elementarymydear's Reviews (967)

Adoption is a topic that has always interested me, and as an adult I’ve begun thinking about it in a more nuanced way. The conversation is finally turning towards the experiences of adoptees and so I jumped at the chance to review this book, which puts adoptees at the centre of their own stories.

No two people’s experiences are the same, and neither are the stories in this book. While most of them have a contemporary setting, there is some sci-fi and fantasy in there as well. Some of the stories focus specifically on feelings of displacement, or home, or loss of identity; others are about something else entirely, with their adoptee status being one part of their story.

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The stories in this book are specifically about trans-racial adoption, where the adopting parents and the adoptees have a different racial heritage. Again, everyone’s story is different, and this was reflected in this book. Some characters had parents who encouraged them to engage with their heritage, others who tried but weren’t sure, and some who felt morally righteous for raising children of colour. Prepare to be outraged by some of the parents in this book!

There were multiple narrators on this book, which audibly made it really easy to distinguish between each story. They were all excellently narrated, and it made for a very enjoyable listening experience.

As with every short story collection, there were some that I loved and some that I didn’t. But this is a powerful, much-needed collection, that is helping open up the conversation around adoption.

I received a free copy for an honest review. 

I was initially reluctant to read this book. It is really hard to find a worthwhile, satisfying prequel, and especially one that focusses on a villain. With all the hype around the film though, I was excited to give it a go, and I really enjoyed it!

There were two stand-out features of this book for me, and that was the characterisation of Coriolanus Snow, and the development of the Hunger Games themselves.

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I was worried that Snow would either become too sympathetic of a character, or have a superhero-villain-style, extreme backstory. However, I thought he was pitched exactly right! He had enough sympathetic moments to be a credible protagonist, but throughout all his decisions we could see his moral failings. It was such a great depiction of a complex, villainous figure, who has convinced himself that he is doing the right thing.

I also loved how the Hunger Games were portrayed. The Games are still a relatively new concept in this book, and many of the iconic moments from the original books are missing. While some of the gaps were filled in – how gifts were introduced, or the first televised interviews – there were some things still left undiscussed, such as the new arenas or the opening parade. I thought this was the perfect balance, as you really got a sense of the development of the Games over time into a long-standing tradition.

Reading this book was a very similar experience to reading the original trilogy, so easy to get stuck right into! The only drawback for me is that the final section really dragged, and felt quite detached from the rest of the novel. I think the impact it had could have been achieved in fewer chapters, that were more closely linked to the main storyline.

This was such a great return to Panem, and a reminder of quite how good Suzanne Collins is in the world of YA dystopia!

 

I was very excited to pick this one up as it combines two of my interests – astronomy, and anthropology!

This was a fascinating book about the evolving relationship of humanity with the night sky. Starting with the dawn of humanity, Stuart Clark looks at how humans have used the night sky for navigation, for marking the passage of time, for religious inspiration, and more. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about the zodiac. While I don’t believe in astrology, I found it really interesting to find out how far back our ideas about the zodiac go, and how important they were in Greek philosophy.

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I also really enjoyed the later chapters which discussed how our scientific understanding has altered our relationship with the night sky. I really got a sense for how monumental early scientific discoveries would have been at the time.

As interesting as this book was, though, it was painfully focussed on Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. For a book that claimed to be about humanity’s relationship with the night sky, it was almost entirely centred on Western society, with no mention of the Chinese zodiac, South American traditions, and much more. I would have preferred a much more comprehensive view which could have afforded links to be drawn between different cultures.

Ultimately, this book didn’t quite deliver what I was hoping, but was still a fascinating read.

The first thing to say is: this cover is misleading! Or, specifically, the English-language cover. Yes, there is a romance, but that is a small part of this story about family, friendship, grief, and more. It’s written in more of a literary-fiction style, and I enjoyed this book much more once I readjusted my expectations!

We follow Vinga, a teenage girl who has a complicated relationship with her parents, but who idolises her grandfather. She escapes to the island where he lives for the summer, and as the summer unfolds we get more insights into her life and her character.

