Tag: book reviews

Review – The Selection

Posted April 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

The Selection, Kiera Cass

I didn’t expect to like The Selection, and I’m not sure any regulars here thought I would, but surprisingly, well… I kind of read it all in one go. It’s not a favourite or anything, but I found it very readable, and there were some points I definitely liked: the sensuality between Aspen and America, despite his rather sexist attitude of having to provide for her, for example. I didn’t like Aspen, but I liked the bond between them (if that makes sense), and I also liked that at the end of the book, America was ready to consider it and state that she would be doing herself a disservice if she just leapt into making a decision between Maxon and Aspen. Like.

Maxon is, well, too good to be true — considerate, friendly, hoping for romance, etc, etc, especially when you compare his behaviour to Aspen’s. It makes sense, though, and hopefully in later books he’s developed a bit more: I did enjoy the fact that he and America struck up a friendship, and that he relied upon her.

The other thing I liked was that, for the most part, the participants wished each other well and helped one another. There’s always a mean girl, of course, and there wouldn’t be much drama if there wasn’t a stumbling block like that. But the feeling of sisterhood that grows between the contestants is a nice touch.

I don’t know if I’ll read the other books. It may have been that I just read this at the right time, tired and wanting something easy! But I am a little curious, so I probably will. I’ve never been one for reality shows and soap operas, so it might not hold my attention if the drama builds up, but it’s fun enough from what I can see in The Selection.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, YA

Review – The Darkest Part of the Forest

Posted April 3, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Darkest Part of the Forest, Holly Black

I’m having a hard time putting together what I thought of this book, but perhaps it boils down to one thing: communication, damn it! Between brother and sister, between friends, between parents and their children, between faerie princes and the people they hope will help them. And especially with people you want to kiss.

Seriously, half the issues here would be mitigated by communication; if Hazel talked to Ben, if Ben talked to Hazel. Jack’s the only one I somewhat let off the hook, because he’s part faerie and geasa/odd restrictions are part of the stock in trade. (Actually, I mostly liked the portrayal of the faerie people; cruel and wild and sometimes beguiling, with bits of traditional fairy stories all over the place, and fairytale narrative styles as well — things coming in threes, for instance. The portrayal of people, in general, the suspicions of Jack, the apathy regarding anything that doesn’t touch directly on the community — that all worked quite well.)

I can’t help but feel that I would’ve been more interested in Ben’s story, because Hazel is so necessarily divided from herself by the plot. There’s stuff happening to her, and you don’t really know what or why, because even though she’s the focus character, there are gaps and omissions. It makes sense, but I kind of wanted Ben’s story more — probably especially because he’s not straight, and he is in the end the most entangled with the faerie world.

I do enjoy Jack’s characterisation a lot; his resolution to get the best of both worlds, to be a human while he can. His caring for his brother (double), his human parents, and the call to the faerie side of him as well — his insistence on living a mortal life while he can and appreciating his human family, his human connections, because he has all the time in the world for the rest.

I think ultimately, the book didn’t stand out enough for me, but it is interesting.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, queer fic, SF/F

Review – Fathom

Posted April 2, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Fathom, Cherie Priest

Fathom isn’t my favourite of Cherie Priest’s books (the honour for that goes to Bloodshot and Hellbent, by an awful long way), but it was an interesting read. It felt somewhat… inconclusive, because in the end, nearly all of the actions of the book mean nothing. One character in particular just seemed to be there to be described in a quirky way in the summary (“add in a hapless fire inspector who’s just trying to get his paperwork in order”). It was particularly odd because it wasn’t a quirky sort of book at all; it was more dark and weird, with elementals and a whole supernatural world crawling under the skin of normal life. And then that character exited the plot with almost no impact on it; he was just a convenient way of getting from A to B, and then he’s gone.

Still, that darkness and power, the transformations of the characters who get caught up in it, are fascinating — and the loneliness of Mossfeaster is portrayed well, his half-indifference belied by his interest in his creation, by his desire to keep her close. I wanted to know more about Mossfeaster and his past, and Arahab, and the fire elemental too whose existence was only really touched on…

The weirdest point, though, is the depiction of Berenice. There’s a handwave towards setting her up with motivations (she claims to have been molested by her stepfather), but most of the time she just seems spoilt, petty, and… well, evil. Arahab was more ambiguous, with her genuine love for her ‘children’, her drive. Berenice seemed pretty much just out for herself, and it never really went any deeper than that.

