Untold Night and Day

Book Title: Untold Night and Day

Author: Bae Suah

Date Started: June 22nd 2022

Date Completed: June 30th 2022

Genres: Adult, Magical Realism

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

In the note at the end, Deborah Smith who translated Suah’s novel describes it as a poetic fever dream and, having read this in chunks commuting on the London Underground in humid summer, that summed it up pretty well to me.

This is one of those stream-of-consciousness-meets-surrealist glimpses through the looking glass that I personally find more interesting from an analytical perspective than an immersive one. There are really fascinating cycles and parallels, patterns and whimsy, and distilled moments of reality that are almost uncomfortable with how close to home they hit. It’s about the worlds we build up in our heads, in our dreams, that are so close to reality sometimes maybe they are, until someone turns a light on or an alarm goes off, or we wonder how we possibly got to his place.

I would recommend reading Smith’s notes in the end if, like me, you were a little lost but also because it’s always fascinating to read about how a translator constructs a translated piece of work - and with one such as Suah’s writing which feels so distinct (this is the second story I’ve read by her) but must be so challenging to translate due to the style. It’s an engaging piece of writing, but I just wasn’t that into it.

Babel

Book Title: Babel

Author: R.F. Kuang

Date Started: May 27th 2022

Date Completed: June 22nd 2022

Genres: Historical, Fantasy, Thriller, Adventure

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Writing this review is hard, for a number of reasons. One of them is that I'd need an essay to fully explain how great and clever and thoughtful and dreadful and magical it is. Another is that I want to shove you in the direction of other people's reviews and thoughts (reading reviews from different people with a variety of backgrounds, preferences and specialisms is a good thing, kids). And, really, it can all be summed up by saying R.F. Kuang is an exceptional writer, storyteller and academic.

Babel, at its heart, is a love letter to Oxford, to etymology and language and things lost in translation. It marvels at technology, at communication, at friendship, at culture. And it exposes its cracks and its shadows and the selfish people who control it, and the people who go along with it, and the people who very quietly say no. It is so well-balanced and articulated; how do you communicate the endlessly dreadful conflict of dearly loving something that comes from terrible, ignorant, colonial roots. What is our responsibility in acknowledging these things, and what is our responsibility for changing them? This isn't what Babel is wholly about - it is about so much more - but it is the thing that many people reading it may not have been confronted with before, even though we all should have been a long time ago.

Aside from all that, it's also a gripping and enchanting thriller. The characters are lovable and fantastically rounded and flawed (what else do we expect from Kuang?). I'm endlessly impressed by the author's ability to write and execute her stories just as brilliantly in different genres. The Poppy War was astounding, the complexity and fantasy and scope that was so readable that you just got absolutely lost. She's done it again with a historical thriller, a setting worlds apart and yet so close. She's writing a rom-com? I cannot wait. If she published her college thesis I would devour it. I will read everything she ever writes at this point.

Kuang also knows how to write endings that fit the stories she's telling. I don't think it's unfair to say that the majority of stories we process have endings that might be pleasing, or nice - bittersweet even - but few of them align the themes of their story so perfectly that it is seamlessly right for the story being told. Often because, as human are fallible and flawed and problematic, these endings aren't necessarily perfectly happy, or they might even in some way seem hopeless. The dragon isn't slain, never to return; he lives on. But Kuang hangs her endings perfectly in the balance of reality and resolution, and they are so endlessly satisfying as a result. And somehow, by acknowledging the hopelessness, it can, just maybe, feel hopeful. The dragon wasn't slain - but now maybe we know that it can't always kill us either.

Stone Blind

 Book Title: Stone Blind

Author: Natalie Haynes

Date Started: May 10th 2022

Date Completed: May 24th 2022

Genres: Historical, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I was very, very excited for this book, and it was good! It was good, I promise. But it was not amazing in my opinion and it was not what I was hoping for.

I felt like everyone was written with a teenager's voice (or, rather, with the token 'YA' voice coined for not actually being like how anyone anywhere talks or thinks). And, hey, don't get me wrong; the Greek Olympians were absolutely little children having tantrums, but the power dynamics so intrinsic to Greek mythology between immortals and mortals don't come across when all the other characters sound exactly the same too.