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While the book was very readable and absorbing, the plot itself didn’t stand out for me. I think contemporary novels – particularly YA – are at their best when the big plot runs parallel to what the book is actually about. There wasn’t as much emotional depth or subtlety as I’d have liked, but it was an enjoyable story about one girl’s summer. It was atmospheric enough to keep me engaged, but I was left wanting more.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

 

This was a very weird, very strange, book – but I kind of loved it for that!

It’s set in an English boarding school for girls, at an undisclosed time in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century. No one has a name (the closest being “Mrs S”), and there is no specific place setting. Sometimes this can make a story feel unmoored. In this case, it does sometimes feel detached, but I think it works. It helps to capture that headiness of the relationship, and the fish-out-of-water feeling the main character has throughout the whole book.

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I really liked how the author explored gender and sexual identity in this book. Sometimes it was done subtly, with a little throwaway moment here and there. Sometimes it was so obvious it bowled you over, but when it came out of nowhere it had a big emotional impact. Especially towards the climax of the story, I really got to appreciate the complexity of the characters and how they related to their own gender and sexuality.

I listened to the audiobook which I really enjoyed. It was excellently narrated by Nicolette Chin, who made all the characters so real and vivid. It was such good narration that it’s hard to distinguish how much is the writing, and how much is her acting. It also meant I avoided one of my biggest bug bears – missing speech marks! I suspect that, had I read the book and not listened to the audiobook, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it quite so much.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

 

There are plenty of spooky and atmospheric tales in this book! All written by different authors, it is great to see different approaches to the winter ghost story tradition.

My personal favourite was The Eel Singers by Natasha Pulley. I loved the mystery and whimsy of it, and I thought it had the best resolution of all the stories. I’ll definitely be looking into some of her other books! Most of the stories are quite traditional in their historical setting and I liked that this one took a completely different approach.

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My least favourite was The Chillingham Chair by Laura Purcell. The idea of a haunted wheelchair, that moved its user around on its own, just didn’t sit well with me. I found the whole story very uncomfortable – and not in a creepy, spooky story way! With the way the story ended, I can sort of see what the author was trying to do, but I don’t think it was executed very well.

Anthologies are always a lottery, especially when lots of different authors are featured! And while I don’t think I will return to this one cover-to-cover, there are certainly stories in here that I will return to again.

 

I’ll admit that I was quite wary going into this book. Like many others, I believe very strongly that AI generators should not be used in the creative arts, but it’s still a fascinating subject and one that its important to be informed about, given the inevitable effect AI will have on our lives. The concept of this book intrigued me: the starting point is a nonsensical story written using ChatGPT, with the author/programmer then reflecting on what he learned. It was still difficult to predict what I was getting myself into, but when I saw that Nish Kumar voiced ChatGPT in the audiobook, I was sold!

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Overall, this was an enjoyable listen. The style of narration combined with the sound effects made it feel more like a very long podcast, and there was a good balance of the entertaining (the ridiculous ‘plot’ of the story) and the thought-provoking (Andy Stanton’s commentary). Stanton reflects on a wide range of topics, mostly in relation to the limitations and failings of the bot, but also mentioning bias, censorship and more. At his most philosophical, he discusses how uniquely human storytelling is, using ChatGPT’s most inhuman moments as a point of contrast.

There was some interesting discussion on bias and censorship, but I would have loved to hear a lot more on the topic. There were some passages that stood out to me as something interesting to discuss but that went completely unremarked upon. Another glaring omission is the intellectual property of the bot’s dataset. Stanton even acknowledges eery similarities to existing works, but doesn’t examine the potential consequences beyond a throwaway joke.

While I was mostly enjoying the listening experience, there were some points that it began to wear thin. Some of the jokes relied on excessive repetition which, while entertaining on a page that you can skim over, became annoying very quickly over audiobook. While the premise of Benny’s story is worth perhaps a chuckle at most, it soon became old. The running gag of the whole book relies on you having the same sense of humour as a thirteen-year-old boy. It was funny to start with, but about half way through I was done with it.

