reubenalbatross's Reviews (521)

Like the first instalment, this was a pleasant enough read. Nothing majorly special, but a good time nevertheless. 

The boys finally developed their own personalities, or at least roles in the story, and there wasn’t as much content based around stealing Welsh history. 

However, like the first book, I found myself a little lost in places, especially about character motivations, and the ending felt quite rushed and anticlimactic. 

Graham Jones is obviously a great writer, just the opening of the novel proved that to me. 

However, that means when he writes a fucked-up character, he can really write a fucked-up character. I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind reading this, especially in the essay sections – as if I’d lost the ability to comprehend the written word. Jade will throw out random pieces of information with no context, jumping from idea to idea with no apparent rhyme or reason. I had idea what she was on about 50% of the time. 

Then add to that my lack of interest/knowledge of slasher films, and I just couldn’t stay in Jade’s head any longer. I truly felt like I was going mad, and my brain is already too fucked-up to continue with the book. 

I moderately enjoyed the start of this novel. O’Farrell’s writing is lovely to read, and I was interested in the two storylines. However, as I read further, I was turned off more and more. 

Around 30% in I noticed that the modern timeline was getting more and more baby focussed, and way less interesting. I don’t need any more encouragement not to have kids, thanks. And from reding other reviews, the book’s biggest strength seems to be the themes of motherhood it explores, which I couldn’t care less about. 

I also thought all of the memory loss shite was lazy and unrealistic. How are these people still alive?? 

But the nail in the coffin was the ‘romance’ between Lexie and Innes. To me, this relationship entirely consisted of Innes taking advantage of a young woman, and the age/experience gap between them really started to bother me. She’s 21 and he’s 34. I’m 27 right now, and I can barely stand even being around 21-year-olds, let alone date one of them. 

To quote the book directly (and please note all quotes here are from the same scene): 

Innes says this to Lexie as if being young was a mistake for his stupid decisions. So why the fuck is he enticing her to make the same type of stupid decisions?? 

Two pages later when discussing their relationship he says: 

?!?!?!?!?!??! And this is AFTER we've seen them fucking in a flash forward, and right before they fuck for the first time. 

Then next page he’s talking to ‘himself’ (but out loud with her in the room): 

What an absolute goddamn creep. Yes, he’s meant to be saying it in a playful, teasing way. But HOLY CHRIST it takes two brain cells to see how fucked up this is. 

Adding on to the shit heap is the fact that Lexie never fucking talks. Their whole relationship is just Innes talking at Lexie and telling her how to live her life. That isn’t a romantic relationship, and almost gives parent talking to a child vibes, which is even creepier.  

If this was all being commented on by O’Farrell, and the message was intended as ‘don’t do this, this is bad’, it would be a different matter, but as far as I can tell the book portrays this as a love story I’m meant to find sexy and romantic, instead of a creep and a girl with Stockholm syndrome. 

I’m not that man I’m afraid. 

I picked up this book specifically because I want to read more stories with trans characters. I love that the core of the story addresses the (so often ignored) question of what happens to anyone outside the gender binary when an event/illness etc. only affects one gender in media. 

Unfortunately, however, I realised 40% in that the trans rep was pretty much the only thing I was enjoying. One of my main issues was the writing style. It is so incredibly unrefined, bordering on amateurish, in exactly the ways I hate. There are SO MANY long, rambling sentences where the meaning/subject of the sentence is muddled or lost, and so often I found myself losing focus during a single sentence. There are also so many unnecessary words used, for example in places where the reader could easily have implied the meaning without the extra words, or where Felker-Martin is describing something and uses two words that have the same exact meaning right after one another.  

I also thought the worldbuilding in general was pretty lacking. Yes, 50%-ish of the planet dying/turning feral would be a lot to cope with, but I would have thought they’d be a bit more 'back to normal' by now? There was mention of a working nuclear power plant, sometimes there’s electricity, but all of the shops/takeaways are closed/empty etc. Why wouldn’t some of them be open? There also seem to be abundant supplies of some things, with no indication of where they came from. Are factories still producing things, or has that all ground to a halt? Are women incapable of running anything themselves that isn’t a TERF militia? 

There was also basically no discussion about the start of the ‘event’, at least as far as I read to. ‘T-Day’ makes it sound like it hit everyone in one foul swoop, but other small bits of information also suggest that wasn’t the case because people had time to plan etc. This made it difficult for me to get the full picture of what was the most monumental event in every single character’s life. 

I also found it odd that none of the transwomen ever mentioned castration as an option for reducing their testosterone levels. Whether that was Beth/Fran discussing why they couldn’t/didn’t want to do it, or why it wouldn’t work, or the TERFs considering it as an alternative to killing everyone. 

