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Bunny | 23 | they/them | Currently reading The Deep
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Blue Moon Hounds
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I really did want to love this book. It has all of the things that I love: the arctic, horror, and queer vibes.
But I struggled to connect with the story very deeply. The sections are all very short, and they are sectioned off from each other in a format choice that made me feel like I was jumping around a lot, it also kind of felt at points that we were jumping over the actual interesting points to the aftermath. It left me struggling to connect very deeply with the stories.
I also felt like the side plots weren't given enough depth. For example, the Leviathan subplot felt like it disappeared partway through and then was somewhat wrapped up by the end. Also there were a Lot of characters to be aware of, and it is quite hard to keep track of them all and all of their back stories.
The characterisation of Day was great though, I really enjoyed him. Not enough main characters are useless, emotionally broken incredibly repressed middle aged men. Also I don't know if I was reading into it but it felt like he had sexual chemistry with like 90% of the men in the book. I feel like that was just a part of how deeply repressed he was. And the slow pulling back of Stevens' character built very well.
I do wish it was more streamlined or more even in the details for all of the subplots. I think it teetered on the edge of leaving things to the reader's imagination and just not giving enough information, and for a few points it tipped over.
I do still want to read Wilkes's other novel, though, and I think I would want to read more of their work in the future.
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A little bit of a backlog for my reviews, I finished this book back in February.
I picked this book up after a recommendation on a podcast, I think. And overall I think the book was okay. It wasn't bad, but I don't think it ever moved me, either.
Before the Fall is about an ordinary man who finds himself one of two survivors of a plane crash into the ocean, and finds himself at once a kind of celebrity, a hero for saving the only other survivor, a four year old boy. But it isn't long before people begin to ask the questions: why was he on the plane to begin with, and what exactly caused the plane crash?
So yeah. It was okay. Scott as a main character kind of felt very beige. I genuinely had to look up his name to remember it because I could not recall it on my own. And the mystery of why the plane went down, I kind of knew what it was by like, page 200 but it's "revealed" on the final pages and I was kinda like "Yeah, thought so." I know not all plots are meant to be twist endings but it felt like that was what the writer wanted to build to, and there was just one scene which felt out of place and really clues you in to the real culprit.
A big portion of the book is about Bill who is a right wing news anchor who takes it upon himself to be the avenging angel of his boss who died in the crash, and asks these conspiracy theories of why and how the plane went down, pointing all sorts of fingers and he is about as crooked as he sounds. And that was a big frustrating point to me. He's a right wing news anchor and he might be tapping phone lines, I already know he's not good, but I wanted more dimensionality to him. I wanted him to have Some kind of complexity for the amount of the book we spend hanging out with him and he just didn't. Like even scenes where he's with his godson it's clear he's trying to muscle in to get some kind of story, when these could have been gentler moments that showed his humanity. For him to just be. Exactly what you think he is. It kind of meant he just didn't change and I didn't know why we spent so much time with him.
That being said, I liked the sections of the book that showed you the history of the characters who died, up until the point they get on that plane.
But then there's a lot of the book that is like, long monologues about media and how its an invasion of privacy ect ect which just felt very self indulgent of the writer.
So yeah, well written, but the characters were very static.
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Favorite Book of February 2024
Sometimes I find a book that seems like it is written exactly for me.
I loved the Gothic horror story and had great fun in recognizing different elements from arctic expeditions I've read about before.
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For Reasons not specified I found myself at a bus stop in Richmond at like 1:30am in mid February which was a pretty good place to finish The Left Hand of Darkness.
I found this book very slow to get through, not in an unenjoyable way, but it just felt like I had to take my time with it, reading a bit of it at a time. I enjoyed the world it set up, and I enjoyed Genly's movement through it, and how he analysed the people he found himself with. I also enjoyed Estraven's point of view chapters where you could kind of make sense of Genly in the context of the world as well.
Obviously the high point of the book is Genly and Estraven's walk through the ice together. It really developed their characters and their relationship and this sense of sadness in the looking back from Genly. It was very tender, their interactions together.
I'm still kind of getting used to reading science fiction, I struggly sometimes to fully embrace the world to begin with, but I think I will be reading more of Ursula Le Guin
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Little bit of catch up for my reviewing.
I read this book around this time last month, I got it because I put it on my gift list but I do not remember where I got the recommendation for it from. It feels like it just showed up.
And it was a very odd little book, about a woman who takes a sudden holiday from her life, waiting to meet a man she knows she's going to meet but doesn't know who he is. You become aware fairly early on this woman ends up being murdered.
