elementarymydear's Reviews (967)

 This is a stunningly written short novel. In many ways it’s the literary equivalent of an Attenborough documentary as we get a guided tour through an ecosystem of the future. Rather than have an over-arching plot, there are instead small vignettes on individual animals and their lives.

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To The Dogs depicts a future post-human civilisation, where nature has taken over the ruins of cities, and a small population of humans have returned to a life as hunter-gatherers. The land belongs to the dogs now, and Maskell paints a vivid picture of their lives. It is clear that a love and admiration for nature – and its inescapable power – are at the centre of this book. The world and atmosphere of the story have been brilliantly crafted, and the characters feel so real even though they are nameless, speechless animals.

It would have been nice to have a little more plot, or a little more backstory, but on the whole this is a beautifully written book that transports you to a world not so far from our own.

I received a free copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own. 

 When I saw there was a new, ninth, and final (for now) instalment of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, 11-year-old me leapt for joy. I loved these books so much during my peak reading years of ages 9-13, and their magic has stayed with me ever since.

It was wonderful to return to the world of Torak, Renn and Wolf, and the pre-historic world of northern Europe that they inhabit. The characters are a little bit older (it’s very strange to read my childhood favourites discuss whether or not they should have children), and they’ve all come a long way since the very first book, but the magic and adventure are still as strong as ever.

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As an adult I’ve read some of Michelle Paver’s other books, and even though I enjoyed some more than others, she can always be relied upon to write a thrilling story, so immersive that it feels like the characters are real and the story is a contemporary one that has been passed down through time.

I won’t go into plot details here for two reasons: the first is that this is the ninth and final book in the series, so to say more than the bare minimum would be spoilers. The second is that, as wonderful as Ian McKellan’s narration is, his voice is perhaps slightly too soothing and I’ll admit I retained at most 70% of the plot (and even that is a stretch). Even so, I struggled not to get emotional at some of the most moving passages, which were not only important moments in this book but in the series as a whole.

One day, I’ll read the whole series again from start to finish, and revisit this brilliant series. It’s a sign of any good children’s book, that the children who love it grow into adults who love it, and the adults who love it can point to it and say “that’s a great book.”

I received a free copy of the audiobook for review. All opinions are my own. 

 What a weird but wonderful book. We have a centuries-old ghost (Blanca) who falls in love with George Sands, the very-much-alive and very-much-a-real-person lover of the composer Chopin.

There is no real plot. Instead we watch and observe with Blanca, remember with George, and explore the lives of these three people. We get to know George through both Blanca’s eyes and her own, and slowly peel back the layers of the characters’ lives. It would have been nice to have slightly stronger arcs for the characters – I definitely got to the end and felt like nothing had happened – but the they are all depicted in a very engaging way.

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The prose is effortless; you can’t help but get swept up and transported into the story. The writing was beautiful without being dense and regardless of your thoughts on the plot or characters it is an undeniable joy to read. It’s historical fiction, it’s literary fiction, with a heavy dose of magical realism to tie the whole thing together.

I received a free copy for review from NetGalley. All opinions are my own. 

Sometimes you get to the end of a book and you’re so overwhelmed by the depth, the emotion and the brilliance of it that you are physically incapable of doing anything until you have recovered.

This was one of those books.

The story follows two timelines; that of Dikembe, a young boy from the Congo who is bought as a ‘companion’ to a rich Englishman at the beginning of the 20th Century; and of Lowra, a young woman in the 1990s who stumbles across his story and is determined to learn more. Their lives intersect more than Lowra could ever have imagined, and it becomes her mission to make sure Dikembe’s story is heard.

Just as Lowra slowly uncovers Dikembe’s story, it is revealed to us alongside her. There are times that you hope desperately for what you think is true not to be true and there are times that we’re a few steps ahead of her, but from the early chapters you can’t help but be desperate to know his story. This kind of story, where little nuggets are slowly revealed to the reader, is extremely hard to do so well, and Lola Jaye has mastered it.

One of the strongest themes of the book is the importance of telling people’s stories, and of making sure that history doesn’t just remember the victors. Both Lowra and the historian she enlists to help her, Monty, have their own reasons for finding out what happened to Dikembe, but ultimately it is for Dikembe’s own sake that they make sure his story is heard. While Dikembe is a fictional character, Jaye uses his story to shed light on a little-known period of Black British history, and explores the way in which Black history is perceived in Britain.

This is a truly brilliant book, excellently crafted, and one that stays with the reader long after you reach the final page.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

What a wonderfully heartfelt, beautifully written story!

In Where We Go From Here, we follow the intersecting lives of three young gay men living in Brazil. One of them has just been diagnosed with HIV; another, has lived with his diagnosis for a few years; and the third has just found out the guy he’s seeing is HIV-positive.

The story switches perspectives between the three characters, each one having their own distinct voice. It was so good to see the difficult moments they face from their different perspectives, tensions sometimes running high as they worked through it together. With the disclaimer that I was at Pride less than 24 hours ago and so emotions are already running high, I felt choked up at the end with - no spoilers - a glorious moment of solidarity and acceptance.

It would have been so easy for this book to just become a public health announcement, or an overly-simplified message of support, but Rocha captured so many nuances in what these characters are going through. From the first page he had me 100% emotionally involved with these characters. There are ups and downs, and it’s not all sunshine and rainbows by the final chapter, but the optimistic ending perfectly ties up the book.

I received a free copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

 

Buckle up folks – it’s rant time.

It’s clear that this book was… well-intentioned. There are a whole bunch of -isms and -phobias appearing. While that isn’t what makes a book a bad book, the way they are used and handled is.

