Review – Loathe to Love You

Posted August 29, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Loathe to Love You by Ali HazelwoodLoathe to Love You, Ali Hazelwood

I reviewed the three novellas separately, but I might as well combine them into one post!

Under One Roof

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Ali Hazelwood, since this is the first time I’m reading her work, so just be warned that (if it matters to you) there is explicit sex. Clearly Hazelwood has got a little subgenre going on here: women in STEM have romances — and I’m very much here for someone staking out that ground for all of us.

Mara’s a fun protagonist — a bit chaotic, generally well-meaning, but very capable of being petty and human. I feel like the romance was telegraphed a mile off and all the signs were super obvious, so if totally ignoring all those very obvious signs is a trope in Hazelwood’s work then that might bother me… But I’m very aware that there really are people like that, and in one isolated instance (the first time I’m reading anything by Hazelwood), I just found it kind of funny (as in funny-haha, not funny-weird).

Loved that Mara got Liam suckered into watching the Bachelorette with her.

Rating: 3/5

Stuck With You

So, this one ran into one of my pet peeves because it hinged on a miscommunication, or rather, lack of communication. One that sort of made sense, but still: the answers were there if Sadie had bothered to take any time at all to check her gut reaction, or see what Mr Corporate Thor had to say about the accusation.

It’s also a bit “insta-love”, and I didn’t love that Erik was kinda much when it came to tracking down and reading Sadie’s thesis, etc.

Points for Erik being very into enthusiastic consent for the sex, though; that part is a positive.

I didn’t like this as much as Under One Roof, for sure; just a few red flags for me.

Rating: 2/5

Below Zero

Below Zero follows the third of the three friends whose stories are covered in Under One Roof and Stuck With You, a wonderfully trope-filled series of novellas. (I’m pretty sure Ali Hazelwood is fully aware of the tropiness, and playing into it enjoyably.)

It’s probably not my favourite — I think my favourite remains Under One Roof, because it has the most time spent with the characters just learning about each other. Below Zero has some build-up for the relationship, following an almost one-night-stand at the start, but still… it feels like the relationship development happens through pining off-screen rather than events and conversations we get to witness.

It’s a bit more adventurous than the other two stories, and the stakes are considerably higher. Plus, they’re working for NASA! So even though it hinges on a misunderstanding like Stuck With You does, it still feels like the novellas are three very distinct stories, which is nice. Sometimes this kind of thing gets very samey.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Measure of Malice

Posted August 28, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Measure of Malice ed. Martin EdwardsThe Measure of Malice, ed. Martin Edwards

As ever, this collection from the British Library Crime Classic series is, to me, more than the sum of its parts. The Measure of Malice collects stories that in some way lean more into the science of detection: nothing here is terribly complex (and some of it is bunk, like the idea that the human retina will hold an image of the last thing that person saw), but it’s all beginning to explore the idea that figuring out a criminal isn’t just a cerebral exercise, but one which involves practical, physical evidence that may not always be readily apparent.

I didn’t love all the stories for themselves, but I enjoyed the assembled selection and what it adds to my knowledge of the genre in that period. The obligatory Arthur Conan Doyle story is here, of course, but also a slightly more unexpected Dorothy L. Sayers story (though one I already knew from Wimsey collections).

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Lives of the Ancient Egyptians

Posted August 25, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Lives of the Ancient Egyptians by Toby WilkinsonLives of the Ancient Egyptians, Toby Wilkinson

Lives of the Ancient Eygptians is not a particularly surprising book, if you’ve read about ancient Egypt in popular history books for a while, but it does take an interesting perspective: the span of ancient Egyptian history, represented as best as possible through the lives of 100 Egyptians.

That’s not many to do a lot of work, and sometimes they kind of clump together (Hatshepsut, and also people who worked for her, and also her family members), but mostly it manages to pick out — where possible — a range of people, including the poorer people who we have less evidence about.

In the end, it’s quite a simple version of Egyptian history, and there are many fascinating, controversial and enlightening facts and people passed over. Such a choice of format will always disappoint someone. I found it mildly entertaining and fairly readable, though Wilkinson is not (for me personally, at least) the most engaging writer. I don’t know what it is about his writing, but reliably, I find my attention drifting. Oops.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Flaws of Nature

Posted August 22, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Flaws of Nature by Andy DobsonFlaws of Nature, Andy Dobson

Flaws of Nature is about the weird stuff that happens due to evolution — the famous cases where an organism is far from perfectly designed, like the long nerve in the necks of giraffes, or the fact that dolphins and whales can’t actually breathe underwater (which seems like a bit of a drawback, even if they have a workaround and things seem to work out for them). It’s not just a litany of interesting facts, though: instead Dobson’s interested in why and how this stuff might evolve this way.

For the most part, this is explained accessibly, through examples and a little bit of math. Nothing I struggled with, and I’m not great with figures, so definitely still accessible to a layperson. And there are some interesting random facts among all of those examples (the multiple jaws of fish were new to me; I thought that was unique to morays).

One thing that irritated me quite a bit was the constant footnotes, and the format of them. *** and **** aren’t sufficiently different to make it swiftly obvious which footnote I want to look at: numbers would be much, much better.