It's a strange book and like the title, you wonder who is really in the driver's seat for the whole time.
It has made me more curious in picking up more work by Muriel Spark, it was strange and distinctive and a very unique style, and I'm interested to see if it is so throughout the rest of her books.
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Sequel to Days Without End, and the reason why I reread Days Without End to begin with.
Man. I wanted to love it. I really did. I love Winona's character, I'm so glad we got to learn her original name before it was changed, and more nuance in her ideas of this family she now has.
The plot was just so wavy. I didn't feel a huge amount of urgency, nothing really felt like it was that impactful, the reactions seemed so dilluted down. Winona just kind of drifted between one thing or the other, it didn't feel like she particularly cared about anything, which made it kind of difficult to invest in.
Overall it was very prettily written but I didn't end up able to full connect to it the way I wanted.
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First read finished of 2024, this is a holdover that I'd been reading from 2023, in preparation to read the sequel.
I remember first reading it in about two days, and adoring it. It took me longer to read it this time, partially I think because I knew the plot already so I wasn't reading to find more.
I still find the characters incredibly interesting, and I really do find Thomas's gender presentation an interesting topic. But also I read it this time with more knowledge of American history which made it more poignant I think. It covers a lot of difficult ground in American early history.
I don't quite know why I didn't enjoy it so much. There was something about the plot and it's formation, it was quite slow. The main character is very passive, he just kind of drifts.
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This was a 2023 read but I am bad at updating.
This was such a haunting book. It's about an Anishinaabe reservation in Northern Canada and its community as a kind of apocalypse descends. The community has to rely on each other to survive, and that is called into question as supplies dwindle, and as people from outside begin to show up.
It's quite a short book for the kind of story it is telling, but it is so full of details, like how the main character and his wife are trying to re-engage with their language and culture in their names for their children, and how they're parenting them. It also never tells you what exactly caused this apocalypse and in a lot of ways that isn't important, what's important is this community. The quiet horror of things going slowly wrong and the kind of climax at the end of the novel were very well paced.
I also really liked reading a differing perspective of end of the world stories, it's directly commented on by one of the elders of the community- that the apocalypse already happened for them when they were forced off their land and into the residential schools.
Moon of the Crusted Snow said a lot about community and society and a lot about what has already happened to Indigenous people.
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Oh, Wilder Girls... I so wanted to love this book entirely. I loved the concept: a girls boarding school on an island cut off in quarantine because of a virus that has decimated the school's population, that has caused growths on those infected.
It was like a Resident Evil game crossed with Lord of the Flies. It was such a cool, horrific idea. But it felt like the writer just gave up 2/3 of the way through. Characters were introduced to not actually serve any purpose, the character motivations were confused, and the whole ending just felt underwhelming. Even basic things like the romantic relationship between two of the main characters was underdone. It was so frustrating.
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#bookblr#books#reading#bookish#book photography#book review#tbrbusterchallenge#books read in 2023#queer books
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Reading some classic science fiction.
I liked the concept I think more than I liked the actual book, but I know there's several films out there based on it so I will have some happy watching.
I find reading books from the 50s and 60s they all have this style that feels so odd to me, I cannot place exactly what it is about it, but I struggle a lot to really get invested in their characters. That being said, there were parts of the book that were chilling. The discovery of the growing replicas just in a closet in your house, the scene where everyone puts a different button on to show who's a pod person.
Also like, spoiler warning I guess for the ending, but the fact that everyone just continues to live in that town, human people and pod people alike, and the town just has a high rate of early mortality in the years after as all the pod people die out was the most horrifying thing to me? The idea of these, essentially 4 people, continuing to live in this town knowning everyone else is no longer human, and you just live like that? The people who move into the town who are confused as to why people are dying so young? How is the town still running now all of these pod people have been robbed of their one purpose? I'm gunna be thinking about that for a while.
I found the actual ending of the invasion a bit of an anticlimax. They all just leave. I guess it wasn't totally out of left field but it did feel a bit "oh.."
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soo. id love to know what the best book that you’ve read in 2023 has been!!
#the well of loneliness#the amount i personally identified with stephen even though its been over 100 years#and the pain and hopes expressed through it were so heartfelt and my heart broke for her
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Firstly when I saw this book's cover I thought the sat down figure was in a wheelchair, so the book disappointed me from the moment I realised it wasn't a 20s mystery with a disabled main character.
