Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney

 

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but I didn’t expect what it actually was. I knew that it covered a time span of years and so I was really surprised by the size at first; I had been expecting at least a 400-page book.

 

I think I had been trying so hard to avoid spoilers as well that I failed to look for trigger warnings for this book. Mental illness (depression and anxiety), suicide, eating disorders, physical abuse, mental/emotional abuse and sexual abuse are all major triggers for this book. Thankfully I was alright reading these, but I know some people who would not be. I’ll probably find loads of posts about Normal People with the trigger warnings, but I had no clue about them going into the book.

 

The other thing that really shocked me was the lack of speech marks. In a way, I’m glad that I didn’t know this before reading because I feel like it might have put me off the book before I’d given it a chance. Whilst it did put me off for the first fifty or so pages, I ended up really enjoying the lack of speech marks because it removed the temptation to skip paragraphs and just focus on the speech.

 

Overall, I gave this book four stars because of the realness and emotional connection I felt towards the characters; I was really invested in their story. This wasn’t a five star read for me because I would have preferred it to be longer and there wasn’t that something that five star reads have.

 

Connell and Marianne remind me of the ‘relationships as lines’ that I have seen. They come together and drift apart, end up wound together tightly but separate, only to find that they can’t stay that way. It’s the most accurate description of those lines that I’ve ever read, and I love it for that.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: Sherlock Holmes - The Complete Novels and Stories Volume II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

With any compilation of stories, there will be ones you like more and ones you like less. The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box and The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane stand out as really good stories, but others were less interesting or highlighted the time the books were written in negatively. This is particularly the case with racist descriptions of black men, suggesting their inferior intelligence and portraying them as thugs. It speaks to the early 20^th century when these stories were being written, but it’s not okay to just pass over the fact and pretend that it doesn’t matter.

 

Having said that, the friendship between Holmes and Watson was lovely to read about and made me tempted to push up my rating. Holmes is often seen as cold and calculating but in these stories, you could also see how much he valued Watson and his opinions. It is a shame in a way that there aren’t more stories, but with the countless adaptations there’s plenty still to dive into if the temptation arises.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: Anne of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery

My rating: ⭐⭐

This book was sweet, though I didn’t see much point in its existence. With the other add in book, Anne of Windy Willows, it filled a clear gap in Anne’s life that had been missed in the original books. However, with this book, it filled a much more random amount of time, from long after Anne’s House of Dreams had ended to a few months before Rainbow Valley starts. I was that interested in that allotted time, or maybe I would have been more interested in it if the book had been different.

By that I mean that similarly to Rainbow Valley, this book followed scores of perspectives and I didn’t much care for most of them. I think had I not read Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside this book would have been confusing because of the sheer number of children who had a perspective in this story, yet this book is supposed to be set before them…

Aside from that, it was a sweet enough book about the trials and tribulations of childhood, though childhood from an advantaged perspective, and touched on the issues a marriage can face as children and work take over, which I thought was interesting. Overall though, there wasn’t enough to tie this book together to justify its creation, though at least not everyone loved Anne! (Though of course most people did.)

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: Anne of Windy Willows by L. M. Montgomery

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Like a lot of the books in the Anne of Green Gables series, this is another simple, light read. The threading of a continual storyline was a bit better throughout this book rather than just following Anne through a random period, thinking particularly of her neighbour Elizabeth, as happened in the other books around this time in Anne’s life. However, it still wasn’t overly impressive.

As with the previous books, how much Anne is liked by everyone is more than a bit irksome and even the people that don’t like her eventually love her! The singular time Anne made an enemy by her actions, it is made to seem like that character is completely unreasonable because of course, no one can hate Anne for an actual reason. (The urge to roll my eyes is overwhelming.)

Aside from that, a complete lack of Gilbert’s presence in this book was a bit disappointing. It might speak to the time, but by missing out that part of Anne’s life, both in terms of visits and omitting parts of her letters, it just made the book a bit lacking and less realistic.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’m not a reader of thrillers typically and I think that this book is a great introduction to the genre for me. For it being one of the biggest books of the year when it was published, I somehow managed to avoid any spoilers and even knowing what the plot was about; I wouldn’t have it any other way. This book is fast paced with plenty of twists and turns and it isn’t afraid to make the reader hate the main characters. There was a time when I was reading this book that I was tempted to think that Nick and Amy deserved each other, but now, despite his flaws, I really do feel sorry for Nick. I can’t wait to see what else Gillian Flynn has to offer in her other books.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In high fantasy, sometimes the process of setting up a new world can be quite arduous; it can put me off as a reader. Thankfully that was not the case for ‘The Priory of the Orange Tree’. It also did a good job of subtly setting up some aspects of the story, such as when Ead hinted that the story of the Damsel was different in the South and it is only chapters later that we get to hear that story. It makes it feel less like the book is “info-dumping” and allows us to find out some of the nuances of this world at the same time as the characters.

There can also be an issue in high fantasy of creating such a vast world and large number of characters that a reader can lose track of each individual storyline (not to call out A Song of Ice and Fire but …). This book strayed very close to that line, but it only ever did so with minor characters who served to enrich the world by making it seem more like real life, so on that point it can be forgiven.

The story itself was captivating. There was a clear purpose behind each of the characters and the motivation behind their actions led to logical outcomes for the rest of the plot. There can be a tendency to draw out storylines longer than their natural course, such as in Crescent City, but even though this is a long book (for me), I don’t think the story was stretched further than it should have been. If anything, I would have liked to see a bit more of the story from Tané’s perspective as, second to Ead, I found her segments the most enthralling.

As for the main romance in this book, I loved it. There was a slow development that made it feel very natural and it was great to read about a w/w relationship as LGBTQ+ relationships can be rare in fantasy and even when they are present, it is often m/m. Importantly, the relationships in this book didn’t detract from the main story and it wasn’t the quest of every character to find a romantic relationship, which is true to real life. Sometimes with such extended plots, though this is mainly the case for TV shows and movies, writers try to pair up every character at the conclusion and this book beautifully shows how this is unnecessary.

It is hard to find much I didn’t like about this book. As I previously mentioned, more of the story from Tané’s perspective would have been welcome, as would have more exploration into the magic systems and harnessing of the powers possessed by certain characters. But, overall, this book just makes me excited to read more of Shannon’s work though I’m sad my time in the world of ‘The Priory of the Orange Tree’ is over.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: The FlatShare by Beth O'Leary

My rating: ⭐⭐

I loved the first fifty or so pages of this book. The premise was something exciting and different and I was really looking forward to reading the rest of this book.

Unfortunately, I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as I thought I would after the first fifty pages. I think it was partly because of me; my mental health experienced a large dip whilst reading this book and as a result I would leave it for days at a time, or longer. So, maybe with less fragmented reading I would enjoy this book more, but I’m still not entirely sure.

The way time moved in this book I found to be disconcerting. Days and weeks would pass on single pages as a result of the notes Tiffy and Leon were sending, whilst other times less than an hour would pass over five or six chapters. I think it was a natural consequence of having the two perspectives, but I felt really taken out of a moment when the perspective would shift and as a result, I didn’t really believe in the ‘chemistry’ between Tiffy and Leon. I tend to enjoy third person narration more and this is a book where I think I would have preferred it, especially so scenes would lack the jarring breaks.

Maybe I’ll give this book another go in future but I can’t be sure I’ll really want to.