shona_reads_in_devon's Reviews (529)

'𝑻𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆. 𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕 '

__________________________

My feelings about this book are really quite mixed.

It ambled along quite nicely, and for the most part I had an excellent time. These characters, they were so despicable to me in early pages, are now quite dear to me in different ways (except Reina, she's the worst). 

The themes are interesting, the plot (for there is one, somewhere, if you squint) is intriguing and I want to know what happens.

But. The pacing is challenging. It is glacial. And that's not to say there is no action - when it happens, it always slaps - the reveals, the twists etc, are excellent and satisfying. But it remains hard to come by.

My cerebral ego is struggling - it all starts to feel like it's coalescing into something I can grasp... And then it all fritters away into scenes of catty bickering or languid misanthropy. And I have all the time for misanthropy but I also kind of wish to know what the f*** is going on as well.

So... Patchy. On first viewing it feels like a 3, but overall I had a cracking time reading it, so it will be a 4. I'm not confident that it's going to maintain any kind of momentum in book 3 but we move anyway.

Listened on Audible. Narrated by Hugh Grant.

Listen, I love A Christmas Carol so blummin much. I didn't think there was much that could make it better. I was wrong. Hugh Grant pulls out every delicious piece of comedy, increases the warmth in every festive scene and draws out every drop of pathos that the reader can find for dear old Scrooge. I don't think I've ever read this and been so delighted for Scrooge's salvation.

A must listen, if you can.

Akala is such a dynamic speaker and listening to him read this on audio was a fantastic way to take in this important piece of work.

In Natives, the personal is absolutely political and Akala draws upon his lived experiences as a 'mixed race, Carribbean - Scottish working class man from London' (not a verbatim quote!) to illustrate the ways in which young black individuals live their lives at the cross section of a racist and classist British society. 

While I have read a bit on the subject of racism, it has almost always focused on the US, and is generally explored from a fairly academic, objective standpoint. This is not to say that Akala does not have academic clout - this is a thoughtful and carefully constructed piece of work. But it is threaded through with that big angle of personal history which means that the text can be sarcastic, acerbic, angry and righteous in ways that other works are not. It's refreshing to read, even while the subject is challenging and, in the main, not hugely optimistic.

Akala draws out the ways in which racism, class and capitalism conspire to keep the current social status quo for individuals racialised as black, bringing in history of colonialism, our relationship with the US, and Brexit, among other contemporary concerns.

Much of what is contained in here is subject matter and viewpoints that I was already aware of but this text brings together some themes that are often considered separately and linked up some ideas that I had not previously considered.

I think this text is essential groundwork for understanding the identity politics of race in the UK and is presented in such a way as to be highly consumable for all.

'𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒏'𝒕 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓; 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒅𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏.'

__________________________

Stuart Turton is truly a master of his particular slice of literature.

A malevolent fog has taken over the planet and the world's only survivors have been ensconced on a little island for decades. When a murder takes place, everyone's safety is compromised and only the discovery of the killer can save mankind.

This novel was much closer to Evelyn Hardcastle than Devil and the Dark Water. Another whodunnit of sorts, and memory comes into play again. I don't think this one is quite as successful as Hardcastle - though that novel was so fresh and new and inexplicable it would be hard to create that kind of experience again.

But, Last Murder deserves to be reviewed on its own merits, of which it has many.

The pacing and plotting of this is as wild and wacky as I could ever wish it to be. My brain does not work as well as Emory's and, having borrowed this from the library, the map was covered over which did give me struggles with the locale - setting and location is kind of central to this tale and I did struggle to keep everything in place! Not a real problem because I don't feel the need to solve the book when I know it's going to do it for me at some point but I do feel it estranged me a little from the mystery. While the conclusion is satisfying, I'm not sure I managed to keep track of everything enough and I'm not convinced there weren't some plot holes. I also felt that there were a few contrived circumstances slotted in to wrap everything up a bit.

The themes in this book, the philosophy, the morality, the *MESSAGE* was phenomenal. Stuart is taking on some big themes here: morality, justice, the nature of humanity, what it is to be human, faith, the nature of power, eugenics, the power and danger of tech. I mean, it's a lot. But this book isn't theme over plot - the exploration of these themes is so brilliantly weaved through the story in subtle and not so subtle ways.

I did have my suspicions about the conclusion to this, but it's delightfully full of red herrings. 

Really recommend this novel, Stuart's done it again!

"𝜤 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒇𝒕𝒚 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖"


"𝑾𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒍, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒃𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒈, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒇𝒔."

__________________________

The Priory of the Orange Tree has me torn!!

I adored this story. The world building is complex and intricate, peppered with myth and legend. 

The characters were complex and nuanced, they made me cross and confused and dismayed and elated in equal measure. 

The writing was glorious, the prose was endlessly quotable.

But, I felt the weighting of the story was off at times. This is a hefty tome and the ending was *so* rushed. I really loved the pacing of this until close to the end, and seeing how all these characters were being drawn together was intriguing. But the end was over very quickly. I felt it impacted on certain arcs. 

