ed_moore's Reviews (345)

This book was so vibey and fun ! It picks up right where ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children’ leaves off and remains at a really fast pace. Riggs is also heavy in the cliffhangers, ending off right where everything takes a dramatic turn and keeping me on knifepoint. I also preferred the sequel to the first book as the peculiars were exploring the already spooky atmosphere of 1940s blitz London, encountering more of their kind and the world Riggs creates outside of the initial loop of Cairnholme. It was unintentional as I didn’t know where the setting would take me in this book but the delving into the catacombs of St Paul’s as I happen to be wandering the graveyards of London was an immaculate coincidence.

Character wise it’s a large cast but they remain distinct, Horace really had my heart in this one with his inherent cowardice which he constantly tries to resist, however the terrible audiobook accents were no less jarring. 

“Snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried.” - The Dead

Unlike with Murakami’s short stories, I have decided not to individually review and rate each of Joyce’s stories in ‘Dubliners’. This is because they didn’t feel too unique or separate from one another to really have drastically different remarks to make on each. Joyce captures the small tragedies of everyday lives in Dublin, with a very empty and sorrowful feeling across the collection. It grants importance to the lives of the everyman, but here in the short form I feel like Joyce’s style suffered. He takes a long time to set scenes, deeply engaged in a sense of place, and builds up characters and plot very slowly and as a consequence these 10 or 15 page stories felt like they were over before anything had happened or really began. I think this is why ‘The Dead’ is regarded widely as the best in the collection, and I would be inclined to agree, as it was much longer (about 50 pages) and had a chance to gain a sense of itself before concluding, though I felt ‘A Painful Case’ also was a lot more well-rounded than the rest of the collection despite its shorter length. I did however prefer ‘Dubliners’ to ‘Ulysses’, maybe thats down to reading the short stories whilst in Dublin and therefore being fully immersed in Joyce’s locality so prevalent within his writing, but also because it didn’t drag nearly as much though the level of distance from plot was equal in each. Maybe ‘A Portrait of an Artist’ will be the sweet spot for this writing style where the plot won’t drag but will have a chance to properly begin.

Darwent’s ‘The Things We Do to Our Friends’ is bordering on the edge of being a dark academia book and feels like it wants to be but just doesn’t quite do enough to make it such. It’s more just a thriller about a group of art history students studying at Edinburgh of whom’s lives revolve solely around one another, and therefore the studying and the city take a backseat. This was fine as the whole story itself was satisfactory and played with obsession, and it also played into the dark academia themes of the entire cast of characters being shitty people, but I feel an opportunity was missed to use the setting as a means to enhance the book. It’s so moody and gothic which works well with the plot but this wasn’t capitalised on at all, all I really note is a single chapter set in Greyfriars Kirkyard and the chapters are very short. 

I mentioned the plot being interesting enough but I feel it weakened in the ending, not because of the final sequence of events themselves but rather that these events felt extremely predictable and that events cumulating in this way was inevitable. I also didn’t really get the grasp of what the groups business adjacent writing and editing was actually for despite it being referenced from time to time alongside their primary economic endeavours and Périgeux remained a bit of a mystery despite how often its teased though I think that was partly intentional. 

Hrabral’s memoir ‘All My Cats’ couldn’t have been more deceptive. It’s an account of Hrabal’s weekends in Kersko on the outskirts of Prague where he finds himself adopting a growing never of stray cats, and starts so lovingly and wholesome with gorgeous prose, and then the author begins grappling with insanity and suicidal thoughts and it takes such a harsh and gut-wrenching turn. 

Fronted with too many stray cats giving birth and relying on him he starts pulling Murakami shit that I did not sign up for and the book describes pretty severe animal cruelty and kitten murders. After setting up the cast of cats so wholesomely this tears out your soul and it’s horrible to read and then you remember unlike Murakami this is a memoir not a work of fiction. The author then immediately regrets it every time and spends the book grappling with guilt and making remarks on suffering but then never learns and hurts you and the cats over and over again. This is so far from what I expected from this book and not in a good way.

Sandra Newman’s ‘Julia’ is now the second retelling of ‘1984’ I have read from Julia’s perspective, and though much better than the first I read: Katherine Bradley’s ‘The Sisterhood’ I think I should really stop trying to read retellings of my favourite book as in both occasions they seem to completely miss what I believe Orwell’s intentions were (for example each making Big Brother a flesh and bone human rather than potentially an ambiguous political concept) and in comparing them to ‘1984’ they will never quite reach near the mark. 