I was also starting to find the constant descriptions of Indi's weight too much. I didn’t mind it in her POV sections, as that’s a character choice, and if she hates her body that much, (like many trans people) it would make sense for her to be thinking about it all the time. My problem came when every single character brought up her weight every time they thought about her. Just seemed hugely unnecessary. 

So, even though I was enjoying the trans rep in here, the story isn’t doing anything for me. As a seasoned dystopia/sci-fi reader, I feel like I’ve seen this all before, and the trans/hormone stuff is just a new layer sprinkled on top of pre-existing stories. And unfortunately, it’s a layer that isn’t strong enough for me to want to continue reading. 

**ALL OF THIS IS SPOILERS** 

Well, this was a disappointment… 

I want to make it clear that my issues with the ending of this book don’t lie where many others’ seem to. I didn’t mind the time travel, and how Kelsea was left all alone in the idyllic world she created. If the rest of the ending had been strong, it could have been a really effective and poignant ending. Unfortunately, the rest of the ending left A LOT to be desired. 

One of my main gripes is the number of things left unexplained, and most of them the things I was most interested in. The majority of which also seemed like Johansen cheapening out on actually thinking of logical worldbuilding or satisfying conclusions. I absolutely raced through the latter 50% of the book desperate for the answers, and we got none. I doubt this list is exhaustive, but to name a few of missing pieces: 

- When/where WAS the bloody ‘New World’??? Did William Tear go back in time, forward in time, to a new dimension?? I’m pretty sure nowhere on Earth has the crazy changes in climate and terrain on a relatively small island in the way the New World did. All the animals/nature seemed pretty much identical to Earth’s, so surely they haven’t gone far enough back to miss humanity entirely, otherwise the flora/fauna would be different? And where on Earth has a concentration of magical sapphires?? 

- Why were there different languages?? As far as I could tell, everyone that came over on the Crossing spoke English, so how did we end up with specific languages for all three 'countries'?? Yes, that might happen over a long period of time, with all the languages rooted in English, but in under 300 years?? Not gonna happen.

- Also, had anyone ever tried to sail the fuck away from the New World?? Surely in 300 years someone had, but I don’t think that was brought up once. 

- The god-damn sapphires – HOW DID THEY WORK?? Why did the crown allow time travel, but Finn’s only allowed violence? How did the Tear family get hold of the sapphire in our world? Did they work all the time in our world? 

- And who's memories were actually stored in the sapphire? Jonathan said it was only his forbearers, so how did Lily and Katie's, neither of them Tear by blood, get in there. The only thing that makes sense for their memories to be included is because they birthed a Tear, which is kinda weird. Lily never used the sapphire, and Finn's memories would surely be in there if it was caused by just using it? 

- What magic did Finn use to create his ‘creatures’?? It was so different from the kind of power Kelsea could use when she used his sapphire. Was it a different power source, one not from his sapphire? 

- Following on from this, Johansen seemed to be implying that anyone could teach themselves how to use magic. From the story, everyone who tried to gain magic, gained it. So why the fuck weren’t more people trying?? 

- What was the point of Brenna apart from to facilitate the Red Queen's death? That was literally the only thing I could think of. 

- Why did the Red Queen have a portrait of Lily, and why did she seem obsessed with it?? 

- Why did Kelsea kill Jonathan?? It seemed completely unnecessary. Did she use his death to help Katie get her foot in, and put a stop to the Tear dictatorship sentiment? If so, that definitely should have been explained more. Especially because she then essentially became a dictator to sort out the government, etc. Why couldn’t Jonathan have helped her with that?? 

- Why did Katie call herself Caitlyn Tear?? One of your kid’s possible father’s name being Tear doesn’t mean you get to use it yourself? 

Other things that annoyed me included: 

- Katie’s REALLY stupid decision to curse the boys to live forever? Ah yes, make the most dangerous people live eternally... what a fucking idiot. And we don't even know if she knew what she was doing, or if it was an uncontrolled burst of emotion, which caused a burst of unrestrained power. 

- When the guards were running about between New London and Demesne I became hugely confused at their movements. At one point Javel was sent back from Demesne to New London to alert them that more troops were needed. Johansen never said that he met Hall's group at their camp, but I assume that's what happened and how they got to Demesne. But then why did Javel return to New London instead of going back with them to help? All very weird. 

- The dad reveal was incredibly weak - especially because it was never fully recapped in this book what Mhurn actually did to Kelsea, and I couldn't remember at all. It was also SO obvious because as she kept thinking about her father, Mhurn would clumsily be added into lists of people she was thinking about, even though he didn't really belong in them. And then when she finally found out there was no angst etc., she was just over it?? Why all the build-up then? 

- WHERE WAS THE GOD-DAMN DIVERSITY? As far as I’m aware there was a single black guy (Jonathan #1), who was introduced and killed off in a single book. This does not diversity make. 

