octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

I've been meaning to read this for ages, just like I've been meaning to see the film for ages, and I've finally gotten round to the first of these at least. I really enjoyed it. I do think that the meanderings into Pi's religious life, near the beginning of the book, did go on a little too long - let's be honest, I was in a hurry for the tiger - but once the shipwreck finally happened, I was riveted. 

It's such an unusual idea, being trapped on a lifeboat for the better part of a year with a big cat, and I can see why it sold bucketloads. It's just a genuinely compelling concept, and it didn't turn out to be nearly as mawkish as I was expecting. The tiger is a horrific danger throughout, and although Pi is able, through some semblance of training, to establish territorial boundaries and a sort of temporary detente relationship between himself and the tiger, it's very clearly a holding pattern that will last precisely as long as he can keep the tiger fed and watered, under very challenging circumstances, and no more. 

There's more than a tinge of magical realism and of fable here, particularly towards the end, but the parts that I liked best were the parts solidly centred in realism, in the difficulties and dehydration of Pi's time at sea. I don't know that the narrative choice offered up at the end needs to be so determinedly stated - I wonder if a little more subtlety might have been more effective - but I don't really care that much. It doesn't spoil my enjoyment of what is a genuinely fantastic book. I'm glad I finally read it. 

This has a genuinely interesting premise: a ghost develops a romantic obsession with the new inhabitant of their house, and it's all told in a very dreamy, romantic tone... except it's told from the point of view of the ghost, so this dreamy romance is grossly unreliable. There's a lengthy central sex scene, for instance, told as if it's a scene between two lovers. In reality, the other party is asleep and incapable of meaningful consent, so it's more assault than assignation, although Linda clearly thinks she's just had a wet dream. The ghost's later destruction of various articles is more typically horrific, but I'm not sure that, in Linda's place, I would ultimately be so forgiving. The tone doesn't quite match the contents, I think - though I'm not sure if I would like the story more or less if that ambiguity, that central unreliability, was played up even more than it is. 

More, I think. It would probably be creepier. 

A collection of Christmas-centred shorts, most of which tie into longer urban fantasy series from a group of New Zealand authors. The cover probably gives away the fact that this is a lighthearted, friendly book, and there's a great deal of similarity in tone between the stories. If there's an overarching theme, it's that magic families of different descriptions come together for the holidays. Everyone likes everyone else, and there are no major dramas, just gentle, supportive relationships. Of the stories here, I think my particular favourite was "Christmas on Waiheke" by Jamie Sands, in which a group of rogue knitters are decorating the local community, and accidentally summon a tree spirit:

"'I am terribly sorry for the disturbance, Leaf. And the Waiheke yarn bombers are sorry as well. Aren't you?' He used a slightly severe tone for the last bit, and the knitters all murmured that yes, they were sorry and they wouldn't do it again."

I used to live in a small town where the local knitting group would make fancy scarves to wrap around local trees along the main street, just because they could, and the thought of one of them downloading a knitting pattern from the internet, mistakenly summoning up the supernatural, and then just being mildly apologetic about it... I find that deeply amusing. 

Simple, sensible, not-very-astonishing advice on how to avoid losing your shit in stressful situations. It's mostly common sense, and mildly funny. I'd rate it higher if not for the fact that it may genuinely be the most repetitive book I've read this year... perhaps even the most repetitive book I've read this decade. It's just under 300 pages long. Honestly, it could probably be a third of that and lose very little actual content. There's good advice under the vast swathes of waffle, but I was waffled out early on and took an age to finish it. 

I've been meaning to read this for ages, and I'm so glad I finally have. It's fascinating, and the characterisation is excellent. I'm in two minds about the main character, though. Milkman is in many ways the least interesting person in the novel, and part of me would almost rather that the protagonist spot be given to one of the many, many supporting characters who are, shall we say, flashier and more attention-getting. On the other hand, I think that Milkman's relative normality, compared to characters like Pilate, is what sets them off best, perhaps. It's the comparison between Milkman's somewhat disconnected, blandly self-interested personality (the scene where his older sister Lena just rips into him about his smug, unaware self-centredness and how it impacts others is perhaps my favourite of the entire novel) and the people who surround him that's truly effective. And as Milkman slowly begins to excavate himself from his comfortable life, he becomes much more interesting, more the clear inheritor of his family history.

I don't think I love it as much as I did Beloved, but it's still a stunning piece of work, viciously imaginative and compassionate. 

I read the novel of this back in 2017, I think, and I remember liking it, albeit with reservations. I thought the whole smiling fascism aspect of it was very well done, and I appreciated that the story didn't shy away from the genuinely horrific costs of living in this apparent utopia. It stuck at only three stars for me, however, because (with the best will in the world) I just didn't find the worldbuilding convincing, and it's the same with this very competent adaptation. It's a likeable graphic novel, but I can't get past things like Jonas' first experience of sunshine. The story can gabble on about climate control all it wants, but plants don't grow without photosynthesis, so how is this ecology even surviving? And the total dissolution of families when they stop living together... you leave home, as a young adult, and you just are never that bothered about seeing your parents again? Some dystopias manage this sort of thing very well. Orwell's fascist government of Nineteen Eighty-Four, for instance, has always struck me as horribly convincing in its attempts to sever the natural affection between parents and children.

The Giver just doesn't do the same. I'm mildly emotionally affected, but that's a response that lasts only as long as I can refrain from actually thinking about how this world holds together. I mean, I'm going to read the rest of them now, five years after starting the series, because I dislike not finishing series, but still. The graphic novel has at least allowed me to remind myself of the plot, so I'm glad I stumbled across it in the local library. 

There's something very bitter about this book that I quite enjoy. It's nowhere near as frenetic as the last volume, although it's still full of action. Even with that action, however, all the impactful moments - at least for me - are emotional, and that's where the bitterness comes in: Jacob's faith in his parents, and how it isn't returned. His love for Emma, and how it's tainted by her feelings for his grandfather to the point where it may be unsustainable. His brief trips to the past, and how he's confronted by historical evils. And, finally, the knowledge that his heroics come largely from insecurity and pride and ignorance, and that he's screwing things up for everyone by thinking he's too good for the task assigned him. I rather suspect that the last will prove, in the next volume, to be false, but I hope not. I like the fact that this kid, thrown into a strange and terrifying world, has had success built out of luck and friends, but that this doesn't paper over how much his ignorance of a foreign culture disadvantages both him and everyone else. I like that he's resentful for being so poorly prepared, and is ashamed of his glory-seeking behaviour. This is young adult skewing heavily towards the adult, and Jacob's increasing maturity, and that little thread of bitterness within that maturity, is making him a much more interesting character than he's ever been before this. 

This is only mildly funny, but it's such a persnickety, curmudgeonly type of humour that I was charmed nevertheless. When I was a student, I worked in the university education library, and honestly... a lot of the stupid questions and a lot of the behaviour of the library's hapless users made parts of this book terribly familiar, though I will say that Bythell at least never had to put up with someone using the public computer next to the children's section to watch hardcore porn. I also, shamefully, recognised a lot of myself in the various customers who wandered round Bythell's secondhand bookshop, so there's some secondhand embarrassment in there as well. 

I just found it very entertaining. It's a year-long diary of a bookshop owner who has to suffer freezing conditions, a cat who is more popular than he is, quirky staff members with a fetish for binned food, and, of course, the customers, who are often more interested in buying books off Amazon than in supporting their local bookshop. Included in each day's entry are the profits for that day, and they are often depressingly low. Bythell reiterates, throughout the book, the deleterious effect that Amazon has on the bookseller ecosystem. It's a good reminder to be more careful in my own buying habits, because I love browsing bookstores and I don't want to see any more of them go under. 

The conclusion to the first arc, and I'm still left with a lot of unanswered questions and a heap of confusion to be honest, but I don't really mind. As I think I said in a review of an earlier issue, this series comes across as a puzzle box! I'm still largely in the dark as to what Johnny has to do with anything, and admittedly I've been reading this on my phone and even zooming in I found it hard to see what was happening with the key, but the framing with the snakes and the eventual end of Death are both just so visually striking that I'm fascinated regardless. This is weird western that leans very heavily into the weird, but it pays off.

I may be confused, but I'm also surprised, and more importantly, I'm interested. 

One of the things I haven't talked about before regarding these comics is the palette. Blues and oranges and reds... it's very striking, visually, and I enjoy that. This is particularly the case when it comes to the mythological figures, Death and the reapers, Beauty and Sissy. I don't spend a lot of time reading westerns, and even less reading western comics, so I can't say if this is typical, but it's certainly appealing.

That the storyline, in this issue, is focused on the replacement of Death is also appealing, albeit it feels like something I've read a number of times before. The old Death makes way for the new, and the new, here, is a confused child who has not yet taken up the role - who doesn't even really understand that taking up the role of Death is her future. What I do like about it is the emphasis that Sissy's character and experiences are important... that she'll be an improvement in the role because the capacity for kindness has been carefully cultivated in her. It's a surprisingly gentle inclusion, given that so much of the rest of the story is straight violence, but that's what makes it, for me, the most likeable part.