conspystery's reviews
278 reviews

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

First, a massive thank you to Netgalley, Sophie Keetch, and Penguin Random House for allowing me to read an ARC of Morgan is My Name in exchange for an honest review! I didn’t realize this book was the first in a planned trilogy when I read it, but once I realized that, everything made a lot more sense. This book is a solid setup for a series, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

I love Keetch’s take on the Arthurian setting. I think the success here comes from how rooted this book is in Morgan’s perspective; everything is filtered through her eyes. Tintagel Castle is given its atmosphere by Morgan’s experience of it, and so we as the audience are uniquely immersed in how it changes when Uther takes power.

Even when we see Arthur towards the end (which itself is fascinating and I can’t wait to see more of his interactions with Morgan in future books!) he doesn’t immediately consume the narrative, as I feel like often happens in Arthurian lit. Morgan quite reasonably has her own concerns about Arthur, but Arthur himself isn’t at the center of them, so he doesn’t overwhelm the story.

Every corner of the world that we see feels not only like we are there, but like we are there as Morgan, which I think is crucial to this book’s introspective narrative style.

One particular detail about the setting I really enjoy is the worldbuilding around magic-- magic isn’t an over-the-top, wondrous gift of vibrance to the world as many versions of Arthuriana seem to prefer, rather an intensely powerful yet hushed, secretive force that’s almost ominous in its presence. Regardless of one’s familiarity with the title character’s story, the seemingly innocent against-the-rules allure Morgan initially finds in magic carries a sharp sense of foreboding that subtly curdles the rest of the world around it as the novel continues. This fascinating, darker Arthuriana roots its lighter moments in Morgan’s own lightness. The setting bends around her. It’s extremely satisfying, immersive, and engaging.

Keetch’s emphasis on Morgan’s voice drives the narrative forward in many more ways than the setting, though. I don’t know if I’d call Morgan a completely unreliable narrator, but the presentation of the supporting cast in this novel seems to be heavily influenced by Morgan’s own mindset. I think Sir Accolon, Merlin, the Lady of the Lake, and Morgan’s eventual husband are all great examples of Morgan’s perception lording over objectivity, mostly in a very good way. The prose itself reflects the centering Morgan is My Name commits to; there are paragraphs upon paragraphs delving into Morgan’s introspection in her own voice, and I for one adore the level of detail afforded to her thought processes through the novel. While I don’t think the writing is necessarily a total standout, it’s solid and approachable in its more languid moments of reflective stream-of-consciousness, and the moments where it is confrontational and action-driven work well without breaking the flow at all. The slow pacing complements the prose style and narrative focus. It reminds me a little bit of a more prosaic, less mythologically grandiose Circe by Madeline Miller.

Obviously, this book’s success hinges entirely on Keetch’s development of Morgan into a realistically flawed, well-rounded, interesting character; Keetch does a decent job on this front. My only issue here is that because this kind of feminist retelling of myth has become a lot more popular and widespread in recent years-- a trend I am extremely glad to see-- it’s a lot more difficult to make these stories and main characters stand out. Morgan, to me at least, is fascinating but not totally exceptional or unique for a work like this. Her relationships with Accolon and her eventual husband don’t help there; the romance in this book takes a lot of power away from its narrative for me, and even the subversion we see with the husband feels tired and a little overdone. The novel is aided in that regard by the remainder of its supporting cast (Morgan’s family, Merlin and the Lady of the Lake, and Lady Alys and Tressa add a lot of color in particular) and setting, but I feel like it isn’t quite as defined and distinct as it would like to be.

With how well-written and interesting I found it to be anyway, though, I’m optimistic that future books in this trilogy will expand upon the world of Morgan is My Name and help it carve out its own space in the genre. This book and series have an absurd amount of potential to be phenomenal; I’m so excited to see Keetch’s work come into its own here!

Content Warnings

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

I was so surprised by this book! I feel like there are a lot of novels these days that try to cover the same dark themes and subject matter that If You Find Me does, and they don’t often do it well, so I didn’t expect fantastic writing or conveyance of such intense material here. But If You Find Me is really good! It’s realistic and raw in its depictions of Carey’s grappling with her trauma, and the plot does not pull its punches when it matters.

I really like how If You Find Me emphasizes healing-- how it shows that recovering from trauma is nonlinear, and how complex it is in its presentation. Jenessa’s response to trauma is much different than Carey’s, and neither of them have a magical all-is-solved moment; the ways they come to healing take time and have depth. Their relationships with their new parents, their biological mother, and new sister are complex for the same reason. I particularly like how long it takes Carey to come to terms with her biological mother’s treatment. Murdoch doesn’t fall into the trap of having Carey immediately understand and forgive the abuse. I’m glad the book communicates that she doesn’t need to forgive it at all! She’s better off not doing so, instead moving on with her life and recontextualizing her happiness without her mother in the picture. The plotline with the violin especially emphasizes this. I really appreciate how multifaceted Murdoch allows her characters to be in their healing, especially Carey

(and especially considering the detail of what Carey calls the white-star night; it gives her character so much depth, since there’s no easy cut-and-dry resolution of that guilt.)

