mariebrunelm's Reviews (478)

The Witch and the City follows the witch Oneirotheria, who is looking for her memories. She navigates the streets of Osylum, guided by her knowledge of language and etymologies, in this very Shakespearian and a little Dantesque novel that is never quite what it seems to be. The author has a love for words that finds a release in very playful language, a lot of synonyms and clues scattered across names and dialogues. I was attracted to this book because of the link the publisher made to Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke, one of my favourite books of the year, and the parallels are indeed easy to draw, with an innocent character whose view of the world is limited by their knowledge, and a location that is both sprawling and enclosed within uncrossable boundaries.

I was instantly enthralled by the language in The Witch and the City, which sustained me throughout chapters that kept confusing me more and more, but not in a bad sense. Do not look for clear and definite answers here. There is a twist that sheds light on some aspects of the world, but most of it remains a mystery. I am absolutely certain this book begs for a re-read, and will be experienced differently depending on how well you know your classics, especially your Shakespeare. I don’t know a huge lot about the Bard, and was still able to enjoy this novel, but I’d be curious to know how a better-versed reader interprets it and is able to anticipate some revelations.

This is a novel for Autumn and Winter times, filled with moving shadows.

Bron’s life has always been steeped into classics and especially 19th-century English literature. Reading helped him through boarding school and now he’s ready to embrace his Jane Eyre fantasies and take on a job as a tutor for a child in a Cambridge manor house. As a genderfluid person using masculine pronouns, Bron has always felt a closer connection to the female heroines of these books, hence the title of “governess” he takes on. What he wasn’t expecting was for the web of secrets underlying his favourite Gothic novels to follow him at Greenwood Manor.

Here is a very earnest debut novel. The author’s love for literature, and especially English classics, permeates each page of this book. And yet it’s not a pastiche or a pale comparison, first of all because of Bron, our main character, whom I felt very attached to. It was a privilege to be privy to his innermost thoughts, and I often felt like it was extremely important and personal for the author to be writing this particular story. Admittedly, some passages felt a bit lengthy to me, as if I was drowning in Bron’s thoughts just as he was drowning in his. At other times I felt like the author had a list of items to put into his narrative and worked hard to make them appear in as fluid a manner as possible, but it worked.

On the whole, I really enjoyed this queer spin on beloved stories. The way it included many tropes of Gothic novels made me think of the way romance novels mostly follow the same plot but have thousands of readers enjoy them anyway. The Manor House Governess felt both familiar because of the classics it drew from, and new because of the unique perspective of its endearing protagonist.

Rep: genderfluid MC, LGBTQIA+ secondary characters.

 

Ce court roman déconcertant est construit autour du thème du portail entre deux mondes. L’autrice y joue avec le thème des voyageurs de Faerie qui font l’expérience d’une temporalité différente et se retrouvent piégés dans un entre-deux, incapables de rester dans le monde féérique, mais de moins en moins chez eux dans leur monde de départ. A moins que la solution ne se trouve plus loin dans le monde secondaire?

Je n’ai décidément pas de chance avec les romans d’Ursula K. Le Guin. J’avais été déçue du premier tome de Terremer (mais je suis très motivée pour m’y remettre), n’avais pas accroché aux Dépossédés et me voilà déconcertée par celui-ci, que je n’ai pas compris. Heureusement que La Main Gauche de la Nuit est un de mes romans de SF préférés!

Le Commencement de Nulle Part est un roman minimaliste est pour le moins contemplatif. N’y cherchez pas d’action, de quête et encore moins de conflit, ici ce sont deux personnages un peu perdus qui se rencontrent, souvent vus à travers les yeux de l’autre, et qui apprennent à se faire confiance. J’ai trouvé la narration un peu trop détachée, cependant, et malgré le peu de narration, j’avais ce sentiment constant de ne pas comprendre ce qui se passait. Ce n’est donc pas une expérience concluante pour moi, mais ce roman pourra plaire aux lecteurices qui aiment les romans plus expérimentaux, et surtout qui prennent leur temps.

