Category: Book Reviews

Book Review | The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Posted October 11, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Make a wish. . . .

Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.

But be careful what you wish for. . . .

Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy.

For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind” Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever.

. . . You might just get it.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Bookish Books Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

The Reason

It’s a bookish book and I heard this was a smart one with riddles and puzzles.

The Quotes

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

“Always be quiet when a heart is breaking.”

“They tell us taking care of children is the most important job you can do, and then they pay us like it’s the least important.”

“Always remember that the only wishes ever granted are the wishes of brave children who keep on wishing even when it seems no one is listening because someone always is.”

My Thoughts

This book was disappointing, but to be fair, it’s because I had such high expectations. I had heard that this was a smart book with lots of riddles and puzzles and solving things, and it does, but not in the way I expected where the reader has to do some of the work to solve the mystery. Most of the puzzles were solved on the page by the characters and they’re all quite straighforward and done quickly. Which is fine, but just not what I had in mind when people say it’s a smart book. Especially since it’s categorized as adult fiction.

This book reads more like a middle grade novel, and I think I would’ve tempered my expectations more appropriately if it was categorized as such, and I think it’s amazing as a middle grade novel. I don’t know if it was mis-categorized, but it seems too simple and basic for an adult mystery. I expected DaVinci Code levels of puzzles but got middle-grade level of book. I don’t even remember where I heard it from, so I can’t go back and see if maybe it’s my own fault for misunderstanding what was said!

Having said all that, it’s really not a bad book, and I think that I would’ve liked the book more if it wasn’t for the misrepresentation.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , ,

Book Review | The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Posted September 27, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 3 Comments

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

A missing God.
A library with the secrets to the universe.
A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.

Carolyn’s not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts. After all, she was a normal American herself once.  

That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father. In the years since then, Carolyn hasn’t had a chance to get out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father’s ancient customs. They’ve studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. And sometimes, they’ve wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.  Now, Father is missing—perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation.

As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own. But Carolyn has accounted for this. And Carolyn has a plan. The only trouble is that in the war to make a new God, she’s forgotten to protect the things that make her human.

Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters and propelled by a plot that will shock you again and again, The Library at Mount Char is at once horrifying and hilarious, mind-blowingly alien and heartbreakingly human, sweepingly visionary and nail-bitingly thrilling—and signals the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Bookish Books Challenge
2024 Audiobook Challenge

The Reason

I’ve heard so much about this book and I’ve been curious. Also, it’s a bookish book and I’m doing a bookish book challenge.

The Quotes

“Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.”

“The only real escape from hell is to conquer it.”

“It’s the notion that the universe is structured in such a way that no matter how many mysteries you solve, there is always a deeper mystery behind it.”

“She knew every word that had ever been spoken, but she could think of nothing to say that might ease his grief.”

The Narrator(s)

Hillary Huber. She was great for the time that I listened on audio.

My Thoughts

It might not be fair to count this book in my audiobook challenge, to be honest. I only listened about 50% on audio on and off in the beginning, and ended up switching over to the print copy for good towards the end. There was nothing wrong with the narration, but it was because there were some made-up words for a lot of specific concepts in the book, some dialogue in different languages, as well as the purposely confusing plot. They made it difficult to follow on audio, so I switched over to print when it got really exciting.

I’m not sure how I feel about this book. I loved it all the way I was reading it, up until the ending. I loved the pace, the storytelling, the plot, the characters, but I really hate the message and I feel like it might have ruined the whole book for me. I’m quite conflicted. I talk about it in more detail in Notes & Discussion | The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins at the end of the post. If you’ve already read the book, please feel free to head on over to the post and let me know what you think, otherwise, please be warned that it’s a spoiler-filled post!

For more discussion on the book – with SPOILERS – check out Notes & Discussion | The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. This post has SPOILERS and assumes you have already finished the book. It is password-protected to prevent accidental spoiling. Password is “SPOILME0004”. Proceed at your own risk.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars. Giving credit where credit is due, it’s a really well-written book!

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , ,

Book Review | Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

Posted September 27, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Book Review | Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

Being single is like playing the lottery. There’s always the chance that with one piece of paper you could win it all.

From the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer comes the romance that will define a generation.

Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake.

But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.

Told with her signature warmth and insight into matters of the heart, Rebecca Serle has finally set her sights on romantic love. The result is a gripping, emotional, passionate, and (yes) heartbreaking novel about what it means to be single, what it means to find love, and ultimately how we define each of them for ourselves. Expiration Dates is the one fans have been waiting for.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

The Reason

I found the premise interesting. Plus, Julia Whelan narrates the audiobook!

The Quotes

“It’s hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another. You have to make a conscious effort to say, over and over again, “You.” Not everyone makes that choice. Not everyone can.”

