Tag: book reviews

Review – I Feel Awful, Thanks

Posted May 3, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – I Feel Awful, Thanks

I Feel Awful, Thanks

by Lara Pickle

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 216
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Joana has dragons inside her. Can she tame them before they burn her life down?

Joana is a young witch who secured her dream job with a coven in London, her favorite city, where she can dedicate herself to creating potions, her favorite activity! However, she will soon discover the reality of city life is not so idyllic. Finding a flat is an ordeal, her “dream job” is stressful, and she’s totally alone. Little by little, she makes her place, but fatigue, sadness, and doubts threaten to topple her hard-earned success... until she starts talking to a professional who helps her realize in order to take care of herself, she must know herself.

Lara Pickle’s I Feel Awful, Thanks comes out to being a depiction of anxiety and therapy in a fantasy world where emotions manifest near-physically, and turn into dragons if shut in a box and ignored. It’s, ah, not subtle. At all.

The fantasy world is one where magic is basically taken for granted: everyone can do a little, and some can do a lot more than most. Otherwise, it’s very much like our world, and the main character Joana goes from Spain to the UK for a first job helping to create new potions. Her work is stolen by her team leader, she makes some friends but falls into terrible patterns of bad communication with her boyfriend, and slams all her feelings into a box with predictable consequences.

As a discussion of how anxiety (and other feelings) can get bottled up and how you can treat yourself poorly in the process, it’s not bad. It’s a bit overly simplistic, of course, and it feels like Joana’s journey is vastly exaggerated as far as speed of recovery goes — but it does mention genuine techniques that you can try, and Joana and her friends are relatable and likeable enough to spend the time with.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Mood Machine

Posted May 1, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Mood Machine

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

by Liz Pelly

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike.

Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.

Building on her years of wide-ranging reporting on streaming, music journalist Liz Pelly details the consequences of the Spotify model by examining both sides of what the company calls its two-sided marketplace: the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all. The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories like streaming services filling popular playlists with low-cost stock music and the rise of new payola-like practices.

For all of the inequities exacerbated by streaming, Pelly also finds hope in chronicling the artist-led fight for better models, pointing toward what must be done collectively to revalue music and create sustainable systems. A timely exploration of a company that has become synonymous with music, Mood Machine will change the way you think about and listen to music.

Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist is quite the antidote to the optimism of Glenn McDonald’s You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song. Of the two, McDonald’s is based on personal experience but necessarily also very close association with Spotify (and most likely some NDAs). Liz Pelly’s book is based on a lot of varied sources, both official and unofficial, and from artists affected by Spotify as well (something which McDonald doesn’t touch on at all).

In the end, because it’s thorough, Mood Machine is also repetitive. The problems with Spotify at each turn are essentially the same: it was never about music, only about something that could be used to deliver ads packaged acceptably; privacy concerns; issues about artist remuneration; the seeding of playlists with throwaway tracks commissioned by Spotify (something which Glenn McDonald specifically denies, by the way) in order to pay fewer royalties… etc, etc. You can get the gist by reading any good reporting on Spotify.

All in all, it mostly solidifies my intent to continue doing what I already do: supporting artists directly wherever possible, even if I discover their music via sources like Spotify or YouTube where I can listen free/supported by ads/for a small subscription. Which is to say, despite the dramatic blurb, it didn’t change the way I think about and listen to music; it isn’t that revelatory, if you’ve had your eyes and ears open.

…Now if anyone can tell where to buy Rabbitology’s “Bog Bodies (dorm demo)” track without paying for it on Amazon, that’d be great.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Who Owns This Sentence?

Posted April 29, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – Who Owns This Sentence?

Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs

by David Bellos, Alexandre Montagu

Genres: Non-fiction, History
Pages: 384
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Who Owns This Sentence? looks at how throughout history, principled arguments, greed, and opportunism have ensured copyright's ascendency, and unveils those who are behind a phenomenon that has faced little public debate.

David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu’s Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs is surprisingly readable, for a book on a subject that could be incredibly dry. It helps that they split things down into plenty of chapters, and take one or two examples at a time — they’re quite thorough in discussing the development of each successive law and expansion to law, but the chunks are pretty bitesize for the most part, and the tone is fairly casual.