The book was. Fine. It was fun. I had previously DNF'd it because I found the writing bad, but on rereading it I have no clue what my prior issue was, so it shows its always worth giving a book 2 goes.
It's definitely a romance first, mystery second, which I think was part of why I didn't love it as much. The mystery plot went a little thin. Like "oh what if it's a chemical weapon?" and then it definitely is a chemical weapon. No real mystery. I will say the writer is clearly very skilled in writing romance, they've got all those beats really tight.
It is well written, the characters are fun. But yeah, romance first is not really my vibe.
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I was influenced by the hubub around the film coming out, and I reread the Hunger Games this year anyway, coming back to it as an adult and was in awe of Suzanne Collins' worldbuilding and themes that I had to read the prequel. I think reading it in the current climate of violence and colonialism, Collins' themes and her statement on war and society was very powerful.
The building of the Capitol in its post-war era, showing why they hated the districts so much, what exactly they had to live through was really impactful. I remember when the book was announced I thought it was a really random choice of year for the games, but it makes so much sense in the context as it shows the transition from the games being seen as something from war to the games being a commercial success. I loved that Lucy Gray was so different to Katniss, and I also appreciated that we never get her point of view, only Snow's perception of her, that she stays this mystery.
I found the characters so interesting, as well. With Sejanus having this breakdown of conscience and identity, and Doctor Gaul's whole creepy thing she had going on. I liked how there was this disconnect between Snow's selfish and snobby internal thoughts and his presentation to others, it was a really clever way to show this fakeness around his personality. The detail that I was really obsessed with is when Highbottom says that when he came up with the games it was just a hypothetical. Just a small detail about his position, and it really made me think so much, and it's part of what I love about Collins' writing is these small details she just perfectly drops in.
As much as I loved the first two thirds of the book, the final third let me down a little bit. It felt like a different book, and like it was too rushed. It was such a sudden change and things happened so quickly I wish that there was more time to spend on it.
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A little history book because I have not read a lot of non fiction this year.
This was an interesting book about the idea of trans history, different historical figures and how do you form a history when there were no words for things until recently. It discusses a lot of different cultures and the historical ideas of genders that existed in different cultures and society.
It was interesting and I enjoyed reading it, I love the idea that I've learned from queer history books is that people don't have to belong to just one type of history or community, and that people can be important to various categories of the LGBTQ community, and gave me a bigger sense of what solidarity is.
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I've meant to read this book for a while. I know the author so it was interesting from a perspective of we both used to share the same diagnosis before having it changed, so while it is about the BPD diagnosis, having that retrospect on it is interesting.
In some ways I wish that I had had this book as a teenager, to read of teenagers with my life experiences which isn't something I had before. In other ways I am glad I got to it now because there were parts of the book that were incredibly triggering and I'm not sure I could have handled it when I was more ill.
The prose is honest about being mentally ill, and I enjoyed the writing. The characters were all warm and lovely. I liked the perspective of seeing people struggling and wanting to help.
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Haruhi Suzumiya returns to life after almost a decade away. I have always loved Haruhi and I think the actual story and the aspects of it are so so unique.
I read the full backlogue of Haruhi novels like, 4 years ago?? And I kind of wish I'd reread them before. The timeline is insane.
But I'm ngl the stories were... kind of more boring than I was hoping. They were very ordinary, with no risk of Haruhi almost destroying the universe. And the final story has like a 20 page thesis on aspects of the detective novel that just kept going on. And the stakes were, negligible if non existant. On the positives: there was a new character introduced which is always a delight, and some development of Tsuruya, who is still a mystery, but it's nice to see her developed more.
I'm hoping this is the writer dipping his toe back into writing Haruhi, that there are going to be more installments, and perhaps, an ending to the series.
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#bookblr#books#reading#bookish#book photography#book review#the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya#haruhi suzumiya#books read in 2023
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When Mina's car breaks down on the edge of the forest, she has no choice but to try and find her way through. As darkness begins to fall, Mina is saved by a woman calling her into this house, as strange creatures begin to scream. They are safe in the house, so long as they let the creatures watch them, in the night.
It was a very strange novel with a slow building up of the horror - you don't actually see the creatures outside for the largest portion of the novel, their threat is known by what they leave behind. The withholding was especially clever - the novel was written very well, with small little details thrown in. The last part of the novel was especially chilling with these aspects. My own downpoint was I didn't enjoy the very end of it, I just thought it was a little bit overdramatic for the subtle story that had been going on.
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