I think Delaney is also reasonably well-written in that regard, if a bit cliche.

I have mixed feelings about the romance between Ryan and Carey. Usually I think romance subplots are completely unnecessary in every regard, and to an extent I feel that’s true in If You Find Me, but it was surprisingly well-written here. Yes, Ryan’s actions and initial treatment of Carey are completely contrived in every sense of the word,

but it’s worked into the plot later on-- he treats her differently because he already knows who she is, which gives their entire situation more complexity (even if that detail itself if a little bit contrived, too.) Their relationship is rocky and complicated, especially in the context of Carey’s trauma.

Ryan is not a perfect all-in-one savior for Carey-- he helps her heal as a friend would, like Pixie does, like Jenessa does, and like their new parents do. So while I still think the romance aspect is unnecessary, I admit it’s well-done in this book, and I’m glad for that.

The last thing I want to mention is the writing. I think overall Murdoch does an excellent job of conveying Carey’s voice in the prose, even if it’s a little overwhelming at first. The first two paragraphs of this book are a great example of that. I like the detail of Carey’s accent in the beginning, how she tries to keep it out of her voice, and how it comes back when she’s stressed or remembering her time in the woods later on. The Tennessee backwoods affect and use of figurative language works really well when contrasted with all Carey doesn’t know about the world; the way she describes things she’s unfamiliar with using the language she knows is genuinely fascinating. I also love the way Carey talks about nature-- it holds a realistic sense of awe that gets funneled later into her wonder for the world outside of the backwoods. I like it a lot. Conversely, I also appreciate the frank, bleak prose we see when Carey talks about the worse parts of her upbringing; Murdoch expresses Carey’s recollection of her trauma authentically, avoiding overwhelm with the use of limited figurative language and casual avoidance of dwelling upon upsetting details. Limiting that detail, though, causes the recollections to hit even harder-- seeing how casually Carey addresses her trauma emphasizes how deeply she’s internalized it, which adds a lot of poignance to her character and the book’s themes.

There are a few moments that don’t work as well, though. One specific moment that I think is in poor taste is very early on, when Carey uses a simile with oddly specific, racist word choice. The narrative subtext isn’t clear on whether the author condemns that language or not, and overall I just don’t see why it was important to include. The implications are bad no matter how I look at it. There’s one other similar thing later where Pixie goes out of her way to add a no-homo clause onto the end of something she says. It just doesn’t feel necessary, and shows the book’s age. On a less serious note, a lot of Delaney’s dialogue was clunky; I don’t know if teenagers just spoke differently in 2013 when this book was published or if her speech was questionable then, too, but either way it doesn’t read very naturally. Her actions are well-written, though, so it’s bearable, and I got used to her demeanor by the end of the book. Those earlier moments of prejudice also seem to be outliers. I wish there was an updated version of this book that just didn’t have them.

Ultimately, I thought If You Find Me is a really solid novel with a good grasp on its characters and themes. Its insights into trauma are interesting, healing, complex, and well-developed; the same can be said for its characters. The writing is mostly really good, but a few issues with questionable language use have taken my rating of this book down by half a star. This is a great book for fans of Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley or Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee by Mary G. Thompson, the latter of which I highly recommend if you’re looking for a more recent-feeling exploration of If You Find Me’s themes and subject matter.

Content Warnings

The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I don’t think I can capture how absolutely phenomenal I thought this book was within a review, but I’m going to try. The Other Wind is a stunningly poignant yet hopeful convergence of all Earthsea has to offer, a perfect conclusion to the series that keeps its narrative alive rather than closed with the book when it ends.

I think my favorite thing about The Other Wind is how it draws together all the previous volumes of Earthsea; Le Guin has dedicated five incredible books to building this world and developing its main characters, and this one is the ultimate payoff. We see echoes of A Wizard of Earthsea in Alder, having once practiced magic and now plagued by the ghost of his wife in his dreams, who acts as a fascinating parallel to Ged-- and Ged himself is a minor character in the novel, having fully embraced domesticity and content with his lack of magical ability after the events of Tehanu. Tenar is present and crucial to the narrative, her ideas about womanhood, power, and identity fully brought to light after Tehanu but now facing the challenge of reconciling her experience in The Tombs of Atuan with the anti-Kargish bias of the rest of Earthsea; her discussions with Seserakh, a Kargish princess meant to marry the King, are enlightening and empowering on both sides. King Lebannen, mature and noble and worldly due to years of kinghood and his quest in The Farthest Shore, must face his own anti-Kargish bias in turn to unite Earthsea and simultaneously unfold the ancient wrongdoing behind Alder’s dreams. Tehanu needs to figure out how she fits into society as a dragon and a person, and is the only one capable of summoning her sister in dragonhood Orm Irian, “Dragonfly” from Tales from Earthsea, to discover the root of the conflict with the dragons. And all these threads are deeply interconnected-- the dragons are in uproar directly in relation to the troubles in the Dry Land, whose problems are the result of the greed of wizards and the separation of nations on Earthsea.

