Unengaging prose, straightforward, boring premise and characters. It's great it has queer rep, especially for when it SHOULD have been published. But I have to say none of this was exceptional for me. It is what it says it is on the tin and nothing more.

Read for the booktube prize

A fun, commercial fiction sci-fi romp. The pacing lags near the end and the actual concept and predominates theme it interrogates - if it is not novel to you, probably won't be as compelling as most find it. I have encountered it a few times, specifically in cyberpunk (The Peripheral comes to mind immediately), and I think done more effectively. I felt it could have truncated itself and kept some of the pep. But it was serviceably fun and kept the pages turning. It kept me guessing for a bit of it and the ending was a good time. It was better than I expected.

This was a perfect read for me. It is great with its information design, characterization, premise, description, overall prose, and how it handles time--everything about it was catnip to me. I imagine if you know quite a bit about the Algerian-Franch conflict and fallout the bark in this bite might be tempered, but I really only knew the broad strokes. There's a mystery placed at the heart of the narration which was really engaging to me, and that was Who is the narrator and why is it a duel timeline? Both questions were highly effective and came with some payoff. It doesn't feel like it's trying to provide catharsis, talk down to the reader, or exist to educate. It is really hard to pull off this kind of book, and this makes it look absolutely effortless. A standard to which I will measure books like it and a favorite of the year, hands down.

I did not want it to end and will reread it in the future. I am already anticipating it.

This is some kind of one-man show, sort of deal. Where Cummings has an audience and has a few songs he sings, a few anecdotes; with its main purpose to highlight the fallacy of anti-immigration sentiments in a country where basically everyone comes from immigrants. At the end there a couple of short interviews with friends, which were probably better than the funny main show, to me, given the purpose of it. Overall, it was fun spending time with Cummings but it also was mostly just that.

Pretty much what I expected. A product of its time, an unusual narrator and perspective. Didactic regarding how children should be and, I guess who possesses imagination even and generally how people ought to grow up and what not. The express idea that Peter is a fairy makes a lot of sense to me. And a changeling was delivered to his real mom, altering him, I guess. Interesting use of that folktale I think, though when it’s conjoined with the idea of everything being an exercise in children having access to this liminal space, it becomes a lot more fantastical at the expense of holding onto themes that would probably be more interesting not being codified.

I am always tickled by the tone and dry, witty humour in these books. Also, what answers we end up being given in the meta context are poignant and feel more interesting than the typical formula being applied. The mystery being the central figure, and who they think they are, combatting the notion of personal truth and selfhood, thereby revealing surrounding mysteries—just fantastic stuff. More flashbacks to the past too, which isn’t my absolute favourite aspect, but works better than more inserts of these almost duel narratives.

It cannot be read before the others, nor, if you weren’t sold on other instalments, will there be something “else” here for you. It is a good ending; an accomplishment in itself.

All the excellence of the first but looking primarily back, to things eluded to in the previous book—only I didn’t find the actual case as idiosyncratic. Hell of an ending though. Not remotely a chance I’ll miss out on the conclusion.

I can’t remember what book or show it was where they said it’s amazing how detective stories and the police think that they know exactly what happened if they can answer three static questions about basically every crime. Claire is someone who knows that “truth” is merely a byproduct of a confluence that is often come to by means not yet codified. The closest thing to a recipe for achieving it is an esoteric French book she read, and which had such a deep impact on her it subsumed her identity and launched her new career as the greatest detective in the world.

It reminds me of the tv show Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, in that the absurdity deftly swings from profound to laugh-out-loud funny. Her methods also seem completely unprofessional and askew or adjacent to what you think a P.I would get up to when sleuthing. In her meandering there is a duel timeline peppered throughout as well, because from the jump we know her mentor has died and she has returned to New Orleans for this case. Is she a grifter con artist? Does she actually solve anything? Is this some kind of trauma from the loss of her mentor? What’s going on?

Told in deadpan noir, everything unravels. Claire herself, the case, her past, the future. Even excerpts from the esoteric detective novel, which disassociates itself from how one “solves” a mystery. It’s fun, punchy, has an excellent voice, and is completely gripping. Loved every second of it.

Also, the audiobook is a great supplement. Very fun, and a difficult delivery considering the humour, but the narrator absolutely nails it.

She sneaks up on you. I was thinking that maybe I just hadn’t read many gothic novels; I didn’t find this particularly funny; maybe I was missing the satire? But it all came together at the end, which was a chefs kiss moment. It’s a bit savage but I was here for it. As usual Austen writes very well. Probably not my favourite premise, but she pulls it off. Then again, I am not particularly pulled by romance and P&P similarly easily won me over, so this is probably a through line for my relationship with Austen. Though I was immediately into Lady Susan and found that really, really funny and entertaining.