Excellent! Definitely a great classic. It's hard to get used to the mixture slang/ dialects they use but once you adjust it's great! I felt the ending was a tad rushed and I could've used a longer period for character development but it was so entertaining and chilling and an interesting look at human nature. Contains lots of violence so just be aware of that. If you've seen the movie, you've seen a totally different ending and a completely different message/theme too.

At first I found myself thinking that this was quite underwhelming compared with Perdido Street Station. However, The Scar gets much better as it goes on. The first 50 pages or so feel a little bit detached but shortly thereafter interesting secrets and subplots make themselves known. I would say that this is most likely more enjoyable for people that are a fan of Call of the Cthulhu Or other Maritime/Naval horror stories. Personally, I’m not really into that thematically and I found myself less interested in the environment here than I was with the environment in Perdido Street Station. But again, that’s just my personal preference. Overall, this book is much more layered and politically dense than the first Bas-lag book but in the best possible way. I only wish Miéville had sent more time on the world building as I wanted to hear more about the layout and cultures of Armada.

Well. A 4.7-5 stars. I’m still digesting this book but wow. It does the best job of keeping you on your toes. In fact, I think it’s fine the best job of any thriller I’ve read. It turns up the intrigue and complexity to 10 and keeps you guessing until the very end. I was really pleased and feel I would get more out of a second reading. I did feel some of the red herrings were too easily brushed aside at the end but I think this may be cleared up a bit on rereading.

This... ugh. Maybe a one star is harsh so I might change it to a two but in this moment, just after reading the ending, I have to give it a one star. Parts of this felt like an episode of Scooby Doo with mysterious maids and rare poisons flowers and stories of little ghosts. Other parts of the book attempt to mix the vibes of a haunted Victorian mansion with creepy AI/ assistant technology and it just kind of falls flat. Some of the plot twists felt contrived and hard to believe. Many of the metaphors were painful to read and the ending was abrupt, felt rushed, and didn’t have a satisfying resolution. However, I won’t say it’s predictable as I didn’t guess the ending/ culprit. Additionally, part of my dislike for this book is likely due to the fact that I don’t have the patience to deal with children for long periods nor am I interested in nannying/ childcare so I found it hard to relate to the main character and difficult to get through some of the portions where children misbehave due to my own frustration. So, in summary, I didn’t like it but take what I say with a grain of salt.

Wow. When I started this book I really thought that I would like it but it ended up not being for me. While I did like the fairytale or almost mythical tone of the book, much of the thematic elements or symbolic elements were overt and came across a bit like Hallmark sentiments. I found some of the actual kabbalistic and alchemical elements interesting but those were minimal. I came for a fiction novel that would be a fantasy or an adventure or perhaps magical realism or some blend of those concepts. This book is not that. Rather, it is a very light fairy tale with lots of Judeo-Christian elements and obvious poetic/ self help style dialogue. While it wasn’t for me, if you like religious fiction or self help, you may like this.

Really quite disappointing. This book has been intensely hyped and is even getting a movie adaptation so I was really excited to try it out. At first, I thought I'd love the character- she's a psychologist, a cat-lover, and an old movie-buff. These are traits I usually like in a main character, but her self destructive nature and a few judgemental and fatphobic comments she made took away from the likeability of her character overall. While I can deal with an unlikable character, I had too easy a time figuring out exactly who was guilty in the book. Additionally, the consistent references to the film "Gaslight" made it apparent that the main character was being gaslit/fooled- which ultimately took away from the mysterious nature of everything. What's more, we have a villain who monologues and essentially gives everything away. What's far more disappointing in my eyes is that the villain also has several stereotypes about them, including the bad mental illness trope and daddy issues. Plus, for a thriller, it's a shockingly slow read (or was for me, at least). As for a positive comment- I will say that the writing itself, especially the descriptive wording, was quite good. Overall, the quality of the novel likely warrants two or three stars but my personal disappointment over stereotypes and poor exposition brought it down to a one star.

This book was so uninspired I’m amazed. There’d be a poem about drinking and traffic. Then there’d be another poem about how annoying women are followed by some drinking. They were almost all like this. Sad, alcoholic alpha-male poems. It’s not that a poet can’t write about a few select things, it’s that if you do decide to be repetitive in topic then something about the tone, style, wording, meter, etc must be quality and these struck me as average. I’ve seen much better poetry from newbies in indie poetry journals. I came away feeling little emotion about any of these besides mild annoyance and generally thinking Bukowski is simply an overrated cis incel- man’s wet dream.

Absolutely beautiful and left me wanting more. I liked the art, absolutely loved the flawless characters, and the variety of short stories here was great. Many of the stories could have been fully fleshed out, full-length graphic novels and with a few I was left so curious and hungry for what would happen next that I really wish they *were* longer.

I’m conflicted about this book. The tone/voice is superbly unique and really gets you immersed. However, this is a pretty inaccurate stereotype of autism (or, per updated descriptions, asbergers)- a white young man who is good at math and science. So, this book is very engrossing but take it with a grain of salt. One thing I’d really recommend is changing your expectations as most descriptions of this book are inaccurate. The character seems to possibly have asbergers despite most people’s description (and the older book description/ plot summary) saying he has autism. Also, despite most sources saying this is a murder mystery, it really isn’t. The “murder” is solved early on in the novel and most of it is an interpersonal issues/family drama novel.