Because every issue animating The Other Wind is tangled up in every other issue, the whole cast (which feels less like a group of written characters and more like a familiar sample of authentic, multifaceted people) must work together to examine the problem and trace it to its source. The way the previous books culminate here is not only intensely satisfying, but actively exciting-- this story has a sense of motion and scope to it I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before while reading. The audience knows this world; we’ve seen the arcs of these characters, the context for their relationships and the institutions of the societies they live in. In The Other Wind, we take all that richness as preliminary and face the plot as its convergence, with the new details folded in along the way as reasonable yet fascinating extensions of what we already know. For me, this book is like taking an important test after a thousand hours spent studying: it’s crucial, but I’m well prepared, and enthusiastic to follow through on what I’ve learned. The Other Wind feels like its title. It moves like a tradewind, pushes its audience forward on a high-stakes quest with the narrative.

Le Guin’s prose is stunning in this book as usual, and the structure she uses to place it is an amazing conduit for her narrative voice. It isn’t really an odyssey or quest in the sense that A Wizard of Earthsea is, because that kind of story relies so heavily on a singular protagonist. This book has many protagonists, and each of them have their own smaller journeys to take within the context of the larger one: Alder has to find Ged and then Lebannen, Tehanu has to go seek out Orm Irian, Tenar has to converse with Seserakh, everyone has to travel by boat to see the masters of Roke, and plenty more. This structure allows Le Guin to flow freely between points of view as the themes and narrative call for them, and the way she achieves this is natural and engaging.

I love getting glimpses into the minds of all these characters through their points of view, new and old alike, and I love the way we see them see each other. Alder, while similar in concept to Ged and Lebannen, feels distinctly different from either of them. Every detail about his character is so wonderful and interesting to me. I love his soft spokenness, his love for Lily, his cat, the way he perceives Tehanu and Ged and the king… speaking of whom, Lebannen is of course a greatly noble and respectable man, but his point of view reveals so much depth into his conflicting mindset and his relationships with the other characters, especially Tenar. Tenar! I loved her in The Tombs of Atuan and even more in Tehanu, and I adore how she takes precedence in this narrative over Ged even though she longs for nothing more than to go home and see him. Interactions between Orm Irian and Tehanu are so interesting-- all of Tehanu’s interactions are interesting. Le Guin lends particular emphasis to the interactions of women in this novel through the perspective-shifting structure; my favorite example of this is the conversation Seserakh, Tehanu, and Tenar have about death towards the end of the novel. I love it. Not to mention the brief flits of narrative spotlight we get on the supporting cast throughout the novel! Ged, Orm Irian, Seserakh, Azver, Onyx… it’s all so sprawling and vibrant and genuine, I love it.

Most of all, though, I think I just love the hopeful poignance of The Other Wind’s plot, themes, and conclusion.

Earthsea is built around cycles, and I think the realization that death is also a cycle that must be maintained hits so hard in this book. Just as the characters have to face it, so too do we, the audience-- this is the last book. There has to be an ending. Ergo I love the fact that this book’s ending is so beautiful even in its most tragic moments. Alder dies, but meaningfully so (and we know his cat gets a happy ending, too, a tiny detail I’m endlessly glad Le Guin included earlier on in the novel.) Tehanu assumes her form as a dragon and leaves to be with Kalessin and Orm Irian on the other wind, but her presence continues in the impact of her actions, and there is always the hope of reunion. Lebannen and Seserakh marry, ushering in an uncertain but optimistic age of unity and balance in Earthsea. I particularly love the scene we end on of a dialogue between Tenar and Ged at home; the Odyssey-like yet subverted homecoming of Tenar to Ged is clever and beautiful at once, and truly feels like a cycle returning to its beginning.

Every connection between these characters and the ripple-effecting plots of the previous novels feels satisfyingly wrapped up while still maintaining the possibility of an audience-imagined future for them. Through the determination and cleverness and heart of the cast we’ve grown to love, Le Guin makes sure that this world keeps moving even after we stop watching it. I adore that.

I picked up A Wizard of Earthsea on a whim this time last year, and I could not be more glad I did. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a fantasy series, or any series at all, quite like this one-- the Earthsea Cycle has such a wonderful quality of optimism and acceptance and growth to it, with truly affecting messages about the power of goodness, trust, acceptance, change, and balance to be found in its characters and worldbuilding. The Other Wind is a fittingly bittersweet send-off to an incredible story; it’s everything I love about Earthsea, phenomenal writing and genuine characters and a vibrant world and monumental scale and powerful themes converged. Le Guin is unparalleled. Earthsea is inimitable. Everyone should read this series.

Content Warnings

Epic of Helinthia by M.J. Pankey

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Thank you so much to MJ Pankey and Netgalley for allowing me to read an ARC of Epic of Helinthia in exchange for an honest review.

Epic of Helinthia is ambitious. It is a sprawling, dense legend seeking to evoke Homeric poetry in its grandiosity, but with a more contemporary sense of scene-based narrative and character. It’s complex, and it communicates that to its audience right off the bat-- the book includes a dictionary of terms and a tree of relationships as reference material, and necessarily so. The novel is committed to its scope and detail from the beginning through the end.

