Homegoing

Book Title: Homegoing

Author: Yaa Gyasi

Date Started: May 1st 2019

Date Completed: July 31st 2019

Genres: Historical

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I hold my hands up and say I got to 25% in this book and, while I think it was great and important and I was enjoying it, the story was just so slow. There's so much information, and so many connections and relationships and context that my brain got overwhelmed when it was mixed with a very dense but gradual plotline. If you like in-depth bloodlines, African history, deep prose then I would recommend picking this up - the overwhelming flood of praise of this book backs me up. It's just too slow and full to the brim of information for me at the moment.

The Glass Magician

Book Title: The Glass Magician

Author: Charlie N. Holmberg

Date Started: July 30th 2019

Date Completed: July 30th 2019

Genres: Romance, Fantasy, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Stars

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

These books are delightful fun; sweet, cute, fluffy. As they go on they get an edge of adventure and their fair share of thrills, but really they're quick, easy, enjoyable reads. I read this in one sitting of about five/six hours, unwilling to put it down after every chapter because it was fun.

My pet peeves of cliched dialogue and unjustified emotional turns were triggered, and it's really a bit silly sometimes but for enjoyment's sake, why not. At least everyone is equally silly and it fits with the quaint, early 1900s steampunk themes.

What I think The Glass Magician does really well, however, is its addition of mystery and adventure to the narrative. There's a lot more of a thriller theme going on this time, and the story benefits from the action and tension. We also get to have a deeper look into the world - which is really what shines through in the series. The different disciplines and qualities of the magic system feed deeply into the narrative, and Holmberg's planning becomes a lot more clear.

A quick read, but an enjoyable one, The Glass Magician was one I picked up on a win but allowed me to step away from the real world for a few hours. And that's what any good book should do.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Book Title: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Author: Hank Green

Date Started: July 18th 2019

Date Completed: July 29th 2019

Genres: Contemporary, Sci-Fi, Mystery

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing thoroughly impressed me. Let's put aside Hank's connections and what I'm sure was considerable pressure and expectations from every angle, this is an absolutely remarkable debut whatever way you look at it, and I cannot wait to read more from him.

This is, at heart, a coming-of-age-(kinda)-meets-mystery-meets-adventure contemporary novel with a nice bit of science fiction thrown in for good measure. Often, these kinds of thing aren't my jam because the prose is convoluted or cliché or just plain dull. But Hank has given such a clear voice to April, the protagonist and narrator, that that was immediately not a problem. In fact, considering the very well researched and frankly quite sciency foundations to the story, I didn't feel like I was in a professor's lecture or reading a textbook. And I felt like I learnt a few things. Of course, the wonderful VlogBrothers history definitely helped Hank out here, but spoken and written words are still a jump to change between, but this book takes the best from both for a really solid result.

A good balance of action to talking to anecdotal events helps the story along, but even in its quiet moments there's a nice balance of being heartfelt without being pretentious, to the point where it absolutely moved me - and then had me laughing a few moments later. At the centre of this are the very human characters who, from small to large parts, all ring quite true. I can't help relating to Maya most of all, but there are moments when you can see glimpses of your own experiences in everyone's arcs. And yes, April gets on your nerves sometimes but that's the story that's being told. It's integral that she gets on your nerves sometimes because that's a big part of what she's going through and learning from. And you still root for her. Kudos for the three-dimensional, complex and flawed female heroine dude.

Even though it wasn't really my genre and was something I started reading on a whim, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing quickly found its way into my heart, kept me engaged the whole way through and made me very excited about what stories are brewing in Hank Green's head.

Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun

Book Title: Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun

Author: Guillermo del Toro & Cornelia Funike

Date Started: June 28th 2019

Date Completed: July 9th 2019

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Historical, Horror

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

A literary adaptation of one of my favourite films by one of my favourite childhood authors? I literally couldn't wait. Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke are both massive influences on me and have evolved the beloved fairytale genre into a contemporary and still vitally important sphere. I was hoping this book would uncover some of del Toro's other ideas that didn't make it into the film, and while you do get this in a few tiny little instances and through the beautiful fairytales Funke intersperses throughout the story, it's few and far between.

The main drag on my experience of this book was how much it spoon-fed you. I get that you can't lace the image with a million little hints to the overarching story like you can in a moving picture, but the problem with book-to-movie adaptations done backwards is that they spend far too much time trying to recreate the movie experience, rather than changing the story to fit with a literary format. As it is, the perspectives and locations are confusing because they jump about so rapidly in order to simulate editing that it's hard not to just let the original film play in your head instead of letting the book conjure up its own images.

There needs to be space for the writing to breath and expand itself. In adaptations, there's really three important things: character, meaning, and tone. Sure, the first two are there, but the make or break element of tone was lost because everything was so literal. It needed to be a retelling with a little creative license, not a written down version of a film. And that's not an easy task and with all due respect, these guys do a great job of recreating the movie on paper. But I don't think that was the goal - or shouldn't have been anyway.

Of course, the story is amazing. You can't get these two geniuses together and not make something good. But for me, it was the little fairytales - the one thing that was allowed to expand completely from the original film - that gave this 'retelling' strength. In traditional fashion, the folkloric tales parallel characters, events or lessons in the real world which gives the enhancement that you really need from a literary version.

If you're going to remake a story in another format, something needs to be added to it for it to be worth reliving in a different way. Do the illustrations and fairytales do that? Sure, why not. But it's not groundbreaking. I feel like the problem may have come from the target audience because while I was reading it really felt like it was made for younger readers - and in a way I love that, because Pan's Labyrinth does have darkness, and I think it's great something more real is made accessible for younger readers without being patronising. But at the same time, it really limits how far the novel could grow on its own, making it ultimately one in a long line of movie-to-book adaptations that make you wonder why you don't just watch the film.