- By the time everyone started getting killed off it was obvious Kelsea was going to go back in time and fix everything, so didn't feel much emotion from it. If she hadn’t been saying every other page ‘If only I could go back in time’, there may have been a bit more shock factor, but we were royally beaten over the head with that phrase. 

- After finishing the book, almost all of the histories etc. at the start of each chapter make ZERO sense. How could they ever exist? If Kelsea hadn't turned back time, everyone would be dead, especially her and Tyler, so how could he be writing all this? And if she was successful and did turn back time, the future didn't exist for all these things to be written in. Seems like a cheap trick from Johansen. 

So, in conclusion, I’ve truly had such a journey with this series. From despising Book 1, to adoring Book 2, to feeling mediocre at best about Book 3. 

I genuinely enjoyed my time with this instalment, right until I saw how little of the book I had left and understood my burning questions weren’t going to be answered. I really enjoyed the commentary on modern society, especially about the danger of the Church, and I also really like the Red Queen as a villain, she made total sense to me. 

But the amount of loose ends have really overshadowed that enjoyment. I can really enjoy open-ended books, or books where things aren’t explained, but when the whole fucking series led me on a merry goose chase, promising all these answers, and then didn’t deliver? That shit I hate. 

This book INFURAITED me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many continuity errors in a single book, let alone such a well-lauded one. Then add to that weird ‘translation’ stuff and creeping on adolescent boys, and you get this piece of overrated nonsense. 

Starting with the most blatant of the continuity errors: 

1. On page 3 Patroclus describes a memory of being on a beach with his mother, and says 

And then goes on to describe SO MANY more memories of his mother???? For example, on page 31 -

?? From the sketchy narrative context (more on this later) he is telling us about all these memories from a single fixed point in the future, so obviously that first memory is not his "only” one? 

2. How the fuck did Patroclus not know what a centaur was – not even the concept?? I could have been fine with it if he’d heard about them and thought they were myths/ancient creatures etc., not around in present day, but to have no idea AT ALL? Achilles clearly knew they existed, so how had it never come up between them, especially when he know he was due to go and study with one? 

3. When they’re up in the mountains with Chiron, Patroclus says 

They used to live A DAY’S TRAVEL from these same fucking mountains, where it clearly snows every winter, so how had they never ONCE seen snow??? 

4. Before the pair got to Chiron’s cave, Patroclus was absolutely fawning over/crushing on Achilles, and couldn’t stop talking about it. Yet when they get to the cave all of those feelings magically vanish, right at peak puberty time?? He mentions it once before the ‘training montage’ begins, then not again for the next two years? As. Fucking. If. 

 

Another issue with the book is the nonexistent sense of the passage of time. This made it especially difficult for me to grasp the boys' ages at times, which I’d say is a pretty important fact to get straight in this kind of story. I read the first seven chapters of the book in one sitting, yet was constantly forgetting their ages. The way Miller wrote about the boys in the first 25% of the book made them sound 16/17 at the youngest, so whenever their age was stated as being 11/12/13 I was shocked every time. 

This age ambiguity was caused in some cases by, in my opinion, the over-sexualisation of the boys in question, namely Achilles. There are a myriad of ways to show two kids being in 'love', but a 11/12-year-old constantly going on about a 13/14-year-olds glistening muscles or the “soles of his feet” is not one of them. Let alone the following quote, which, let me remind you again, is a 11/12-year-old talking about a 13/14-year-old: 

I felt like an absolute creep just reading that. I know we’re seeing it from Patroclus’ perspective, but was such specific detail necessary? Wait until they’re a bit older before describing their pubes in a sexual way, surely?? And the vagueness of their ages at the time of this scene just compounded the issue even further. 

There was also WAY too much casual mention of women being raped as if it was a totally accepted fact of life. I assume it was a common theme in the original works, but 1. This is a retelling, by a female author no less, so Miller didn’t have to include it at all. 2. It would have been nice to see at least one male character who was against it?? 

Then come my issues with the mechanics of how the story was being told. This became really obvious to me when Patroclus started translating some of the words used in the story, e.g. 

Patroclus obviously lived his life speaking ancient Greek, but these specific word translations suggest that he’s translating the story into modern English to tell it. The only thing this can suggest is that he has lived all this time, which is clearly not how the story goes. And if he’s not telling the story to us in the modern day specifically, and its just a story being told in his native language, why is there a need for these translations?? All very odd and completely broke my immersion in the story.
 
