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327 reviews
Legion by Brandon Sanderson
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
"my name is Stephen Leeds, and I am perfectly sane. my hallucinations, however, are all quite mad."
I wasn't aware Brandon Sanderson had short works published, so I'd never given him a second chance. his first was Mistborn, which reads too much like YA, and not a fun one. basically the only thing I liked was the magic system. one could argue he might have gotten better since orphan former homeless Vin and her tendency to fall in love with the enemy in a matter of days. however, as far as I knew, the man refused to write at least one short novel, so I refused to read another book written by him. until I came across his novellas.
I'm big fan of short books. with a lower number of pages, writers don't have much time to make mistakes and are less likely to fall into old habits, meaning they're forced to adapt their usual methods or change them completely if they want to create a well fleshed-out story in half the amount of pages they're used to or even less. and to know if they failed, one doesn't waste days of their life, just a few hours. for authors, that can come either as a challenge or a relief.
now, I'm not familiar with Sanderson's novels to properly compare this novella to them —all I know is that he usually writes epic fantasy, which is not the case here— but it doesn't look like he truly challenged himself with Legion. I guess it was more of "a welcome break from other projects", as stated in the preface of the edition with the three volumes (the novella is part of a trilogy). its title and cover for some reason made me think of X-Men, but this is actually a detective story (not me picking up another mystery book after the disaster of the last one), so my reading experience was as exciting as I was expecting: not much.
Legion is the nickname of Stephen Leeds, a man who I couldn't tell how old was and "whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills". the mystery Stephen and his so called aspects are drawn into surrounds a camera that can take pictures of the past. the device brings back into Stephen's life, in the form of a black and white photo, the woman (apparently a love interest) who disappeared a decade ago after helping him gaining control over his mind and never contacted him again. to follow her trail, Stephen and four out of dozens of aspects have to search the missing inventor of the camera, a christian who seeks proof to his faith.
what follows is a sequence of quick conclusions and convenient solutions. the author simplified the interesting parts and complicated the boring ones without properly explaining eitheir of them. one character has a theory that Stephen's hallucinations are a way for him to cope with his brilliance and pass as someone unremarkable, since he doesn't want to be casted out as special (which happens anyway); to confirm it, however, the reader would have to continue the trilogy. Stephen doesn't consider himself insane, for his aspects don't stop him from function nor present a danger to society, a concept I highly appreciate. on the other hand, the fact that he can simply guard them in rooms of a mansion as if they were real people, without being really disturbed by outside forces, makes his condition too simple and easy. even more unbelievable is his ability to summon an aspect with the requisite knowledge and experience after just flipping through the pages of a book whenever a specific set of expertise is needed. is it an unexplored side of the human psyche or just magic?
the sci-fi bit also makes the plot unconvincing, since the mechanims of the camera are kept a mystery —a silly one to be frank— till its rushed resolution. again, more like magic than science. I'd prefer if the plot were a traditional mystery so the hallucinations could stand out more. they're easily dicernible and their interactions are funny, albeit their creator could've been explored beyond his role as their spokesman. here the number of pages begins to show insuffiency, but reading the first chapter of the second volume I could see myself becoming fond of the group at least a little.
to sum it up, Legion is an unmoving story with an unusual take on the found family trope and a bland protagonist. it feels unfinished, not well thought out, but it's easy to jump onto the next installment if you have it at hand. ultimately, its biggest mistake consists of a racist remark a hallucination blurts in the group's flight to Israel (yeah, of all places) and that no one —not the mc, not the victim, not even the other aspect who is always screaming "language!" after every mild comment— calls out. that made me side-eye even more the religious debate (along with the mc's expectation of "islamic terrorists") that seemed to be the "personal" bit of the story Sanderson confess in the preface.
I wasn't aware Brandon Sanderson had short works published, so I'd never given him a second chance. his first was Mistborn, which reads too much like YA, and not a fun one. basically the only thing I liked was the magic system. one could argue he might have gotten better since orphan former homeless Vin and her tendency to fall in love with the enemy in a matter of days. however, as far as I knew, the man refused to write at least one short novel, so I refused to read another book written by him. until I came across his novellas.
