it should be handled. I thought the conversation he had with Norell before he left him was great, just as the way they acted around each other when Strange returned to England in the end. I liked the growth and the continuity in both the characters.
Also, there were some side(-ish) characters that I loved and that should have a special place in this review – Childermass, Arabella, Segundus: you were all lovely.
If I weigh the good against the meh of this book, the good wins. Maybe it could've been shorter or clearer and maybe the longness and vagueness are part of the charm. In general, this was good. Not I-want-to-scream-it-from-the-rooftops-fantastic, but nevertheless, good.
So yeah, to me it was clear this was definetely not 5 stars, but I'm a bit more tempted to give it 4 than 3.
((First time I actually posted a review on here. Hopefully I did okay.))
this book. oh boy, this book.
“I mean, when do we start feeling like the world belongs to us?” “I don't know,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
as anyone who knows me in the slightest can tell you: i have terrible memory. doesn't matter if it's concerning my favourite book, i'll have forgotten half of its details within the week. it's horrible, i hate it, i'm working with brain trainers to fix it but y'know, sometimes it is what it is.
anyway, point is: i knew i loved this book when i first read it - i'd given it 5 stars, put it on my special bookshelf, all that jazz. but at the same time it felt a little distant, that love. it was there but it wasn't really tangible, if that makes sense?
rereading this book was like coming home to an all encompassing comfort. i felt like crying for half of it, but in the best way. the immense love for these characters, their relationships, their story that benjamin alire s??enz has worked into this book are palpable in every word, every piece of dialogue. this is a story that came from the heart, and that's why it's made a place in my heart so effortlessly.
it's just in everything: he extreme gentleness s??enz adopts to describe complicated, conflicting, feelings, the rarity of seeing teenagers in (ya) literature have a set of wonderfully understanding and still complex parents, the way the narrative is allowed to unspool and the characters are allowed to find their way without any rush.
this book meant something to me in a very intrinsic way that's difficult to explain but easy to feel. i genuinely think it meant more to me this second time around. it hit me in all the right places. it made me want to lie down in the desert and watch the stars and wait for the rain. it made me feel understood and less alone.
(ps. i highly recommend listening to this wonderful playlist while reading)
third read this book is a marvel from start to end and i love it to bits, and with every reread i think it probably won't hold up entirely but then it does, and i keep finding new things that expand on this dreamy bubble of a world that donna created. and i had my heart in my THROAT for multiple scenes even though i knew exactly what would happen, it's a masterful work at tension and buildup and delivery. also i forget how FUNNY it is every time. when richard asks henry to get him a magazine while he's on bed rest and henry, distraught, gets him a MEDICAL JOURNAL. god bless. second read beautiful amazing wonderful showstopping incredible
4-4.5 keeping my original rating because i think 13 year old me deserves to have her enthusiasm and excitement registered on here. rereading this book was actually so much more fun than i thought it would be. there's a specific kind of joy to be found in knowing certain parts are going to happen but not remembering exactly how. this story is both incredibly harrowing and political and raw (and, as memory serves, those things will only grow stronger as the series goes on) but also surprisingly funny and heart-warming at times. suzanne collins knows how to balance the two well, and even though at this point in my (reading) life some things happened a little quickly or a little too obviously for my liking, i can easily see how important this book was and is. it set a standard for ya that i think very few other ya series have been able to meet. they've tried, but so often completely missed the bat as to what it is about this story that is so interesting. it's really not the love triangle, and it's really not (just) katniss being able to shoot stuff. it's the constant duality, the constant questioning of power; the power of the government, the power of ourselves, the power of our community. i got shivers when katniss receives the bread from district 11 after rue's death. the way collins lets us learn about this world, how unfair it is, how unfair it is to everyone all the time and we don't even know it (katniss thinks rue gets enough fresh food because she lives in district 11, she thinks peeta always eats well because he's a baker) because people in power don't want us to sympathise with each other and feel stronger in our unity, rather want us to be weaker in our division. tl;dr thg is and will be the og and it will always have a special place in my heart.
3.5-4
the top two reviews of this book i think put a lot of my thoughts into words already so thank you for that, reviewers.
war of the foxes is definitely less quotable and less personal than crush. i think that???s the main reason for taking away some stars, that the thing that drew me (and, i think, many others) to crush is how personal and raw it was, how it touched me to my core with its beauty and its pain. war of the foxes is more distant and i missed the closeness i remembered from crush. but i think it???d do me good to reread this book in a little while, so i can see it as its separate entity, which is what it deserves. i have to remind myself that there were over 10 years between the publishing of crush and the publishing of war of the foxes - richard siken has clearly grown and developed himself and his poetry and his scope.
favourites: landscape with a blur of conquerors; birds hover the trampled field; landscape with several small fires; war of the foxes; ghost, zero, suitcase, and the moon, lovesong of the square root of negative one, self-portrait against red wallpaper