Archibald Renard est un libraire un peu particulier. En plus d'être un renard, il accueille sur ses rayonnages des exemplaires uniques, confiés par leurs auteurs jusqu'à ce qu'ils trouvent leur lecteur. Quand Ferdinand Taupe pousse la porte de la librairie, ce n'est pas pour acheter un livre, mais pour retrouver celui qu'il a un jour déposé là. Car Ferdinand est atteint de la maladie de l'Oublie-tout, et ce livre seul peut ouvrir la clé de ses souvenirs. Archibald n'a alors d'autre choix que de l'accompagner dans sa quête. 
Ce superbe roman jeunesse abordé des thèmes incroyablement difficiles avec la plus grande des douceurs. Quand les yeux ont commencé à s'humidifier dès la page 50, j'ai su que j'embarquais pour un voyage émouvant, et je n'ai pas été déçu. C'est un livre qui brise le cœur avant de recoller les morceaux un à un, tout en laissant voir les fêlures ainsi créées. La subtilité de la prose rend à merveille les sentiments des personnages et fait naître à leur tour mille émotions chez le lectorat. Les illustrations chatoyantes accompagnent au mieux cette histoire profonde. Un beau coup de cœur. 

Bree has just lost her mother when she enters an early programme at university. If grief and this new life weren’t enough to deal with, she witnesses an attack by creatures who clearly aren’t human and suddenly her world expands. She discovers secret truths running through the fabric of what she knew, and finds herself in the midst of a very white secret society where she has to fight to prove she belongs even though she’s not sure about that herself.

This very clunky synopsis doesn’t cover half of what makes this book exciting. Although I’m not drawn to stories of evil creatures threatening the world, the way Tracy Deonn works with her tropes is stellar. Bree’s story of resilience and grief and blackness is intricately woven with a fast-paced narrative that had me reaching for this book over and over again. This book draws on some ancient themes (Arthurian legends, Black history in Southern USA) and shines a fresh, modern light on them. This book is admittedly more dark than academia, but there were very thoughtful narrative points in which the characters discovered untold truths about the past and their family histories. My favourite part may have been the balance between male, white, secret but official power, and the legacy of hidden Black power passed from generations through women. The way all the threads gathered between Bree’s fingers was extremely satisfying from a narrative point of view, and very moving as well.

I may not have been sold instantly on this book, but the speed at which I read the last hundred pages is a testament to how efficient it is.

Rep: Black MC, various LGBTQIA+ secondary characters including non-binary representation.

 

Isekai. Derrière ce concept japonais se cache le thème du passage d’un monde à l’autre, qui constitue le cœur de ce recueil de nouvelles. Tous les protagonistes mis en scène ici viennent du monde que nous connaissons, et trouvent par hasard ou par coup du destin, un portail vers un ailleurs. La variété des nouvelles présentées ici met tout résumé au défi, mais on passe d’un genre à l’autre depuis la fantasy vers la SF en passant par le western ou l’horreur existentielle. Oui oui. Il y a des textes doux, d’autres drôles, et d’autres encore qui tirent les larmes ou qui suscitent une peur immodérée des escaliers.

On pourrait dire que je ne suis pas objective face à ce recueil étant donné que j’y publie un texte, “Peindre les abricotiers en fleurs”. Mais je n’ai pas contribué à la sélection des nouvelles de mes co-auteurices et j’aurais très bien pu ne pas apprécier leurs productions. La vérité, c’est que chaque nouvelle trouve sa place parmi cet ensemble, et donne à voir une autre facette de ce thème qui paraît éculé mais recèle encore bien des surprises. Je me suis souvent trouvée émue, mais je crois que ce que je préfère, c’est constater la différence parfois radicale de réception d’un.e lecteurice à l’autre. Là où un membre de l’équipe a avoué avoir ressenti cette horreur existentielle que je mentionnais plus haut, j’ai au contraire ressenti de la douceur, et une étrangeté qui n’était certes pas forcément confortable mais portée par une langue si belle qu’elle en devenait hypnotique.

Au-delà du fait que j’ai un intérêt dans ce livre, je vous recommande vivement de vous plonger dans la diversité des voix qui le composent et qui promettent des voyages tous plus différents les uns des autres, de l’autre côté des Portes de l’Envers.

[Les avertissements de contenu pour chaque nouvelle sont détaillés à la fin du livre.]