“But being surprised by life isn’t losing, it’s living. It’s messy and uncomfortable and complicated and beautiful. It’s life, all of it. The only way to get it wrong is to refuse to play.”

“My life has been filled with magical moments, I was just so busy waiting I didn’t see them when they were here.”

“If you never stop long enough to sink into something, then it can’t destroy you. It’s easier to climb out of a pool than a well, is the thing.”

The Narrator(s)

Julia Whelan. The Awesomest!

My Thoughts

I’ve read one other book by the author before and if there’s one thing I can say, it’s that she does have very interesting ideas for her stories. This one is mostly fun and light-hearted but there are some difficult topics covered as well. We don’t go very deep with them though.

There’s also a lot of cheesiness here and some things that don’t completely make sense, but that’s okay, it’s magical realism and we’re just going to enjoy the story for what it is. I enjoyed the story itself and I needed the light-heartedness. Bonus is that Julia Whelan reads it and of course, I always enjoy her narration.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , ,

Book Review | The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

Posted September 27, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Challenge

The Reason

I love Katherine Center and I’m probably going to be reading everything she writes.

The Quotes

“I had a theory that we gravitate toward the stories we need in life. Whatever we are looking for- adventure, excitement, emotion, connection-we turn to stories that help us find it. Whatever questions we’re struggling with- sometimes ones so deep, we don’t even really know we’re asking them- we look for answers in stories.”

“Well, you’re lucky. Because love is something you can learn. Love is something you can practice. It’s something you can choose to get good at. And here’s how you do it. Appreciate your person.
That’s it.”

“Whatever story you tell yourself about your life, that’s the one that’ll be true.”

“Humanity at its worst is an easy story to tell – but it’s not the only story. Because the more we can imagine our better selves, the more we can become them.”

The Narrator(s)

Patti Murin. Loved it! There was such a natural flow to the storytelling and I was engrossed.

My Thoughts

First of all; tropes! I love them, but only if they’re done well and not overly cliched, and I love them here in this book. We’ve got close proximity, enemies to lovers, miscommunication, and more! There’s also a little bit of cheesiness, but come on, this is a romance; cheese is an essential part of the recipe, otherwise why are you even reading romance?

Having said all that, I loved the story! I love how well-written it was and how emotional I got at the end. There were a couple of scenes that were difficult to read about, specifically one with the FMC, Emma, and her sister. And while I don’t necessarily like that it happened, I feel like it’s true to real life and real family dynamics.

As for the romance itself, I really love how the relationship developed between Emma and Charlie. I love the conversations they had, the way they got to know each other and started respecting one another. It was a bumpy ride, and again, so emotional, but well-worth it in the end.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , ,

Book Review | Perfume by Patrick Süskind

Posted September 27, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Perfume by Patrick Süskind

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind’s classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

It was my in-person bookclub’s September BOTM. This is a reread for me and I remember enjoying it very much the first time too.

The Quotes

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”

“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”

“He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent.”

“And because people are stupid and use their noses only for blowing, but believe absolutely anything they see with their eyes, they will say it is because this is a girl with beauty and grace and charm.”

The Narrator(s)

Nigel Patterson. No complaints! I enjoyed listening to the narration.

My Thoughts

I remember the first time I read this book; I was in my “scentology” phase and I was fascinated with the sense of smell. I’d been reading a few other books on smell as well, one I remember is The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz. Obviously unlike The Scent of Desire, this book is fiction, but they were both very interesting.

I also really enjoyed the movie based on this book even if I don’t remember much of it anymore. I might watch it again soon! Our BOTM theme for September is Banned Books, and I have a feeling that the movie version I watched might have been edited as well, especially since I watched it in the cinema when I was living in Malaysia.

Rereading it this time, once again I loved how beautiful the writing is. I love how immersed in smells we get. The description of the scents, all the different ways to evoke them in our imagination; the book was written so well! Even though we were reading about a really creepy murderer, it was still so fascinating to see his journey from his birth, his perfumery apprenticeship, his obsession with possessing scents and using them in very interesting ways, until the very end. Some parts of the story seem a little bit fantastical but they are still very entertaining to read about, and at the end of the day, I just love how smell-y the book is! So worth reading!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Book Review | Cujo by Stephen King

Posted September 21, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Cujo by Stephen King

Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

The #1 national bestseller for Stephen King’s rabid fans, Cujo “hits the jugular” (The New York Times) with the story of a friendly Saint Bernard that is bitten by a sick bat. Get ready to meet the most hideous menace ever to savage the flesh and devour the mind.

Outside a peaceful town in central Maine, a monster is waiting. Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day, Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats and emerges as something new altogether.

