jayalex_8's reviews
103 reviews

The Boy on the Bridge

M.R. Carey

3.75

adventurous dark emotional 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

Single & Single

John le Carré

3.0

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Whilst not being my favourite of Le Carré’s, Single & Single still maintains his expert character development and leaves you wanting only the best for young Oliver. However, I felt slightly disappointed after reading the blurb in my first edition, that the narrative structure didn’t pan out how I expected. The setting up of Oliver’s little safe house family felt like it should have been given greater presence throughout, and the ‘revealing’ of the great mystery got a little repetitive, with much of the novel’s key secrets being revealed through dialogue with the various characters Oliver encounters along his great search for his father. Overall, not my favourite narrative, but still with a compelling, typically Le Carré character arc.

Go Set a Watchman

Harper Lee

3.5

challenging reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë

5.0

dark emotional inspiring sad medium-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: Yes

Wuthering Heights is a surprisingly dark, somewhat gritty classic, that transports you to the harsh Yorkshire moors 200 years past. Emily’s structural devices are excellently dispatched, the narrator cleverly woven into the story along with Lockwood’s vague ‘outsider’ reader status truly brings the stories to life - almost as though one must also retreat into the parlour and tend the coals!

Dust

Hugh Howey

4.5

adventurous emotional inspiring 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: Complicated

A satisfying, if somewhat predicated, ending to this captivating trilogy. Howey has a way of grabbing the reader and pulling them down into the Silo with him,

that by the epilogue of Dust, you feel just as hopeful in your heart as Jules does.

The characters of the Silo trilogy really come alive in this third and final instalment. It’s just a shame that there’s no more to read!

Shift

Hugh Howey

4.75

adventurous dark inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Wool

Hugh Howey

4.5

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

A very tense, thrilling read!

Orlando

Virginia Woolf

5.0

adventurous lighthearted reflective 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: Complicated

Fantastical, thoughtful, and funny, Orlando is a classic that doesn’t feel like it. I found Woolf’s musings on time, biography and age surprisingly intriguing and complementary to the explorations of sexuality, gender and gendered society(ies). The novel flies through the ages leaving the imagined reader to ponder whether Orlando really is 400 years old, or if time simply ‘shrunk’ to fit within her thirty six years. An excellent experimental novel of many exquisite passages that I am sure many readers before and after me will continue to return to.