There was also effort put into humanising the Greek gods at times - in some twisted way of explaining why they treated mortals so appallingly - and those fragments were such slivers of brilliance. But the fact that these moments existed made it all the more of a shame that the dynamics outside of the Greek gods' bickering couldn't be vivid, they just felt like a shallow interpretation of how we imagine teenagers might act up.

The story itself isn't very subtle - and it doesn't have to be. It's a story about a girl (well, several actually) being raped because someone else was bored, or had a point to prove to someone outside of the situation, and the ripples that has on other people's vengeance and pride. There's a lot of value in telling this story from that angle (it, shockingly, hasn't really be done quite like this before).

But, in a lot of ways, it's not really Medusa's story (ironically). Her narrative (of which she has very little agency in) acts as the glue holding together a whole host of other myths in this novel (something that in itself is always awesome to see, and well sewn together by Haynes here), but she's honestly in very little of it. Again, does it matter? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, I think it is symbolically and thematically well-realised in the message it's putting forward. But from a narrative perspective, it's pretty unsatisfying. And hey, I guess that's sort of the point - it's not fair. None of these myths are 'fair' to their characters (well, the female ones anyway). But does it make a well-rounded story? Should it? I don't have the answers, but I do know I felt a little let down.

I love Haynes' writing and I love her teaching - I think Pandora's Jar should be required reading on Classics courses, not just because it would mean students had to actually think about the humanity of the women in these myths, but also because Haynes is a fantastically realised academic and storyteller. Her voice (as becomes very obvious if you've listen to her speak, whether on audiobooks, podcasts, events etc) is so distinct, and very present here. I'm just not 100% sure it works for me in novelisations.

Until the End

Book Title: Until the End

Author: Derek Landy

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #15

Date Started: April 18th 2022

Date Completed: May 10th 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Adventure, Action, Horror, Comedy

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I love this series - I adore it. But even I have to admit that there is a lot going on at this point. Amazingly, I can still follow most references and a lot of names, but there are some moments where I have to scan my brain. Regardless, these books are just so enjoyable to read. How many books do I get to read that just make me feel happy, make me laugh, and make me proud?

The politics is always so good in Derek's books, especially since he upped the audience's age with this sequel series. And not just the parallels to our own world, but also the empowerment of characters in smaller ways and their own agency within situations that are largely outside of their control. It's nice to know I made good choices as a young reader, and it was an honour to get to grow from a child, to a teenager, to an adult with these books.

Of course, with this being a Derek Landy book, some of the twists are satisfying. But I do want to say I'm not a fan of the trope where everyone is ultimately related to each other - I much prefer when people have their own agency to get themselves into trouble. I don't think it completely strips the characters of their own identities in Until the End, as often happens when this is used, but it was a moment where I just had to have a little sigh before I carried on. That being said, there was also another certain trope at the end and the way Derek pulled it off is the only time I've come across it done well.

Until the End seems to have tied up a lot of threads of the series ahead of what I believe is the final book. That's actually very, very clever; the last one won't need to be obsessed with finishing all these storylines and instead get to tell its own narrative focused on completing the characters' arcs rather than cleaning up in-jokes and mysteries. I'm sure it will be just as epic as we've grown to expect, and are never disappointed by.

Cleopatra's Shadows

 Book Title: Cleopatra's Shadows

Author: Emily Holleman

Series: Fall of Egypt #1

Date Started: February 27th 2022

Date Completed: April 16th 2022

Genres: Historical

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

It was really nice to see a retelling in this area of history, and especially nice to follow the lesser-known sisters of Cleopatra and their stories in the run-up to their sister's ascension. Cleopatra's Shadows was an enjoyable read that I'm surprised doesn't have more traction with the growing subgenre of ancient history retellings.

While it feels pretty level with its tensions throughout the book looking back, I didn't mind that things didn't twist and turn unpredictably; the events were believable and the conflict and tension came from that. I've seen some people seem disappointed with the conclusion, perhaps because the fictionalising is so engaging for the rest of the book, the finale conflicted with that when it was based on history which is so rarely structured like a story.