If you are pro copyright without limit including for corporations, then you probably won’t enjoy the general tone they take, pointing out multiple times (and in multiple ways) that the argument that copyright gives people a livelihood and fosters creativity isn’t a universal truth (people will often create without financial incentives) and that the laws anyway aren’t focused on providing that (you wouldn’t need lifetime + 70 years just for that).

Their argument is that far too much stuff is tied up in copyright in a way that hampers creativity and the sharing of knowledge, and they make a fair case for it, especially when it’s clear that a bare handful of companies own almost all of it anyway, and the net result is that the rich keep on getting richer and richer — based on the hard work of others who are often dead.

That said, it is a fairly opinionated account, so if you want a dispassionate rundown of what copyright is, you don’t want this book.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Scarhaven Keep

Posted April 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Scarhaven Keep

Scarhaven Keep

by J.S. Fletcher

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 243
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

When the great actor, Bassett Oliver, who was a martinet for punctuality, failed to turn up to a rehearsal which he himself had called, his business manager guessed that something had happened. It had. But it took more than one set of brains to discover the truth, and another set of very curious circumstances was mixed up in it. Copplestone, the young dramatist, helping to solve the mystery, found himself suddenly in love; and the solution and his happiness were discovered together.

J.S. Fletcher’s Scarhaven Keep is a fairly standard classic mystery, with the expected sort of elements: a mysterious disappearance, a picturesque site for a mystery, issues of inheritance, mistaken identity/impersonation, amateur detectives, and even a damsel in distress and a touch of romance.

It does all of those things perfectly competently for the period, without really standing out. I did appreciate that the female character who ends up in distress is actually not super distressed about it, probably more level-headed than the guys, and certainly there was no swooning. I appreciated that quite a bit.

Overall, it’s not one that stands out for me, but it was enjoyable in the way I find many classic mysteries: it did mostly what was expected of it, and there’s a happy ending for the “goodies” (except, of course, in that someone has been killed). I wouldn’t turn down reading something else by Fletcher.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Unmaking of June Farrow

Posted April 27, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Unmaking of June Farrow

The Unmaking of June Farrow

by Adrienne Young

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

Adrienne Young’s The Unmaking of June Farrow took a while to get going for me, and I ended it not entirely sure how I’d felt about it. I enjoyed it well enough, but I think the first third felt too introductory and I wanted it to get somewhere, and it didn’t ever feel like it quite took off. I could’ve done with much more tension between certain characters, for instance, and maybe more crossings of timelines.

It’s worked out quite cleverly, and I think it mostly hung together (which is always a risk with time travel type plots), but I did have a bit of trouble figuring out the logistics of some of it worked, and how June didn’t realise some things sooner.

Overall, an interesting one, and I think I enjoyed the experience, but it doesn’t seem to be sticking with me particularly well — I’m reviewing this a little later than I’d usually like, and finding that… well, I seem to have a fistful of dry leaves instead of fairy gold.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 11

Posted April 25, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 11

A Side Character's Love Story

by Akane Tamura

Genres: Manga, Romance
Pages: 161
Series: A Side Character's Love Story #11
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

The last year of Nobuko and Hiroki's time together as college students is upon them.

It's springtime, and job hunting is in full swing for college seniors. Hiroki does his best to support Nobuko, who is caught between studying for the civil service exam and searching for a private sector job. Facing her first real barrier of entry into society, Nobuko worries for the future. What can Hiroki say to help when she begins losing sight of herself?

Volume eleven of Akane Tamura’s A Side Character’s Love Story keeps up on the theme of the last volume: Nobuko and Hiroki are growing up, having different sorts of trouble, and sometimes being kept apart by circumstance.

It’s really quite a bit of development for Nobuko as a character, with Hiroki somewhat in the background, as Nobuko tries to navigate interviewing for jobs and figuring out what she wants to do, and how to show her interest and passion for it. As ever, Hiroki is willing to support her no matter what, and shows his support even when the outcome isn’t what he might prefer.

Really, they’re #relationshipgoals.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song

Posted April 24, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song

You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song: How Streaming Changes Music

by Glenn McDonald

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 236
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

For the first time in history, almost every song ever recorded is available instantly. Everywhere.