This was a fun and interesting idea for a book, and there are lots of worthwhile things that I took away from it. As much as I had my frustrations with it, I am glad that I picked it up. It’s clear that AI is here to stay, and I’m glad that Andy Stanton was there to guide me through what to expect.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

 

It’s always nerve-wracking delving into the back-catalogue of a favourite author, but Glitterland did not disappoint!

The main character, Ash, was an incredibly frustrating, unlikeable character, so it is to Alexis Hall’s credit that I still rooted for him, that I got frustrated with him but not angry with him when he inevitably messed everything up. He’s a messy character, but Hall leans into that, and allows him to be mean and harsh and judgmental.

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The other lead is Ash’s love interest, a model called Darian. We don’t get quite as much of an insight into Darian’s character, although he jumps off the page the moment we meet him. He speaks with a phonetically-written Essex accent, and while this isn’t something I am usually a fan of (when used to this degree) I did like it here. (Although I could have done with one or two fewer “janarwhatamean”!) Usually I don’t like it because it tends to be used in a classist way, but the reason I liked it here is that it was used to directly confront classism. In many ways, Ash and Darian are stereotypes of the Cambridge-educated, middle class author and the Essex-based, spray-tanned model. By making them stereotypes, they – and particularly Ash – were forced to confront the other things they assumed about each other, which was a really compelling and fascinating way to develop their relationship.

This book had everything I love about Hall’s writing. Specifically, a romance you can’t help but root for, laugh-out-loud moments, curl-up-in-second-hand-embarrassment moments, and – through it all – an exploration of queer identity and the various other ways that we perceive and interact with each other.

I’m so excited to continue my journey through Alexis Hall’s back-catalogue, to read the next Spires book and beyond!

 

 What an INCREDIBLE book.

It was tender, moving, poignant novel. While the plot is very much about the everyday and the mundane, it had an incredible emotional depth to it. It was beautifully written, and such a well-crafted story.

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We follow the main character, Harley, who is battling his mental health after leaving university. When he starts up a friendship with a young man called Muddy, he starts to see things from a new perspective, and eventually begins to take steps to change the direction of his life.

This book touched upon so many themes, but one that really stuck out to me is how it looked at intersectionality. Harley is Black, gay, and struggling with his mental health. These things were, at the same time, separate and also intertwined. I thought this book was an excellent study on how these different facets of someone’s life can interact, and it was portrayed with nuance, complexity, and honesty.

My favourite part of this book, though, was the friendship between Harley and Muddy. It’s the sort of friendship that is familiar to any queer person, with that intensity that blurs the lines of platonic and romantic. It felt like reading a will-they-won’t-they romance, except for a friendship! Both characters helped each other grow and get to know themselves better, and it was such a powerful central arc to the book.

This is a book that will stick with me for a long time, and deserves to become a modern classic. I can’t recommend it highly enough!

I received a free copy for an honest review. 

I deliberated for a long time as to how I felt about this book. Eventually, it came down to: the first half was a three-star book, the second half was a five-star book. In many ways it felt like reading two different books, but one doesn’t really work without the other.

The first half is a literary depiction of doom scrolling. Sometimes funny, it mostly makes you want to throw your phone into the ocean and move to the moon. It’s the worst of social media, and the swirling vortex it can easily pull you into. In and of itself, it doesn’t accomplish much aside from making me think that perhaps real-life Twitter is better?

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The second half follows the same main character through a family tragedy. Inevitably, the family are contending with moral and political outrage, as well as the failings of the healthcare system, all while navigating an incredibly difficult, heartbreaking time. It was incredibly moving, dealing with both the big, all-consuming questions of life, and also some of the mundane aspects of grief. The social media aspect from the first half was still this hum in the background, sometimes helping but mostly hurting.

The end of this book was a triumph. I spent most of the book going “Huh? What?”, but I’m glad I persevered because it was worth it for the payoff.