I liked this one! Granted, I listened to a lot of it on public transport, and it's been a while since I listened to the last book in the series, so I was confused for a fair bit of the beginning.

The pace soon picked up, though, and Murderbot was back to its usual "combat and selflessness" act. It was nice to see it be trusted with its job despite [redacted] and I think a lot of character development happened as a result. I love that we got more ART as well. What can I say, I enjoy this series a lot!

I enjoyed this one more than the other works of Schwab's that I'd read - but I still don't get the hype.

I did like the pacing of the book - the way the author plays with time and context to give us just enough information to understand things, but leave us wanting more. This book was an addictive one, purposefully. I also enjoy Schwab's use of language in general, both in this book and in her Shades of Magic series. 

The characterisation, though,  remains flimsy. Characters brush off trauma far too easily, nobody seems to have any consistent morals (they're amoral, I understand that, but Schwab had set them up with a seemingly solid moral code, only to leave it by the wayside; or the reverse, where an amoral character suddenly displays the strictest adherence to a code that hadn't existed only chapters before), and people's abilities (superpowers?) seem to be governed by no logic other than the fickle whims of the plot.

Speaking of the aforementioned fickle whims, so much of the story couldn't have made sense if things reflected reality. From social structures (where were security guards the night that

Victor got his power

? Who invites THREE cocaine dealers to a house party? Who lets a small child enter, then exit,

a morgue

with no repercussions?), to the way police departments work. Victor and Mitch

broke out of prison

and not once did that bite them in the ass. 

It's an action-packed, fast paced read, that stops making sense the moment you think too hard about it. When a story aims to suspend your disbelief, regardless of how whimsical or unreal the concept is, its believability is what keeps readers engaged. On that front, "Vicious" fell upsettingly short.

I found this one up at a used book store - I had no idea my favourite childhood novel had a sequel! As a standalone novel it was alright, but as a follow-up to Watership Down, it paled in comparison and got a fair bit of the characterisation wrong.

I know it must be odd of me, a grown adult, to sit here like "the rabbits in this children's book feel out of character", and understandably, the author returned to the work some 20 years later and was bound to change or forget bits without realising. But, regardless, I felt a little disappointed with it.

The El-ahrairah stories annoyed me the most, I think; I love a good bit of in-world folklore, but in Watership Down he was primarily characterized as this fabled hero, with constant tricks up his sleeves. In these stories, he felt very passive, like a normal rabbit. Things just happened to him, and his own wit had little to do with his escapes from whatever peril he found himself in. I was particularly disappointed when, in one of the stories in part two, he left a warren of rabbits to their deaths and didn't even consider coming up with something to help them out of it. This character is literally who the protagonists pray to when they're about to do something with impossible odds! Again, it's a kids' book, and this is really nothing of consequence, but it saddened me a bit nonetheless.

The third part of the book fared better, but still suffered from an occasional moment of "hey, that wasn't how it went down in the first book!" and, in typical short-story-collection fashion, was rather disjointed throughout. I love these characters, but I'll admit that this sequel wasn't necessary, and felt as though the author went back to a successful work to milk it for content.

This book was fantastic. Incredibly written, well-paced, and all too poignant in relation to current events. Adjei-Brenyah crafts a dystopia that feels utterly real, based on where America is going at least, and describes it in luscious, overpowering detail.

I don't want to compare this book to the Hunger Games, but a comparison has to be made. Both are dystopian, both explore a world where death matches are streamed for entertainment, but one focuses on an improbable future with a righteous protagonist at its core, while the other, this gem of a novel, takes a facet of the population that's already systemically dehumanized in modern America - prisoners - and pits them against one another in gladiatorial combat. Does one's empathy extend to those who have committed a crime? How far must one go psychologically, in order to stop seeing criminals as human beings? What would the role of a prison abolitionist protester involve in a world where prisoners fight each other to the death on live TV? Adjei-Brenyah explores all these questions and more in this speculative work, equal parts disturbing and impossible to look away from.

It was time for my Watership Down reread! I used to love this book as a kid, and coming back to it, I can see why. I've heard it described as "Lord Of The Rings but with rabbits" and that seems apt to me - a touching epic with a cast you grow to love; deep in-world folklore explored in-character through poems, stories, and songs; fun stuff with linguistics, and unfortunate moments of the type of misogyny you often see in early high fantasy.

It's fascinating how anthropomorphism is handled in this book. Often, writers will take an "all or nothing" approach with animal characters, where at one end we have a civilized, Zootopia-style animal kingdom, and at the other - a completely allegorical depiction of the likes of Animal Farm. Here, the characters felt distinctly humanized while retaining the animalism that makes them, well, animals, and their adventures felt "scaled" to them.