This book charts what music’s dazzling digital revolution really means for fans and artists. As a former data guru at the world’s biggest streaming service, Spotify, Glenn McDonald reveals:

- What the tech giants know about you
- How they serve up your next song
- Whether fans can cheat the algorithm
- Whether jazz is dead and ASMR is the new punk
- Your chances of becoming a rock star

Having analysed the streams of 500 million people, McDonald explores what the data tells us about music and about ourselves, from the secrets of russelÄter in Norway to Christmas in the Philippines.

Statistically, you have not yet heard your lifetime’s favourite song. This book will take you on a voyage of discovery through music’s fast-flowing new waters.

10 bonus playlists of wonder included!

In a way, it’s really hard for me to know how to rate/review Glenn McDonald’s You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song, because he could tell me that Spotify has an arts-and-crafts department just for employees and I’d have to believe him — and when it comes to math (as when he discusses Spotify’s payment model), anyone can blind me with science, I’m afraid.

What I can say is that McDonald clearly has a passion for music, and believes that streaming is fair, equitable, and good for music going forward — or at least not worse for it than any of the other models we’ve had of music getting into people’s hands. He’s fascinated by the diversity of music, and eager for Spotify and other services to bring that music to people and let them try it.

In some ways, I’d rather he stuck to that part, because when he talks about the revenue models etc, it’s always with the caveat that he had nothing to do with that. As such, it’s all very back-of-the-napkin. He also outright contradicts some of the reporting about Spotify (e.g. that they commissioned some music for a flat fee to fill up playlists, so they don’t have to pay out when those songs are listened to) where I don’t know who is right or wrong at all. My instinct is that McDonald is definitely working hard to protect Spotify and cast it in the right light, which seems to be out of love, and may or may not be truly accurate.

I’m now reading Mood Machine, by Liz Pelly, and I get the sense that McDonald’s book is a bit more like a PR machine (even if he doesn’t work for Spotify now) and Liz Pelly’s is more accurate reporting.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Sheeplands

Posted April 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Sheeplands

Sheeplands: How Sheep Shaped Wales and the World

by Alan Marshall

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 256
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Human civilisation was not just created by humans: we had the help of many creatures, and foremost among these were sheep. From Argentina to Australia and from Mesopotamia to Mongolia, just about every country with hills and meadows has adopted and then developed sheep farming as a way of living. And in Wales in particular, sheep played a central role in shaping landscape and culture.

Sheeplands outlines the journeys taken by some of these sheep as they voyaged across the world, both by themselves and with human shepherds, from the earliest human settlements to the present day. Along the way, Alan Marshall paints vivid portraits of the roles sheep have played in the development of the modern world, in times of peace and war, and describes how our sheeplands might continue to influence Wales and the wider world in future years.

Alan Marshall’s Sheeplands is, as it says, a history of Wales (and the wider world) through the lens of sheep and sheep-farming. This isn’t trivial: farming has been very important over the years, and the development of farming techniques, breeds of sheep and ways of transporting the sheep have been vital in the economy, war, colonisation, and everyday lives. I definitely appreciated a history that kept coming back to Wales, specifically, and from a very pro-Welsh point of view.

However… the problem is, the book doesn’t have numbered references, just a list of sources in the back, making it very difficult to follow up a particular anecdote and reference it. Sometimes something is stated as sheer fact when it sounds like mere theory, and sometimes the flippant easy tone elides the author’s lack of knowledge on a subject (“Homer” didn’t “scribe into text” anything, folks; Homer quite possibly never existed — it’s all more complicated than that). Sometimes that doesn’t affect the underlying point, and it didn’t in the case of this example. But. What about inaccuracies in the stuff I don’t have personal knowledge of? How can I tell apart flippancy, opinion, and fact, without proper sourcing?

I know it’s meant for a popular audience, but that shouldn’t mean you put yourself beyond fact-checking. Adding numbered sources doesn’t interrupt the flow for someone who is reading very casually, and allows anyone to look up the source for more information if they’re curious, sceptical, etc.

I did also find that I wasn’t so keen on the personal interjections about the author and his son Shelley. It’s cute, but it doesn’t really add to the narrative for us to be told what the author’s six-year-old son thinks about a given fact or location.

So… there were definitely things I enjoyed about the reading experience, don’t get me wrong, but it did also leave a lot to be desired in other ways.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Strange Pictures

Posted April 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Strange Pictures

Strange Pictures

by Uketsu

Genres: Crime, Horror, Mystery
Pages: 240
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

An exploration of the macabre, where the seemingly mundane takes on a terrifying significance...