Overall, it seemed pretty solid to me, if obviously sometimes rather simplifying matters. It has a bibliography which looks fairly thorough, albeit not numbered references. I found it interesting.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – These Prisoning Hills

Posted August 19, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of These Prisoning Hills by Christopher RoweThese Prisoning Hills, Christopher Rowe

I’m going to just admit it: I didn’t really get this one. There’s a history and a world built up here that I feel I only half-understood, from the politics to the geography to the relationships between people and things. There’s a lot of atmosphere to it, and I found it intriguing, but at the same time the narrative jumps around so much — and often without a logical link between the jumps — that I just… didn’t follow.

I feel like I missed something, some vital context that would make it all make a lot more sense. I grasped some of the basic stuff (Athena Parthenus is a massive AI that tried to take over the world and involved controlling people somehow; there’s heavy body modification in the opposing side as well), but… I couldn’t fit it all together, and figure out the characters’ place in it. I wonder if there are short stories in this world or something? Or a previous book?

Anyway, I can’t personally recommend it, though I see that others enjoyed it a lot. Whatever the key to it is, I missed it.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Dos and Donuts of Love

Posted August 18, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Dos and Donuts of Love by Abida JaigirdarThe Dos and Donuts of Love, Adiba Jaigirdar

The Dos and Donuts of Love is definitely very young adult, but I had fun with it all the same — it’s just worth knowing going in that the teenage characters are appropriately dramatic, and appropriately at the stage in their lives where they’re figuring themselves out and figuring out what they’re even doing. (Not that adults don’t still do these things, but the teenage years are the first time you encounter it and most humans don’t do it with an enormous amount of grace).

The cast is fun: Shireen is a Bangladeshi-Irish girl who is in love with all things baking… and reality TV. She and her ex-girlfriend are both contestants in a sort of junior Great British Bake-off, and of course, sparks are going to fly. And some dough, probably.

In one sense, I didn’t love how one particular character became a bit of a villain. It wasn’t what I expected — or rather, it was, but it felt a bit exaggerated.

The best thing, I think, was the portrayal of the relationship between Shireen and her parents: the way they show their support and concern, and their growth — in the background — that leads to the happy ending for everyone. The support of Fatima and the complicated situation with Chris was also well done, I think.

There are some unexpected turns along the way where it doesn’t lean in the way I expected to, which was also fun. It’s never going to be a favourite book of mine, but if “YA romance set during a bake-off competition, with a plus-sized Bangladeshi female lead” sounds great to you, then I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Long Arm of the Law

Posted August 15, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of The Long Arm of the Law, ed. Martin EdwardsThe Long Arm of the Law, ed. Martin Edwards

Okay, okay, all cops are bastards, but in crime fiction they don’t have to be. Of course these stories are mostly in the idealised mode where police just want to help and a lone girl can pop into the police station for protection — the world I thought I was growing up in, in fact.

It’s not a stand-out for me in terms of the stories or the quality thereof, but I was pretty entertained by Christianna Brand’s story with the Great Detective, and with Inspector Cockrill butting in and dismantling the whole story.

As ever, an interesting survey of the genre on this particular topic. And it includes a short story from E.C.R. Lorac, a rarity (though that one didn’t especially stand out to me).

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books

Posted August 13, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books by Martin EdwardsThe Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, Martin Edwards

This book can be a little difficult to read for any kind of extended period, because it’s basically a list of books, with each themed chapter prefaced by more books that aren’t part of the 100 list but are giving context to the list of 100. There’s a lot going on.

That said, it’s a really valuable resource if you’re interested in classic crime: some of the books are republished in the British Library Crime Classics series (edited by the author of this book), but many are not, and some are still easily available — making this a lovely way to pad out your wishlist.

So, not a super readable book, but a valuable one to have. Edwards tries not to totally spoil the stories, by the way, but if you don’t like having clues for mystery novels, this is best skipped.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Bookshop & The Barbarian

Posted August 11, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Bookshop & The Barbarian by Morgan StangThe Bookshop & The Barbarian, Morgan Stang

I feel unfair giving this one star, because I did finish it and it was mildly entertaining while it went by, but when I sit back to think about it… it just didn’t work for me. One major thing that bothered me was the broken English spoken by Asteria: I get that there’s this idea of what fantasy “barbarians” speak like, but that’s a whole heap of stereotypes about people and about how English-as-a-second-language people speak that just… nope, no thank you, please go away and keep your broken English in your head with your other patronising fantasies. You don’t have to play into that nonsense. 

In addition, you can be irreverent and playful in your narration and break the fourth wall all you like, but that does open you up to people thinking your narrative voice isn’t that funny, or is kind of an asshole, and that’s where I’m at with this.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – A Glimmer of Silver

Posted August 8, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of A Glimmer of Silver by Juliet KempA Glimmer of Silver, Juliet Kemp

A Glimmer of Silver is a novella looking at not first contact, but how contact with an alien lifeform might evolve. It reminds me of some other story that I can’t quite bring to mind, which is driving me a bit nuts. Anyway, the idea is that the ocean of this planet is in fact sentient, and humans are — for the most part — carefully keeping themselves separate from it, thinking that this is what Ocean wants. No fishing, no drinking the water (without careful distillation), etc.

Jennery is a Communicator, but a reluctant one, having wanted to become a musician instead. Still, it seems that what Ocean wants is not at all what the status quo has established, and the humans on Ocean (other than the Communicators) are equally restless.

The solution is a neat one, and worth pondering. Overall, it’s a fairly slight story, but worth it, I think.

Rating: 3/5

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