Despite having their own culture, language, and religion (the linguist in me rejoices at this), the rabbits react to situations in a way that takes into account their instincts, position in the food chain, and primitive knowledge of the world. In this way, mundane or easy situations for humans become insurmountable challenges for the rabbits. A great example of this is Blackberry's realisation that wood can float, something that none of the others know or understand. Adams spins riveting tales and daring escapades out of occurrences like travelling through an open field, crossing a river, or encountering a cat. 

I'm biased. This book was my absolute favourite from the age of 7 to the age of around 13, and it's one I still hold dear despite its more dated aspects.

I liked it! I went into it with 0 expectations, and I emerge frustrated, delighted, and bewildered. 

April May isn't likeable, but I think that's a huge part of why I liked the book. To be famous is often to be thought of in very black and white terms, and whenever I was frustrated with April's actions in the book, I'd end up asking myself whether I could fare any better under the circumstances. In most cases, I don't know if I could honestly answer yes, not at 23. It's a fascinating portrayal of what overnight fame can do to a person, and, while at times the moral was hamfisted, I enjoyed the read.

I love Kyle Murchison Booth from Monette's short stories that center him - there are many, and I recommend them. Having recently finished The Bone Key (with which my only gripe was that each story felt almost too succinct, with barely enough time to explore the mystery and get to know Booth), I was excited to see Booth in a full length book, and let me tell you, it didn't disappoint. 

It did, however, confuse. I'm excited to go back in and pick the narrative apart, but on first read - I have a fair few questions I'm still pondering after the fact. In the dedication, Monette cites Shirley Jackson as an inspiration, and I can definitely see the influence. It's a fun, eerie almost-subversion of the haunted house narrative, in that

the house's malevolent nature is manufactured, rather than natural

, which of course results in Problems™️.  

I still don't know what's up with

Alexis

, at the end there. Gonna have to make some tea and sit and think.

It's not a remarkable or earth-shattering take on Dracula's brides, but I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless. All in all, a fun read with not a lot to say and an ending that was wistfully idyllic in a way that I found uncharacteristic of Dracula retellings - where's the tragedy? The descent into madness? The dawning horror as the abused turns into a pastiche of the abuser? 

It was too short a book to truly grapple with the consequences of being chained to Dracula, so I kind of expected everything to be tied up nicely at the end, I guess I just wanted more.

Who doesn't love a repressed, queer, nervous wreck of an academic? I sure do, and while these short stories weren't as traditionally scary as I'd hoped, they managed to instill in me an eeriness I altogether enjoyed.

Booth is a downtrodden mess, and I relate to him in some ways, especially when it comes to our social anxiety (I'm better at handling it now but I can see a glimpse of my past self in this character); maybe that's why I liked the book - for a horror protagonist, he reacts to things in an entirely appropriate fashion (a pet peeve of mine is the brushing off of extremely harrowing events for the sake of plot; Booth does the opposite. Booth dwells.) 

There are some issues with the short story as a format for one protagonist's various misadventures, in my opinion - I wanted a little character growth, if anything, or a mystery that truly stumps our archivist - but there is rarely time to truly explore any of that. Had I consumed the stories as one-offs, I would not have noticed, but I engulfed this anthology in a couple of evenings, and that made my gripes with the format stand out. Which I can't even fault the book for - it's not a bad thing that I want more of this character!

Time to track down the other Booth stories! There's actually a novel that just came out (as of fall 2023) - I only picked up this book to get acquainted with the character before reading it, but now I'm extra excited to be reunited with Kyle Murchison Booth once more!

I loved the idea and premise (I mean, The Great Gatsby from the point of view of Jordan Baker, who is a bisexual Vietnamese adoptee AND magician??? Sign me up!!!) but I wish more had been done with it.

Nghi Vo's writing is beautiful, and Jordan's narrative voice was engaging, but I found the story little more than a direct retelling, with magic hamfistedly shoved in. It's been a while since I read The Great Gatsby, but the plot points here matched the original to a T - something I find interesting if the adaptation takes place in a different place or time, but rather unimaginative when it's done in a story like this, set in the same time period. I feel that more could have been done with Gatsby's origins - it's revealed that he

sold his soul to the devil

and then that aspect of his character is left hanging. The magic in general feels underused, and yet vital to the story at the end - as other reviews have pointed out, you can't have both. Either keep it subtle, or let it affect the story the way that it did.

Jordan's complex relationship with her ancestry could have been explored more, too, as without that exploration her decision and actions at the end feel rushed. Maybe I got distracted during the audiobook, but a lot of the plot seemed to meander around the concept of magic without really engaging with it in a meaningful way. The story would have been near-identical without its addition, and near-identical to the work it's based on. Maybe that's why magic was added - to differentiate the two enough.

That said, I still enjoyed my read (or rather, listen); Jordan's character is compelling and unapologetic, and it was interesting to see this classic from the point of view of someone affected by social struggles in the form of the racism perpetuated against Asian people during that time period - Tom's rant at the end held a lot more weight for this Jordan, for instance.