This all sounds very lukewarm, but it was a fascinating read. I’d love to have spent more time exploring the mythology and less on the hapless fire inspector or Berenice’s plotting.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Cherie Priest, SF/F

Review – The Earth Hums in B-Flat

Posted April 1, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Earth Hums in B-Flat, Mari Strachan

Originally reviewed 1st October, 2010

I don’t know what I expected from this book. It’s somewhat marketed as a mystery, I suppose, but that’s a little misleading. The central character, Gwenni, isn’t a precocious little child detective, a mini Sherlock Holmes. She’s a slightly odd child, with a lot of imagination and a funny way of putting things, and it’s about the complications in her life that begin with the disappearance of one of her neighbours.

She doesn’t actually find his body, or track down and confront his murderer, although she does figure things out. The story is much more about the emotional journey. It’s not a particularly light or fun one — it’s a hurting one, with a lot of pain and complex themes about mental illness. I found it a rather quiet story, oddly everyday, for all that there are horrible things happening.

One thing that bothered me was that the characters didn’t feel the right age. It was part of Gwenni’s oddness, I suppose, but she felt rather younger to me than she was supposed to be. I got used to it, but it definitely threw me off at first.

I loved how Welsh it all felt, at any rate. ‘Tada’ and ‘Mam’ and ‘Nain’ and ‘Taid’, and the turn of phrase, and… from the very first page, I recognised my own Welsh family in some of the characters and speech patterns.

I rarely offer advice about children reading books, since I was allowed a free hand with my parents’ books and in the library from the age of eight, and don’t believe it did me any harm — still, it’s not a comfortable, cosy book, and I don’t recommend it for young/immature teenagers. If I were to give this to a young person, I’d be at the ready to discuss it with them, I think, due to the domestic violence and mental illness that’s very much at the heart of the story.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Flashback Friday

Review – Library of Souls

Posted March 31, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Library of Souls, Ransom Riggs

The main problem I had with this book — the whole series, really — is that it isn’t an arc of three stories which contribute to one another but are relatively complete in themselves. The story literally continues as if there was no more than a chapter break, which after a couple of months is a bit of a barrier to getting back into it. It does make for a pretty good conclusion though, developing people’s motives and powers, bringing things to a turning point climax. The photographs were integrated the least into the story of all the books — some of them felt like they were there purely as set dressing, which is always a problem for me in worldbuilding. I want more from it.

Still, that sounds like damning with faint praise and for the most part, I definitely enjoyed this, and I enjoyed the fact that Emma and Jacob’s strange situation is explored: the fact that in many ways, she’s much older than him, though she doesn’t look it. The fact that he is caught between two worlds.

The first ending (in my head), where Jacob went back with his parents and had to go to therapy, etc, felt… realistic. He says he’s had crazy adventures, he went missing, and now his parents are glad to have him back but not quite trusting, not quite sure. The ending-after-that seemed like a bit of a cop-out, though; it just made things too easy, with no sting of parting, no difficult period of adjustment, but something like the best of both worlds.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

Posted March 30, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson

So I’ve always been vaguely aware of The Bloggess, mostly because of Beyoncé the Giant Metal Chicken, which is a whole series of thoughts that reminds me of living with my dad. Like, once upon a time I had a large spotted orange, red and pink hippo from Ikea that was kind of like a draft excluder and is maybe meant to be a cot bumper? And there was a slight question of who had custody when I was moving out of my second year flat at university, because she was the mascot for us. And somehow this led to my dad going on Ebay and buying another hippo, since Ikea no longer sold them.

So I had two hippos. Then one day I came home for the holidays and a new hippo had been added to my bed. “This is getting a bit much,” I said. “They needed adopting,” he said.

Somehow, it eventually got up to eleven of them, though now there are six in my bed at home and five piled up on a stack of inflatable hedgehogs. My sister has two, as well, and I think various friends of mine also own large orange and pink hippos. And let’s not even get started on the hedgehogs. Suffice it to say, my dad and Jenny Lawson should never meet, and if you want an inflatable hedgehog, we can probably hook you up, but don’t try Ebay because my dad single-handedly drove up the market price of both inflatable Ikea hedgehogs and large pink and orange spotted Ikea hippos.

Reading Lawson’s memoir is a little like reading this post, except I feel that she’s probably funnier than me and would maybe use more italics. It works better as a blog post, rather than an extended narrative, and other reviews’ descriptions of Lawson as a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” are quite on the nose. Just read her blog now and then; there are fewer weird notes to editors that read like fiction, and it’s all just as funny.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – The Black Moth

Posted March 29, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Black Moth, Georgette Heyer

The Black Moth was Heyer’s first novel, and it does show, but it’s still pretty fun. She hasn’t figured out what to do with her heroines yet, and that’s very obvious: Diana Beauleigh is rather colourless and lacking in the kind of witty repartee that really makes some of Heyer’s other heroines. Indeed, she’s more just a love interest and much less a heroine. Despite Diana and Jack seeming like the main pair, the one the plot was working toward, I was more interested in the spoilt Lavinia and her husband Richard. Of course, Lavinia is an annoying character, whiny and, well, as I said, spoilt. But the way she and Richard come to realise how fond they are of each other, and the way their relationship (and Lavinia herself) grows is a delight — especially since it doesn’t involve Lavinia changing, as such. She’s still spoilt, it’s just that she knows it, and she and Richard are fond of each other anyway.

