sarahxify's Reviews (703)

Fool's Assassin

Robin Hobb

3.0

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I was so happy to be back with Fitz, but honestly I found this one quite a letdown. Although a lot happened in it, overall I found it pretty obvious from pretty early on where it was going. It therefore felt like it took a super long time to unfold. I also am getting a bit sick of the plotline of Fitz's endless suffering; at this point I really wish Hobb would just let him have a break and live his life without every single person around him getting caught up in this insane twisty situation.

Where Reasons End

Yiyun Li

DID NOT FINISH

I found this a bit cold and detached and didn't really gel with the writing.

Blood of Dragons

Robin Hobb

3.5

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

City of Dragons

Robin Hobb

5.0

adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

The Housekeeper and the Professor

Yōko Ogawa

5.0

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Another beautifully-told piece of fiction from Yoko Ogawa. This novel quietly focuses on what brings us together. Ogawa's novels have such a quiet and purposeful feeling to them, I find her to be a total master of the understated.

Discussed on episodes #49 ( https://www.thebookcastclub.com/podcast/episode/4bfb2bf0/49-reading-more-asian-authors) and #50 (https://www.thebookcastclub.com/podcast/episode/4d59c469/50-our-mid-year-favourite-books-part-1) of the Bookcast Club podcast.

Crying in H Mart

Michelle Zauner

3.0

informative reflective medium-paced

Dragon Haven

Robin Hobb

4.5

adventurous slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I enjoyed the second installment of the Rain Wild Chronicles far more than the first. The story really picks up from here, and Robin Hobb does it again with her incredible in-depth characterisation. I am just as invested in this characters as I was in the earlier books in the Realm of the Elderlings.

Life Among the Savages

Shirley Jackson

3.0

funny lighthearted slow-paced

The Coconut Children

Vivian Pham

3.0

emotional lighthearted slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I enjoyed this novel, a little long-winded and overdone at times, and quite a laborious ending, but a really impressive novel for such a young writer.

Little Eyes

Samanta Schweblin

5.0

challenging dark tense fast-paced

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Unsettling, engrossing, thought-provoking. Schweblin has created an extreme version of the livestream, where people are able to be permanent logged in to other's homes.

In this novel, the writing style and feel of novelists such as Sayaka Murata and Melissa Broder meets the dreamlike and engrossing world of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One. I devoured this and am still thinking about it and what it means to be "logged on". It also got me thinking about how we anthropomorphise technology and how that affects how think of humans and how we are able to acknowledge and understand the person behind the chat, the person behind the comment, whatever it is that we're engaging with online. Brilliant.

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