mariebrunelm's Reviews (478)

This essay puts J.R.R. Tolkien in the cultural context of his time. Dr Fimi looks at folklore, languages and the relation between myth and history in a delightfully accessible manner. Her book is both firmly based on academic research, *and* enjoyable to read for the simplicity with which it puts forth interesting considerations. Despite starting my PhD 4 years and a half ago, I still struggle with some non-fiction, especially the one written in French, which I often find hard to grasp (some French academics enjoy hiding their ideas behind big words and intricate wording). On the contrary, this book felt almost like Dr Fimi was explaining things to me in a conversation. Having read many articles on Tolkien, I now realize how many of them stemmed from ideas presented here. I'd say it's a very good starting point for anyone wanting to dip their toes into scholarship regarding Tolkien.

In this very short novel, rather a novella, the author tells the fate of two men possessed by music: one is a violonist, the other a violin maker. The former dreams of composing a master opera, while the latter's dream is embodied in a black violin capable of reproducing the most beautiful voice he has ever heard.

Maxence Fermine's style is delicate, precise without ostentation. It goes straight to the point, sketching scenes as soon as they fade away. There lingers a diffuse but nice impression, thanks to the subtle blend of a touch of the fantastic in this historical fiction.

Ce livre de science-fiction francophone s'ouvre dans un monde post-apocalyptique extrêmement sexiste. Les premières sections m'ont été pénibles à lire pour cette raison. Pourtant, des réflexions féministes naissent timidement, et le dernier quart pose des questions très intéressantes sur la légitimité et la violence d'un combat mené par des femmes. Ce retournement qui invite à la réflexion intervient à mon goût beaucoup trop tard dans le roman, d'autant qu'au sein de l'atmosphère sexiste qui règne pendant la plus grande partie, l'autrice met en scène un personnage genderfluid, ce qui est à ma connaissance original pour un livre dont la première édition daté de 1981!
Dans l'ensemble je n'ai pas adoré ma lecture, car j'ai trouvé le début extrêmement glauque, pour plusieurs raisons. Mais je salue néanmoins son existence, et la voix originale de son autrice québécoise, Élisabeth Vonarburg.
Représentation: personnages genderfluid, bisexuels, homosexuels.  

With Laure Becdelièvre's debut novel, I clearly had nothing in common with Mathilde, the main character. However, the prose grabbed me from the first page. It's lyrical, not overwritten but beautifully evocative. In the book's 336 pages, I didn't notice a lot of repetitions, which I admired since the narrative is very much closed on itself. The book opens with Mathilde discovering she's pregnant, and follows the minute sensations of her body through the nine following months as she keeps her work as a nude model in an art school. Every page is about her, her thoughts and feelings and sensations. At some point I felt almost claustrophobic for lack of air and perspective, but as I said earlier, the writing was easy to get lost into. Despite the book's size, it was very quick to read, but since so little happens, I feel like it could have been even a little shorter and still make its point.

One thing that did take me out of the story was the references to real-life events, here the terrorist attacks in France in november 2015 and the subsequent ones in neighbouring countries. To me, this is much too recent to read about, and I don't think it brought anything to the story; it only served as a sound box of all the comments that were made at the time.

A positive point was the representation, beyond the heteronormative couple at the centre: there's a fat, Muslim, fabulous secondary character and another character that I can't give much info about without spoiling too much. However, I read them from my white woman's point of view, so I'm clearly not the best at judging whether it was done with sensitivity.

How to begin talking about this book? It's even hard to categorise it. Here you have a blend of fantasy and sci-fi in a post-apocalyptic world. Well, it would be better to say an apocalyptic world, because it feels like the apocalypse keeps happening. The Stillness is a big continent shaken by earthquakes, on which humans learn to survive the heard way. The story is split between three different women, Damaya, Syenite, and Essun, who each have harrowing hardships to overcome. Be warned, this book isn't for the faint-hearted. Some passages really made me nauseous and I almost stopped reading entirely at some point. But it's also an intense page-turner, one that was hard to put down even for all the heart-break.
In addition to fabulous character development regarding the three narrators, there is dense world-building. As with most great speculative fiction, the world-building can be boiled down to one characteristic (devastating earthquakes), but Jemisin has really thought about all the ways it impacts every aspect of geography & human societies, down to some we would never have thought about but which make perfect sense. In her world, magic isn't about creating something, it's about stopping "natural" disasters through energy transfer. There's also hints of lockdown and curfew and masks, which would have sounded exotic had I read this book before 2020 but now... Well.
TW: honestly, I felt there were all the trigger warnings in this book, but especially rape, enslavement, child abuse, child death, & emotional abuse. Heavy stuff.
Bonus point for trans & bi rep.

This is a super cute picture book for all ages, narrated by one of the feline companions of the authoress. Throughout the pages, illustrated in eye-soothing tones of grey and orange, we meet Kirin, Petrus, Ocha and Mizu, who have decided to band together and claim their rights as co-authors of their human's works. After all, they're the one mentally supporting her all day long, and they even have their say during the dreaded revision process...

As a huge fan of Robin Hobb, it took me a while to dare read the books she's written as Megan Lindholm. I wanted to savour the fact that somehow there were still books by her I had left to read, but I also feared I wouldn't enjoy Megan Lindholm's writing as much as I loved Robin Hobb's. This illustrated edition of Wizard of the Pigeons was the opportunity to find out. And I'm relieved to say Megan Lindholm can weave sentences just as poetic and intricate and brilliant as Robin Hobb.

Wizard of the Pigeons is an urban fantasy novel featuring a veteran anti-hero, Wizard, surviving in the streets of Seattle, a toy of his own magic. There are shards of light, but this is a dark, dark story. One chapter really upset me, but I couldn't resist keeping on reading, and though I may not have picked up this book had I known about the trigger warnings, I'm glad I did. This is a story of survival, and I really felt all the struggles but also the hope Wizard experiences. 

TW: animal abuse but it is my duty to tell you that the cat is alive by the end), rape, suicide, assault.

Young Arlis belong to a circus troup travelling across the USA. Alongside Katrina and her serpents, Jared and his bear, Lindy who play for Arlis the part of the mother he never knew, and the others, life is chaotic, interspersed with heated arguments and secrets. In Bailey Creek, Arlis meets Faith, the pastor's daughter, whose stable life Arlis longs for. But Faith hides secrets of her own, and slowly reveals to Arlis what may be hiding in the endless wheat fields surrounding the village.
I started this book with knowing what to expect, except a fantastical story. I was quite surprised with how slow the pacing was. The narration seemed to stretch like a summer day before the first elements of mystery were introduced. I didn't particularly love the characters or the setting. For once, I wish the supernatural could have come a little sooner in the story to grab my attention. But I think this book will be perfect for fans of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, in a more slow and minimalist way.