ellaep's reviews
325 reviews

Magician by Raymond E. Feist

3.75

I really enjoyed this! I’m now convinced that I could become a fantasy reader. I liked the main cast of characters a lot, I liked the conflict, I liked the politics, so all in all I’m very likely going to keep reading this series! I would’ve given this book a 4, but all of the (very few) female characters are just love interests and have no other motivations beyond that. I could rant about that for days. 

Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom: A Story by Sylvia Plath

3.5

A very short story about a girl getting on a train. Sinister and a little bit spooky which is exactly the vibe I was looking for with this. My plan was to read more Sylvia Plath in March and this was just a little taste test to start the journey 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

4.0

I really enjoyed this book a lot. I adore the writing style, and I have a special love for multiple pov stories where it slowly reveals that they’re all connected. Very easy to read as well. I personally would’ve loved some more world-building, but I also really enjoyed the focus on specific individuals, so maybe what I want is a sequel 🙏

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Did not finish book. Stopped at 38%.

Will come back to it, it was just so confusing to listen to as an audiobook. Ill find it at the library or something and read it physically instead 

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna

3.5

Needed a quick book to listen to while I did some chores today, and this ended up being a great choice. There’s something about nordics and extreme nonchalance in the face of crazy life experiences, this is like the third book I’ve read that fits that description, and honestly I find it hilarious every time. Writing style was a little bit bland in my opinion, but that’s just a preference, the story was engaging and I would recommend this book to others for sure. 

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

4.25

If I could explain this book in one word it would be: difficult. The process of reading it was long and arduous and it followed cultural and political situations that I had no prior knowledge of. But somehow, it was all worth it. This book is well-written, well executed, dramatic, informative, exciting, and distressing. The characters were also such an interesting feature of the story because even though there were so many, they were all given time and space to develop and change. I could hate a character in V1 that became a favourite in V3, you just truly never know where the story would take them. My only qualm with the characters is that I felt so distant from them, like I couldn’t really understand their choices and behaviours. They just didn’t feel very real to me and that may be due to my more modern perspective making me feel disconnected, because I do get similar feelings reading other classics (like: why don't you just talk out your marriage issues with your wife instead of complaining about "women" to your friends? why are you parenting your kids that way? why did you invite that guy to come over if you're gonna act all annoying because you think he's below you?). 

But all in all, this book was incredibly interesting and I am so excited to read another (hopefully shorter) Tolstoy in the future <3  

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier, Barbara Harshav

4.5

When I started writing a review it suddenly became several paragraphs long and I had to calm down a bit. I really adored this book, and I think what I loved the most was the main character. I love the plot: man gets a sudden shock to his monotonous life, somehow becomes a bit obsessed with a book in a language he doesn’t speak, and then goes to a foreign country to learn absolutely everything he can about it. BUT I am a character girlie through and through and I absolutely loved our main character. It felt similar to when I read “A Gentleman in Moscow” and I felt so safe and calm inside of the MC’s head. I wanted to keep experiencing the world through his eyes, wanted to fall in love with a book, and wanted to completely adopt his obsession with languages. He and I share very similar fears about ourselves and I thought it was kind of comforting to see them in another person and still feel like I cared about them, which feels so vulnerable to say, but oh well whose gonna read this review anyways lol. 

I deeply wish I would’ve read a physical copy instead of listening to an audio-book, not because there was anything wrong with the narration, but because some stories feel like offerings at the altar of literature and of language, and listening to them feels somehow sacrilegious (like The Secret History which discusses language and learning with so much care that you feel like you need to see the words in front of you). 

The Stranger by Albert Camus

3.0

I have two conflicting perspectives on this book. In terms of the story, I hated it. I disliked the writing, the plot, the main character and all of the other characters. On the other hand, after learning more about existentialism and Camus's own ideas about life, I re-examined my thoughts on the story and found an incredibly interesting examination of existentialist philosophy. So as a whole I decided to give it 3 stars, yay!

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

4.0

This book was incredible, and the narrator was so good! His voice really set the tone for the rest of the story, and I would really recommend listening to this book. I don't really have much to say, this is a non-fiction story about the insane story of The Wager. It provides an incredibly interesting perspective on the British navy of the time and makes sure to discuss the native populations that European colonialism destroyed. 

Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer

hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted

3.75

I'm such a sucker for the author narrating their own book so I had to listen to this book. This book was amazing! Informative and inspiring. It had such a kindness and gentleness in tone which I find so incredibly engaging, especially in a non-fiction. 

However, I did realize as I read this book that I don't really enjoy non-fiction books with a lot of personal anecdotes and stories from the author, which this book was full of. I mean, I still gave it a 3.75 so it didn't bother me that much, but I now know this for when I look for other non-fiction books in the future.