octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

Fast-paced, easy read that just zipped along - it felt a lot shorter than it was, so I must have been fairly engaged. The protagonist is sympathetic, I liked the shades-of-grey villain, and I was kept guessing as to the brother's guilt or innocence, which was entertaining. The very last twist, however, regarding Carly, was something I figured out well in advance. That's the problem with twist endings, they're very hard to do effectively.

I haven't read all of Le Guin's books, but I have read a good handful of them and this is the one I judge all others by. I first read it years ago, and it was by far my favourite Earthsea book. Rereading over the past couple of days my initial opinion stands. The imagery is just so strong, it stayed with me for years and years and it's what makes this book such a standout, I think. I also appreciate (far more now than I did then) the restraint regarding length - there's so much packed in here, and it's such a little book - if only more SFF authors valued brevity this way! I get far more of a sense of history and age from what's sketched here than I do from those wretched encyclopaedias of endless exposition that so frequently pass for fantasy today.

Also, Tenar is a fantastic character. She even makes Ged interesting, and that's an achievement in itself.

Am slowly making my way through a reread of the series, and I recall really enjoying this one the first time around - it was the last of the Harry Potter books I did really enjoy, and while I don't know yet if the latter impression will remain correct the first certainly has. Don't get me wrong, this book isn't perfect: it suffers badly from bloat, which is something I find myself ever less patient with in fantasy. But I enjoy the ever-growing sense of threat, the increased roles for Neville, Ginny, and Luna, and I liked the death at the end, in the sense that I found it fitting both for that character and for Harry's development in this volume.

Let's be realistic here. He kind of earns that ending. Part of it is certainly down to Dumbledore's ever-terrible decision-making (seriously, WHY are fantasy mentors always so shite? If I'm ever transported to some strange alternate universe with a supernatural psychotic loon who wants to kill me, I want a mentor who has the sheer bloody common sense to sit me down and explain EVERYTHING instead of self-indulgently handicapping me from the get-go) but part of it is down to Harry. It doesn't much bother me how angry and whiny he is in this book - I expect some sort of PTSD after the incident with the Goblet of Fire and enjoyed the relative realism of it - but he's always so goddamned lazy. Of all the HP books, this is the one I read and sigh wistfully at, wishing that Hermione was the main character of the series. Hard work, intelligence, and the willingness to proactively use that intelligence... I would love to have had her in the title role with McGonagall as her (competent!) mentor, instead of lazyboy and the armchair producing moron who made him.

Relatively quick read that I enjoyed for the most part - the best thing about it was the main character, Paama. I liked her a lot, and the people around her. I was less interested (not at all interested, actually) in the supernatural parts of the story... which is odd as fantasy is the genre I read the most of, so those are the parts I would have expected to like best. But when Lord is focused on Paama and the human side of things, there's a wry humour and compassion there which is very enjoyable. The supernatural tends to wallow more to the side of the mystic-meaningful however, where she loses her light touch and it all becomes a bit more turgid.

3.5 stars, rounding up to 4. It loses points because I am beyond sick of seeing rape as tragic backstory in my fiction. However, the way that Vincent van Gogh is integrated into this book is so excellent (he's one of my favourite artists) that it almost makes up for it. It's a compelling read that's relatively low on the melodrama, which can't have been easy given the subject matter, but that low-key approach makes it all the more effective. The main character is relatable and I felt for her a lot - the unending rain of misery that is her teenage life would be unbearable in the hands of another character. Yet Tara's able to keep her dreams and basic kindness alive and so I was really invested in her getting a happy (happier?) ending.

Enjoyable read, with a likable heroine and a couple of creepy villains. However - and I rarely say this! - it suffers in comparison to the movie and (most of all) the television series. I'm afraid the tv version of Hannibal, while more a prequel to this book than an adaptation of it, has delineated the characters so forcefully in my mind that they are forever the high water mark. The book just doesn't match up in its characterisation - this Hannibal Lecter seems cruder, less sophisticated... less menacing, frankly.

I did enjoy the focus on Catherine Martin, though. So often in crime stories the focus is taken away from the essential humanity of the victims, but Harris stuck with her here and she's almost as solid in my mind as Clarice Starling is.

A Beatrix Potter I haven't read before! Oh frabjous day... not one of my favourites, but it's still a cute little story about squirrels and the perils of badly hidden nuts. Highlight is as always the illustrations; the best one was of poor Timmy being stuffed into his own hiding hole by a horde of maddened and forgetful squirrels. I did wonder at the appearance of the bear and chipmunk, however. It seems the British countryside has been abandoned for the American one...

And people wonder why I find dinner parties a strain. Greedy guests, without the manners to eat what's put in front of them without breaking into your house to swap their own noxious concoctions for yours. Indelicate hosts, who take sadistic pleasure in forcing you to stuff down food you cannot possibly like. Not to mention catering to those who insist on having sugar lumps placed on their nose instead of in their tea, and frantic trips to the corner shop in order to find food to fill up the corners.

This is why meals between friends should be shared in a restaurant.

Like Emma, not my favourite Austen. And like Emma, it's entirely because of the main character. Jane Austen is as witty and observant as ever, but even her mum thought Fanny was insipid - and she is! It's not even that she's such a goody two-shoes. Catherine Morland is good, Elizabeth Bennet is good, Jane Bennet is the most shiningly good character in all of Austen... but all of them are interesting. Fanny is not. Her endlessly lovesick prig of a cousin (and eventual love interest) isn't much better, but at least he isn't weeping buckets every other page. I think that's Fanny's biggest problem, and the reason why, though I can just tolerate her in fiction, I couldn't bear to spend any time with her in real life. She's just so very damp; a wet blanket in human form.

However, she gets her unbearable cousin in the end and snivels off into the sunset, which is exactly what one expects from the book after all. I still can't help but think I would find it more entertaining if Fanny's little sister Susan were the main character. It's improbable, but I like to think she would have stabbed Edmund with her little silver knife just to shut him up.

No jury would convict her.

This is the first picture book of Beatrix Potter's that I've found actually boring. The illustrations are beautiful as usual, but the story itself is one that's been told so many times that it has absolutely lost all interest for me.