Despite that, though, I really struggled to connect with Epic of Helinthia. My biggest issue was the setting, which unfortunately I found to be more disconcerting than immersive. I applaud Pankey for her drive to tell a new story rather than retell an existing myth, but for me, the expansion of the Greek mythological world in this novel was jarring. Epic of Helinthia takes place in what I understand to be a fictional Greek land called Helinthia, named after the goddess Helinthia; for those familiar with the Greek pantheon, this name is a new one. Helinthia, the goddess and the land, are contemporary additions to Greek mythology created for Pankey’s world. In theory, this is a creative, interesting thing to see in a novel like this. In practice, at least for me, it’s mostly confusing and disconnective.

I guess I expected this book to feel more like a Greek myth than it did, given its advertisement as similar to the work of Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint. It isn’t, or I didn’t think it was. A lot of the worldbuilding is original and interesting, but decidedly not very ancient Greek-- the names of the characters, for one, seem to be more Arthurian in influence than anything else, which is fascinating, but that detail loses a lot of its interest when it’s presented as if it should fit unquestionably into the ancient Greek world. It feels to me like the novel wants to root itself wholly in a new fantasy world and establish itself as Greek myth at the same time, but since it isn’t cohesively written that way, neither ancient Greece as we know it or Helinthia feels completely natural. I wish this book had picked one and stuck with it rather than continually try to reconcile its settings-- it oscillates unsuccessfully between exploring Helinthian lore and slipping in established facets of ancient Greek myth. I just wonder whether this story could’ve been better told as a new Greek myth without any additional worldbuilding, or as a totally original Helinthian story inspired aesthetically by ancient Greece but without literally placing itself within it.

Earlier I wrote that Epic of Helinthia is ambitious. That ambition carries through to its cast as well as its setting, to varying degrees of success. There are a number of main characters in different geographical locations throughout the novel, all of whom have point of view chapters interspersed with each other, and all of whom have their own insights, opinions, and secrets regarding the events driving the plot. I liked the distinct voices each character had-- I think where Pankey really shines in this book is in her characterization. Every point of view felt different, and each character’s perspective was complex, allowing the reader a view of every conflict from all sides. Kelric and Gadnor and Dargon were solidly distinct characters; I would’ve known whose point of view I was reading even without the help of the chapter title. I found Gadnor in particular to be really well-written and fleshed-out. Kelric was kind of annoying and brash, but that was intentional, and it made his chapters fun to read. I think the multiple point of view structure gave the conflicts and plot of the story, which sometimes seemed unnecessarily convoluted, a lot of much appreciated depth and richness. The relationships between characters carried Epic of Helinthia for me.

But I do have some problems with the characters in this novel. Sometimes it felt like background characters were introduced only to create the illusion of depth, a world bigger than this one really is. Further, so much of the plot beats surrounding Gonivein and Forluna in particular were, to me, contrived and even reductive. The female characters in this book felt somewhat passive even when their narratives directly opposed that passivity-- Gonivein’s plotline is, I think, meant to give her depth and show that she’s more than just a woman waiting to marry Kelric, but men still defined her story, and her agency was backseat to following the actions of the men around her (especially Loric, who I liked a lot, but who essentially functioned as a knight in shining armor to replace Kelric.) Gonivein is so interesting! She deserves better than that!

Forluna is hailed as the ultimate keeper of the big secret about the heir and a mysterious, powerful, independent nymph… but the secret she keeps is kept only to serve the men in the narrative, her plotline is overshadowed by romance just like Gonivein, and her magical power is used almost exclusively to heal the men around her. She’s dragged along on the quest of the main cast passively; it doesn’t feel like she chooses to do anything, rather the plot happens to her. This is especially clear in the opening scene when she takes in the heir.

All this is not to say that there’s no merit in female characters having romances or occupying domestic roles, and I do think Pankey writes the male characters with an eye for romance in such a way that it kind of balances out the gender disparity with those subplots, but I just wish Forluna and Gonivein had been afforded a bit more depth considering the novel’s themes about the disruption of traditional power structures and imbalances in relationships. One example of a book that does well what Pankey seems to try to do here is Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin, which communicates feminism’s versatility even in domestic pockets of a fantastical world; Tehanu proves it’s possible to tell a story like this with characters like this in a way that empowers them, and on that front I just think Epic of Helinthia falls a little short. Forluna and Gonivein, Pankey tries to say, are more than what the men in their lives make of them, and powerful in their femininity. I wish they would have acted on those maxims more often!

Other assorted thoughts I had about this book: the plot is fine, if confusing at first because of all the Greek terms surrounding the characters. I actually really enjoy the way this book commits to its terminology-- I think if I’d had a physical copy of the book, it wouldn’t have been confusing at all, because I could’ve just flipped back and forth to reference the glossary rather than trying to pick up the terms as I went. The writing is decent! I applaud the amount of showing versus telling, even though there were a few lapses into the latter and a few moments of questionable word choice in turn. I don’t think comparisons to Madeline Miller’s writing are accurate, but that’s a really, really high bar anyway. The writing is solid even though it may not be completely outstanding. I didn’t enjoy the more explicit, graphic sexual content, but I understand lots of readers do, and it doesn’t completely overwhelm the book (except for in Kelric’s chapters, where honestly I find it pretty funny.) The plot twist is pretty good; without spoiling anything, I liked the red herrings along the way and where it ended up. The conclusion of the novel is satisfying while also leaving room for a sequel, or two, since I believe this is planned to be a trilogy.

