readwatchdrinkcoffee's Reviews (382)

Story Of Your Life is a short story like no other. You may think that you know what to expect from a science fiction novella set during an alien invasion like this, but you would be wrong. Instead, this short story is a joyous treat to read, filled with thought-provoking ideas beyond its short length and minimal premise.

Although Story Of Your Life and its upcoming film adaptation Arrival will be known for being a story about aliens, its science fiction setting is merely a background to something much bigger. We don’t know much about how or why these aliens have invaded Earth, nor do we know anything about their subsequent departure but, instead, Chiang uses their ‘arrival’ as a means to look at how we evaluate our own lives and being.

Linking language, maths and physics, Story Of Your Life tells two stories. The first sees the narrator’s attempts to communicate with this mysterious alien race known as Heptapods, who have touched down across the globe for no apparent reason, whilst the second sees Banks linking her understanding of their language to her own experiences, as she goes on to tell the story of the life of her daughter, about how she was conceived, how she grew up, and how she dies at an early age (something we are told very early on).

“I’d love to tell you the story of this evening, the night you’re conceived, but the right time to do that would be when you’re ready to have children of your own, and we’ll never get that chance.”

The beautiful way that these two stories connect together is the reason why you will feel so overcome by this powerfully engaging story. This isn’t a story bout aliens; this is a story about humanity and about how we perceive our own existence.

Whilst there’s a lot detail used about semiotics and linguistics alongside numerous scientific and mathematic formulas and theories, as Banks tries to understand the structure of the aliens language in quite a depth, which can be hard to comprehend at times, Story Of Your Life is also very easy to follow due to the personal links made between Banks’ learning of a new language and her wonderings of her own life.

Consequently, her understandings of this alien language produces a dramatic change in the way she sees the world, affecting the way she perceives time as the Heptapods’ language leads her to question, “What would it be like to go through life knowing what would happen in the future, but being unable to change it?”

Discovering two forms of languages, it is through the Heptapods’ second language, their written language, which brings into play her theories of human life, as Banks is forced to question what a language would be like if it came from a culture that experienced all events simultaneously.

With a complex structure that means a single semantic symbol cannot be excluded without changing the entire meaning of a sentence, this second language means that the writer knows how the sentence is going to end before they have even started it, which is explained by the aliens’ understanding of mathematics and Fermat’s principle of “least time”.

“Humans had developed a sequential mode of awareness, while Heptapods had developed a simultaneous mode of awareness. We experienced events in an order, and perceived their relationship as cause and effect. They experienced all events at once, and perceived a purpose underlying them all.”

As you can see, there’s a lot to take in, but it’s through the way that Banks links her understanding of their language to her own experiences that we are able to make sense of these heavy explanations.

As Bank goes on to explain: “Everyone at a wedding anticipated the words ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife’, but until the minister actually said them, the ceremony didn’t count. With performative language, saying equalled doing.”

It is this understanding of language that is reflected by the different tenses used in the story’s writing. With the narrative of Banks’ time with the aliens written in past tense, the story begins in present tense as if she were telling it from the night of her daughter’s conception, as we focus on the links between her understanding of her past with the present narrative describing her daughter’s life and upbringing.

From learning the Heptapods’ second language, Banks tells this section of the story in a second person future tense as she is able to know her daughter’s entire life even before she agrees to conceive her, which is told through anecdotes at various different ages: from her early years developing as a toddler and a teenager, to her death in a climbing accident at the age of 25.

With Banks knowing that she will have a daughter and that her daughter will die young, it is this compelling narrative that is at the heart of this story, with the alien invasion premise cleverly interlinking these two stories to make something truly special.

Story Of Your Life is not a science fiction story about conflict, action and futuristic technologies, it is about everyday ideas and ways of thinking.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a book that you will want to read as soon as you have picked it up off of the shelf. With a beautiful production of its ghostly front cover and the use of high-quality photographs scattered inside, the whole look and feel of this book makes you want to jump into this intriguing world of peculiarity straight away. Even minutes after buying this book I found myself hooked and not wanting to put it down, restless to dive in as soon as I could to find out what these disturbingly creepy pictures were all about.