Finally, to discuss the ‘romance’ itself. A ‘romance’ which in fact, from both my own reading and many reviews, is actually just Patroclus being pathetically obsessed with Achilles, and not an actual relationship as I was led to believe. It’s pure hero worship, nothing more, nothing less. And apart from not being a complete and utter arsehole when they were kids, what the fuck else does Patroclus actually see in Achilles apart from ‘ooo, so pretty’ and the perfumed soles of his feet?? Achilles is just an arsehole. A fact that was made very clear when he left to study with Chiron and just expected Patroclus to follow him without being invited, breaking all the rules set out to him – 

- how about actually discussing it with him, rather than make Patroclus follow Achilles around like a love-sick puppy, giving him nothing in return? And Patroclus, in his hero-worship daze, was supposed to just accept that Achilles didn’t invite him to study with him and was ridiculously selfish to assume he’d just follow? Such a great basis for a ’relationship’.
 
And lawdy, reading some other reviews about later developments I’m glad I stopped when I did... Every single issue I have so far with the book only seems to get worse as it progresses. I was really hoping to like this one, but once again, straight (as far as I can tell) women writing a gay male love story ends up being a load of gay trauma shoved into a pile of shite. 

Farewell.

This was definitely an interesting book. 

I really enjoyed the pervading sense of doom/mystery for the majority of the book, as well as the casual representation of both of ethnicity and non-binary characters. 

However, towards the end of the novel, as all of the meanings/mechanisms of the planet were revealed, my enjoyment definitely decreased. 

Throughout the book, Daghdev was constantly telling the reader how we’d never believe or even be able to comprehend the workings of the alien life, so I was expecting something truly remarkable. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Tchaikovsky was obviously trying to go for a mind-blowing and existential ending to the book, which fell flat for me because the actual workings of the planet are something I’ve read about in SO many other books. If this had been a new idea to me, I would have got a lot more out of this book. However, Tchaikovsky doesn’t offer anything new to the concept, so it all felt pretty mundane to me. This was then compounded by Daghdev’s insistence that the reader’s brain was too puny to understand a relatively simple concept, which really started to bother me once the concepts were laid out and I could completely comprehend them. 

Also, one of the strongest themes of the book for me was the dictatorship/censorship idea, but at the book’s conclusion I felt this could have been delved into a lot more, and I was left feeling unsatisfied.  

The last couple of minutes of the story were almost amazingly creepy and existential, but once again this was let down by Daghdev’s condescending narrative and telling us every single one of his thoughts – when it would have been way more effective to leave the reader with some questions about his state of mind/the group’s intent. 
 

Overall, still an enjoyable read, but one that had so much unfortunate missed potential. 

I must say, I’ve never been more confused starting a book. It really just thrusts you right in with zero context. 

However, it quickly stole my heart. All of the representation in this story, especially the transgender rep, was so heartfelt and raw – utter perfection. 

And maybe the biggest compliment is that, as a professionally trained classical musician, I barely found fault in the classical music content of the book. So often I find myself cringing when classical music is included in media, because it is often so inaccurate – whether that’s terms being misused or people having no idea about the actual life of a classical musician. 

The only two problems I had with it were towards the end of the book. One being at an outdoor concert, and one of the (very classically trained) musicians thinking "Some oboist would worry about how the wind was affecting her reed." Wind doesn’t affect reeds – the wind would definitely affect the sound, or the outdoor temperature may affect the instrument, but wind has no bearing on a reed. However, the viola slander in the same section was very accurate, and got a little chuckle out of me. 

The other was when Shizuka told a story about a time she was playing a concerto, broke strings on two violins, then finished on a VIOLA?? Violas which often have to use different fingerings and are tuned differently to violins?? So she just spontaneously managed to use viola fingerings and pitched everything she played a fifth differently?? Not realistic at all, unless we had been told she also learned the viola, which wasn’t the case. 

However, the rest of the book was absolutely amazing in the classical music rep. To me, it seems Aoki is a highly trained and skilled musician. It didn’t feel like someone with no musical skill writing (like most media about classical music), instead its clearly from someone who has lived the life of a trained classical musician and understands what people who haven’t been through it could never understand. Imagine my shock when I learned that Aoki isn’t a professionally trained classical musician at all! That’s great writing for ya. 

Overall, a magical and comforting read that doesn’t shy away from the terrors of being trans, with plenty of existentialism thrown in there as well. I’m so thankful to the person who recommended this to me. 

Unfortunately, I did really enjoy this book. 

The writing style and language Gaiman uses is deceptively simple, yet so amazingly descriptive and evocative. And the story is so magical and feels like home. 

My reading experience was definitely enhanced by the fact that I watched the film adaptation of the book so much as a kid, as it lent even more atmosphere and nostalgia to the experience. I would be so interested to know how I’d find the book without having watched the film so much, and see how much my reading experience changed as a result.  

A really great sequel. It made use of all the elements I really enjoyed in the first book, while bringing in new stuff to make it feel fresh.
 
I've got a feeling this series is going to satiate my desire that Discworld followed Rincewind and Twoflower throughout the whole series, and I can't wait to continue!