Ultimately, I thought Epic of Helinthia was decent. I’m disappointed I didn’t connect more with its setting and some of its character choices, but the parts that were good were solidly good. This book would be great for someone new to Greek mythology or interested in reading dense, transformative adaptations of historical settings. It’s an ambitious story, and I commend Pankey for taking it on, especially as a debut. I’m excited to see where the sequel and third book go and to see how Pankey’s writing has evolved by the time they’re released.

Content Warnings

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I concur with the popular opinion that Tales from Earthsea is not the strongest book in the Earthsea Cycle-- but that’s a relative measure. Even though I don't think this book is the best in the series, it’s still exceptional.

I think my main issue here was that the short story structure of this book set it apart from the rest of the series to the extent of feeling a bit detached. The wide expanse of time and subject matter these stories cover makes Tales from Earthsea read almost like an in-world storybook or a book of legends. I recognize, of course, that that is the point, and I completely understand why the stories were presented this way. The foreword and afterword included in my edition of the book were enlightening in that regard-- I liked them almost as much as I liked the stories themselves.

This book isn’t a direct sequel or prequel, and while it does gracefully bridge the gap between Tehanu and The Other Wind, I wish it had been more overt with its status as a disruptor of the series’ structure. I would’ve loved to see even more of a leaning in to that kind of diegetic lore-book feel. That’s my only problem with it, and it’s hardly even a problem-- the other Earthsea books are just so phenomenal that this one stands out in comparison.

Structure and pacing aside, the stories included in this collection were wonderful, if not as always immediately gripping and familiar as the other Earthsea books. “The Finder” reminded me quite a bit of A Wizard of Earthsea in the best possible way; the epic feel of a legendary historical narrative carries through. It’s obviously a proficiency of Le Guin’s. There’s just something about the way she writes this kind of biographical account that gives it an air of monumentality, and I am obsessed with it. I could feel how important this story was to the world of Earthsea while reading it; it builds context like Tehanu does with all the legendary flair of A Wizard of Earthsea too, a great combination. I love its irony and foreshadowing and characters (even the creepy ones are endlessly interesting)! It’s super solid, and a great start to the collection.

“Darkrose and Diamond” is sweet, though not an immediate standout to me. I like its meditations on art and music and power in society, as well as the quest for independence young people strive for. I didn’t connect as much with the romance here, and since love was a central part of its themes, that probably impacts my view of the story. I liked it a lot nonetheless, especially how it plays with names. However small, I found the details related to naming in this story to be clever and fascinating. Overall, this one is a departure from what we see in A Wizard of Earthsea and The Farthest Shore and even The Tombs of Atuan towards the end, building on Tehanu but set ages before: in a world where magical power is expected to be the sole priority of men and men only, people can and will break that mold with their determination and yearning. I liked this one.

“The Bones of the Earth” is easily my favorite story in this collection. I love Ogion as a character, and despite feeling completely satisfied with the amount of detail and presence he was afforded in the earlier books (and with the ending he receives in Tehanu, AND with his continued legacy in The Other Wind!), I still wish there was more of him to be read. This story was such a humanizing, lovely insight into him and his teacher. It combines all the things I love about the other stories in the book (and the series as a whole) into one: the powerful, narratively epic feel of the writing and story, the expansion of the world’s context and added relevance of women in the story, the clever naming details and other quirks of magic… the reveal of the use-name Silence was particularly interesting and funny and sad at the same time. It felt like a lightbulb when I heard it: “right, because they call him Ogion the Silent!” So good. I also really enjoy the prose of this story in general. It’s beautifully, carefully written-- all of Le Guin’s work is, but here especially-- and I appreciate it immensely. My favorite part writing-wise was when Ogion’s master started confusing his memories together, blurring them across timelines. In Tehanu, we see a similar unreliable narrator (though it’s in third person, so maybe not narrator) scenario when Tenar’s mind is commandeered by the curse, and seeing how that style has developed here is a treat.

“On the High Marsh,” and I understand this is controversial, was not actually a favorite of mine in this collection. Of course, I think it’s amazing in its own right, but for whatever reason it just didn’t stand out as much to me compared to the rest of the stories here. This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it, because I absolutely did. I liked how quotidian it was, how it leans into the domesticity Tehanu establishes for Ged-- which, after reading The Other Wind, feels even more fitting for Ged’s character. It’s a good setup there. Even though it wasn’t a total showstopper for me, I still really loved it.