Combining real-life vintage photographs, taken from various personal collections, with a complex and well-developed fictional story, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is an incredibly unique and intriguing read. For a young adult book, this is one of the most mature stories I have experienced in a long while. Whilst this fantasy is based around a group of children, there are many adult themes and a dark tone that runs throughout, ensuring that older readers will be just as invested from start to finish.

Full of inventive mystery, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children may be slow-paced at times, but the bleakly curious atmosphere keeps you both engaged and on the edge of your seat, as you enter a world full of imagination and uncomfortable tension. The use of the real-life pictures, as well – knowing that they are real and that they have their own mystery behind them – make the story even more creepy, as they bring these fictional characters to life, despite their quirky attributes and setting.

It’s not often that a story filled with such fantasy can feel so real, especially with the large focuses on time-travel, eternal life, gory human-eating monsters, and the special abilities of its main characters, but Riggs uses such brilliant descriptions and detail that it’s easy to picture yourself amongst these Peculiar children and the magic of their haunted house.

My only annoyance with the book is that I didn’t realise that it was a part of a trilogy, so it was frustrating to realise that a conclusion wasn’t going to be met as I reached the final few chapters. However, this first book does end on an exciting point in the story, so you’ll definitely want to carry on the journey with Jacob and his new friends as soon as you have put it down.

Told in a first-person narrative from the point of view of three women – Rachel, Anna and Megan – The Girl On The Train constantly shifts perspectives as well as between timescales, jumping from after the murder to weeks before, slowly revealing the truth about the lives of these three women and the connection that they each have.

Rachel is our main narrator but, an alcoholic prone to blackouts, she’s an unreliable source so we never know whether to believe her or not. A broken, self-pitying character, Rachel once had everything but has since lost her home, job, dream of motherhood, and her self-respect. She now relies on a can of gin and tonic or two on her way home from work, and has become naive and insecure, holding on to the smallest glitches of attention and hope, as she lives in a world of fantasy to escape the harsh realities that face her.

There are times when we feel sorry for Rachel, but most of all we spend out time trying to work out her motives for getting involved in this murder mystery. At first, we enjoy going along with her narrative and amateur detective hunt for the facts, but it doesn’t take long for us to doubt her, too. She has a vendetta against Anna, a hatred against Megan, once she finds out more about her, an irrational lust for Scott, and an apparent desire for Tom back in her life.

For much of the book she’s painted as the antagonist, as every other character believes her to be but, at the same time, we see her as a weak woman, struggling to get a grip on reality, merely trying to find out the truth so that she can achieve something good and worthwhile in her life.

Just like Rachel, each of the book’s characters tie themselves into the story as possible suspects, as villains as well as heroes, with their human flaws and their overbearing baggage turning innocence into deceit, charm into manipulation, but also self-pity into courage, and weakness into strength.

Megan is beautiful and young, but whilst she appears perfect from Rachel’s point of view, she’s not as innocent as she appears. Megan has had a hard life from the beginning and acts out, using her sexuality, to make herself forget about her troubling past, whilst Anna, the complete opposite of these two women, uses her confidence as her weapon. The strongest character of the three, Anna maintains her self-assurance in herself and as a woman but she still has her insecurities, as her gloatfullness means that she’s also ignorant and easily downtrodden because of this.

But whilst these three characters are all so different, there’s a little part of each of these women in all of us, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why this book has gripped the nation. Written by a woman, as well, Hawkins has crafted characters with an incredible depth to them, but she doesn’t paint men in a better light, either.

Tom, Scott, and Abdic each have their downfalls, too. They’re liars, brutes, and happy to do as they please without fear of the consequences. It does appear at times that these male characters don’t have any good qualities and that women are full weaknesses, but Hawkins makes her book so personal that you’ll relate to each of these characters, nonetheless.

