hollyway's reviews
524 reviews

*read for book club*

Sadly this really, really did not work for me. The structure, the prose style, the approach to character; all the complete opposite of my taste. Even the story itself didn't really offer anything new unless this is your first foray into this subject matter. On a technical level it's fine, it's competent. But it's not for me.

God knows why I decided to spend my afternoon/evening reading this from start to finish instead of making progress on any of the many books I'm already reading, but here we are! Honestly though I think it was a pretty apt way to consume this book which spans the course of just a few days and takes a steep dive into the surreal. Despite the objectively horrific subject matter, I didn't really find this all that visceral. Maybe it's just my mood today or maybe it's because Kenji as witness to these horrors is somewhat detached and passive. I don't think that's a bad thing, either. I was engaged and intrigued the whole way through and am left with a lot to mull over. I also found it to be interesting purely as a time capsule of 1990s Tokyo. So, didn't grab me by the throat or anything but I had a really solid time reading this.

Man, this is definitely one of those novels whose cultural legacy is extremely incongruous with the actual content of the story. I was under the impression that Holden Caulfield was a sinister character, the original incel... but he's approximately as fucked in the head as your average depressed sixteen year old. His mind is not a pleasant place to be but I just felt sad for him. I also found his relationship with his little sister to be really touching.

I can't decide if it was a missed opportunity or a dodged bullet that I didn't read this as an insufferable depressed teen as it definitely would have become my entire personality.

Somehow even better than I remembered. Say what you will about old sport F. Scott as a person (honestly I don't know all that much) but christ was he a master of his craft. Gorgeous prose, effervescent characters, wit, philosophy and no shortage of emotional impact. The fact that he is able to do all of this and more in so few pages is endlessly astounding.

Reaffirmed as an all-time favourite and I think I will have to make a point of revisiting some of his other works as well next year.

This is one of those reviews that's going to sound a lot more brutal than a 3 star review should be. This is because my expectations for this being a new favourite were SO high that my disappointment stings SO bad; and because this book is so widely loved and critically acclaimed, I want to explain in a bit more detail than usual the reasons why this didn't work for me. Not because I feel the need to *defend* my opinion, but just to add my voice into the mix to hopefully save someone with similar taste to me from wasting their time on something that just isn't going to be for them. So here we go!

1. For whatever reason, I really bumped up against Jemisin's writing style. It read very YA to me, which isn't an inherently bad thing, just not my taste. It had that sarcastic, flippant tone a lot of the time that comes off really juvenile, and then at other times when it was going for something more epic and dark it kind of just felt like it was trying too hard. I feel like I'm coming up with descriptors that sound a bit more mean than I intend, but I've honestly been racking my brain for more a more objective way to explain what it is about this narrative voice that rubs me up the wrong way and this is the best I've been able to come up with. Ultimately it's just vibes.

2. Related to the voice and YA feel was the use of made up words which - try as I might to ignore them - pulled me out of the story every damn time. Which happened a lot, because my god did Jemisin cram them in on every page. So many scenes which might have otherwise been actually effectively harrowing were genuinely ruined for me by the characters exclaiming with their silly little invented swear words instead of just saying fuck. (Also they start saying fuck halfway through anyway so you did this for what??) (Also also: I swear my gorge rose every time I had to read the word "runny-sack")

3. This one, as always, is the most important factor for me: the characters. I won't spoil what I guess was supposed to be a huge twist, which I assumed to be the case by like chapter two, but suffice to say that the structure of this book was in my opinion unnecessarily convoluted and made it very difficult for any of the POVs to feel developed. I didn't find one single character compelling, nor were there any interesting relationship dynamics to explore. The relationship developments that did occur felt shallow and unearned. Each of these POVs could have been a full novel in its own right, but instead we get such a condensed version of events that everything felt inconsequential. This feeling is exacerbated again by the fact that the structure creates a circular feeling rather than a forward momentum.

4. I can't make a definitive judgement on the world-building etc. because honestly I'm not a very visual reader, but just for me personally, I wasn't especially impressed by those aspects of the book. They weren't bad, but they just didn't wow me. I also just didn't get that sense of expansiveness and lived-in-ness that I get from the fantasy worlds I love. But hey, the world-building is what I always heard these books lauded for and so it obviously works for many and if you're more likely to latch onto these elements you might absolutely love it. The magic system is also pretty cool, and there's a fair bit of action which, if you like action for action's sake, you could appreciate. Sadly I'm only able to engage with action scenes if I give a shit about the characters in them, otherwise my eyes just glaze over which is what happened here.

5. I'm genuinely so happy for the people who love and adore this book/series, but in this case I can definitively say I just don't get it. I do understand that when this first came out it was groundbreaking as far as black and queer representation in fantasy, and that the world-building it featured was much more inventive than what the genre was used to. All of that helps me understand why it was huge a decade ago, but I struggle to understand why it is still being held up as the pinnacle of literary fantasy today. I gave it 3 stars because I think it's perfectly competent at being what it is, even if what it is isn't for me; but while I can understand why someone would enjoy this book, the reverence it inspires absolutely baffles me. It's always fascinating to find yourself on the outside in this way, feeling like you read a completely different book to everyone else. Doesn't make any of us right or wrong, just another reminder of the wonderful subjectivity of art.

This definitely didn't blow me away like it did so many others, but it's good! Very warm and spirited, and its mass appeal is no mystery. I will say, I found Ove's wife to be a bit too saintly and the writing style got a bit too repetitive at times. Also I didn't cry - sorry! 

Henry Miller is undeniably a skilled writer but the way he applies those skills does nothing for me. It's interesting comparing this with Anaïs Nin's  Delta of Venus which despite its vulgarity had many moments of tender human insight that made it feel worth reading to me. Tropic of Cancer on the other hand is just miserable. The misogyny of the characters was also just exhausting. A certifiable Favourite Book of the Absolute Worst Guy You Know.

(3 stars may seem too high of a rating for this review lol but these days I tend to reserve 1 or 2 stars for books that are actively, incompetently bad; my star rating is about more than my personal enjoyment level reading the book.)

Compelling and quietly devastating from beginning to end. I was randomly thinking about Breasts and Eggs the other day, how that was one of the standout books I read last year and how much I loved the feeling of Kawakami's writing, so when I was browsing the book shop today and came across Heaven I decided to buy it. I don't know if I've ever bought, started and finished a book all in one day before, but there's a first time for everything, I guess!

This is a great memoir. As someone whose prior knowledge of Chelsea Manning was extremely peripheral, I found this to be very accessible and informative about the facts while also effectively conveying Chelsea's emotional experience of the events. 

This definitely further cemented Wilde as one of my all-time favourite writers. The wit, the ornate beauty of the prose, the inventiveness of the storytelling. It all makes for such an immersive, magical experience.