“Dragonfly” is a great closer for the book. I feel like I enjoyed it more and more as it went on rather than being hooked immediately, though of course this is Earthsea so that’s quite a relative judgment. This story feels like a convergence, intensifying as it goes on-- which is perfect, because that’s exactly how The Other Wind feels, too. I think “Dragonfly” works really well as a prequel to The Other Wind; I almost wish it had been. I don’t think it works as well as a post-script to Tehanu, which is what Wikipedia calls it (though I do recognize and love the way it works as a kind of parallel to Tehanu’s insights on identity.) Either way, it’s situated somewhere in between a postscript and a prologue as a standalone bridge between the fourth and sixth books, and I’ve made my peace with that. The narrative itself is wonderful; I love how it builds on the characters of Earthsea in the “now” Le Guin refers to in the foreword and afterword. It’s a very present story in that sense. I think Irian is a great character and I really loved following her in this story… and I appreciate all of it even more now, after having finished The Other Wind. I think that’s my main takeaway with this one: I like what it sets up and how it goes about doing that while still remaining self-contained. And, I mean, people turning into dragons is always a fun time.

Ultimately, I loved Tales From Earthsea-- I don’t think it’s quite as strong as the other books in the series, but only fractionally so, and only for minor structural reasons. Earthsea is a pretty high bar to match, anyway. All the stories were fascinating in their own ways, even the reference material included at the end (which I also loved stylistically-- those kind of description texts are so much fun), and I think they’re definitely worth a reread now that I’ve finished the whole Earthsea Cycle. This book in conversation with The Other Wind is just endlessly intriguing to me, and I know when I go back and reread the whole series from the beginning, the same will be true for its connections to all the other novels. Plus, the foreword and afterword were genuinely affecting! I’m normally unmoved by that kind of thing, but these ones are lovely and impactful and enlightening in all senses of the word. Le Guin remains unparalleled. This book was phenomenal.

Content Warnings

Chouette by Claire Oshetsky

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dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up the audiobook of Chouette. All I knew going in was that it was a decently short literary fiction/magical realism read with some music references. I cannot even begin to describe how blown away I was upon finishing this book. Choutte is a fascinating, evocative, intensely resonant story about what it means to fit in, communicated with poignant, sharp authenticity and an undercurrent of dry, dark irony to emphasize its relevance.

I love how Choutte leans into the bizarre. This book approaches (and often reaches) disturbingness in its absurdity on every level, and not once does it shy away from that outlandishness. It commits to being figurative where it needs to be to evoke irony, and to being starkly realistic where it needs to be to emphasize the truth behind the indirect allegory. And it works exceptionally well.

My favorite example of this commitment is the narrator’s name: Tiny. She is dehumanized and dismissed as a little wife and a mere woman throughout the novel, and so her name reflects this-- as well as reflecting the internalization she has of that lack of agency. She feels small; she is minimized. Oshetsky hits the audience with this direct nominative statement of Tiny’s being right at the beginning of the novel, which I think is a massively impactful introduction to the themes the book covers. This detail, combined with the early introduction of the far less direct, difficult-to-interpret owl lover, establishes expectations for the book’s handling of the figurative and the metaphorical; there are some moments of straightforwardness and some moments of ambiguity in the allegory. The metaphor of Chouette where it exists is complex, and I love it for that.

Another thing I adore about Chouette is Tiny’s narrative voice. Oshetsky gives Tiny such a distinct way of thinking and phrasing, one that’s genuine and realistically emotional and interesting. I particularly love how Oshetsky introduces certain phrases into Tiny’s inner monologue that, to an uninitiated audience, may seem unnatural and misplaced at first, but by the end of the book they read as a totally natural, easily understandable part of Tiny’s vocabulary. The repetition of those phrases does a great job of communicating that this narrative is filtered through its narrator, defined by Tiny’s mindset. The way she continually falls back upon the same sentence structure when referring to her “owl baby” and “owl lover,” plus the addition of her own shorthand for times people speak without meaning in the words “yabber yabber,” does wonders for the audience’s ability to step into Tiny’s perception of the world. Oshetsky communicates that wonderfully.

Overall, I just love this book. I love its lapses into overt magical realism with the owl baby and owl lover and Tiny’s out-of-place, almost interdimensionally nostalgic childhood memories-- and I also love the brutality of its literal sections, however bizarre they may be. The surgical procedure Chouette is forced to undergo is especially haunting in that regard, evocative of all kinds of horrific real-world events. I love the ending and how it ties into those themes (and I agree with other reviewers that fans of Megan Hunter’s The Harpy would definitely enjoy this one too.) I love Tiny as a narrative voice and as a protagonist, and I love the way Oshetsky emphasizes the other characters’ dehumanization of her and the baby. The husband’s continual referral to Chouette as Charlotte is particularly striking.

Ultimately, though, I think my favorite thing about Chouette is the versatility of its resonance-- something that is achieved, I think, by Oshetsky’s authenticity in this story. No matter how you interpret Chouette, no matter what allegorical or literal meaning you find in it, it has something important and personal to say about the measures society uses to evaluate, predict, and judge individuality-- and how we can and should transcend those measures which emphasize perceived acceptance over authentic personhood, no matter what society has ingrained in us to do instead. I adore Chouette. I can’t wait to read it again.

