‘Ninth House’ is a soft magic system masquerading as a hard magic system. Mix into that a protagonist who's inconsistent, a lack of world-building structure and some ridiculous moments, and you've got yourself a frustrating read.
Short story collection review: ‘The Birds & other stories’ by Daphne Du Maurier
This might actually be my favorite short story collection of all time. Daphne Du Maurier is a fucking revelation and I'm appalled at myself for not reading this uncanny, intelligent and altogether bizarre collection earlier.
Book review: ‘The Institute’ by Stephen King
The theme for ‘The Institute’ seems to be that great events turn on small axes. For decades, children showing TP (telepathic) or TK (telekinetic) abilities have been stolen from their homes and transported to the Institute Facility, and subjected to tests and experiments to increase their powers. To escape, they must learn to work together to overturn the evil that captured them.
Book review: ‘Mexican Gothic’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
As is typical in proper Gothic fiction, the environment in which the story is set is as important as the story itself. The plot itself is rather simple - our young protagonist, Catalina, goes to stay with her cousin who has sent a number of worrying letters, claiming her husband, Virgil Doyle, is trying to kill her. Catalina travels to ‘High House’, their mansion in the mountains, and finds the Doyle family to be uptight, weird and at times, disturbing.
Book review: ‘Middlegame’ by Seanan McGuire
Roger and Dodger are twins. Roger has a way with words, and Dodger a way with numbers. But they have no idea of their real connection - all they know is that one day, from across the world, they start to communicate telepathically. McGuire has created a solid and intriguing fantasy world, a dark but hopeful twist of science and gods and quantum entanglement and powers related to math and words.
Book review: ‘The Dream Factory’ by Elizabeth MacNeal
Much like Silas’ delicate butterflies, suspended in presentation, each character tries to hold onto this attachment to beauty, but all find that it starts to decay as the story becomes more intertwined and the stakes increase. Silas takes the most drastic action to try to suspend and enjoy that beauty - and that’s what really ramps up the pace of the novel at the end.
Book review: ‘Zone One’ by Colson Whitehead
‘Zone One’ is a zombie novel with braaaaAAAaaaaaains. By that I mean it takes the well-celebrated, detail-oriented style of Whitehead and attaches it to typically what is quite an action-packed genre. While it makes for a pretty interesting literary performance dressed in the zombie genre, the focus on the slow reality of a world (new advertisements and cleanup crews) after an outbreak meant there was little fast-paced action - leaving a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I'll stop.
Book review: ‘Your fault’ by Andrew Cowan
As far as coming-of-age stories go, ‘Your fault’ is a great literary contributor to the genre. But as far as my enjoyment of the plot or the characters goes - I felt like it could have done with some extra ‘story’.
Book review: ‘The Memory Police’ 密やかな結晶 by Yoko Ogawa
The Memory Police is one of those rare masterpieces - tackling a massive concept and philosophising on multiple important issues while not sacrificing the humanity of its characters. And on top of that, written in such a Kafka-like dream state that it leaves you, as the reader, feel totally untethered to the ground. It really unnerved me.
Book review: ‘Where the Crawdads sing’ by Delia Owens
This absolutely captivating novel follows a lonely young protagonist Kya, who has been abandoned by her family in the swamplands of North Carolina at just 6 years old. Her mother leaves the house carrying a suitcase and doesn't look back - followed by her siblings. Baby Kya asks herself: “She knew Pa was the reason they all left; what she wondered was why no one took her with them.”
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