An excellent character study, The Girl On The Train is also a gripping read, making it undoubtedly this year’s best thriller. Hawkins switches between characters and timescales at the perfect time, constantly leaving you on edge and with a tonne of questions unanswered, that even if you guess a few of the twists half way through, there’s still plenty more to come.

But whilst The Girl On The Train slowly unravels and keeps you guessing until the end, it does have a slightly disappointing climax. More time could have been spent with Anna and Rachel fighting out their differences, Rachel could have come to some neutral ground with Scott after so much time is spent building up their relationship, and it could have also delved deeper into Abdic’s motives and explored how he felt about Megan towards the end.

Although critics seem to love making the comparison between The Girl On The Train and Gillian Flynn’s thriller Gone Girl, which was adapted by David Fincher in 2014, the only real similarity is that these are both dark thrillers with female leads, so the comparison is unnecessary. Thrillers are often led by strong female characters these days, take Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy or C.L. Taylor’s The Missing for a more recent example, so to link these two stories together merely because of a woman taking the lead is a waste of time.

Rachel and Gone Girl’s leading female, Amy, have completely different characteristics, their situations are very different, as is the murder investigation that follows. They may both be in messed up relationships, but we’ve all been there (maybe not to such an extreme, but you know). We’re not comparing this book to any male-led murder mysteries, so we should let The Girl On The Train stand out in its own right, because it doesn’t need such comparisons to get any recognition; Hawkins excellent writing skills and character development do that all by themselves.

So if you’re into dark crime thrillers and mysteries around murder investigations, or if you’ve just had a terrible breakup and you want to vent some anger on how awful men/women can be, The Girl On The Train is the perfect book for you.

Daphne Du Maurier‘s Rebecca is my number one favourite book of all time. Beautifully written, the story is centred on two of the most humanly complex characters ever written, begins with one of the most memorable opening lines in literature, and ends with an intensely powerful image.

A mysterious and gripping story, Rebecca grips you from the first sentence, with the famous opening line:

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

From that point on, we join a nameless narrator in a nail-biting journey full of suspense. Told in a first-person narrative, the story is told in the form of a flashback as the narrator retells her story of overcoming personal insecurities, discovering one’s identity amid social pressures and expectations, and what the meaning of true love really entails.

Looking back at her time at the beautiful mansion that is Manderley, we’re told that something drastic has happened as the narrator comments that she and her husband can never go back. But what? As she goes on to detail what is primarily a love story, as a reader you find yourself impatiently waiting for something to go wrong. You know that her world is going to come crashing down at any minute, but what will be the final hit?

As much as it is a classic romance, Rebecca is also a gothic tale full of secrets and human flaws. Just like Manderley itself, the story is beautifully written and engaging, but it is also surrounded by a dark mystery that shadows over every happy moment.

Incredibly atmospheric, Rebecca is an immensely haunting read. It’s not often that a book is named after a character who doesn’t make an appearance in the story, but through Du Maurier’s poetic narrative you are made to believe that Rebecca’s ghost could appear at any minute, as you can constantly feel the strong presence that Rebecca still has over the household and everybody that resides there.

The book’s first person narrative means that you get to know every worry and struggle that goes on in the narrator’s mind. We constantly know what she is thinking, which is rarely the same as what she is acting out, as she often wonders about what Maxim would be doing if she wasn’t there and how Rebecca would be doing certain things differently. It is this narrative that makes Rebecca’s presence in the book so strong, with the added focus of knowing what’s going on inside the narrator’s mind allowing us to see the massive effect that Rebecca is having on her.

Just like Pride and Prejudice, Rebecca is a story about human flaws, about how they can take over but how they can be overcome at the same time. The narrator faces these struggles constantly, and Du Maurier paints her character so well that you can feel the pressures from those around her, as you experience every pinch of doubt but also every growth in confidence for yourself.