A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbithole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the over-arching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the internationally bestselling debut from mystery horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.

Uketsu’s Strange Pictures really is an odd one. If you think a weird mystery based around interpreting drawings made by characters sounds like your thing, I think I’d recommend experiencing it without reading any further than the end of this paragraph. I’m not going to give outright spoilers, but I went in only knowing that it was supposed to be weird, that it was based around weird/creepy drawings, and that it was a mystery. I normally like spoilers, but actually I think it’s worth coming to it with an open mind in this case. I will say that you might want a physical copy, though, rather than reading it on an ereader (though I did).

So, for those who’ve stuck around to keep reading, what to say? First, the translation: it feels like a pretty plain, bare-bones translation, nothing flowery, nothing extraneous added. It’s hard to say whether that’s true since I can’t read the original, but it’s certainly the impression I get. The drawings aren’t particularly beautiful or astounding either, in part because they’re not meant to be drawn by super great artists — they’re drawn by characters who are part of the mysteries.

The reason I suggested you might want a physical copy is that it can benefit to be able to turn the pictures around, if you’re trying to join in on solving the mystery. You can read it and just wait for the solutions, it doesn’t do anything gimmicky like leave you without answers, but if you want to join in then a physical copy might give you a bit more convenience in doing so, potentially tracing the images out, etc.

The format is an interesting one, too. At first it seems like a collection of unconnected short stories, but the stories actually connect into a greater mystery — and each answer might change your mind about the outcome of a previous story, too.

I found it a fascinating read, and I’m interested to read Uketsu’s Strange Houses, which is coming out later in the year.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Tomb of Dragons

Posted April 21, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Tomb of Dragons

The Tomb of Dragons

by Katherine Addison

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 334
Series: The Chronicles of Osreth #3
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of Witness for the Dead is gone, what defines him?

While his title may be gone, his duties are not. Celehar contends with a municipal cemetery with fifty years of secrets, the damage of a revethavar he’s terrified to remember, and a group of miners who are more than willing to trade Celehar’s life for a chance at what they feel they’re owed.

Celehar does not have to face these impossible tasks alone. Joining him are his mentee Velhiro Tomasaran, still finding her footing with the investigative nature of their job; IĂ€na Pel-Thenhior, his beloved opera director friend and avid supporter; and the valiant guard captain Hanu Olgarezh.

Amidst the backdrop of a murder and a brewing political uprising, Celehar must seek justice for those who cannot find it themselves under a tense political system. The repercussions of his quest are never as simple they seem, and Celehar’s own life and happiness hang in the balance.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Oof, I feel conflicted about Katherine Addison’s The Tomb of Dragons. There’s a lot in it to love, with Celehar’s emotional journey seeing some progress, a peek back at the court and at some of the characters (including Maia, yes), and some lovely additions to the world-building. Characters recur, depth is added, and I broadly enjoyed the reading experience.

My criticism is, however, that as a reader I felt there was something being built up that Addison absolutely dropped and spilled all over the floor. It was, I’ll be frank, clunky. It’s like when a series realises that two male characters are being shipped together, and hastily introduces a love interest for each in order to head that off. It feels like a “no homo” moment (even though Celehar does remain gay, and does have a potential romantic interest in this book whom I don’t dislike). It felt like emotionally we were leading up to a particular relationship taking a romantic turn, and we not only didn’t, but we didn’t in such a clunky way that it didn’t feel right.

I can’t speculate on why that narrative thread wasn’t followed through, and I know that other people may not have felt invested in it, or may not feel as attached to it… but to me, it went a fair way to souring my enjoyment, because it just made no sense to me narratively or as part of the characters’ relationships. I think there are few things about this book that could have broken my enjoyment so thoroughly as that did — other than messing up characterisation, like having Maia do something cruel (or at least, do so and not then act to right the wrong), I think this is the only thing that could have come so close to ruining the whole experience.

As it is, I sort of feel like removing this book from my mental canon and thinking aw, what a shame that this series was never finished.

That probably sounds dramatic, to people with low investment in that relationship, or who disagree with me that the narrative was logically building to that. And that’s fine, I’m sure there will be others who love this novel. There is much to love. But for me, it was a disappointment.

Rating: 2/5

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