mariebrunelm's Reviews (478)

Fantasy Art & Studies est une revue mêlant essais académiques et fiction, qui paraît deux fois par an et consacre chaque numéro à un thème donné : l'héritage de Tolkien, les océans, la musique,... Toutes les facettes de la fantasy sont abordées au fil des numéros. Le 13ème explore celle de l'apprentissage merveilleux, ou school fantasy en bon français. Les nouvelles offrent un panel de pédagogies, d'enseignant.e.s et d'élèves, tandis que les articles s'attachent à des textes du genre plus ou moins célèbres. J'avais hâte de lire ce numéro, et pas seulement parce que j'y publie une nouvelle (!!!). La school fantasy est en effet très proche de la Dark Academia, un sous-genre que j'affectionne tout particulièrement. J'ai ainsi beaucoup aimé l'article de sur A Deadly Education de Naomi Novik. Dans l'ensemble, j'ai presque plus apprécié les articles que les nouvelles, ce qui m'a surprise, mais cela ne veut pas dire que j'ai trouvé à redire à ces dernières. Elles sont variées et réservent quelques chutes bien trouvées.
TW : un article étudie JKR.

Derrière ce titre très ironique se cache une réflexion sur une fiction qui sorte des schémas héroïques habituels, ceux qui mettent en scène un personnage extra-ordinaire aux prises avec un antagoniste dont l'affrontement se résout forcément par la violence. En bref, le récit du chasseur contre le mammouth. Alice Zeniter convoque quelques textes fondateurs de la narratologie, depuis Aristote jusqu'à Ursula K. Le Guin et vulgarise avec humour des théories parfois difficiles d'accès. Son pamphlet est un excellent point de départ, qui m'a laissée un tantinet sur ma faim puisqu'il s'arrête sur la conclusion que tire Ursula K. Le Guin dans son essai que j'avais découvert le mois dernier. Mais en me renseignant sur l'autrice, j'ai vu qu'elle a poursuivi sa réflexion dans un autre texte que j'ai ajouté à mon radar. 

A fierce tale of anger, guilt and resentment. Victor and Eli are each other's nemesis, ever since a string of experiments at university led to death and other unpleasant consequences.

This novel, if you'll excuse the reference, is fast and furious. It grips you and throw you headfirst into the story, cutting the action into bite-size pieces and jumping back in time and the best moments to deliver that piece of information making the narrative all the more suspenseful. It really is a masterclass of plotting and I thoroughly enjoyed the lesson.

Very early on, I realised none of the main characters was likeable - they are very flawed and think they know best than everyone else - but somehow I still wanted to see what happens and although I took my time, I was hooked. Which was very different from the unlikeable characters I read last month, who made me want to throw the book out the window. I don't yet know how that works, although it's certain that Victor and Eli are absolute badasses and they don't wait for you to make up your mind. They run from and towards each other, while you can simply sit back and enjoy the ride.

Rep : it's not mentioned in this volume, but the author has stated on social media that Eli was bi, and Victor was asexual & biromantic. 

What a glorious sensation to be swept up by a book after just a couple of pages! The prologue of Rocaille is now up there in my short list of favourite prologues.

After that, the story didn't disappoint. It has the markers of classic fantasy (pre-industrial society ruled by a monarchy, thieves and cutthroats, magic) but all these elements are exquisitely crafted and do not extend into endless world-building or an overly complicated plot, which I really appreciate.

One of our main character is Gésill, who has the slight disadvantage of being dead. As the King of Rocaille, he was just murdered and is being resurrected. After which he is whisked away and start plotting his return.

I loved the magic system in this book, partly because it's entirely tied to the land the characters live in and to the world-building in general.

I also absolutely adored the writing style. Pauline Sidre has a knack for picking the right words and weaving beautiful, melodious sentences with them. 

Ce conte hivernal très queer et merveilleusement illustré a fait fondre mon petit cœur. On y suit le jeune Alfred et son oncle Ragnar, leur rencontre avec l'Hiver et des trolls non-binaires (oui oui). C'est doux, frais et tendre, les illustrations sont à tomber et j'envisage sérieusement de faire de la lecture de ce bijou une nouvelle tradition pour les futurs Noëls.

Rep : personnage trans, personnages non-binaires. 