‘Julia’ claims to be a feminist retelling of 1984 but just because it’s written from the perspective of the main female character that doesn’t make the book femininist. For the first half Julia is infatuated by Winston and the man is for some reason described to have luscious blond hair? Anyway this already presents Julia as lesser than in Orwell’s work as there she was just desperate for a fuck rather than infatuated by the extremely unappealing man. 

I don’t really know where I stand to criticise on my next point here as I disliked ‘The Sisterhood’ for straying completely away from the point of an plot of 1984, seemingly just adding an element or two just to claim it was of the same universe and story, but on a contradictory dislike I felt ‘Julia’ just mirrored Orwell’s exact writing and plot far too much and for the most part it was nothing new and therefore can’t really give it much credit, which feels like these retellings can’t win on either way of the spectrum but both sort of missed creating a greater balance? (Also I know Orwell copy and pasted a fair amount from Zamyatin’s ‘We’ so this point doesn’t really have a leg to stand on…) but on personal opinion and feel when reading it just didn’t feel like it was balanced well. On another note that could be seen to contradict my point again though I feel like if Newman just stopped writing at the point Orwell’s version of the story ends and didn’t add the last two chapters the book would’ve been much better, the final two chapters kill the ambiguity that make 1984 so powerful and Newman’s retelling of the Orwell timeline ending was pretty well done (

I just don’t get why these Julia retellings keep having her have to overthrow the party and kill Big Brother in the end its so unrealistic for what Orwell was going for in creating this universe and I hate how its so undermined!

) 

The handling of Room 101 and the rats however was really disturbing but that’s as it should be so pretty well done. This is one instance where I think Newman added to and improved on the narrative created by Orwell.

‘Julia’ was better than ‘The Sisterhood’ but I think I’ve now learnt these attempts at retelling 1984 just don’t work for me as I have so many opinions on the book and how it should be perceived I am just annoyed and disappointed when these rewrites don’t fit that.

“I asked myself about the present. How wide it was, how deep it was, how much of it was mine to keep?” 

Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ is hailed as one of the great anti-war stories, focusing on the firebombing of Dresden from the perspective of American POW Billy Pilgrim. However, as Vonnegut himself remarks in the book, to be anti-war is alike to being anti-glacier. The violence and death is inevitable and unpreventable therefore speaking against it is futile. He however attempts to nonetheless. 

The first quarter of this book was brilliant. It was written from Vonnegut’s perspective, as a struggling writer attempting to write a story about the firebombing he experienced but failing to make anything out of it. It is in a confused and absurdist mind with nursery rhyme weaved in (huge pro on my part!) to illustrate how the Second World War was really a Children’s Crusade. This perspective however soon switched when Vonnegut became the protagonist of the novel he was trying to write, Pilgrim. 

The catch here is that while Pilgrim shared Vonnegut’s experiences of the war, he is also able to time travel after a plane crash and is taken by an alien species called Tralfamadorians who exhibit him in a zoo of sorts. I will also note that every single death is followed by “so it goes…”, addressing the alien attitude to life always existing in another time but also therefore very muted to the concept and consequences of death. I liked something about this take it at the same time it feels wrong to do so? The book loses its absurdism confusion and becomes more incoherent science fiction confusion which just wasn’t anywhere near as good as how it started in Vonnegut’s perspective. 

Dacre’s ‘Zofloya’ shows the fall from virtuous maiden to ruthless murderess of the spoilt and rash maiden Victoria. It is a gothic that clearly takes much inspiration from Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis before it, many plot elements being reciprocal, and makes comment of somewhat merit on where evil comes from and the vices born from failed parenting, but beyond that there isn’t much merit. 

First of all Dacre’s prose is absolutely terrible. She uses two or three adjectives in the place of one in pretty much every line of description, and often the two words either have the same meaning making one futile or are just completely contradictory to one another. I’m including one of the passages I highlighted to myself of this clunky style for example: 

“The intelligence, for an instant, gave to the haughty bosom of Victoria a pang of acute mortification, but this emotion was speedily succeeded by one of violence and uncontrolled rage” 

And this isn’t just a stand out example, the majority of the book is written in thus way consequently it reads awfully. The eponymous character only appears for the first time just past halfway through and is written with so many racist stereotypes, and I feel the series of events in the final three chapters are tacked on in a panic to give closure to characters Dacre (and I) had completely forgotten about. 