It also made me realise how little I know about Egyptian history (I was obsessed with their mythology as a child), and how deeply tied it is with Greek mythology and culture. You always think of Rome and Egypt's relationship, but not necessarily much earlier in history. Holleman's ability to bring little fragments of discovery to the reader's attention, even if they're there for the fictionalised narrative, is what's so valuable about exploring history in this way.

I really enjoyed the book and found bother sisters compelling. It was an accessible and engaging fictionalised version of the history, and a good addition to the cornucopia of ancient history retellings.

Gallant

 Book Title: Gallant

Author: V.E. Schwab

Date Started: February 9th 2022

Date Completed: February 20th 2022

Genres: Horror, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I found this honestly pretty underwhelming. I'm really glad Schwab is growing and developing her stories into what she's always wanted to write, and I support her journey in that. Her new stuff is just less my thing, and that's okay - the gothic ghostliness is fun I just personally don't often click with it. I will say, though, that there was a lot of internal monologuing, spookiness and pretty writing and not a lot of anyone doing anything until the end.

Gallant is a class in doing a Ghosty House 101. It's not so much a mystery because there's no real reveal (it dips more into fantasy than thriller), but if you love a Gothic ghost story you're looking in the right place. Looking back at it, it really reminded me of Coraline, Mexican Gothic and a handful of other Gothic stories - and maybe that's why I wasn't a massive fan. It ticked all the boxes but didn't really provide anything else.

And, while I appreciated having a mute protagonist, the book didn't really do much with it. And it doesn't have to - normalised representation is good too - but it felt like there was wasted potential in a story that delves so much into fantastical possibilities. Or, failing that, even just thinking about it more past that sometimes people ignore her because they can't read sign language.

Overall, I think I may start giving Schwab's ghost stories a pass; I've tried a handful now and they're just not my thing. Very much support her growth as an author, but I think pushing myself to read stuff that I'm just not interesting isn't worth it - life's too short!

The Dragon's Promise

 Book Title: The Dragon's Promise

Author: Elizabeth Lim

Series: Six Crimson Cranes #2

Date Started: February 27th 2022

Date Completed: February 9th 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Historical

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

This duology has been a joy to read; the stunning fantasy, the complex characters, the vividly immersive adventure. It has quickly become one of my favourite series of all time and I can't wait to get some pretty hardcovers to go on my shelves (anyone know how to get the US editions to the UK because I'm in love) and read more of Lim's work.

I adore the Asian mythology weaved into what is in its own rite a wonderfully exciting and magical fantasy adventure. As I gushed about when I read Six Crimson Cranes, the fairy tale of The Wild Swans is my favourite fairy tale of all time, so to see it reimagined with full respect to the original as well as boundless imagination to its potential to expand is always a delight when I come across it. And, while the main homage to that fairy tale was wrapped up at the end of the last book, there are still elements dotted throughout The Dragon's Promise, where we get to dive even deeper (pun absolutely intended) into the Asian fairy tales and folklore that inspire a lot of this book's narrative.

Something that is often hit or miss for me is the romance in fantasy adventures; The Dragon's Promise got it perfect for me. I loved how Lim let her characters be tempted by the cliches we're so used to (hiding the truth from significant others, sacrificing themselves completely needlessly, being generally idiotic because 'I care about you too much,') and then had them consciously realise that's dumb and move on to do better. The characters are then so much more tactile, they have healthy relationships even when they're strained, and they recognise the consequences of their actions - that's good storytelling folks!

And that's not mentioning Shiori as the heroine herself. Lim runs a pretty concise masterclass of how to write an active protagonist. Taking into account the fantasy elements and the fact Shiori has magic at her fingertips, it is still her active decisions that move the story forward, which makes it all the more exciting and Shirori all the more impressively brave and beloved.

This whole book was just so satisfying because it acknowledged and took elements from all of Shiori's adventures (has it really only been two books?) to impact her actions in the finale. She really has learnt a hundred lessons, and she really has changed because of it. In only two books, Shiori and her companions feel like such real human beings (and a variety of other magical creatures) to me. I think it was a perfect ending - and yet I don't want it to be the ending. Here's hoping Lim sends some new characters our way to fall in love with soon.