The whole bit about Richard cheating at cards and Jack taking the disgrace is a bit bizarre to a modern reader — especially with Tracy Belmanoir’s exploits, including trying to abduct a woman, being just dismissed as foibles. I don’t know enough about the period to know if Heyer leaned a bit too hard on that plot aspect: it feels like it, but of course, times have changed.

Jack himself is fun: loyal, self-deprecating, quite capable of being kind or cutting. Adaptable. He’s a bit spoilt himself: you gotta love the part where he complains about the humiliation of having had to earn his own living! But again, things were different then.

For a first novel, The Black Moth is definitely not too bad. It has its weaknesses, and the dialogue was a particular weak point at times (it felt like Heyer tried too hard to reproduce natural ways of speaking, in some scenes, which was tough reading), but it’s fun and no wonder Heyer got off to a flying start.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Georgette Heyer

Review – A Natural History of Dragons

Posted March 28, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan

Reread this ready for the release of the fourth book in April (which I am very excited about and argh, can’t I just have it already?!). I didn’t love this the first time I read it, and now I’m not entirely sure why; I think I found it slow, but this time I tore through it. I guess it helps that I’m already acquainted with Isabella and I know what’s coming, and how straight-up awesome it all is. I described the series in a recommendation as “pseudo-Victorian lady becomes a scholar and takes on the patriarchy”, and that’s a pretty good summary, though it misses out on a lot of the extra stuff — the fine writing, the world-building, the attention to detail.

The thing I loved particularly, reading it this time, was Isabella’s relationship with her father and then later, with her husband. The way her father tries to find a way for her to be happy; the way Jacob slowly learns about her and learns to support her, learns to give her what she needs. The portrayal of Isabella’s periods of depression is great, too; the point isn’t belaboured, but it’s there.

And, you know, dragons. Dragons being studied, for science — the history/archaeology of an older civilisation that seemed to worship them — the glimpses of draconic intelligence and social life.

And despite the Victorian-ish tone of the memoir writing, it’s never boring; Brennan manages to capture the flavour of it without sacrificing fun. I really need to get my own copy of this.

Rating: 5/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Marie Brennan, SF/F

Review – A Stranger in Olondria

Posted March 27, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar

Sofia Samatar’s first novel has been on my radar for a long time, though I can’t remember quite how I first came across it. Possibly just on Weightless Books! It is very beautifully written, sometimes verging on too much, rather like Catherynne Valente’s work at times. There’s the same sense of poetry-within-prose, and dense layers of imagery and meaning. The writing almost carries its own scent: spices, incense, the acrid desert wind…

The plot is rather a lot slower, and feels a little disjointed to me — the first part is fairly rational and focused on the love of books, without supernatural elements. Then suddenly there are ghosts and angels and religious politics. The transition actually works reasonably well, now I think about it, but thinking about the two different parts of the book, I don’t feel like I was quite prepared for the world Jevick found himself in. From a rational world to a world where he’s, well, hag-ridden.

It sort of lacks resolution, to me: it seems to trail off into something bittersweet, thoughtful, but unsatisfying. That’s probably my own preference as a reader, though; others might find that ending works perfectly.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F

Review – Stormy Petrel

Posted March 26, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Stormy Petrel, Mary Stewart

Stormy Petrel isn’t my favourite of Mary Stewart’s romance/suspense stories, though I do love that the main character is a science fiction writer, a poet, and a don at Cambridge. Her relatively self-sufficiency is great, and there aren’t too many damsel-in-distress moments. The romance is relatively light, and doesn’t treat us to the ridiculousness of marrying a guy you’ve only just met — sometimes it works for me, in Stewart’s writing, but all the same, I prefer a lighter touch. Especially when it means that the romance isn’t forced, which this would’ve been; kind of like in Rose Cottage, where the romance seemed to come in at the end to round things off.

As usual, the sense of place is great and makes me almost want to visit this area off the coast of Scotland. On the other hand, the midges sound like a pretty solid deterrent.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: book reviews, books, Mary Stewart, mystery, romance