Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling

Back to my Harry Potter reread! Woo. This was always my favourite of the four books I’ve read, and I was actually a little reluctant to finish it and move on to the next. I enjoyed Harry’s relationships with Lupin and the brief glimpse of his relationship with Sirius, and the way that their inclusion expands the world a little and gives us a hint of Harry’s parents’ lives, and also of the dark frightened world before Voldemort was defeated.

The Dementors, to me, are more frightening than Voldemort. At least as far as I’ve read in the books, he can’t take away your capacity for hope, even if he plunges you into despair. The Dementors… the moment when Sirius cringes in front of them, near the end, is horrible. They’re the first real signs of a darker touch to the wizarding world; something that can’t just kill you, but can steal your soul — Voldemort can’t do that.

The teenage drama of Ron and Hermione is… less fun. I gather it pretty much carries on as it is, and that maybe it’s meant to foreshadow their relationship being different to the relationship with Harry, and it’s not really an aspect I’m interested in. Honestly, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of any pairing up in these books — unless it’s Sirius and Lupin. Uh.

Enjoyed the reread, though I’m not sure I enjoyed it to the same extent I used to.

Rating: 4/5

Poison, Sarah Pinborough

This is a difficult book to decide about, for me. I like the narration, the way it’s written; it’s deceptively simply written, with that fairytale like tone, and yet there’s a lot of rewriting going on. It’s not just the sexual content, but also the ambivalent attitude to the same. There’s casual sex, sex for power, shameful sex… You’d think it would be sex positive, with the powerful figures of Snow White and Lilith, but it really isn’t; sex is a thing that people seem to use to control each other, it’s just taking of power.

I’m not a big fan of all that, though I’m thinking that probably wasn’t what the author wanted a reader to take away from the story. But the ambivalence isn’t just about the portrayal of sex: it’s also about Lilith, the wicked stepmother. She’s young, she used to laugh, and Snow wants to get through to her… but she’s transforming into something wicked. There’s a commentary there on power and powerlessness, too. Sometimes it seems like we’re meant to pity Lilith, to believe she’s doing things wrong but wishing she could get them right. Sometimes she just seems hateful. The line isn’t walked delicately enough to keep both sides in sight.

There’s also all the allusions to other stories — Aladdin, Hansel and Gretel — which felt too obtrusive to be clever, to me.

I’m planning to read Charm, and maybe Beauty as well, and that might help me figure out what to think.

Rating: 3/5

One Night in Sixes, Arianne ‘Tex’ Thompson

I can’t remember who picked this for the SF/F bookclub, but I’m definitely going to be interested to chat about this one and find out whether they’d read it first, or whether they recommended it because they wanted to read it and it sounded interesting. Because it’s not badly written as such, and the world is pretty interesting, but nonetheless I had problems.

For example, I don’t know what’s gotten into publishers putting glossaries and dramatis personae at the back of books — Tor did it with The Goblin Emperor, so I know it’s not just Solaris — but I read this with only half a clue who and what everyone was. The glossary didn’t actually help much after the fact, to be fair, and it wouldn’t have been easy to turn to in an ebook anyway, but perhaps it would’ve helped. The problem is that the book is basically set in an alternate North America (I think?), but it was absent the kind of clues needed to contextualise that.

I’m still not clear on whether this was alternate history or set in the future or what, and I don’t know enough about North American history to pick up on any clues there were for that sort of thing. It plunges straight into the byplay between the characters — which is actually pretty good, especially the tension between Elim and Sil — and doesn’t give much chance to grasp the broader details.

Which, to be fair, I don’t think you entirely need to know, at least not in the first 10% of the book, when you’re busy establishing character. But there were politics here I didn’t understand, words that were either made up or not English which I had to guess at, etc. While the actual writing was easy enough to follow, I just couldn’t connect the background stuff into anything coherent.

And, since I wasn’t fond of the characters for themselves, this actually ended up being just a stream of words which I didn’t really take on board. If people at the bookclub want to talk about plot and character, I’m rather afraid I’ll be stuck.

Rating: 1/5

Fire, Kristin Cashore

If I’d read this soon after the first time I read Graceling, it might have given me a slightly different perspective on that book. It engages again with stuff like complex relationships where marriage isn’t possible, with the need for contraception and even sterilisation. I’m not always 100% comfortable with the way it’s all handled — I mean, the main character is a “human monster” who causes virtually uncontrollable desire in men.

But then, on the other hand, many men in the book can control themselves, and some of them learn to control themselves out of respect for Fire. So that in itself isn’t a bad message to send, it’s just the fact that Fire is a “monster” and the primary manifestation of that is that she’s so desireable men can’t resist her. I mean, that’s pretty much a men’s rights activist argument for rape being okay, right there.

There’s other cool stuff, though, like the fact that despite her beauty, her allure, Fire is actually battle-scarred, and even loses two of her fingers. She has to work past that to continue to play her violin — and she succeeds. It’s also frank about menstruation and how that can affect a woman’s life, too!

There’s also a lot of working through relationships. Archer is one of the main characters, and he and Fire have a sexual relationship, but then a significant plot point is how to deal with leaving that behind and just being friends again.

In short, in many ways this is a great YA title because it does examine a ton of issues people may well take for granted, especially if their parents have firm opinions about it all.

In addition to that, it builds on the story of Graceling, giving us more information about the world and about Leck, who makes a significant appearance in this book. The prologue is about him, but you don’t see the relevance for a long time. The plot does move a little slowly, I think; we don’t see a lot of the promise of Fire’s character until she leaves home and goes to the city. Then we start to see more of her, her negotiation with her powers and with living in the shadow of a remarkable (and far from universally loved) father.

Rating: 4/5