Grace Porter has always had a plan and now she has accomplished it. PhD in hand, she’s ready to take on the next part of her journey. But what will that part look like? And how hard will she have to work to earn her father’s pride and respect from her white coworkers? When she celebrates in Las Vegas with her closest friends, ending up married to a stranger was definitely not part of the plan. But can it be?

This heartfelt novel was tender and full of yearning. I fell head over heels for Grace and her found family. True, I sometimes thought “having so many endearing characters is not like real life”. But none of these characters is without flaws - they are all painfully human. Grace Porter’s journey struck a chord deep within me. Of course, I cannot compare to the hardships she has to face as a Black, queer woman in a scientific environment filled with white men. But I know something of feeling lonely and lost, almost done with a PhD at 29 and with the gnawing feeling that people have had time to figure things out and get started with life while you’re deep in theoretical work.

The poetry within Morgan Rogers’s prose utterly charmed me. As a reader who tends to stay as far away from romances as possible, this one felt both messy and sweet, and the willingness of those two girls to make this marriage work somehow touched me. Who knew a contemporary romance would end up as one of my favourite books of the year?

Rep: queer, lesbian MC. Asian, lesbian love interest. Diverse & queer cast of characters.

 

Here is a peculiar book I would be hard pressed to summarise. I considered abandoning it many times, and only kept going because I could feel a reading slump coming and I didn't want it to taint a future read I'd anticipated. 
For most of this book I was confused. It is very intricate and jumps back and forward in time so that I had no idea when and where and who I was reading about. The prose was quirky and imaginative, but at the start I thought it was a bit forced. Then towards the end it came together for me and, perhaps because the story became a little bit more linear, I managed to reach the end.
History of the Rain is really a book about storytelling and the love of books and bookish legacies. It is also meandering and you might get bogged down more than once, just like the characters do in the Irish countryside the story takes place in. 
I'd still recommend it, because it has a very special kind of beauty and will appeal to readers who are well-versed in classics and do not fear to be led astray in the narrative chronology. There were more than a few quotable lines that I didn't write down because I was busy finding my bearings in the book. Be warned also that it is a very sad one (have a peek at the content warnings and do ask me if you need more specific ones), although there's this deep, deep faith in literature that brings a little light and hope.

In which I strongly recommend a book I DNFd. Don't run! 

This Sci-fi novel with strong feminist and queer vibes was everything it promised it would be. Fun, with depth and intricate world-building. I loved how the author blended Vietnamese culture into this far future, especially with the way pronouns are handled. 

The reason I stopped at the 25% point was entirely the fault of my tired brain, nothing else. I just couldn't keep track of who was who and exactly what was happening, but I know for sure that Sci-fi enthusiasts will have no problem following those endearing characters and their adventures. I loved that Aliette de Bodard included characters deemed older. Not everyone wielding bots has to be 18,you know? Here's to featuring older characters in genre fiction.

I absolutely intend to come back to this book when I have more mental space for it. In the meantime, I'll recommend it to readers who enjoy a relatively (but not too much) fast-pace adventure focused on characters, with detailed and intriguing world-building that makes people question their perceptions. 

Le Silmarillion, compilation de légendes de la Terre du Milieu publiée par les soins de Christopher Tolkien peu de temps après la mort de son père, avait été traduit rapidement en France. La première version, par Pierre Alien (traducteur de classiques de la littérature anglaise) avait cependant souffert du manque d'intérêt de son traducteur et de son manque de connaissance de légendaire. Son existence était précieuse, mais il était temps que Le Silmarillion soit proposé au lectorat français dans une forme plus respectueuse de l'original, ce qu'a permis Daniel Lauzon, grand connaisseur de l'œuvre des Tolkien et fin poète. Sa traduction, publiée en 2021 avec les illustrations de Ted Nasmith, restitue la majesté du texte original et toute la profondeur de cette entreprise littéraire commencée dans les années 1910 par J.R.R. Tolkien. Le français n'a pas toujours la flexibilité de l'anglais, si bien que le vocabulaire de Lauzon ne restitue pas toujours, à mon sens, la digne simplicité de l'original, mais il fait sentir tout le souffle épique et la subtilité qui traversent ce récit.