Content Warnings

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I’m not sure what I can say about this book that hasn’t already been said, and far better-- it’s phenomenal, hands down. The Bluest Eye is the first of Toni Morrison’s work that I’ve read, and I don’t know why I waited this long to read it. The prose is absolutely masterful, ranging from breathtakingly poignant at times to almost familiar in its melancholy at others-- not to mention the small moments of quotidian beauty in between the horrific events of the novel. This book is steeped in authenticity. The settings, the depth of characters, the insights into history, the world, and human nature: Morrison brings biting authenticity to all of these in her writing, and communicates it with powerful, artful grace. I listened to the audiobook of The Bluest Eye as narrated by Morrison herself, and it added a whole new layer of that authenticity to the novel. An important book, written with heartaching prose and an overwhelming sense of truth behind its narrative.

Content Warnings

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was so good, I wrote a final paper on it completely unprompted. Tehanu is definitely one of my favorites in the Earthsea series, and maybe out of all books.

I love how Le Guin presents and examines identity in Earthsea, and Tehanu makes that its central concern. In a world where power, gender, and identity are so closely entwined, the distinctions between them and their lived impacts on people permeate through every layer of society-- social biases, especially sexist ones, root themselves in the minds of even the most well-meaning people. Tenar is a wonderful character through whom to explore these themes. Even though she herself is intimately familiar with the variance of identity (as the text reminds us, quite cleverly, by switching between the names Goha and Ar-ha and Tenar), she still internalizes biases against women and projects them onto those around her. Ged does much the same in this novel. Tehanu is Tenar’s journey to deconstructing those biases and embracing her identities as a woman.

How Le Guin communicates that journey, through a slow-paced narrative with an often cleverly quotidian yet hunted tone, is phenomenal. For me, this was the most immersive book of Earthsea because of Tenar’s inner monologue (and the moments where it breaks from that were all the more interesting for it.) The plot felt grounded in the reality of its world, whereas previous books like A Wizard of Earthsea felt to me more like a recounting of an epic. Which is also amazing! One of my favorite things about the first book is how much it feels like an epic legend, and the same holds up for The Farthest Shore and even The Tombs of Atuan, to an extent. But Tehanu feels different, in an equally amazing way.

I annotated this book while reading it for recurring images, and what I found was extremely satisfying: there are a lot of opposite motifs, like heat and cold, fire and water, light and dark. I absolutely loved the emphasis on these opposites. The Tombs of Atuan obviously had a lot of light and dark imagery (Ged’s speech to Tenar about being “made to hold light” is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever), and so seeing it echoed in Tehanu was so fitting for Tenar’s character-- and seeing how it applied to Therru’s character was genuinely fascinating to me.

Therru

herself is a contradiction in Earthsea’s society. She occupies opposing roles. She’s a victim of violent assault, a curious youth, Tenar’s daughter, a force of immense power, born of dragons, a girl: in the power structure of Earthsea’s society, these things cannot be true at once. She opposes herself, breaks the rules, forces the people around her to confront the dissonance in their worldviews… just like the repeated opposing images. When she’s given her true name at the end, Tehanu, Tenar realizes the coalescence of her daughter’s identity, finally understanding that she is multifaceted rather than contradictory. And so is every woman, and man, and person, and dragon in Earthsea.

It’s a powerful, meaningful sentiment, and Le Guin communicates it much more beautifully than I just did. Please read this book.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Le Guin is unparalleled. Tehanu is phenomenal, almost mythological in its implications, and I truly think it’s one of the best in the series. I love it.

Content Warnings

One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The question I often find myself asking with sequels to mystery novels is, simply enough, why? Do we need to explore the lives of the characters from the first novel in the wake of whatever tragedy has befallen them, to examine that trauma? Are we seeing how a community heals and learning something new? Are we tying up loose ends, following threads intentionally left unresolved in the first book? One of Us is Next feels mostly like it is doing none of those things-- it might be trying, but in my opinion it is largely unsuccessful. I felt it was tacked on quite awkwardly to the first book, and didn’t do much to meaningfully develop on the existing narrative and characters.

Don’t get me wrong here: I liked getting to see the new cast. In particular, I really liked Phoebe, and I also enjoyed seeing more of Maeve-- I think from a writing standpoint, she’s the strongest character here. But once again, I have to ask why. Why these people, why this story? The connections to the first book feel contrived, almost silly. Set dressing. Why does the plot have to revolve around a copycat of Simon? It just seems to me this could’ve easily been its own story, unrelated to One of Us is Lying, with minimal changes. Ergo I feel like this book’s existence as a sequel is largely due to the fact that the previous book was pretty successful, and not because the story needed a follow up.