Du Maurier’s writing style throughout is so engrossing that you become captivated in this personal growth that the narrator goes through. There’s so much to relate to in her insecurities and social awkwardnesses, and the theme of identity is handled brilliantly, so much so that every twenty-something reading this book will see something of themselves in the book’s central character, despite the substantial social changes.

But Rebecca isn’t just a love story or a mystery or a haunting gothic tale; it even delves into the realm of crime fiction, as the investigation and trial at the end of the book take it onto a whole new journey. It is at this point when the more interesting twists and turns come into play, and in these final chapters of the book that we are filled with the most suspense, as the story could easily go in any direction. The lead up to the closing few lines, as well, will have your heart beating ten times faster than the climatic revelations that occur before them.

Rebecca is the definition of classic literature. If you ever feel bogged down by popular fiction, get your hands on this book and it will remind you exactly why reading can be one of life’s best pleasures. Ensure that this is a book that you read atleast once in your life.

The Lovely Bones is a chilling and haunting story, but it’s also an uplifting tale of acceptance and redemption. Susie is a beautifully created character full of optimism and hope and, as she experiences longings for the everyday things she can no longer do, it’s easy to find yourself drawn in by her character.

The story doesn’t work as a mystery, since we are detailed the crime as it happens, but it certainly has the feel of a thriller. With Susie narrating from heaven, we know who the monster is, but we are but spectators unable to do anything to help the other characters. and it is their struggles that we share.

As the police end their investigation into finding Susie’s killer, her father becomes filled with guilt and starts to obsess over trying to find the answers. Susie tries to help her father from heaven, but only tears her family apart more. Now, she must choose between her desire for vengeance or for letting her family heal and move on with their lives.

Narrated by Susie after her death, the first few chapters detail her rape and murder from her own point of view. Although these scenes are the main focus of this story, Sebold uses a brilliant narrative technique to make them less hard-hitting. Instead of giving all of the unneeded and gruesome details, Susie often focusing on the distractions of her mind, taking away the focus from what’s actually happening.

The first few chapters are a heavy read, but although they are set around such an upsetting subject, it is based on Sebold’s own experience of rape, which she uses to approach this traumatic experience with sensitivity, telling the horrifying story in a way that completely immerses you in Susie’s ordeal.

Sebold’s writing is beautifully poetic from start to end, and there are many chunks of text that stand out throughout. For me, it was the paragraph where Susie describes her bones as being connections between loved ones, which is where the book takes its title from, that meant most:

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.”
The book is bitterly heart-breaking at times, but mostly it’s a gentle ghost story, as Susie watches over her family as they try to go on with their lives after her death, while she comes to terms with being able to do nothing to help them or find her way back.

And although Susie is telling her story from heaven, there is no mention of a God, so it doesn’t come across as preachy. Instead, it’s comforting to read someone’s perspective of what happens after we die, and there’s some really lovely messages that shine through.

Beautifully written, there is no denying the standard of Sebold’s work. It is an outstanding story full of great emotion, and it will remain one of my favourite books for years to come.

The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud is a romantic and exhilarating book that follows the journey from death to life. Set against a background of bereavement and grief, there are many conversations about what happens to us after we die, exploring the different ways that these characters have learnt how to move on from the loss of somebody close, and at the conflict of holding on and letting go.

As much of a fantasy as it is a romance, The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud isn’t your typical love story. When Charlie meets Tess, their relationship develops with Charlie’s struggle to choose life over holding onto a memory. With the unusual premise in which they meet, there’s a very supernatural feeling to the story, making their romance all the more powerful.

Moreso, The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud is about the love between two brothers. Charlie has the ability to talk to the dead, holding on to a promise to his younger brother that they will play baseball together every single night, even 13 years after he has died. Centring on this bond between these two brothers, the story is a joyous look at a close family relationship, but also at how loosing somebody so close can affect those around them.

Full of emotion, The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud serves as a reminder to live your life to the fullest and to take chances. It may not be powerful enough to convert your beliefs about the afterlife, but it certainly has its meaningful moments.

