ps_stillreading's reviews
204 reviews

If you enjoy magic, bargains with a magical being, atmospheric settings, and a sentient house, then this book will be right up your alley. The ending made me cry, 10/10 highly  recommend. 

 I read this because I watched the first episode of the show and could not wait to find out what happens next. So, yeah. A thousand-page book doesn’t scare me, just as long as the story is interesting and well-written, which Shogun thankfully is. I enjoyed all the layers and subtlety, as well as the rich world that Clavell drops us in. This would have been a five-star read if not for the ending. Call me crazy, but I wanted even more pages. The ending felt too abrupt and it left me feeling frustrated. 

 Sadly, I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would. I was entertained sure, but as a non-rich girl from a third-world country, I couldn’t completely relate. The stories that featured her friend Farly were my favorites. 

 If I were to describe this poetry collection with one word, that would be “haunting.”

The experience of reading Dark Hours by Conchitina Cruz reminded me of 2 am thoughts. When you’re up really late, the world around you is quiet, and you only have your thoughts and your past to keep you company. This is the time you allow yourself to be vulnerable. These are the moments when you allow yourself to ruminate and remember. Alone, you embrace everything that haunts you.

On the surface, the poems in Dark Hours are about the city. About life in the city, how the city can be a place of refuge but also make you feel so lonely. There is a certain thrill about anonymity within a crowd. But take it too far and you begin to see what isn’t there. Who isn’t there. In between the lines, there is this powerful sense of longing. Of missing someone. Of being painfully aware that there is a missing piece.

I never imagined that a poem about rain and flooded streets could make me so emotional. But that is exactly the reaction I had on reading Dear City, the first poem in the collection. Right away, I am asked to shift my perspective. Rain is good, and it is the poorly built city that makes a villain out of rain. This poem also brought me back to my college days, of joking that we are waterproof just because our classes are the last to get suspended when storms come. Forced to walk in floodwaters to get to class, cursing the rain that transforms the street into a filthy river, and lamenting our wet feet. But in the spirit of reframing this in my mind…I guess the city floods forced me to be mindful, to actually be aware of the city I move in. Where I would normally walk quickly without a thought, I had to slow down. Observe. Find the least flooded path. Tread carefully so I don’t slip. Sometimes the rain makes you reconnect with your surroundings, grounding you in the present, in the city you have a love-hate relationship with. Am I overthinking this? Or is it just that poetry is meant to inspire us to think deeper, to feel more?

With a title like Dark Hours, it is no surprise that there are some dark subject matter in these poems. Death, violence, grief, loss, and an abundance of nostalgia are present throughout the collection. The characters in each poem carry with them their histories. Their stories are explorations of people and places that once were, but no longer are.

I was always intimidated by poetry, thinking I was too dense to understand any of it, afraid I wouldn’t get what the poet was trying to say. But in reading Dark Hours, I found it easy to just…feel. Each hauntingly beautiful line made me slow down, made me savor all the images and emotions it conjured up.

My favorites from Dark Hours:
⭐ Dear City
⭐ What is it about tenderness (1)
⭐ Geography Lesson (1)
⭐ I must say this about the city
⭐ Alunsina takes a walk in the rain
⭐ Elegy
⭐ Disappear
⭐ You there
⭐ It has come to this (2)

Rereading Beautiful World, Where Are You in January put me in a reflective mood, which honestly was a perfect fit for the headspace I was in at the time. These characters were navigating their lives, and in reading about them I felt less alone.

This book moves slowly, and that’s part of the reason why I love it so much. You get to exist in the quiet moments, in spaces where it seems nothing of consequence is really happening. The writing style was also interesting to me in that I felt like I was dropping in on moments, rather than following everything these characters were up to. Some people may not like it, but I did. It felt like people-watching or eavesdropping on a random conversation in public but in book form. Of course, there are moments when Sally Rooney allows us deeper into the minds of these, but even then there is distance between us and them. 

In this book, there is space for the mundane. Waiting for your date to arrive. Buying groceries. The repetitive nature of your work. Scrolling on your phone. Again, there is this sense of detachment here, but these things were neither good nor bad, they just…are. It made me think of all the times I was on auto-pilot and doing things without really registering much. Not that I think we should always connect deeply with every single thing we do, but I think a lot of us (or maybe it’s just me) are guilty of going through the motions most of the time. But hey, our attention, energy, and time are valuable resources so it’s only realistic and sustainable that we choose when to fully engage and connect with other people and the world around us.

As much as Rooney keeps us an arm’s length away from her characters, we also see them come alive. This happens when they are together or in the email exchanges between Alice and Eileen. Surrounded by people who know them, the characters become more real to us too. Suddenly, we are no longer strangers watching them from a distance. We become invited guests into their lives for a few brief moments and we are in on all the jokes until we are once again pushed to the periphery and reduced to onlookers. 

Sometimes, the book feels like a script or a screenplay. Maybe it’s the theatre kid in me, but I lived for those moments. They are there for a reason, asking us to slow down, to observe, to take in these little scenes that often go unnoticed. My favorite time that Rooney does this is in chapter 15. The way she begins this chapter, with a single plate and knife in the sink, the noise of the city outside impersonal. Then as the chapter closes there are two bowls, two spoons, and a glass marked by lip balm. Musical laughter and quiet conversations. The empty apartment, Simon alone. Later, Simon and Eileen together. I don’t know how to explain it in a better way other than I found this part so beautiful.

This BWWAY reread has brought me so much comfort. It also gave me a gentle reminder that although life can get messy and sh*tty, there will always be moments of beauty, joy, and love, and there will always be people you can share those moments with. 

 I gave this book 5 stars when I first read it in 2021, and I still give it 5 stars on my reread 💖