Meanwhile, Vic and Donna Trenton, and their young son Tad, move to Maine. They are seeking peace and quiet, but life in this small town is not what it seems. As Tad tries to fend off the terror that comes to him at night from his bedroom closet, and as Vic and Donna face their own nightmare of a marriage on the rocks, there is no way they can know that a monster, infinitely sinister, waits in the daylight.

What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written. “A genuine page-turner that grabs you and holds you and won’t let go” (Chattanooga Times), Cujo will forever change how you view man’s best friend.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Stephen King Constant Reader Challenge

The Reason

I guess I’m making my way through Stephen King’s catalog faster than usual now that there are buddy reads happening. I love Stephen King and I would read him anyway, but it’s so much more fun when you can discuss the books with other Stephen King fans.

The Quotes

“It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.”

“When there was nothing left but survival, when you were right down to the strings and nap and ticking of yourself, you survived or you died and that seemed perfectly all right.”

“The two of them had discovered it was all right to open the closets…as long as you didn’t poke too far back in them. Because things might still be lurking there, ready to bite.”

“A woman doesn’t necessarily mind being looked at. It’s being mentally undressed that makes you nervous.”

The Narrator(s)

Lorna Raver. It was a good listening experience. Lorna Raver did some pretty decent voices and the sound engineering was good too.

My Thoughts

This is a reread and it’s funny because most of what I remembered most about the story was the scary dog, of course, but rereading it now I see that it’s so much more than that.

We get a lot of background story with the characters – there are several notable characters – and we start to care about them very much. They are all flawed in some way; we find out about their marital problems, career problems, car problems, kids problems, life-in-general problems. Even their (very young) kids have problems!

The characters here are so multi-faceted and humanly flawed, and it’s interesting to see how their individual thoughts and behaviors created a butterfly effect that led them down this road to Cujo. It’s an intense read, and so heartwrenching.

I’m also paying more attention now to the crossovers between his books and that enhances the reading experience even more. It’s been a while since I read The Dead Zone, but I remember Frank Dodd and I like how his story was incorporated here. I also just read You Like It Darker earlier this year, and I like that one of the characters here continues his story there in Rattlesnakes.

Also, poor Cujo. He’s the monster portrayed in this book, but he’s not the real monster if you really think about it. This is just an incredible book, so well-written, and I think it’s up there as one of my favorite King books (but there are so many of them!).

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , ,

Book Review | Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
2024 Diversity Reading Challenge
2024 Audiobook Challenge

The Reason

I really like Trevor Noah and I’ve heard such great things about this book, especially the audiobook as narrated by him!

The Quotes

“The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. People don’t want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.”

“Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.”

“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”

“You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad. Where you either hate them or love them. But that’s not how people are.”

The Narrator(s)

Trevor Noah, the author himself. I love listening to him, I wish there was more!

My Thoughts

I watched some of Trevor Noah’s clips on the Daily Show and his comedy shows and I really enjoy them! He comes across as really self-aware and a great person overall, but I don’t know very much about him. There’ve been so much praise about this book, and I’ve been so curious about him and the book, but I held off reading for a while because I wanted to listen to him narrate it on audiobook, and it was so worth the wait.

I love the way he tells his stories, the different languages that he incorporates into the story, his expressive style, his amazing sense of humor, and the way he handles sensitive topics. He talks about difficult things; his own life growing up poor, in an apartheid regime, with an abusive stepfather, but he still manages to retain his humor and gratitude. I love the way he adores his mother, and the way he appreciates his relationship with his biological father. It’s such a privilege getting this glimpse into his life.

I was already a fan, but I think I’m a bigger fan now after reading his book!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Book Review | I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

“As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker.”

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered… if indeed there were crimes.

The youngest of forty—a child with no name and no past—she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden—in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights—she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.

Then everything changes… and nothing changes.

A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been… and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.

The Reason

This was my online bookclub’s BOTM and one of the other bookclub members said it was really good so I got curious and excited!

The Quotes

“If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn’t forbidden, and they intervene, then it’s not the activity that’s attracting the attention, it is you yourself.”

“By remaining silent, they were creating a girl who didn’t know and who would regard them as the custodians of a treasure. Did they only keep me in ignorance so they could pretend they weren’t entirely powerless?”

“I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.”

“Sometimes, you can use what you know, but that’s not what counts most. I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it’s any use, but purely for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I’ll never be able to use it.”

My Thoughts

I loved this book! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to talk about what I loved most about it without giving away spoilers, but I’ll try.

This book is written without chapter breaks, and yet somehow it felt interesting enough that I kept reading, on print, without feeling bored or needed to take breaks. The lack of chapter breaks also corresponds to the story itself because the women’s imprisonment not being marked by any sort of time-keeping felt parallel to the story not being marked by chapters. There were also some other parallels to later parts of the story about not having markers. I loved that!

