reubenalbatross's Reviews (521)

Jospeh White definitely delivered in the horror department – so much of this was truly fucking disturbing, and some of Silas’ trans experience really got to me. 

However, overall, I didn’t love the book. After a strong opening, I felt the story lost its way, and by the end I wasn’t feeling much of anything about it. 

One of the issues is that I felt the fantasy elements weren't explored/explained enough, even though they're a pivotal part of the book. It seemed Silas' ability to reach the veil etc. always worked in the exact way he wanted it to at all times - yet none of the girls used it once?? They were basically damsels in distress, unable to use the very powers they'd been put in that 'school' for having, while good ol' Silas saved the day. It did whiff a little of misogyny. 

I also didn’t love that Silas fell in love with the very first trans person he met, seemingly JUST because she was trans. A lot more goes into relationships than that my guy. Additionally, Mary's lesbian ‘coming out’ moment seemed so out of the blue. It felt as if I was meant to have seen hints of it before, but I never caught any of them, so it felt pretty cheap.

The book also had exclusively white characters, and for no possible reason I can imagine. There were plenty of people of colour living in Victorian Britain, but maybe Joseph White’s American brain couldn’t comprehend that. He even actually says in his author’s note that most medical experimentation at the time was performed on ethnic minorities, so surely one non-English person could have been included? But not surprisingly, the two info resources he mentions are about Americans - fuck the country you’ve exploited for this story then, I guess? 

It's also pretty fucked up that they used a (as far as I can tell) cis male narrator for the audiobook. It makes no fucking sense. Silas was born female, and obviously didn’t have hormone therapy, so his voice would never have dropped. In fact, I’m not sure his voice is ever mentioned. So, the bloody obvious choice for narrator would be someone with a high/feminine voice pitching it as low as possible – because THAT’S WHAT SILAS WOULD SOUND LIKE. Surely there are some trans men around who never started on T, or a NB person with a fem voice, or even, god forbid, a woman. Instead, we have a bloke speaking in a girly voice for the whole book, which is pretty much the most offensive way possible for a trans man to be represented. Absolutely WILD choice.   

I’m starting to get ‘the dread’ every time I think of picking this up, so will be putting it down for now. 

Maybe I’ll come back to it at another time, but right now I’m kinda sick of Elena and Lila’s dynamic, and was hoping for a bit more growth in them in this instalment. 

Ferrante really does write so well, but the realism is getting a bit much for me. The whole story just feels like broken and horrible people going through the same cycles ad nauseum, in only slightly different formats - which is exactly what life is, but is maybe a bit much to read. 

I’m not giving this one a rating because I definitely struggled to pay full attention to the audiobook, so don’t think it’s fair for me to rate it. 

Part of this struggle was definitely caused by Tchaikovsky’s narration, which is so wonderfully relaxing and fairy tale-esque that I found myself zoning out quite a lot - just listening to his cadence, rather than the actual story. 

The only other thing I have to say is that the cover art for the book is FANTASTIC and truly captures the vibe of the story. 

What an incredible book. I adore that it has the vibe of a classic space opera, but with none of the misogynist/racist/other-ists that I’m constantly on alert for while reading the classics. 

Its complexity is astounding - the science, the character motivations, the worldbuilding. Enough is kept back to not overwhelm, and we're fed important information at the perfect times. This balance meant I could understand everything that was going on, or know what was being held back, while for the most part only having a tenuous (at best) grasp of the science/society etc. That’s solid writing for ya. 

The short POV's from characters only to see them die was so powerful, and the messaging of the book is a triumph. 

I’m so amazingly glad I picked this book up, and can’t wait to continue the series. 

I don’t know what, if anything, I gained from reading 53% of this book. But I can unequivocally tell you that all this novel has to offer is a pretty dispassionate and removed description of various Native American massacres, with a boat load of racism from our main character that is never reckoned with. 

Ok, yes, a lot of people ‘back in the day’ had these views on Native Americans. But did Barry do a single thing to bring these views under the lens of modern day, or at least make it clear that he disagreed with them? Did he fuck. 

It’s just a barrage of outdated thinking, with no actual plot apart from ‘my boyfriend/husband/whatever is going to die at some point’, which surprise, surprise is written by a (as far as I can tell) straight man. Even weirder that it appears he was inspired by his gay son to write this. Not every queer story has to end in tragedy my guy, and it makes me wonder what you think of your son’s sexuality if he inspired you to write about this shite.  

The novel also assumes the reader has a working knowledge of this period in America’s history, which I don’t, so I had no context for a lot of the events, meaning they were even more meaningless than I thought possible.  

It’s essentially a vague textbook-esque description of a load of bullshit. Don’t waste your time. 

Once again, this was a nice enough story to listen to, but I was definitely less gripped by it than the others in the series. 

And once again, the ending was really rushed, and the last 25% or so felt really disjointed. One of the main components of this is that there’s basically no reflection on the events at the end of the book. The scene in the cavern went by so quickly there was no time for me to properly register the events and their ramifications, and then there was no reflection after the fact, so none of it felt real or impactful in any way. 

And finally, once again, Stiefvater’s portrayal of English characters remains ridiculously inaccurate. For one, not a single English person is still calling America ‘the colonies’ – we don’t CARE enough about America to even think of them in that way. And for two, we don’t count distance in fucking KILOMETERS. 

This book had two immediate red flags for me in the first chapter, then adding to that the fact that reviews that say this is a really bleak book, I just don’t want to read any further. 

