reubenalbatross's Reviews (521)

I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed these tales. They were engrossing, fun, and interesting reads. I also thought they were ordered really well.
 
The Firework Maker's Daughter - 5 stars
A nice little heartwarming story. Just what I needed.
 
I Was a Rat! or The Scarlet Slippers - 5 stars
A great satire of so many aspects of humanity, especially media and political spin, along with a lovely storyline of found family love.
 
Clockwork or All Wound Up - 4 stars
I really enjoyed the asides in this one, and had a good little chuckle at a few of them. The story actually got pretty scary at times too. The ending/culmination was pretty predictable, but still another nice little story. 
 
The Scarecrow and His Servant - 5 stars
 A really great story, I devoured it in one sitting. Great way to end the collection.  

This was a really interesting book. I wasn't in love with it, but the ideas were powerful and thought-provoking.
The main story was good, the story within the story was fantastic - if the book had just been an extension of that it would be an easy 5-star read. 
It was also nice to read a translated Japanese work from a female author. I have so many issues with typical Japanese male written novels which tend to be problematically misogynistic, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly obviously. It was comforting to read a story where this didn't happen.   

He's done it again, woo! I was slightly worried after 'The Bullet That Missed' that I'd lost some of the connection with this series, but this book brought all the love right back. 
The mystery was great, the character work was brill, and I had a great time reading. Stephen's storyline was so moving. 
What a great series.

This is definitely a great book, and completely on par with ‘Malice’. However, so far there’s been something holding me back from giving this series a full five-stars, though I'm not sure what it is. 
This book definitely suffered from middle book syndrome in the first two or three hundred pages. There wasn't much plot going on, and while the character relationships were nice, they weren't developed enough to make up for the lack of active plot. There was a LOT of travelling. 
I also predicted a lot more of the plot points in this one compared to ‘Malice’. I loved ‘Malice’ because there were so many completely unpredictable shocks and twists, and I definitely missed that in this book. 
On the plus side, I really enjoyed that the battles were mainly seen from onlooker's perspectives rather than the people fighting, it gives a fresh perspective compared to many other fantasies. It also doesn't shy away from the waste of war, and in fact criticises it much more than most other fantasies I've read to date. 
I loved how the POVs came together at the end, and seeing the same characters and events through different eyes. In so many books with multiple POVs the POVs are in isolation and never really come together, so this was a nice change. It’s also great having POVs from both sides of the battle, and understanding the enemy’s motivation. 
The ending really sold this book for me. Gywnne killing off so many characters made me respect it a lot more, even if I was a teary mess by the end. 
On a weird note, I also noticed about halfway through this book that the characters don't have surnames. It's wild that I never noticed that before.  

There's something about this writing style that just isn't clicking for me. I find most books pretty readable, but this one seems so dry and dense, and gave me no reason to want to carry on.
I wanted to give it a go to see how the concept works out, but I think I'll be putting it down for now. Maybe I'll give it another go in the future.

This book is so deep and lyrically written, some of the prose is just gorgeous. 
BUT, though I appreciate the novel and its meanings, I didn't feel emotionally moved by it. Maybe it was because I couldn't relate to many of the themes, though I have been able to connect with other stories where I have not experienced what the characters go through.

There are so many interesting ideas and concepts in this installment. It's a really engrossing look into the human condition and what it means to be human.
Butler employs fantastic worldbuilding throughout. Though it's a relatively short book, everything is portrayed with so much depth and authenticity.
What an amazing writer. 

I think I'm going to end up enjoying this, but I want to be able to appreciate it rather than try to slog through it. I don't think now is the right time for me to do it justice. 
I think this will be one for when I'm older and hopefully have a bit more patience! At least I know what it's like now. 

Dear lord I just found this book so pretentious... So many parts are clearly just Kuang wanting to show off all the research she had done for the book, without actually adding anything to the story. It made this an unnecessarily dense read in places.
I also felt really distant from the story. It was a pretty clinical reading experience, and I struggled to care about the characters. 
Reading M.L. Wang's 'Blood Over Bright Haven' at the same time as this definitely did not help 'Babel' out. I was constantly comparing the two as they are both dark academia with some similar themes, and 'Babel' always came out lacking. I'm so annoyed this book has had so much hype around it when 'Blood Over Bright Haven' is SO much better. Maybe I'll pick 'Babel' up again once the 'Bright Haven' dust has settled...
On another note, the asterisks in my copy of this are RIDICULOUSLY small, and I missed them almost every time.
I really want to enjoy Kuang's writing again, and hoped 'Babel' would make up for the disappointment of 'The Burning God', but sadly it did not, and I might have to give up on her, at least for a while. 

I wasn't sure if this book would be able to stand up to 'The Sword of Kaigen', which until now has not only been my favourite book of the year, but maybe of all time - but holy fuck, Wang truly knocked it out of the park with this one.  
As I sobbed my way through the first chapter, I knew I was in for a once in a lifetime ride. And my prevailing thought as I was reading this was how much I was loving it, and how much I don't think any author is ever going to come CLOSE to Wang for me.
I would think about this book every time I was reading a different one and would compare them, and this came out on top every time, no question. I was reading 'Babel' alongside it, and there was a marked difference in how connected I was to the story. With 'Babel' I felt very distant, like I was a bystander in the story. 'Blood Over Bright Haven' had its claws in my soul and I couldn't escape the awe of Wang's writing. She truly is my soulmate author. 
It was so refreshing to never know when someone might die. I got so tense every time it was even a slight possibility, which is such a stark contrast from so many other books where you can instinctively tell that nothing bad is ever going to happen to the main characters. 
Wang also so artfully included so much commentary on today's social issues in this novel without it being obnoxiously in your face. She delves into misogyny, the patriarchy, the importance of intersectional feminism, racism (especially against indigenous peoples), colonialism, societal indifference, and classism. Truly a wonder.
I also thought the symmetry of the beginning and end of the novel was beautiful, particularly as they were both about the marginalised group, ensuring they had the first and final word in such a powerful piece of literature. 
I woke up the day after finishing this with a feeling like I was in mourning, let alone how I felt when I put the book down after that ending. I don't think another book has ever made me feel and think so much. 
What's more, the fact that this book is SO different from 'The Sword of Kaigen' yet just as amazing (if not better), really makes me excited for Wang's future work. I CAN'T WAIT.