It’s a very thought-provoking read and I love that it had so much fodder for speculation and uncertainty. Definitely worth reading!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , ,

Book Review | The Girl From Rawblood by Catriona Ward

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The Girl From Rawblood by Catriona Ward

In 1910, eleven year old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris knows it’s because of a congenital disease which means she must be strictly isolated. Papa told her so. Forbidden to speak to other children or the servants, denied her one friend, Iris grows up in solitude. But she reads books. And one sunlit autumn day, beside her mother’s grave, she forces the truth from her father. The disease is biologically impossible. A lie, to cover a darker secret.

The Villarcas are haunted, through the generations, by her. She is white, skeletal, covered with scars. Her origins are a mystery but her purpose is clear. When a Villarca marries, when they love, when they have a child – she comes and death follows.

Iris makes her father a promise: to remain alone all her life. But when she’s fifteen, she breaks it. The consequences of her choice are immediate and horrific.

Iris’s story is interwoven with the past, the voices of the dead – Villarcas, taken by her. Iris’s grandmother sets sail from Dover to Italy with a hired companion, to spend her final years in the sun before consumption takes her. Instead she meets betrayal, and a fate worse than death. Iris’s father, his medical career in ruins, conducts unconscionable experiments, to discover how she travels in the Villarca blood. Iris’s mother, pregnant, walks the halls of Rawblood whispering to her, coaxing her to come. As the narratives converge, Iris seeks her out in a confrontation which shatters her past and her reality, revealing the chasm in Iris’s own, fractured identity. Who is she? What does she desire? The answer is more terrible and stranger than Iris could have imagined.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge

The Reason

I’ve heard good things about Catriona Ward but have never read her books. This was a buddy read so I thought it might be a good opportunity to try one.

The Narrator(s)

Liz Pearce, Steven Crossley, John Keating, Elizabeth Sastre, Jenny Sterlin. This was painful to listen to on audio. The narrators were fine, but the sound engineering was so bad and it really detracted from my listening experience. The volumes between chapters were inconsistent, and there was one chapter where the volume varied so much I had to keep turning it higher and lower as I was listening to it! The soft parts were so difficult to hear and the loud parts were sudden and hurt my ears. I didn’t enjoy listening to this on audiobook at all!

My Thoughts

I feel like I missed a lot of details and the nuances of the story because of the audiobook production, and it made me doubt my listening comprehension of the book. This book is told in multiple POVs, across multiple timelines, and it jumps about a bit. There were many times when the story jumps to something that wasn’t mentioned in previous chapters and I had to wonder if I missed something or if it was a stylistic choice. I enjoy time jumps and missing pieces of the puzzle as stylistic choices, but I couldn’t be sure that was what was happening here while listening to it. I had to repeat entire chapters of the book because I was so confused.

Having said that, I love the vibes of the book and the writing style. It feels very gothic and is reminiscent of Frankenstein, which is one of my favorite books. The vibes and writing style is enough to make me want more, but I think next time I’ll try a print version of Catriona Ward’s books.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , ,

Book Review | Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 3 Comments

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club

The Reason

I’d been wanting to read more classics, hence the reason I joined The Classics Club, and I’d been wanting to read Dostoevsky, and this happened to be one of the buddy reads in my online bookclub, so it all worked out and made me read a book I would’ve otherwise kept putting off.

The Quotes

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”

“Existence alone had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was only from the force of his desires that he had regarded himself as a man to whom more was permitted than to others.”

“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”

“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”

The Narrator(s)

Will Poulter. I was very pleasantly surprised by his narration. I loved that his narration was so clear and easily understandable, and I was surprised with his voices for the characters. It was really easy to listen to because of his narration. And I say this after sampling a couple of other narrators for this book.

My Thoughts

I had been intimidated by this book for ages and thought it would be difficult to get through, but it’s surprisingly easy – maybe because I listened on audiobook with Will Poulter narrating, but whatever helps is good, right? I did get confused with the names and nicknames, as is normal for Russian literature and fantasy novels with made-up names and places, but I was mostly able to follow along with the story and characters. I did have to refer occasionally to the physical book to clear some of the confusion though.

As for the story itself, I have to say that I don’t really connect to the characters and their motivations. A lot of it didn’t make sense to me; why they do the things they did, why they talked so much and did so little, a lot of things happened in their head and in conversations. There were a lot of thinking, and wondering, and existential crises.

However, there were discussions in the buddy read for this book that helped me understand some things better in regards to how the story relates to the beliefs and values of the time and place, and while I’m still not sure that I like the book, I can absolutely see why it’s considered a masterpiece. I also intend to reread this book again because I’m sure that I’ll get more out of it every time I read it, so maybe I’ll have more to say next time.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars. 4 stars because I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook, participating in the discussions for the book, and because I think it’s really well-written despite my disconnect to the characters.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , ,