Aldiss has a great ability to invent worlds and cultures, and a near-complete lack of ability to write characters. After a prelude that followed a young boy on a 1000-light-years-distant planet as he survived the loss of his father, made his way to a new town, became a priest, shed his priesthood, and founded a town, the story rapidly devolves into what feels like an anthropology textbook that someone has scribbled emotional parentheticals into.

The appendices were the only interesting part of the book.

This book is terrifically sad to read because you know that Ali dies at the end. It casts a shadow over every moment, and even the cruel things she says that made her a hated character in the series somehow come across as weak and desperate, the actions of a girl whose life has never been her own. It's a great addition to the canon.

I really struggled to figure out why I didn't like this book. The characters are funny, the violence is violent, the threat is significant. And then about 75% into the book I realized I didn't like it because it feels like nothing matters. The characters don't care about saving the world, they don't care about their own lives -- they aren't fighting for or against anything, they're just fighting because it's what they do. The lack of intention makes it really hard to care what happens to the characters or the world.

This book was exhausting. It's a coming-of-age, now it's a romance, now it's about friendship, now it's about school, now it's about romance, now it's friendship, oh that's right it's Paris, let's throw some scenery in -- this book tries to tackle eighty genres and subsequently fails at every one. I feel like I ran a poorly planned marathon, not a book. Anna and Etienne are both idiots, and I guess in that regard they deserve each other.

A perfect October read. Cas is a teenage ghost killer, moving around the country with his mom hunting down violent spirits and killing them so that they can't hurt any more people. But his real goal is avenging his father's death at the hands of a ghost - a feat that is looking harder by the minute as he finds himself up against a ghost he has no idea how to beat.

It's gory and exciting and definitely unusual -- I've never read a story with such visceral ghosts. I love that it's not a typical "parents are ruining my life I have to go save the world" story. Definitely recommend for a spooky mood.

Louise Rennison always manages to capture the awkwardness of teenager-dom in a perfectly outrageous way, so you are reading along going "oh no oh no help this is how it felt to be a teenager" and then you finish the book very glad you are an adult.