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I want to start with the character of Fallon. Our only female main character, we are told to hate her from the very start. In her first appearance, she goes on a white-supremacist tirade, quite happily aligning herself with neo-Nazi ideals and being an all around Bad PersonTM. It’s so sudden and such a terrible introduction to any character that it feels jarring. Her husband Donovan hates her and is afraid of her, to the extent that he hopes their unborn child is a girl because he’s afraid of how she will treat a son. Now, this isn’t a comment on only this particular author, but just because I’ve read a few similar things in the past year or so; there is a trend of some male authors ‘flipping gender roles’ by making the women controlling and domineering, and men submissive and frightened. This is not the space to expand on that, but I’ll just leave that here to make what you will of it.

The main thing that, quite rightly, other reviews have highlighted, and I will too, is the trans representation in this book. I think the author intended this to be positive, complex representation, and to explore how sexuality and gender intersect. I’ll start with a small thing: the reading group questions at the end use “transman” as one word instead of two. It’s an easy mistake to make, but indicative of a larger lack of understanding.

So Levi’s main purpose in this book is to be in a love triangle with the main character, and be the first person who isn’t a cis man that Carry (the main character) is with. First of all we had Carry musing on how Levi is an inherently deceptive person and clearly untrustworthy, but reassures us that he’s fine with it. The way Levi’s body was described was incredibly uncomfortable to read, and all-in-all it was far from the “Queer and Trans-positive” story promised in the author’s bio. While I’m sure this was intended as a positive depiction, I think it’s ultimately harmful.

On this note, the book focuses almost exclusively on M/M relationships, including Carry’s doubts as to his relationship with Levi, and Donovan resenting his wife as he would rather be with a man. Again, this isn’t the place to unpack that but it’s worth mentioning.

Onto something else entirely: the setting. This book felt completely detached from any place or time which I absolutely love. Especially for a Great Gatsby inspired book, the timeless feel really adds to the atmosphere. All of that being said, this was apparently set in the modern day, and every reference to Facebook pulled me right out of the story. It felt jarring; a timeless, placeless, 1920s-inspired nebulous location would have worked much better.

So after complaining about this book for half a page, why did I give it two stars instead of one? Well, it was undeniably gripping. I desperately wanted to find out what happened and was engrossed every time I picked it up. There was so much potential which, if it hadn’t been for the issues raised above, could have made a fantastic book. The writing style was good, and overall? I think it was a well-intentioned but ultimately poorly thought-through book.

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

 

 *Disclaimer: this review was written as part of a sponsored blog post. All opinions are my own.*

Sometimes, a good book can do funny things with time. I flew through this book and in many ways it felt like it was over in the blink of an eye, but I somehow lived a whole lifetime while doing it.

A Reservoir Man tells the story of Michael, a man born in the 1940s, as he grows up through the latter half of the twentieth century. We get to live it too through his eyes, and there is a danger with this sort of book that it feels like a grand tour of global disasters, but Ambrosio struck the balance perfectly. Michael’s life couldn’t help but be scarred by the AIDs crisis, or by 9/11, but life still continues and that was written to great effect.

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For most of the book, I felt quite ‘arm’s length’ from the action; like I wasn’t quite being let in to the emotion of the characters. It was all worth it though; when that emotional catharsis did come at the very end, it made it all the more effective and packed a punch in the final page.

The one drawback for me was the writing style; the author’s background in film definitely shone through as the narrative had a screen-play feel to it, and it would have been nice to have a smoother, more varied prose. That being said, it may be to some people’s personal taste, and it did make it a much faster read.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy; all opinions are my own. 

 

Sometimes you come across a book and instantly know that it’s the book for you. Let’s see… we have a musical heroine (check!) called Elizabeth (check!) who works as an accompanist (check!), loves opera (check!) and ESPECIALLY loves The Marriage of Figaro (check!). If anything, the premise was a little too true to my life!

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I have long thought that the plot of Figaro deserves as many retellings as your average Shakespeare, and Niemerg absolutely delivers. The characters, farcical nature, and social commentary all remain intact, with just enough twists to keep you guessing. There are plenty of winks to the opera-loving reader, but plenty of context woven in so anyone can follow along and enjoy the adventure.

I love stories where a modern hero gets lost in a famous tale, and this was a great example of that trope. Similarly to shows like Lost in Austen, the main character is drawn into a beloved story but her very presence there disrupts the plot. Elizabeth was a great protagonist for it too, with enough determination to see the story through, but humanised by self-doubt and a little bit of bitterness. She made for a fun – and very interesting – heroine. We also had some flashbacks (flash forwards?) to her life before she got lost in a Mozart opera, which helped to flesh out her character even more.

This is a must-read for any opera fan, for anyone who wants to know more about opera, or just anyone who loves a soap-opera-style story about weddings, affairs, and “You’re not my mother!” “Yes I am!”-style reveals.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

 

 I think P. D. Alleva might be the king of genre-mixing. Vampires, aliens, and thriller all mixed into one? It almost shouldn’t work, but it does! So many familiar creatures and tropes are mixed together in innovative ways in this book.

The action starts on page 1 and does not let up until the very end. It’s a proper thriller, with a new twist around every corner – and a proper twist, one that surprises you without being just there for shock value. The world Alleva has created is a full and immersive one, perfect for the horror-sci-fi fan.

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For me personally, I would have liked a bit more depth to the characters, and a little bit more time to get to know them before the action started. I would have liked to root for them because I was attached to the characters rather than because they were slightly default ‘good guys’. For anyone who prefers more action-driven books though, I don’t think this would hinder your enjoyment of the book.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.