elerireads's reviews
383 reviews

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

challenging emotional hopeful mysterious 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

4.0

Gosh this was an incredibly thought-provoking book but it boy was it difficult to read. The way it was written is disjointed in every sense - moving between different characters' points of view, between first and third person, between describing inner thoughts and narrative description, with some of the thoughts indented on the page and others not, and also between languages. The passage of time also felt very uneven, with some shorter periods such as their holiday together given a lot of extremely detailed description whilst in other places large chunks of time seemed to go by without a clear indication that that was happening. The prose itself was not the most readable either - there was a lot of esoteric, bordering on bizarre vocabulary and references, and sentences in the same paragraph often either had no clear thread joining them or connected to one another but only insofar as following a train of thought off on an eccentric tangent. There's also a lot of Maori for which you have to keep flipping to the back of the book to find the translation (would have been really helpful if these translations had been in footnotes on the page instead). So to say this book is not easy to dip in and out of would be an understatement - it's definitely one that needs you to set aside a chunk of time to immerse yourself fully in the rich and strange narrative voice or you won't have a hope in hell of understanding what's going on.

In a strange way though, I found the alien language and structuring sort of helped to make it feel like you were thrown into a whole different world. And whilst there's never a doubt that the main characters are weird, it feels like a very natural kind of weirdness in the context of the otherworldly atmosphere of the whole book. Or maybe it's just that the love between them is so vivid and rings so true that all their personal eccentricities fade to insignificance. That said, Kerewin is bizarre and I did find her more than a bit pretentious, although there is quite a lot of self-awareness too when she reads back some of her diary entries etc.

The way the abuse was handled was very uncomfortable and I don't really know how to feel about it. At no point does anyone actually condone it, although Kerewin does seem to be allowing some kind of 'measured, reasonable' (not a quote) beating. However, it's very clear that the perspective the reader is supposed to take is that Simon is better off going back to live with his horrendously abusive father than being placed in any kind of foster care / alternative care. And the love between them all is so strong that it's very convincingly done. Uncomfortable. 

There are many, many more things that could be said about this book but I've already written loads and have now lost all motivation to write the rest down. Anyway, difficult to get into but very vivid and interesting characters whose lives eventually do pull you in.

Also - asexual main character!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Child abuse

Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher

adventurous funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

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

3.5

A bit of light-hearted fun. Set in unapologetically historically ambiguous (read: innacurate) Robin Hood time. Dramatic battles, romance, Merry Men politics, childhood trauma - it's got it all. Good for an easy Christmas read.

Aces Wild: A Heist by Amanda DeWitt

funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Good fun. I was maybe a bit underwhelmed by the whole "heist" element of this. I also didn't really feel much of a sense of danger - although the antagonist was described as a crime boss we never actually observed him doing anything other than talk a bit meanly so it was difficult to see him as much of a threat. I did enjoy the representation of an all-asexual friendship group who had originally met online - it felt very realistic. When I look back on it there are many things that i think could have been better in terms of building connection with the characters and feeling more invested in the story, but at the same time i did end up reading it pretty quickly and enjoying it so it can't have been too bad. All round not the greatest book ever but still enjoyable.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.25

Hmm I can understand why this has a bit of a cult following. The premise of a gay script writer being forced to kill off his gay characters and the studio trying to scare him into doing it is kind of iconic and hilarious. As was the use of his horror movie characters to do so. Not quite sure how I felt about all the AI/robot stuff but I think I preferred it to anything supernatural. The logic around the lack of asexual representation in media leading to the ultimate downfall of a giant evil Hollywood world domination attempt was absolutely ridiculous, so flawed and full of holes. But I loved it so much I didn't care.

I did struggle a bit with the level of gore in this.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I enjoyed this! Fun concept and reasoably well executed. Honestly though I felt quite a lot less invested in the actual plot than I did in the world that was built for it. Given that the characters basically were the world in this case, I was a bit annoyed they were getting killed off before we got to know them properly. In general, I'd rather fantasy novelists erred on this side, and didn't have hundreds of pages of world buiding in which nothing actually happens, but still Ithink in this case I could have done with another 50 pages. I do feel motivated to read the next ones in the series though!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

The Meister of Decimen City by Brenna Raney

emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.75

Absolutely deranged in a hilarious and very enjoyable. I listened to Wicked whilst reading it and the vibes were similar - misunderstood 'villain' backstory etc. I loved the dinosaurs. Absolutely hated Viv

Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester

informative reflective slow-paced

2.5

Very interesting topic. I enjoyed the first half and then it sort of seemed to lose direction and became a bit of a random sprawling meander through land-related topics. I really started to lose interest in the last quarter - I was listening to the audiobook and zoned out so much while it was on that this should probably be a DNF. I think some portion of that is more to do with me just being in a bit of a reading rut in general rather than a problem with the book. But I can only go off my experience of it.

Side note: the audiobook was narrated by the author, who had an *ahem* interesting pronunciation of coelicum. If you're pretentious enough to put latin in your book, might be worth checking how to pronounce it before recording the audiobook 😅

The Dragon of Ynys by Minerva Cerridwen

hopeful inspiring fast-paced

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

1.75

Hmm honestly not sure what to make of this. I don't quite know who it's aimed at but I assume kids, i.e. not me. It was kind of sweet but super simply written and the story wasn't very engaging. Essentially it felt like it was trying so hard to be diverse and inclusive that all the other components of what makes a good book suffered. It was readable but I just didn't feel invested in it at all.

I liked the parallel of literal spider webs representing the power of the internet to connect people who are different/isolated/marginalised and make them feel less alone.

I was a bit unnerved by the Welsh in the title with no other reference to Wales (other than featuring a dragon), welshness or what it meant. I don't think the author is Welsh?

Politics On the Edge: A Memoir from Within by Rory Stewart

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

Engaging and not shying away from complexity, whilst still written in simple and easy to read language. Personally I didn't think there was anything groundbreaking in the content - whilst a lot of the things he was talking about were dreadful, unfortunately none of them was particularly surprising to me. What it did well though was bringing together a lot of the problems and absurdities of different facets of British politics and illustrating them through one person's experience. Made more compelling by the emotional journey from naïve optimism through shock, disbelief and disillusionment to despair after exhausting every possible avenue and being thwarted at every turn.

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

This was a bit creepier than books I would normally read - reading it late at night was definitely a bad call! But that means it was pretty darn effective at doing what it intended. The whole creepy-island-claustrophobia thing is possibly a bit cliché but it's a cliché because it works - same goes for sinister creature preying on beautiful girls. Mostly I felt like it was pretty well written, possibly with the exception of the clunky insertions of basic, bland, feminist points. In contrast, the ace rep was much better done - openly discussed but not overly so and with some nuance.