‘The Chalice of the Gods’ has Riordan reunite us with Percy, Annabeth and Grover, the former two now in a very wholesome relationship, as Percy is set a quest by Ganymede to locate and return the cupbearer’s stolen chalice. Unlike the previous books this was a much more low-stake mission but allowed Riordan to place more minor gods into the modern world, arcs focusing on Hebe, Iris and Gerios, which was unique and fun. All in all it was really lighthearted, pretty wholesome at the end, clever as always with the intermingling of mythology into the modern world, and a really easy and quick read: it took me just a day to zoom through this! As fun and lighthearted as it was the lesser stakes meant it didn’t quite meet the standards of the original five books (minus ‘The Sea of Monsters’ it was better than such!) and was nothing to ride home about but nonetheless a really fun little read !

Eliza Clarke’s penance takes on the fictionalised torture and murder of a teenaged girl called Joanie by three of her classmates and handles it from the perspective of a journalist and true crime author Corelli who is writing a non-fiction account of the case. It was known from the start who was responsible for the murder, and guesses could be made at why, so the book instead focuses on building a wide perspective of the town and players involved in the murder in a multimedia format and with the style of Capote’s ‘In Cold blood’, which was much to ‘Penance’s’ credit. (

Although I did feel very un-legitimised and even innocently at fault for the problematic fictionalisation of true crime in the questioning of integrity that comes in the ending, Corelli himself trying to encourgae comparisons to Capote despite his problematic outlook

) 

The book explores the difficulties of girlhood and the teenaged years in examine the psyches and morbid fascinations of the girls through their blog posts, tumblr threads, family interviews and dramatic recreations of core scenes, this difference in the girls contributing to frequent bullying and desire to victimise themselves and establish definitive blame. I haven’t liked this multi-media style before, finding it irritating in Jackson’s ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’ and also find 21st century references sometimes a little jarring, especially when covid is mentioned in books! Here however the references to Brexit, Pokemon and the sorts really worked and made the book feel so much more grounded, also contributing to the very real, non-fiction feel. The issues ‘Penance’ raises surrounding true crime culture and online cesspits is unbelievably clever. 

“One day when I ride the yamanoto loop all of a sudden this city will start to go, in a flash the buildings will crumble and I’ll be holding my ticket watching it all. Over the Tokyo streets will fall my China, like ash, leeching into everything it touched, slowly, gradually, until nothing remains. No this isn’t the place for me” 

‘The Elephant Vanishes’ is a collection of short stories by Murakami, many of which focusing on alienation and a subtle magical realism. All the characters were nameless which created a surreal distance from each story. Overall I liked the absurdity when it was subtle but often was tainted by Murakami’s need to include eroticism, to the point where it became a positive when it wasn’t included. I was led to this book after being extremely put off the man for a while from reading ‘Kafka on the Shore’ but Ella (credited as requested..) informed me that it was banned by the Trump administration recently therefore it felt important I read it. Honestly not sure what the motivation of the ban was as all I could really blame was Murakami’s blatant eroticism but that’s typical of his writing and fairly sure not all of his works have been banned in the states? (Yet at least…) I have given a short individual review of each of the seventeen stories and my overall review is the average ! 

 

The Wind Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women - 1.5⭐️: 

Murikami’s opening story of the collection ‘The Elephant Vanishes’ was very much Murikami, in that it had a man looking for a lost cat and the infantilisation of a sixteen year old who is discussing the grotesque whilst they watch for the lost cat, and a mysterious phone call where a woman on the other end is doing the on call equivalent of sexting non-consensually and listening to this on audiobook was disgusting and made it feel like I was receiving this call and hence very uncomfortable. 

 

The Second Bakery Attack - 2.5⭐️: 

A bit of an improvement, nothing remarkable but a story of a couple waking up with a gnawing hunger that they feel they can only resolve by robbing a McDonalds of some burgers. Blends the absurd into the everyday quite nicely but still a little weird. 

 

The Kangaroo Communique - 1.25⭐️: 

A man sends a tape to a customer who sent in a complaint to his company that, though he doesn’t know her, says how he desires to be with her. Felt a bit like the reader was just being mansplained to in a ‘woe is me’ vibe, once again completely non-consensually. 

