bennysbooks's Reviews (668)

Cosmic horror isn't my favourite, but I still enjoyed this quite a bit. It was chilling and well-written. The characters were loveable and fun (Carrot, Simon, and Earl will be on my brain for a few days now, I'm sure), and the setting of the museum was so well established. There were a couple of minor things that bothered me,

(it took them that long to clue in about the otter statue?!)

but everything I did like was enough to make me forgive the flaws. Two books in, Kingfisher has become my newest must-read author. 

I had fun every time I picked it up. I'm the problem. When will I finally accept that I cannot get into urban fantasy books? Probably never. 

I started to lose faith in the writing when O'Farrell told us 5 times in one paragraph that Hamnet and Judith were twins. 

In almost every way this seemed like a book I would like - the setting, the themes, a hint of the bard. I was convinced I would love it. But the writing! It was overwrought, repetitive, drowning in metaphors in a way that we're supposed to think is beautiful but reads to me like the scene in Elf where Buddy pours syrup on top of the candy-topped spaghetti breakfast he has made. Too much. I love beautiful, lyrical writing (and novels written by poets especially), but there is still a level of control required to pull off lyrical writing that I did not find in Hamnet. The third person present perspective held me at a distance that made it hard to connect with the story. Characters felt more like archetypes than real people. I was ready to be destroyed by this book, and I was, just not in the way I anticipated. There are other books in the world that can give me what I was looking for here (an exploration of grief and parenthood). And if I want historical fiction, I think I'll stick with Hilary Mantel (I know her writing bothers people too, so it's fully a matter of preference. I'll take her raw, sometimes baffling prose over this any day). 

My aunt bought The Night Circus for me 10 years ago - it was her favourite book that year and she wanted to spread that love around. I started it almost immediately, but before I could finish more than a few chapters I experienced something that was as physically challenging as it was emotionally traumatic. I put the book down for a while, but every few years I would pick it up and try again. And each time I felt instantly sick; just looking at that cover transported me to one of the worst times of my life (it's actually kind of amazing how intensely our brains can make these connections). Until this time, that is (reading it digitally helped, I think - I didn't have to look at the cover art). And thank goodness for that, because I loved this book.

I'm not going to bother rating it, because my thoughts on what it is versus how I felt about it are at odds in the strangest ways, and I don't know how to decide on a number. But it just WORKED for me. It is  s  l  o  w  . The plot and characters are almost secondary to both the atmosphere and the writing, which is typically something I hate, but is precisely what I loved about this. The atmosphere is also SO of its time. It's very Dresden Dolls-era Amanda Palmer meets twee, vintage scrapbooker gal, meets Romeo and Juliet (but not fully, don't worry), meets the Prestige?  

Anyway, because I felt ill every time I saw the book , I had donated the copy from my Aunt years ago. I'm probably going to pre-order the new Waterstones paperback reprint. I'm a Morgenstern fan-boi, years late and right on time. 

Edit: circling back nearly a year later to just give it 5 stars because I think about this book regularly, and with fondness. 

Had a few issues with the writing and structure, but mostly just had a really fun time with this. I had heard a few reviewers say they were disappointed with the conclusion, so I was prepared for that, but it didn't kill the book for me. I was so scared that I almost put the book down a couple of times, and that's exactly the experience I was craving when I picked this up. My partner asked at one point, "is it that the dread is building, or are there actually scary moments?". My answer was, "both". 

Promising at first, but this is extremely wordy and slow, with nothing to break up the text. It's possible it would work better if I attempted the physical copy, but I'm not sure I'm feeling the pull enough to attempt it. 

I think this was fine. It did what it set out to do, and it did it well. The humour is very Sanderson, not my favourite but really works for some. The continued world-building was the best part of this book. Not sure I'm going to continue the series though, at least not right now. I didn't go in expecting a continuation of Mistborn, so I'm not disappointed. Just not in the mood for something this fast-paced, or something 'funny'. 

You know the stands at the front of the library that have new books facing outward? They got me. I borrowed this for the cover, knowing nothing about it, and... I'm just glad I saw it at the library and not in the store. 

The writing made me feel like I was back in an undergraduate creative writing course I took. He compared her accent to an apple. Am I supposed to think that's clever? I've been scouring reviews, and I feel validated in ending this journey here. Vibes are off, friends. 

I officially stopped here, at this heavily contrived display of woke-ness: