reubenalbatross's Reviews (521)

I feel emotionally wrecked after finishing this. I'm pretty sure I was crying solidly for the last 50 or so pages.

This is my first time reading Fredrik Backman, and I definitely understand the hype. It was such a real and heartfelt book which I think could bring just about anyone both comfort and emotional turmoil. 

There are two reasons I haven't given this book 5 stars. If it weren't for these things, it would definitely be a 5. These are:

- Some pretty blatant fat-shaming/fatphobia. I would understand if this was just in Ove's point of view, as it is in his nature to be offensive about pretty much everything. However, this shaming was also in the main narrative voice. Jimmy - the only plus sized character in the book - was pretty much constantly eating, and described as greasy and no end of other fatphobic stereotypes. No other characters were stereotyped as much as him, and it did make me uncomfortable each time he was described. 
- The words 'bent' and 'bender' to describe a gay character were used FAR too often, especially by a (as far as I can tell) straight male author. Again, this was in both Ove's voice and the narrative voice. It served a purpose when Ove was using these words in the beginning, but even after Ove was corrected and told not to use them, he still carried on, with seemingly no other repercussions. And the narrative voice just didn't have to use those words AT ALL. I do concede that these words and their true meaning could have been a little lost during the translation of the book, but I still do not like that they were used like this.

I hope that both of these issues are due to this book being written in 2012, and don't prove a problem in Backman's later works. 

I'm not sure I have ever read a book with so many shocking twists! 

This book had a great balance of keeping the reader in the dark and leaving enough clues that each twist was believable yet completely confounding.

Right until the end of the book I was ready to give it 5 stars and start shouting from the rooftops about it. However, just when it was going SO well, the slur tr*nny was just casually slipped into the narrative. Not once, but TWICE. I know this book was written a while back when that word was more 'accepted', but it still shook me. Unless used by trans-women authors themselves, I don't think there's any excuse for using that slur in this way. 

This is the one and only reason I couldn't give it 5 stars, I thought the rest was fantastic.  

I'm so glad this book was recommended to me. It's everything I want in a Sci-Fi (minus a battle scene or two). 

Such a great exploration of humanity, with disturbing themes written in well-crafted prose.  

What. A. Masterpiece. 

I just didn't really care about the plot enough to want to continue. I also didn't particularly like the writing style, and the narrator was getting on my nerves a little bit (I love an accent, but when the meaning of a word is changed by an accent, it's an issue). 

I did like the magic concept, but not enough to finish the book. 

My prediction for the book is that the 'unattractive' guard with the sharp, angular face (my god, how unattractive, almost as if that's seen as the peak of attractiveness) will be a love interest AND the vigilante. If this is the case, then I'm 100% validated in my decision to stop reading. 

I definitely enjoyed this book. I liked the writing style, thought the plot was interesting, and liked how it deviated from other YA Fantasy norms. 

However, I didn't feel much while listening to it. I'm still pretty new to audiobooks, so not sure if this is a 'problem' with the book, or just me not connecting as much with audiobooks. It could also be due to this being a YA and me being older than the age demographic, but I have felt things while physically reading YA books recently.  

Overall, I don't have anything bad to say, I just wasn't blown away. 

It took me a long time to write this review, as I wasn't sure how I felt.

This is the first Nicci French book I haven't given 5 stars to, which truly pains me. I think the main issue is that it is quite an early work of theirs, so they haven't got into the swing of it yet. 

One of the first things I noticed was that the timing was really strange at the start. I know that it is meant to be minute by minute play of Nina's day, but at the beginning it was like she was fitting the content of a feature length film into a 20 minute TV episode. In about 13 minutes she essentially cleaned her entire house and then some. It felt pretty unrealistic. Which is sad, because I haven't read many books that follow someone every second of their day, and wanted to enjoy the premise more. This pacing did definitely get better throughout the book though.

I enjoyed that there were no chapters and it was just a full stream of conscious. I also thought that Nina's actions were completely believable if you had lost a child - the desperation was so realistic. Yes, I did think she was being an idiot at times, but that's REAL LIFE, book characters aren't meant to be perfect. 

I thought the point where Nina just summed up everything up at the end felt very contrived, and HOW could she come up with all of that with the state she was in?? I know police can be a bit shit sometimes, but can 'civilians' really be that good? 

The 'big reveal' was so basic that I was expecting a twist ending where we find out Nina is completely wrong, or that there were multiple people involved, but no.

I did enjoy this overall, and found the second half especially gripping, but I've recently found myself capable of being more critical of books, and I don't think this could be above a 2.5      

A very middle of the road book.

I did enjoy it, and found myself laughing out loud at some of the more absurd situations, but it didn't blow me away.

I like the premise of the book, but I feel like the explorations of humanity were actually all quite surface level, and I wished it had got a bit darker and delved into things more.

I also felt that it went on a bit too long. I think it could have been a more powerful and impactful book if it was shorter and cut out some of the extended story in the second half of the book, which I don't feel added much. 

My favourite quote:

"Knowledge is finite, wonder is infinite."

I really have enjoyed this series so far, such a unique world.

I did have some issues with this one, mainly with parts of the plot being so sparsely mentioned that I forgot about a lot of them and had to skim sections of the book to understand the ending fully. However, I think this was mainly my fault, as I was only reading about 20 pages a day for months, and I don't think I would have forgotten as much if I had read it quicker.

Also, Rand is a goddamn IDIOT with Selene! That doesn't negatively impact my rating though, as unlike a lot of readers it seems, I don't need my protagonists to be perfect humans.

Ingtar being a Darkfriend really came out of left field - I feel like it wasn't foreshadowed at all, and also not fully explained at the reveal, but again I could just be missing things.

 

A very white, heterosexual, middle class look into life in London in your early 30s.

The book definitely has a mix of good and bad points, but I enjoyed listening to it in general.

The good:

- Succeeded in putting me off ever having my own kids even more than I thought was possible (and I never wanted them in the first place)
- I appreciated the dementia storyline, I thought this was very well portrayed
- It was refreshing to see a genuinely healthy relationship between Nina and her ex Joe. I also appreciated that Lucy wasn't a 'jealous wife' character opposing Nina, as always seems to be the case in media, and instead was a way to show Joe being happy after Nina

The bad:

- The narrator's Italian accent was VEEery dodgy, not sure she's ever heard a real one
- 

The way my eyes ROLLED in the back of my skull when she shagged the Italian neighbour. It was so ridiculous, predictable, and unoriginal. This was by far the worst part of the book. Also he called her a whore in an angry way, but apparently it was a joke and he didn't hate her??? Just because you're depressed, doesn't mean you should be able to easily get away with something like that