I'm big fan of short books. with a lower number of pages, writers don't have much time to make mistakes and are less likely to fall into old habits, meaning they're forced to adapt their usual methods or change them completely if they want to create a well fleshed-out story in half the amount of pages they're used to or even less. and to know if they failed, one doesn't waste days of their life, just a few hours. for authors, that can come either as a challenge or a relief.
now, I'm not familiar with Sanderson's novels to properly compare this novella to them —all I know is that he usually writes epic fantasy, which is not the case here— but it doesn't look like he truly challenged himself with Legion. I guess it was more of "a welcome break from other projects", as stated in the preface of the edition with the three volumes (the novella is part of a trilogy). its title and cover for some reason made me think of X-Men, but this is actually a detective story (not me picking up another mystery book after the disaster of the last one), so my reading experience was as exciting as I was expecting: not much.
Legion is the nickname of Stephen Leeds, a man who I couldn't tell how old was and "whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills". the mystery Stephen and his so called aspects are drawn into surrounds a camera that can take pictures of the past. the device brings back into Stephen's life, in the form of a black and white photo, the woman (apparently a love interest) who disappeared a decade ago after helping him gaining control over his mind and never contacted him again. to follow her trail, Stephen and four out of dozens of aspects have to search the missing inventor of the camera, a christian who seeks proof to his faith.
what follows is a sequence of quick conclusions and convenient solutions. the author simplified the interesting parts and complicated the boring ones without properly explaining eitheir of them. one character has a theory that Stephen's hallucinations are a way for him to cope with his brilliance and pass as someone unremarkable, since he doesn't want to be casted out as special (which happens anyway); to confirm it, however, the reader would have to continue the trilogy. Stephen doesn't consider himself insane, for his aspects don't stop him from function nor present a danger to society, a concept I highly appreciate. on the other hand, the fact that he can simply guard them in rooms of a mansion as if they were real people, without being really disturbed by outside forces, makes his condition too simple and easy. even more unbelievable is his ability to summon an aspect with the requisite knowledge and experience after just flipping through the pages of a book whenever a specific set of expertise is needed. is it an unexplored side of the human psyche or just magic?
the sci-fi bit also makes the plot unconvincing, since the mechanims of the camera are kept a mystery —a silly one to be frank— till its rushed resolution. again, more like magic than science. I'd prefer if the plot were a traditional mystery so the hallucinations could stand out more. they're easily dicernible and their interactions are funny, albeit their creator could've been explored beyond his role as their spokesman. here the number of pages begins to show insuffiency, but reading the first chapter of the second volume I could see myself becoming fond of the group at least a little.
to sum it up, Legion is an unmoving story with an unusual take on the found family trope and a bland protagonist. it feels unfinished, not well thought out, but it's easy to jump onto the next installment if you have it at hand. ultimately, its biggest mistake consists of a racist remark a hallucination blurts in the group's flight to Israel (yeah, of all places) and that no one —not the mc, not the victim, not even the other aspect who is always screaming "language!" after every mild comment— calls out. that made me side-eye even more the religious debate (along with the mc's expectation of "islamic terrorists") that seemed to be the "personal" bit of the story Sanderson confess in the preface.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
not even half away through this, I knew I'd give it 2 stars. I made myself finish out of annoyance at my self-knowledge (that and bc my dnf rate is getting ridiculous). the thing is: I'm not a fan of mystery books, the who-did-it, let's-follow-the-clues type of books. I don't vibe with tv shows of this sort either. most of the time with these stories, the writing's main role seems to be just to tell you things, to explain them, to say what's around the characters and what they've learned; while the protagonist's only task is to go from one place to another, leading you through the plot, in which a great deal of (hopefully) surprising stuff will happen in order to shock you. and I'm almost never impressed. this structure actually bores the fuck out of me. so why did I pick this up? bc I wanted to be blown away by science! seriously, I thought the sci-fi aspect of Dark Matter would make a difference, but now I'm afraid I'm allergic to sci-fi books too. I'm still not sure what quantum superposition is, and the story fails to link the subject to any meaningful human facet. the family drama, or the lack of it, never really lands; consequently, the what-ifs when dealing with the multiverse theory are pointless. all of the characters are middle-class white people who live fairly good lives compared to most of us mortals, so why even go there? the mad scientist here is cartoonish at best, going through a lot of trouble to fix a simple problem. the "trauma" of his mother's death is dropped out of nowhere so we can finally have a motivation for something, even if that something amounts to nothing. of course, there's a woman who eventually proves to be a temptation to the male lead, and their connection is even flimsier than the one he swears to have with his wife. she has no backstory whatsoever and is there only to help our man out of the goodness of her heart, make him company during his little spacetime travel, and then disappear out of the picture the same way she comes into it. talk about a self-realized character. the rest of the cast is as much fun as her. about the plot, other reviews already pinpoint its many inconsistencies, but what makes two adults deliberately walk into a fatal blizzard when they can simply stay where they are? also, the protagonist/narrator doesn't talk/think about his son half as much as he thinks about his wife? most of the time, it's as if the boy doesn't exist, just a name tag in a formulaic family that's supposed to be the reason the mc never gives up. moreover, the two major plot lines are predictable even to me. I'm a hater of the hidden identity trope (in my head, that's the miscommunication trope for non-romance books), but the chaos that arises from the disruption of the multiverse should be more astonishing. perhaps if I'd read this book in the year of publication, 2016, something in it would have amazed me. it's 2023, however, and I couldn't care less. despite all the action, the three acts of the story are dull and lackluster, stirring in me nothing besides a little curiosity, which no dimension visited by the characters was compelling enough to quench. maybe I should knock off another star.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent
Did not finish book. Stopped at 11%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 11%.