I also wanted *more* dragon. The elements with the dragons were excellent but they didn't feature heavily, despite being central to the story. I wanted more destruction, more fighting, more gods being cool.

I had an absolute blast reading this, and I became very attacked to certain characters and very invested in the story. I thought the world building was beautiful and complex and the politics and overall world was really enjoyable and could definitely be part of something bigger. I'll be picking up the prequel for sure.

Listened on Audible.

This was dissatisfying in so many ways.

The core of the idea was not a bad one. But the execution of this story was, to me, abysmal. If I hadn't have been listening to it, I am not sure I would have finished it.

The general premise was so confusing. I liked the concept but it didn't feel well explored, described or mapped out.

Isla was ridiculous, all the way through. She kept making assumptions, over and over again without learning from them and stating things to herself that were supposed to read like facts that so clearly had no basis in anything. Almost every time she talked through a plan I was like - why? One thing did not equal another.

All the twists were kind of obvious because Isla was so stupid you just needed to look at the thing she wasn't looking at. 

The end was appalling. There is really little worse than reading the villain just explain the whole thing to you at the end. 

The love triangle was not remotely interesting. It could have been - the whole Wildling curse thing was an interesting angle but nothing really exciting was done with it.

I didn't care about anyone at all, for the whole thing.

So yeah. Won't be reading the rest of these!

'𝑴𝒚 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒎𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝜤 𝒂𝒎 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒅'

__________________________

I am so frustrated with this book. It has taken me so long to get through it, and I switched to audio for the last third which helped.

All the individual elements of this story absolutely banged. I loved Bryce. I loved Hunt. The supporting cast were great. I was really into the mixing of all the lore.- witches, Fae, shifters, sprites, vampires and rubbing along together was fun. The politics was interesting.The setting? *loved*. It gave me Gotham vibes. That kind of dirty, gritty urban locale, moody and grungy. I could see it as a wicked TV series. The plot was (eventually) interesting and twisty and all the good stuff.

But overall, for reasons I cannot totally pinpoint, those individual components went together to create a real struggle for me.

I can definitely say that some of the dialogue is CRINGE as hell. These cool, edgy people aren't as cool and edgy as SJM thinks they are. Like it's a bit try hard. It did not need to be 800 pages long, it needed some more editing. I don't feel like there needed to be quite so many false turns. I also think there were about 3 separate and appropriate end points to this and when I was listening couldn't quite comprehend how there was still half an hour left. 

I will move onto the second one at some point, but I'm not hopeful.

Hmm. As per the first one - this remains average.

I'm still struggling to find distinct narrative voices between Darcy and Tory. Only the plot points are distinguishing them for me. Same with the Heirs tbh. 

My other issue with the writing quality is that first person POV - in trying to describe a scene it just falls awkwardly. No one is describing the way their hair falls for example. 

I am starting to see the comparisons to HP in this book. But I don't mind that - I like the school elements. I'm also enjoying the plot. I'm not sure it needs to move this slowly. Like the action is kind of moderately fast paced but the overall story is moving kind of slowly and I'm not sure I'm going to last all 9 books or however long it is.

All in all, it's doing enough to keep me interested and it's a super easy read, each book isn't like 700 pages long so I'll keep going for now.

𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒚, 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒍𝒍, 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

_______________________________________________

Conclave is not a book I would ever normally even think about picking up. I'm not sure why, particularly, but it isn't something I'd usually gravitate towards.

But I was pleasantly surprised. This is a well plotted, character driven political/religious thriller that kept me turning the pages. I do enjoy a good religious element to a story and I've always been fascinated by the process of electing a new pope, and the pageantry behind it.

It's *very* rare that I don't get the twist, and I'd picked out who the pope was going to be almost straight away. But that twist was not on my radar - so refreshing! And it added a really interesting dynamic to the whole thing.

The year is 2059 and the UK and much of Europe is ruled by a repressive regime called Scion. Scion protects the general public from 'unnaturals', those with the gift of forms of clairvoyance, through violence and brutality against them.

Paige Mahoney has a unique gift - she is a dreamwalker, slicing out a life in the criminal underworld that provides protection and employment for those who would otherwise be wiped out. Until one day, her particular set of skills leads to her capture by Scion, and her discovery of a bigger political plot than she ever could have imagined.

I really enjoyed this. Paige is a fun FMC, she has a great streak of vulnerability about her. I'm looking forward hopefully to spending more time with the Seven Seals and watching Paige come into her power there. The relationship between Paige and Warden was just starting to get interesting so I'm looking forward to that developing 🤞🤞🤞

The world building is brilliant, and I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of what Shannon is going to do with this in book one - the clairvoyance, the different levels and types of voyants - these are the kinds of things I love to see developed. I'm hoping there's going to be lots of incorporated London history too - I love the little mentions - John Donne turning up etc.

It's a 4 star for me at this point in the series - that initial work on the world building is brilliantly done here but it always takes a while to find your feet when it's done well and that usually affects my enjoyment of the first one a little bit.

I'll absolutely be continuing on with this series next year!