The first red flag was that we’re not told when this is set. All I could tell is that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of modern technology, so it’s probably set pre-2000, but apart from that I have no fucking idea. Why do authors think we can just mindread dates?? One review I read said the date was mentioned first on page 225!!! That’s too fucking late. 

The second (and obviously much bigger) red flag was the huge amount of casual racism towards Chinese characters in the first 20 pages of the book. And it’s not the characters being racist, which wouldn’t be as big of a problem, it’s the narration itself (i.e. Dennis-Benn’s voice). 

This is obviously already awful, but in a book that’s centred so much on racism against black people, it’s wild to see racism against another ethnicity spoken so plainly and without any acknowledgement. 

Even if, as suggested by the research I did into some of the words used, these names are seen more as 'endearing' in Jamaica, rather than slurs, TELL US THAT?? Dennis-Brown is obviously trying to reach more than just Jamaican readers with this novel, so she really needs to explain why her seemingly stereotypical and degrading names for people aren't racist (if she even believes that’s the case). Just blind fucking hypocrisy. 

These three examples of what I’m talking about are all from a SINGLE page in the novel while describing the Chinese family who own a shop: 

 1. 

 2. 

3. They’re described as often seen 

Excuse me?? Not to mention that this family have lived in this same Jamaican village for at least four generations?? Surely after so long living in Jamaica they wouldn't be SO staunchly only eating stereotypically Asian foods?? 

 
If all of this nonsense was commented on, it would be a whole different story. If Dennis-Brown made it obvious that even though this behaviour towards other ethnicities is common, that doesn’t make it ok to do. Instead, the dismissive way the Chinese characters are described in this chapter alone made me really uncomfortable and like I couldn’t trust Dennis-Benn to have compassion for people not like her, so I won’t be continuing this read. 

After really enjoying Kingfisher’s The Seventh Bride, I am astonished by how much I couldn’t give less of a damn about Nettle & Bone. 

I think a lot of the issues I had came from the audiobook narrator. Pretty much every decision Jasper made enhanced the elements that were already annoying me. I think her tone was completely off for the vibe of the story, and made everything seem way too childish for what is actually a pretty dark book. 

Some of the things that most got on my nerves were: 

1.      Marra is crazily annoying, and stupendously naive - amazingly so for being THIRTY YEARS OLD. Yes, she’s obviously got social anxiety, but Kingfisher could have portrayed that in so many different ways. She doesn’t have to sound like a permeant teenager at THIRTY YEARS OLD. I was constantly forgetting her age throughout the book, often reverting to thinking she was a teenager, which was definitely due to the mix of her brazen naivety and the insipid voice the narrator chose to use for her. 

2.      Fenris' 'English' accent is SO bad. All the other voices in the audiobook are at least well-acted, even if I don’t like the choices Jasper made. He, on the other hand, sounds like she has no acting talent at all – it come across as so self-conscious and amateurish. 

3.      The tapestry’s purpose was so obscenely obvious from the very second Marra was given it. Utter madness that she didn’t connect the dots immediately. 

4.      At the end Marra didn’t know if her sister was alive after the birth and was frantic about it for a good long time, then in the following chapters seemed to completely forget that she didn’t know and didn’t mention it once. And THEN, when she finally got the answer, there was absolutely no reaction, as if she’d know the whole time?? I might have missed something there, but I really don’t think I did. 

5.      And then in the last few pages we find out that Mara isn’t a virgin?? Since when?? She’s so horrendously naïve to even what a man is for most of the book, but suddenly she’s experienced? Since fucking when? 

Overall, I think I would have enjoyed this more if I read it with my eyeballs, but probably not by much. 

Holy fucking Christ. This book is EVERYTHING. 

I can’t even begin to describe my feelings about it, but what I can say is that its some of the best trans rep I have ever read. There wasn’t a single second of C’s journey that didn’t ring true to my experience, and for that I’m ever grateful to Holland. I also adored C’s relationship with Gwen, and that it was a m/f relationship, which is so hard to find in books about transmen. 

When I reached p.222, I knew I was in safe hands: 

What a truly splendid book. 

I was slightly wary when I started reading, as the only characters whose first descriptions mentioned their race were the black characters. I assume everyone else is white, but we’re never told, we’re only told which characters are black. It did strike me as odd, as if the default for a person is white. But taking into account the time this book was published, that Barker was married to a black man at the time, that there were no other weird race related things (in fact it was a surprisingly diverse book for 2002), and that I’ve never had similar vibes from other books of his I’ve read, I’ve decided to give Barker the benefit of the doubt. 

And thank God, because was an amazing book. The Abarat is insanely imaginative, in a way I feel I haven't read in a VERY long time. Barker doesn’t base the fantasy creatures on tropes/commonly used creatures (elves, demons etc.), they’re completely unique, yet they feel utterly real. The mix of 'animal' and human is great, and the idea of them losing their natural abilities/adaptations (e.g. not being able to breathe water anymore) is tragic and fascinating. 

And the worldbuilding in general is so unique. I loved all of the different islands, and that the society wasn’t based around a strict kingdom/feudal structure in the way most fantasy is. 

The way technology is mixed in with all the fantasy elements also felt so original. Pretty much all fantasy I’ve read has either the Tolkien-esque vibe, or is a grittier urban fantasy that incorporates modern technology. This novel, however, is a truly refreshing take on the genre.  
 
And when the pieces came together about who Candy is?? Ooof. It fit in perfectly with the whimsical and homely, yet sinister and uncomfortable, vibes of the novel.