This book came with a moderate amount of hype, by which I mean that I've only seen it recommended by one person, but she said she adored it and I do trust her opinion. What excited me about it was the prospect of philosophical sci-fi with heart. It's the story of a man who is sent to communicate with another life form on a planet far far away. What the review and the blurb didn't say, and which I think is important to mention, is that this man, Peter, is deeply religious and lives his life through the prism of his Catholicism. Which isn't a point of view I'm comfortable with, to begin with, but I understand that it is really personal. Then this man talks about loving everyone and being a Good Person but sometimes he's weirdly judgmental and not in  a good way, but I couldn't decide if it was ironic on the author's part, to contrast that with Peter's religion and how he tries to be a Good Christian when in fact he's so full of prejudices and racism.

I'd say this book is good for people who are not into sci-fi because — and I do hope it doesn't sound like a criticism because it's not — it reads like a science-fiction book written by an author who specialises in literary fiction. It was a feeling I had. It reminded me a lot of the sections in His Dark Materials between Mary and the mulefas, but to me it didn't have the elements of wonder and deep, deep scientific interest that Mary has and which make her story exciting to read.

I don't know. This book made me uncomfortable and although I'm pretty sure it's just me, I wouldn't know who to recommend it to. Last but not least, and this is very personal, I really don't like reading from the perspective of cis men talking about their bodies. Again, that's very personal. But I was absolutely certain Peter was in his late 40s so when he states at some point that he's 33, it made me question a lot of things and took me out of the story a little bit more. All in all, I think this is a good book but you have to be ready for a very flawed character who is not questioned when he thinks racist or fatphobic things. This book made me angry and I considered abandoning it so often it was ridiculous.

CW : sexual content, fatphobia, racism, intense animal cruelty & death (I skipped the 2 pages where it happens).

Rep : lesbian secondary character, asexual secondary character (and a rather nice paragraph about asexuality as well). 

After Jane Eyre and 20 years before Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, Elizabeth Von Arnim plays with the theme of the young & innocent woman falling in love with an older man, a widower. From the start, the character of Everard is intensely unlikeable and Lucy is portrayed as the young, passionate young woman she is, who can't see beyond appearances yet and chooses to overlook some appearances for the sake of her love. The clash of their characters is described from their two points of view in addition to that of Lucy's aunt, a spinster in all her glory. I enjoyed the psychological portrayal in the first quarter of the book but when it became repetitive and when it became clear that none of the characters was going to evolve, my reading started to drag. I felt horrified by Lucy's slow descent into the power of this hateful man, even though I valued the way the author stayed far away from any romanticization of their relationship - something that I'd missed in Jane Eyre but which, I think, Daphne du Maurier achieved with more subtlety, though she uses a lot more tools than just the relationship of the 3 characters written by Elizabeth Von Arnim. To me Vera is good classic, but I'm not surprised it didn't stand the test of time, at least not as much as The Enchanted April. 

What better way to recover from a bookish heartbreak than with a cute & quiet manga? This series is everything when you need a literary hug. We follow Daikichi and his cat Tama season after season on their small island, where daily life is peaceful and any disturbance finds a solution. 

The cruellest way to write such a dark story as the Fitz and the Fool trilogy isn't to go deeper into the blackest despair, but to let light filter through. In the first half of Assassin's Fate, Robin Hobb lets her narrative shine with characters' encounters and occasions of joy, even for poor Fitz. So when the time comes for the hardest step of his journey, at the end of the book, it can only get more heart-wrenching.

The conclusion of a 16-novels-and-a-few-short-stories series can only be bitter-sweet. Despite my reader's sorrow, I do think it's perfect. All the pieces of the puzzle click into place, all the strands are knotted to form the tapestry of the Realms of the Elderlings universe. Reading one book a month for a year and a half has had its highs and lows, but I think this ending will always make me cry because it feels so right.

Rep : polyamorous MC, genderfluid SC 

The second installment in Kate MacRitchie's Fireside Tales Treasury series, Fireside Magic teems with dark powers and witches who may or may not have good intentions. Its lyrical prose takes you in a heartbeat in the glens and forests of Scotland, ready to meet girls thwarted of their inheritance or aunts & grandmothers whose quirks may hide something dark... Or a hindered light. These 5 stories are eery and beautiful. I think I enjoyed them even more than Fireside Fairy Tales, which conjured up creatures from folklore.