Reviews Catch-Up
Oct. 6th, 2019 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI've read quite a lot lately, not least because we've been having a reading retreat at my parents' house over the weekend - glorious!
Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare:
Really, the only reason I decided to listen to this was because it’s narrated by Morena Baccarin and she has a beautiful voice. I was also vaguely intrigued to try some more Cassandra Clare, as I know people who are big fans of the Shadowhunter world. This book is the start of a new series, set some years after the original ones, and following mostly new characters. And Morena Baccarin does indeed make a wonderful narrator. Unfortunately, though, that wasn’t enough to sustain my interest. I did quite like the setup and some of the characters but, for an action-adventure fantasy murder mystery, very little seemed to actually happen. And the teenage relationship melodrama was just too much, especially with the way it ended. Ack! Why can’t people engage in honest communication about their feelings and concerns??? Hey ho.
The Star Fraction by Ken Macleod:
This was selected for family book club, but the stars did not align for me to be able to appreciate it. I came at it rather piecemeal, snatching a half hour here and there during a busy holiday, while Dave was also trying to finish the same copy of the book. Given the complexity of the world, the number of layers of plot, and the almost complete lack of explanation of anything that had happened before, this was not the best way to approach this book. There were too many POV characters as well. So, while I do admire sci-fi writers who dump the reader into the middle of their world and expect them to figure it out as they go along, I feel things went a bit too far with this book and I lost interest before I reached the point where things even remotely started to become clear. It seemed to be set in the near future with an alternative history, involving lots of political factions and weird technological advances. There were possibly evil AIs and rival cyberpunk style gangs, virtual reality, a talking gun, and unknown global threats. But I found it hard to connect to the characters and I couldn’t really follow the plot at all.
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem:
I reread this last week as part of the podcast project, so a detailed review (along with comparison with how I felt about it the first time I read it) will be available in an upcoming episode. Overall, I found the techno-babble, background science detail and lengthy theories about the planet incomprehensible, but the personal story was compelling.
Dark Triumph by Robin Lafevers:
I enjoyed the first in this series earlier in the year and was keen to continue. Each book carries on from the one before in terms of plot and timeline, but focuses on different characters, in order to provide a complete romance subplot. As a series about young women, who are told they are the daughters of Death and subsequently trained as assassins, there is violence and exploration of dark themes. But this book goes a bit far, in my opinion. Weirdly, the discussion of whether or not it’s okay to enjoy killing for its own sake is dealt with lightly. But there’s also incest, physical and emotional abuse, infanticide and suicidal ideation. I did quite like the romance story, as the male love interest is lovely, but the rest of it was a bit grim for me, and it did seem to revel in the violence more than the first one. I was also hoping, from the opening sections, that the romance was going to go in a more interesting, same-sex direction, and was then disappointed. I’m still going to read the next one, because I like the character it focuses on, but I may give up after that.
The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper
This is the next book chosen by Kales on Novel Predictions, so not something I would have read otherwise. It’s about a young girl, who is about to start high school at a new school and intending to hide her family background of talking to ghosts. This starts to go awry very quickly as a ghost starts visiting her at the school, keen to get her to resolve the manner of his death for his family. It’s a very light story, fun and amusing - and it’s about horrible tragedy, untimely death and familial grief. So, a bit of a disconnect between tone and content, in my view. I enjoyed it, and it has a very sweet ending, but I felt it could have had a bit more emotional depth.
Allegedly by Tiffany D Jackson:
Another book I read because it was recommended by Kales from Novel Predictions, and very more darker and more emotionally involved than the one above. It’s about a sixteen-year-old who has just been released from prison, after allegedly killing a baby at the age of nine. She gets pregnant shortly after her release and the book is about her trying to ensure she will be able to keep her own baby once it’s born. It’s a first person narrative and a very effective one. I was quickly invested in Mary’s story. It’s an interesting and quite horrifying portrayal of the system within which Mary finds herself, and it uses excerpts from various books/reports/newspapers very effectively to provide additional perspectives. It perhaps takes the idea of the unreliable narrator a tad too far, in my view, and I did see all three twists coming, but it certainly kept me reading right to the end, and was a compelling story.
A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn:
What a delight to return to tales of Veronica and Stoker after the rather heavy reading of the previous 36 hours! I love them both as characters and even more as a daring duo. The introduction of Lady Wellingtonia is a great addition to the series, and dogs are also awesome, even if they didn't get much of a look-in here. The story of Veronica and Stoker hunting a murderer at the behest of a member of the royal family, and under a time limit of just a week, was exciting and highly entertaining, with lots of great humour and some lovely emotional moments as well. The identity and motive of the murderer was somewhat disappointing, and everything got tied up perhaps a bit too neatly in the end. But I still loved it and will very much look forward to spending more time with this characters in the near future. There's certainly still a lot of their backgrounds left to discover.
Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare:
Really, the only reason I decided to listen to this was because it’s narrated by Morena Baccarin and she has a beautiful voice. I was also vaguely intrigued to try some more Cassandra Clare, as I know people who are big fans of the Shadowhunter world. This book is the start of a new series, set some years after the original ones, and following mostly new characters. And Morena Baccarin does indeed make a wonderful narrator. Unfortunately, though, that wasn’t enough to sustain my interest. I did quite like the setup and some of the characters but, for an action-adventure fantasy murder mystery, very little seemed to actually happen. And the teenage relationship melodrama was just too much, especially with the way it ended. Ack! Why can’t people engage in honest communication about their feelings and concerns??? Hey ho.
The Star Fraction by Ken Macleod:
This was selected for family book club, but the stars did not align for me to be able to appreciate it. I came at it rather piecemeal, snatching a half hour here and there during a busy holiday, while Dave was also trying to finish the same copy of the book. Given the complexity of the world, the number of layers of plot, and the almost complete lack of explanation of anything that had happened before, this was not the best way to approach this book. There were too many POV characters as well. So, while I do admire sci-fi writers who dump the reader into the middle of their world and expect them to figure it out as they go along, I feel things went a bit too far with this book and I lost interest before I reached the point where things even remotely started to become clear. It seemed to be set in the near future with an alternative history, involving lots of political factions and weird technological advances. There were possibly evil AIs and rival cyberpunk style gangs, virtual reality, a talking gun, and unknown global threats. But I found it hard to connect to the characters and I couldn’t really follow the plot at all.
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem:
I reread this last week as part of the podcast project, so a detailed review (along with comparison with how I felt about it the first time I read it) will be available in an upcoming episode. Overall, I found the techno-babble, background science detail and lengthy theories about the planet incomprehensible, but the personal story was compelling.
Dark Triumph by Robin Lafevers:
I enjoyed the first in this series earlier in the year and was keen to continue. Each book carries on from the one before in terms of plot and timeline, but focuses on different characters, in order to provide a complete romance subplot. As a series about young women, who are told they are the daughters of Death and subsequently trained as assassins, there is violence and exploration of dark themes. But this book goes a bit far, in my opinion. Weirdly, the discussion of whether or not it’s okay to enjoy killing for its own sake is dealt with lightly. But there’s also incest, physical and emotional abuse, infanticide and suicidal ideation. I did quite like the romance story, as the male love interest is lovely, but the rest of it was a bit grim for me, and it did seem to revel in the violence more than the first one. I was also hoping, from the opening sections, that the romance was going to go in a more interesting, same-sex direction, and was then disappointed. I’m still going to read the next one, because I like the character it focuses on, but I may give up after that.
The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper
This is the next book chosen by Kales on Novel Predictions, so not something I would have read otherwise. It’s about a young girl, who is about to start high school at a new school and intending to hide her family background of talking to ghosts. This starts to go awry very quickly as a ghost starts visiting her at the school, keen to get her to resolve the manner of his death for his family. It’s a very light story, fun and amusing - and it’s about horrible tragedy, untimely death and familial grief. So, a bit of a disconnect between tone and content, in my view. I enjoyed it, and it has a very sweet ending, but I felt it could have had a bit more emotional depth.
Allegedly by Tiffany D Jackson:
Another book I read because it was recommended by Kales from Novel Predictions, and very more darker and more emotionally involved than the one above. It’s about a sixteen-year-old who has just been released from prison, after allegedly killing a baby at the age of nine. She gets pregnant shortly after her release and the book is about her trying to ensure she will be able to keep her own baby once it’s born. It’s a first person narrative and a very effective one. I was quickly invested in Mary’s story. It’s an interesting and quite horrifying portrayal of the system within which Mary finds herself, and it uses excerpts from various books/reports/newspapers very effectively to provide additional perspectives. It perhaps takes the idea of the unreliable narrator a tad too far, in my view, and I did see all three twists coming, but it certainly kept me reading right to the end, and was a compelling story.
A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn:
What a delight to return to tales of Veronica and Stoker after the rather heavy reading of the previous 36 hours! I love them both as characters and even more as a daring duo. The introduction of Lady Wellingtonia is a great addition to the series, and dogs are also awesome, even if they didn't get much of a look-in here. The story of Veronica and Stoker hunting a murderer at the behest of a member of the royal family, and under a time limit of just a week, was exciting and highly entertaining, with lots of great humour and some lovely emotional moments as well. The identity and motive of the murderer was somewhat disappointing, and everything got tied up perhaps a bit too neatly in the end. But I still loved it and will very much look forward to spending more time with this characters in the near future. There's certainly still a lot of their backgrounds left to discover.
