mariebrunelm's Reviews (478)

Les aventures de Daikichi et Tama sont toujours un régal à suivre au fil des saisons sur leur petite île. J'ai trouvé cet épisode encore plus douillet que les précédents, si c'est possible, car les quelques chapitres plus sombres qui émaillent les tomes précédents sont particulièrement courts et on est habitué grâce aux tomes précédents à ce que tout se termine bien. C'est un spoiler que je me fais un devoir de vous donner sachant combien les histoires impliquant des animaux ont tendance à se terminer mal dans d'autres textes (voir ma chronique précédente). 

Robin Hobb is a perfect example that fantasy can be whatever you want. It doesn't have to be about strong, young people living exciting adventures. It can also be about a middle-aged, non-white man finally enjoying a time of peace and reflecting on his troubled past while his wife grows old. Reflecting on the price of magic, on friends lost and on settling in a place and a body that feel his own.

This book is the first volume in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, and it's brimming with melancholy and uneasiness. We are reunited with our dear Fitz, trapped in a body younger than his real years and watching his loved ones age. We feel the passing of seasons and we glimpse strange things that don't seem like much at first but end up forming a tapestry the pattern of which is still blurry but which does not bode well.

After reading about Fitz for 6 long books, I'm still not tired of him and it makes this one all the more poignant. It is a sad book, but it also has rays of light and fantastic new characters, some I love and others I love to hate.

I have a list of the content warnings below but I want to warn you explicitly that the end of this book has the worst scene of animal cruelty I have ever read. I still haven't recovered from it more than 5 years after reading it, and this time I made sure to skip it. It is the worst, and though Robin Hobb has handled this topic very well in the past I do think she went too far here. The fact that I still love and recommend this book says a lot, but please be warned.

Rep : brown MC possibly polyamourous. 

Les Petites Robes Noires, c'est Jane Austen qui rencontre Zola. On est en 1959 à Sydney et on suit une tranche des vies des vendeuses de prêt-à-porter pour dames du grand magasin F. G. Goode's. Les points de vue alternent au rythme de chapitres très courts qui se dégustent à toute vitesse. J'ai aimé l'écriture incisive et le traitement des personnages, mais j'ai regretté un manque de recul vis-à-vis des préjugés ancrés de l'époque : les femmes sont décrites par leur taille de vêtement et si elles ne sont pas mariées et n'ont pas d'enfants avant 30 ans alors leur vie est fichue. De plus, on suit quelques personnages tout juste émigrés, mais on évolue exclusivement parmi la petite bourgeoisie de Sydney et cela manque un peu d'autres perspectives, même si j'ai conscience que cela aurait dépassé les ambitions de cette comédie de mœurs. Tout cela rend la lecture un peu amère, mais c'est un livre qui reste plaisant même s'il ne me laissera pas de souvenir impérissable. 

 First of all, many thanks to my friend for making me discover this book by a Finnish author. I'd never heard about it even though it's quite recent.

Then, can we talk about how gorgeous this novel is please? It's one of those where the story starts very quiet to let you discover the world bit by bit and get used to the characters before the plot picks up. But what made me swoon was really the atmosphere and the language.

We find ourselves on an island, following the secluded life of a weaver, Elliana. All weavers live in a sort of citadel, cut off from the rest of the inhabitants, and rarely go outside. Our story starts when the outside comes in in the shape of a girl who arrives at the citadel after she was attacked in some way. On her hand is tattooed Elliana's name, although the two have never met. They are brought together by what looks like chance while in the streets of the town below the Tower's wall, a strange epidemic of nightmares causes unrest.

What follows is a gentle tale wrapped in mystery which swells as the chapters go by. The imagery of weaving permeates all the text without it being heavy. The author also pays close attention to light, which on this island is provided by glass bubbles in the shape of jellyfish filled with algae-rich water, emitting a blue glow. All of these contribute to bathing the narrative in a slightly eery, very picturesque atmosphere served by beautiful, flowing sentences. Emmi Itäranta is a Finnish writer writing sometimes in Finnish, sometimes in English. The City of Woven Streets was translated from Finnish into French by Martin Carayol and I thought the translator did a fantastic job because not once did I remember this was a translation.

Rep: brown & black cast. Sapphic MC, intersex secondary character. 

This is one of the most influential books about writing. It explores in detail how to structure a plot through the journey of the main character and how to build the world around them rather than the other way around. With books giving writing advise and exercices, I like to read them first in one go (over several days of course) and then go back more slowly as the need for each chapter arises, and see how I can use them in my own projects. So I haven't actually started to put this book to the test of my own writing.
Being a foundation for many writers, some elements of these books were familiar to me because I'd read about them second-hand, so to speak. But there was a lot to discover still, and especially how Truby rejects the three-act structure in favour of... 22 steps. Yes, as in twenty-two. I did have a little shrink back but do no fear, fellow writer, we are allowed to use only 7.
All in all, I'm interested to see how I can use this book to help me in the part of writing I struggle with a lot: plot. Team Gardener here.
One thing I would reproach the book with but it's actually not really its fault: I wish it didn't focus as much on the American way of writing a story, which is stupid because that's exactly the point of it.