 

On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning - 1⭐️: 

Really short and unremarkable as a man passes a woman he finds attractive then muses on what he should have said for them to become star-crossed lovers after the opportunity has passed. Very little care for or to say about this one. 

 

Sleep - 4.25⭐️: 

This one had the right level of weirdness that Murikami wasn’t just being a freak. It is about a woman who finds she is functioning fine without sleep after becoming enraptured by rediscovering a love of reading in rereading ‘Anna Karenina’ when unable to sleep one night. This continues for seventeen days as she muses on what is the purpose of sleep and therefore what death is in relation to it. Solid story that gets you thinking. 

 

The Fall of the Roman Empire, The 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler’s invasion of Poland - 1⭐️: 

Literally just a guy writing his diary, tying the events to historical events that reminded me of Churchill’s ‘This is a Chair’. I’m sure it’s quite clever but really ambiguous and I didn’t enjoy either as there wasn’t really anything to take from them. Murikami somehow managed to weave sex into this though. 

 

Lederhosen -2.5⭐️: 

A man’s wife’s friend tells him about how her parents got divorced as she went to Germany to see her mum, he asked her to bring her back a lederhosen but the shop would only do fittings, her husband not being there with her. This unravels into revealing the reason for the divorce. It was nothing controversial but not much of interest. 

 

Barn Burning - 3.5⭐️: 

A man meets a woman who pretends to peel clementines and she goes to Algiers and comes back with a man. This man smokes and drinks with him one afternoon and confesses to enjoying burning down abandoned barns, which sends the narrative perspective on a wild goose chase. This was the level of magical realism I can appreciate as it was a subtle ambiguity and weirdness that had you on your toes. 

 

The Little Green Monster - 2.75⭐️: 

A woman has a monster dig up into her garden, it can read her mind and confesses its love to her. The monster was so mistreated in this it was honestly a little tragic but extremely unexplained and not sure what Murikami was trying to get at with it. 

 

Family Affair -2⭐️: 

Introspective look on a man who lives with his recently engaged sister but has a reluctance to settle down. Establishes a wholesome sibling dynamic which isn’t often presented when this pair are in their midlives but the narrates other relationships are really poorly done. 

 

A Window - 2.75⭐️: 

A man works for a company that lets people send letters and they provide feedback on how good their letter writing is. It's quite a dystopian and an look into modern alienation, but feel a lot more could’ve been done with the concept. 

 

TV People -4⭐️: 

A man has a TV delivered, they plug it in but it gets no channels. The delivery and set up people ignore him, his wife doesnt notice the TV, one is installed in the office and when he mentions it to the co-workers he gets completely ignored. It was a little magical realist story about alienation which was pretty effective - and no sex! 

 

A Slow Boat to China - 2⭐️: 

A man recounts his interactions with Chinese people, how he took an exam in a Chinese school once, the one Chinese girl he dated and a schoolfriend who he ran into again selling encyclopaedias. It has a passage about Tokyo crumbling in a very reflective manner but feels both like its racially stereotyping and at the same time appreciating individuality in all and not basing impressions on race. Really don’t like that I am very much confused on wether Murikami was being racist with this one or not? 

 

The Dancing Dwarf - 3⭐️: 

A man dreams of a dancing dwarf, who wants him to dance with it in the forest. He learns the next day the dwarf was exiled from the monarchy when the revolution came. It is a surreal tale where he battles being possessed by the dwarf but wanting it to dance for him; very Faustian. There is a scene where maggots begin crawling from someone’s eyes which as pretty haunting and can’t see myself forgetting any time soon. He also works in a factory that makes Elephants as elephants take too long between having babies? Really random one. 

 

The Last Lawn of the Afternoon - 3.25⭐️: 

A student works for a lawn mowing company and is always extremely meticulous. It comments on appreciating the small parts of life and taking it slow but in typical Murikami fashion gets really weird about objectifying women. 

 

Silence - 2.75⭐️: 

A story about a young man who is isolated by all his classmates as he is assumed to have driven a classmate to suicide. Looks at alienation as a consequence of rumours; I appreciate the tying together theme of alienation in many of these stories but ‘TV People’ and ‘Sleep’ are the only ones that really stuck out to me of the collection of them. 

 

The Elephant Vanishes - 2.25⭐️: 

An elephant owned by the city and the zookeeper one day disappear. Strange magical realism at play but for the titular story that it made me wait the whole collection for it was an extremely underwhelming finale.