The book is beautifully written, and its descriptions are so in-depth that you really find yourself part of the fantasy. And that’s what works best about this book; Sherwood has created Charlie’s world excellently, really make you feel a part of it.

The book itself is a simple read, one you will easily read in one sitting. This is partly due to you wanting to know how it all ends, but it’s also because of how fluid the story reads, meaning that you won’t even think about stopping. With engaging characters and a life-changing choice to be made at the end, this story will leave you with more than a few tears in your eyes.

Many of you will know of this book because of the adaptation which was released in 2010, but don’t let Zac Efron on the poster put you off. The film adaptation has a completely different audience, but this book is very much for readers of all ages.

The book starts off with an epigraph from the Erudite faction manifesto: “Every question that can be answered must be answered or at least engaged. Illogical thought processes must be challenged when they arise.” Roth obviously had this intention in mind for her final novel, but it quickly becomes apparent that Allegiant wasn’t going to provide all of the answers to the questions that we were deeply craving.

Allegiant does well to tie up some of the loose ends that the previous instalments have opened up, but there’s so much left to explore and to be resolved by the end that it feels like a whole novel has been missed out. From the beginning, there is so little focus on what’s going on inside the wall between the factions and factionless, that what’s most important is quickly forgotten. With the group venturing outside of the wall quite early on, we miss out on the real story and only hear snippets of what’s going on from what’s available at the Bureau. And then when it’s about to get good, Four quickly convinces his mother otherwise and we skip over how the only characters we really care about find their resolutions.

What’s going on outside of the wall is obviously important to bring the story to an end, and it’s where all of the answers are going to be found, but it’s all brought on too fast. This final novel feels very messy, trying to give too many explanations to everything that’s going on instead of focusing on one problem, one explanation, and one conclusion. Instead, there’s too many rebellions going on inside other rebellions, not focusing on a single revolutionary plot or act to have enough impact.

The conclusions given aren’t well thought through, and the bigger picture is often avoided. For a final instalment about genetics, the science just isn’t there and the explanations that are given make very little sense. The Bureau may be worse than the people they are trying to “correct”, but in the end they are right in what they’re saying. It may have been wrong of them to mess with people’s genetics and to control and monitor them, but if you imagine this story from the opposite point of view, then the “genetically damaged” should be destroyed, and a real world would want to go back to having a “genetically pure” population, since everyone else is technically mutated.

None of this is really explored, and we are instead made to believe Tris, merely to go along with a group of people we were beginning to like, even though, in truth, they are only test subjects in one of many experiments that didn’t go to plan. This bigger context is completely dismised, and whilst Tris complains about the Bureau’s plans to erase the memories of Chicago, her plans are so much worse. Tris and the group may not agree with what the Bureau are doing, but their actions are not going to fix the problem, and the conclusions given in the book certainly won’t resolve everything going on in the long run.

Written from the perspective of both Tris and Four, as well, just like the final novel in the Twilight series, Allegiant continues to be a well written and descriptive account of a well-structure young adult dystopian world. There’s a lot of nods to the previous instalments, especially to the first book, with the contrast in narratives allowing the characters to discuss how they first met each other and how their relationship has progressed.

Whilst it’s a quality to see Four’s perspective on the situation and to read about how he feels about Tris for a change, their narrative styles aren’t distinctive enough. Of course, there’s a much bigger reason for this change in narrative, which becomes much more apparent towards the end of the novel, but the narratives read so similar to each other that Four begins to sound like Tris by the end. That bravado we once loved about him is quickly lost, and the more Tris puts him down, the more their romance gets in the way of what’s important.

Tris has always been a horribly selfish character, which became hugely apparent in Insurgent, and has been one of the most difficult protagonists I have found to try and engage with. She only ever acts with herself in mind, constantly making sure that Four feels guilty about not agreeing with her, when her actions only have a short-term span. In Allegiant, there’s too much focus on the petty fallouts between her and Four, of Tris being jealous because Four is talking to a pretty girl, and of Four thinking too much about her reactions than of the greater good.

