Review: Dune by Frank Herbert

 

Rating: ⭐⭐

This book was a major disappointment. It tries to sell itself as one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time but falls far short of that title.

 

The main thing that annoyed me about this book is the description of every character’s thoughts. I feel like it shows the weakness of Herbet’s world-building and character development that he has to describe every thought of every character, rather than letting the reader figure it out for themselves and, much like some filmmaking, has to tell us rather than show us the motivations and schemes of the characters.

 

As well, this book took a long time to get going; at least 200 pages or so. This could be justified if those pages built up well to the rest of the book, but it didn’t. The story overall felt like it was going nowhere and the climax was just tagged on the end in a rush.

 

Finally, the treatment of women in this book was disheartening. Even though many of the female characters were shown to have immense skill sets, it seemed like they weren’t effectively utilised and many female characters were just pushed to the side. The Princess who had been telling us so much of the story via the chapter headings was shown as a commodity to be bought or sold, though clearly from her historical writings on the events of the book, she was an intelligent and thoughtful character. It’s a real shame this couldn’t be shown more.

 

The only thing I really enjoyed about this book is the stark contrast of the world to our own and the scientific discoveries and developments that allowed survival in such a place.

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Review: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

 

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Looking back to when I first read this book, I can’t believe I only gave it three stars. Now it definitely sits at a five and the worst thing? I didn’t write a review the first time I read it so I don’t known why I wasn’t the biggest fan of it.

 

On this read though, I really, really enjoyed it. The decisions of the characters made sense and their actions were justifiable. I think in my first read I might not have understood the sudden change in Tamlin’s behaviour but, having read this book right after reading A Court of Thorns and Roses (unlike the last time when I’d had a year’s break between the two), it makes more sense to me now. I understand that after three/four months Under the Mountain, Feyre and Tamlin would have been suffering massively as a result of that trauma and hence their actions might not seem logical without that prior knowledge of their suffering.

 

I also loved getting to see some action sequences with Feyre now as a High Fae, including the use of her magical abilities. Although the final showdown with Hybern was a bit disappointing in terms of the action, the other parts of this book in which it was explored make up for it.

 

The development of friendships and relationships in this book was also done well. I was convinced that the members of the Inner Circle of the Night Court were friends and I was definitely convinced of the developing relationship between Rhys and Feyre.

 

I think it says a lot about how much I liked this book that I was upset that I couldn’t get my hands on the next one in the series and am discontented at having to make do with only three sample chapters until I can get a copy.

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Review: Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

 

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

My feelings on this book are very mixed. Before reading it, I had seen so many people raving about how great this book was and up to around page 150, I felt the same. But then something changed. The story seemed to lose viability because the conflicts didn’t seem to warrant the reactions. It felt like the author had written out a timeline of when certain relationship milestones had to be reached and then to make Chloe and Red’s relationship fit that, conflict was added in to make up the time in between.

 

A spoiler example of this was the fall out on the ‘bar crawl’. I knew that they would need to make up with each other before the camping trip they had planned for the next weekend and predictably the plot followed that so that they were back together for the next weekend. It made the relationship feel fake and too planned out.

 

Having said that, the representation of physical and mental illness in this book was refreshing. The recognition that when you find a partner, no matter how amazing they are, it doesn’t make you recover and that medication and therapy are important parts of navigating such illnesses.

 

The premise of this book was also really fun and interesting. The prologue was a really good opener and set up the book in the best possible way. I’m really sad I didn’t enjoy this book more because when I first started reading it, I thought it would be an easy five stars, but such is life.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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