the author tried very hard with the vampires-that-dont-sparkle thing, but her writing and worldbuilding are still boring and unconvincing /sigh
Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender
Did not finish book. Stopped at 16%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 16%.
I've been looking for a good book with this kind of premise —romance between celebrities or set in the entertainment/book world— for a while now. in the right hands, I think it can offer really exciting takes on the fake dating and rivals-to-lovers tropes. unfortunately, I'll have to keep searching*. Stars in Your Eyes reads like ya, but there are ya books less contrived than this, and the first-person narration with its confessional tone doesn't help. the author gives a trigger warning for pretty heavy topics, but the story presents no nuance that lets you hope they won't be dealt with by the usual artificial and didactic prose of contemporary books ("this is problematic and here's why"). the bad boy doesn't have a real personality to deserve the epithet and I don't see myself becoming particularly fond of the good one. also, both protagonists are black men, but neither the cover nor the synopsis hints at that, even though it's a focus point from the beginning. regardless of my opinion on the book, I think the publisher lost the chance of attracting new readers for this author by not being more clear in its marketing.
* I've already tried some titles by Emily Henry and Christina Lauren btw, so I'm accepting recs.
* I've already tried some titles by Emily Henry and Christina Lauren btw, so I'm accepting recs.
Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS by Myeongseok Kang, BTS
se por um lado não consigo visualizar não fãs pegando este livro pra ler, por outro, quem acompanha o BTS há anos como eu não vai encontrar muitas informações novas nele (inclusive o narrador consegue ser bem repetitivo). trata-se de um apanhado da carreira monumental do grupo que oferece um olhar por trás das cenas, como uma bangtan bomb mais séria e documental ou um artigo extendido da weverse magazine, mas que não diz nem 10% do que haveria pra ser dito sobre a década em que sete coreanos, com todas as suas falhas, contradições e idiossincrasias, comeram o pão que o diabo amassou e conseguiram juntos transformá-lo num banquete. porém, não me arrependo de ter lido. pelo contrário: quero tempo para ouvir, ler e assistir toda a discografia deles de novo, agora com a consciência de que cada álbum foi mais que um conceito e realmente representou uma fase dessa trajetória bem como um estado de espírito do grupo.
Hold Me Under by Riley Nash
Did not finish book. Stopped at 31%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 31%.
after so many quick dnf's I didn't bother to shelf, I'm begging for a romance to grab my sick with anxiety attention. it doesn't even have to be an enemies-to-lovers, just something that feels real for a change.
The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan
Did not finish book. Stopped at 41%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 41%.
dnf @ 41%
the "sex work saved me" part was a bit too much. also, there's something off about the whole premise of working as a teacher on modern intimacy for a synagogue. and although i find rabbi Ethan endearing, im not feeling their insta obsession with each other. besides, his behavior just started entering unrealistic territory, so im putting this at least on pause, but i probably won't come back to it.
the "sex work saved me" part was a bit too much. also, there's something off about the whole premise of working as a teacher on modern intimacy for a synagogue. and although i find rabbi Ethan endearing, im not feeling their insta obsession with each other. besides, his behavior just started entering unrealistic territory, so im putting this at least on pause, but i probably won't come back to it.
Um Tempo no Inferno & Iluminações by Arthur Rimbaud
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
só deus sabe o que se passa na mente do palhaço. na minha, porém, a personagem da virgem tola nos primeiros Delírios é Paul Verlaine, e a do demônio, Rimbaud.