With the similarities in narratives, as well, with Four sounding more like Tris than the free-thinking hunk with anger issues we saw him as before, Four is a complete wimp in this instalment. All I could think of during this last novel was that he needs to man up and tell his woman to pipe down, and I even found myself agreeing with Peter by the end, when he comments that she makes it very easy for a lot of people to dislike her.

But, at the same time, there’s a lot of loyalty between the two. Seeing the story from Four’s point of view allows us to see how Tris has helped him to become a better person, and how the two have depended on each other’s support. It’s lovely to read about how their relationship has developed, especially in the final couple of chapters, but it does too often deter from the relevance of a supposedly climactic finale.

More importantly, whilst the couple had quite a heated sex scene in the Insurgent film, it’s not until this book that Tris finally takes control and allows Four to take her virginity. It’s quite a big deal in the book, as Tris is constantly telling Four and herself that she’s not ready, which is great for its young adult premise, so for the Insurgent adaptation to take this away from the story is a little disappointing. I’m not sure how Allegiant will follow on from this, whether it will avoid sex altogether or throw in a pointless sex scene every half hour, but either way, it’s not going to work. Their first sex scene should have been at a point when Tris really needed to feel close to Four and to feel like a real 16-year-old girl, which made for some light relief in the book, but the change in Insurgent has made this scene lose all meaning in Allegiant.

Whilst there’s all this focus on Tris and Four, many of the smaller characters don’t get enough attention, either. Peter has a small moment towards the end, but this could have done with being followed up a lot better, and Caleb also nearly has his moment of retribution, only for Tris to trample all over it. The tagline of the film is “One choice can define you”, but Tris yet again jumps in the way of the only character who needs to be redeemed for his betrayal, and once again sacrifices herself for no other reason but to do what she wants. Just like with the Insurgent film skipping out most of Marcus’ actions, the few reasons we had for liking his character, it seems that Allegiant is going down the same road, making it all about Tris and forgetting that there are much more likeable characters involved.

There’s still quite a lot of violence in this instalment, especially at the start, although there are noticeably a lot less deaths of popular characters than in similar franchises. But whilst there are some pretty big twists to come, and one big ‘moment’ that I will steer clear of spoiling, I think these will mostly be saved for the second instalment.

Whilst I have had my fair share of criticisms for the book, Allegiant is still an enjoyable read, and, as a final instalment, it’s much better than most books ending a trilogy usually are. However, whilst Allegiant does well to create a decent dystopian world and revolutionary plot, I don’t have many hopes for the film adaptation. After Insurgent, I wasn’t particularly excited for the series to continue with the many changes already in place. I loved Divergent but it all quickly went downhill after that. After seeing how different this trailer looks from the book, as well, I’m not looking forward to this next insalment already.

Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone did something that no other book has done: it got the world reading. It’s rare that a book can have such a worldwide effect on people of all ages, but this first chapter in an incredible franchise ensured that this was a book that nobody wanted to put down.

Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone is nostalgic, imaginative, and it’s filled with atmosphere; the precise definition of what a children’s fantasy should be. The story has a bit of everything; there are friendships, rivalries, quests, magic, jokes, scares, and even a game of wizarding sport. The characters are engaging and likeable, but most of all they’re fun, courageous, and adventurous. It’s such a gripping and comforting read that Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone has become a book that we will pass on to our future generations with pure excitement at the thought of somebody discovering this world for themselves for the first time.

At this point in Rowling’s series, the plot is quite simple, making for a very light read, and as a piece of literature it isn’t close to being technically revolutionary. But it’s rare that a story does what Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone does to a reader. Sure, as the series continues the stories get more complex, and Rowling’s writing becomes a lot more profound, but this is where it all began, and the book conjures such fantastic feelings that there’s no wonder that millions of people fell in love with Harry Potter.

The plot may be quite straight forward, but there’s still so much going on, and so much that we, and Harry, are being introduced to. For a book about magic, to say that Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone is magical would be an understatement.