I understand that, though. I think that One of Us is Next does pretty well with what it’s given. Many of my problems with the last book revolved around weird tone shifts, and this book isn’t quite as bad in that regard-- it commits to its seriousness moreso than the last, as we can see in how Maeve’s leukemia storyline reflects the darker death threat plotline throughout the novel. I personally hated the romance subplot with Phoebe and Knox, but I thought Maeve’s was okay, and I liked the glimpses of Nate and Bronwyn we get to see. Their on-again-off-again thing feels realistic for their characters. Plus, I liked Nate’s limited interactions with Maeve a lot. Honestly, Nate was probably more of a favorite for me than Knox, one of the actual protagonists. Not a good sign. Of the Bayview Four, though, Addy and Cooper feel pretty detached, so once again: why these people, other than just for marketing purposes? I appreciate getting to see everybody again, but I just think this would’ve been a more interesting story on its own!

I also maintain my issues with predictability and questionable realism here, though I realize that probably wasn’t the goal-- like, not one student mentioned this to any authority at any point? How did phones NOT get banned from the school? And as surprising as I found the final plot twist to be, come on. Owen? Really? That is an entire child. I don’t know how much I believe it (even though I know this is fiction and that’s not the point.) I like its implications for the characters, though. Creates some interesting depth. Other than that, the rest of the plot was FAR more predictable than that of the first book, and, like most of the novel, feels contrived in its connection to the previous book.

Overall, this book was okay. I liked some of the characters, and some of the plot was interesting. But this was definitely not a standout to me, and I don’t think it’s an improvement on the first book. I generally don’t like sequels to mystery novels. I feel like they end up like this one more often than not: unnecessary and desperate to surprise while maintaining familiarity with the first book, which is a combination that leads to outlandish mystery/thriller aspects and contrived plot beats at once. I had the same issue with Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson. It might just be a staple of the genre. But I’m still a little disappointed.

Content Warnings

One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was extremely popular when I started high school-- I tried to read it a number of times, but I just couldn’t get into it and would always abandon it before finishing the first chapter. Recently, I came across the audiobook ready to borrow at my library, so I thought I’d give it one last try before I gave up on it. I’m glad I did, but even still, One of Us is Lying wasn’t as exceptional as I’d expected from all the hype.

I thought the plot was decently interesting, but I struggled to suspend my disbelief throughout the book. The actual premise of the murder mystery feels, to me, almost cartoonish. Peanut oil? Really? It just feels a little off, like the book wasn’t totally committed to the dark themes it later explores. Another place I found this was in Cooper’s character, unfortunately. I really liked him and his plotline, and I thought it was reasonably well done (if a little bit predictable)-- my issue was minor, but it was still there. In particular, I felt a little bit weird about

the subtext behind the emphasis on his Southern accent. To me, it felt like the Southern accent was being used as a subconscious red herring for his character arc, since a lot of the time the American South is associated with conservatism and, thus, homophobia. I think he comments on it after everything is revealed, how difficult it is to be gay in a Southern family. This is an interesting thing to explore, but I don’t know how I feel about the subtextual equation of Southernness and homophobia, even if it’s only used as a “gotcha” moment later on. If that wasn’t what his accent was included for… then why would it have been emphasized at all? It felt a little bit insincere and cheap to me, no matter how well the audiobook narrator sold it-- more on that later.

This was a recurring theme in the novel: tonal dissonance, between the plot and its themes or its characters and its details or anything at all, really. And not usually in a good or intentional way.

Further on that point, there was a massive disparity between the stakes involved for each character. Bronwyn’s entire situation isn’t even remotely comparable to Cooper’s, or Addy’s to Nate’s-- I think probably this was to make some point about how our struggles are deeply subjective and influenced by our perceptions of life, and I do think Bronwyn, as the de facto protagonist, explores that at least a little bit in her character development. Even so, it was a bit jarring, and sometimes almost felt preachy, or too clean cut. The wide breadth of subject matter McManus takes on is serious in all of its facets, but to me most of its presentation feels filed down, made more easily consumable in this narrative. I understand this is YA, so some level of narrowing and predictability is to be expected, but I just wish there was more of a commitment to really going in depth here. All of that makes the ultimate resolution of the mystery somewhat contrived, anticlimactic, and even a little bit hokey, which takes away from the serious message it’s trying to convey.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy One of Us is Lying. I did. I thought the audiobook performance was genuinely phenomenal; I was about to write “especially Nate’s and Bronwyn’s sections” since Robbie Daymond and Kim Mai Guest were a huge reason I picked up the audiobook at all, but then I thought to add Cooper’s as standout, and also Addy’s, and then I found myself looking up the whole cast. So, an absolute round of applause to Robbie Daymond as Nate, Kim Mai Guest as Bronwyn, MacLeod Andrews as Cooper, and Sharon McManus as Addy-- they were awesome. No matter how contrived or simplified I felt the message of the book was, it was still a lot of fun. For a YA book, this does what it needs to do, and pretty well. It’s accessible to teens and relevant to them, probably, and I like the genuine care the narrative and author seem to have for their audience. My criticisms probably hail from the fact that I think I’ve somewhat aged out of YA, so I’m not the target audience for a book like this. If I’d read it five years ago as a freshman in high school, I think it would have been perfect for me, and maybe that’s all I can expect from it.

My thoughts on the sequel are another story. But One of Us is Lying was overall a solid YA thriller, no matter how picky I am about it.

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conspystery's reviews 278 reviews

conspystery's reviews
278 reviews