What do you read after a book moved you to your core?

I turn to something as different as possible, and this time it was this book / work of art.

This object holds together a large map of The Hobbit painted by John Howe, and a leaflet with an introduction, a short essay and a glossary by Brian Sibley. It is a precious little volume, as pretty on the outside as it is on the inside, with the map and additional drawings peppered through the text. I'd been eyeing this one and its companion pieces (John Howe's maps for The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion) for ages, so I was absolutely delighted when a friend gifted her spare copy to me. This will hold a place of choice on my shelves.

 Dex and Mosscap are back in the second volume of the Monk & Robot series (duology?), and once again I'm so grateful to Becky Chambers for gifting the world with these hugs in the shape of stories. They aren't the kind of book you can summarize because what matters most is the characters and especially their interactions. Both Dex, the monk-turned-tea-servant and Mosscap the sentient robot feel a little lost, like most of us do, and both try to find their way through life when what they thought was their purpose might not be after all.

This book's dedication is "For anybody who doesn’t know where they’re going".

With this duology, Becky Chambers has reached something very precious and pure, completely refined until its essence shines bright, and also effortlessly readable. It might sound like these are the books to end all books, because as a writer where to you go when you've reached the core of whatever writing goal you were pursuing? But actually the answer is in the books themselves, with these two friends asking themselves and others what people need and why do they keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I hope I don't make these feel more philosophical or theme-heavy than they are. Because they're more like bubbles, with infitinite reflections held in the lightest of touch.

Rep: non-binary MC. 

This novel concludes The Rain Wild Chronicles, the only series in Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings universe to count 4 books and not the usual 3. I do understand why 4, because each tome has its own narrative arc, but I also think most of the books could have been a bit smaller. Reading one book by Robin Hobb every month reminds me both how much I enjoy her works, but it also highlights repetitions and moments in which the story drags a little bit. Well, Blood of Dragons certainly had a few repetitions but I didn't find that it dragged, contrary to the previous 2 volumes. In this one, all the characters' journeys are headed toward some form of resolution. A large part of the book sets the stakes for the end which is a little rushed to my liking, especially in contrast to the long parts I mentined earlier. But it's still very enjoyable, and nuanced. We are reacquainted with a couple of characters from Liveship Traders, although not for long, so it won't bother readers who start with this series. 

 For a book set in Summer, this has major Autumn vibes and I was here for it.

Olivia Prior is living in at Merilance orphanage. All she has from her mother is her old diary, in which Grace recounted her slow but sure descend into madness. Her father is but a shadow — she has no memory of him. There aren't many certainties in Olivia's life, but her mother made sure to leave her this message: "you will be safe as long as you stay away from Gallant". When a letter reaches her from her uncle in Gallant, inviting her home, surely this is her chance to be free? Except if her ghosts follow her to Gallant, and if scarier ones await her behind a wall in the garden...

For a book all about death and ghosts, I found it quite soft and pleasant. It was extremely atmospheric, being set in an old manor with a spooky crumbing wall in the garden, filled with ghosts and giving strong Autumn vibes despite being set in Summer. The heroin is headstrong but kind, and although I didn't find the book particularly original, it was precisely what I needed at this very moment and I'm very happy to have picked it up. The prose is simple but poetic, and I'm considering buying a second-hand copy in English one day if I come across a bargain, because I can see this becoming a cozy seasonal re-read.

Rep: non-speaking MC. 

Imaginer un futur désirable : voilà l'une des tâches que s'est données Camille Boulanger dans ce roman. Penser l'utopie plutôt que répondre aux sirènes de la dystopie. On pourrait aussi dire : penser après la dystopie, car la déclaration d'Antonia, qui s'ouvre par l'article "Il n'y a de propriété que d'usage", est née d'une période sombre et d'un rejet des l'horreur à laquelle avait mené sûrement la notion de propriété. Pourtant, il est difficile d'identifier si le siècle précédant l'utopie est lui-même une dystopie, c'est-à-dire un futur plus ou moins proche, ou simplement notre présent sur lequel l'auteur jette un regard sans fard. Toujours est-il qu'Eutopia s'ouvre sur un avenir profondément désirable, qui échappe aux conventions de la narration (quête, conflit) par l'errance douce de son personnage, sans attaches et donc profondément libre de suivre ses goûts et ses inspirations.

Ce roman aurait tout aussi bien pu être une thèse de philosophie économico-sociologique (j'invente des mots, hein) sur les possibilités d'une société ayant banni la propriété. Camille Leboulanger choisit d'en faire un roman qui invite à réfléchir en posant une suite de "et si?".

Rep : personnage principal bi et poly, monde entièrement inclusif.