merrrry's reviews
368 reviews

Mort by Terry Pratchett

adventurous lighthearted

3.75

Not what I expected but I liked it. Not as much as I like the watch books tho. I see why everyone likes Death so much, and I wished we got more of him in this book. We get a “mid-life crisis” arc that isn’t super fleshed out because Mort is the main focus of the book. The moments that we did get with Death were great tho. Comparing this to the two watch novels I’ve read, I also didn’t like the side characters or general plot as much. Because the book is fairly short, I didn’t feel like I had much time to learn about any of the characters, so I didn’t really connect with any of them. I still had a good time reading this — it’s just not as good as Men at Arms and Guards Guards imo. 

Stoner by John Williams

emotional sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

I can't remember the last time I connected with a character so deeply. Living in Stoner's head and watching life happen to him was both melancholy and uplifting somehow. His life was more challenging than breezy most of the time, but his ability to find a quiet contentment in little things made the novel feel a lot less heavy than it could've been. That being said, the inevitable pains that he worked through affect me in such a way that I found myself trying to rationalize situations for Stoner to alleviate the emotional impact. The loss of the peace and joy he had with Grace (and their family life's eventual effects on her) hurt me more than anything else. All of this was done in elegant and succinct prose. Stoner is going to sit with me for a while.

NYRBs are 2 for 2 so far. Highly recommend. 

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

hopeful

3.25

The definition of short and sweet. A nice winter/Christmas read! Very wholesome feel good books generally don't speak to me, hence the 3 star rating, but I'd recommend this to anyone who wants a chill read. 

The Titans Curse by Rick Riordan

adventurous fast-paced

4.0

Past me was right — this is kinda mid (for my tastes). Mid for PJ is still pretty good though lol. The stakes were followed through on, and I could feel that the characters were a bit older than before. Idk how RR does it but he captures the essence of childhood (and teenage-hood) so well. These genuinely felt like 14-15 year olds (plus Zoe) running around. The excitement level in this one felt a bit back-loaded, and Bianca and Zoe felt much less developed than I remember (I guess Rick Riordan didn't want us to get too attached oof). Otherwise, a super solid Riordan book! Also little Nico is so precious :’ all I remember is angsty emo Nico so this was nice to see again. 

Berserk Deluxe Volume 4 by Kentaro Miura

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

3.5

Felt more or less the same about these three volumes as the last three. It was exciting to see Guts and Casca's relationship develop and to finally reach a few more pivotal plot moments with the Behelit stuff — I just still don't really care yet for some reason. I'm not emotionally attached to much of the world. I do like this enough to keep reading though. Hopefully it'll grow on me.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

reflective

4.25

I did it, I read it again. The M. D. Herter Norton translation this time. I read less carefully this time and found the tone generally more casual and modern compared to my first read (which was the Charlie Louth translation), which made for a much more relaxed read as a whole. I might opt for this translation if I ever read this collection again.

The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin

challenging inspiring reflective

4.5

This might be the most well-written content I've read this year. Ursula Le Guin is powerful. The only reason this isn't a 5 star read for me is because I'm too dumb to appreciate the entire collection. A lot of them went completely over my head because I'm not a writer and not the most well-read in classics. I definitely want to return to a lot of these essays after I understand the context more. The stuff I did have prior knowledge going into (e.g., the Tolkien stuff) I aDORED. Some of my favourite pieces were the Personal Matters pieces. My favourite was “Being Taken for Granted”. I also love the way Le Guin talks about the oral tradition of written word, art, and feminism both in literature and in general. I read the Left Hand Of Darkness and didn't really enjoy my reading experience, but still really respected the book as a whole. Having now read her essays, I feel motivated to at least try the Earthsea series. 

Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat

dark

3.5

Captive Prince has been on my radar for years, but I’ve never been particularly drawn to it because I'm trash for some basic hetero romance lol. I always knew that the first book isn't where it's (allegedly) gut-wrenchingly good so I went in not expecting much — and that's more or less what I got. This did a good job of setting up the world and introducing the conflicts and political intrigue, so it didn't have much time for much else. That being said, this was a fun read! I breezed through and didn't even cringe as much as I thought I would at the v explicit stuff. The prose is pretty nice tho which helps. Tbh, if I hadn't been informed repeatedly that the second and third books are much better than this one, I probably wouldn't bother continuing the series. I haven't really connected emotionally with anything yet, but guess we'll see if the second book will live up to the hype! 

The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

adventurous fast-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

There's a lot that I loved about this on paper, but I personally just didn't really connect with the style, rhythm of the story, nor the characters. I kept comparing this to Locke Lamora, which I much preferred in terms of characterizations, humour, tone, etc. etc. I think where this book excelled were its concepts in the world-building and magic system. I loved how the magical tattoos worked and general lore (

an entire stable of horses stored in the skin of a giantess as tattoos?? so cool

) I don't know if I'll be continuing this series though.

Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver

reflective relaxing

3.0

Hmmmm I went into this expecting to really like it having enjoyed “A Thousand Mornings”. Mary Oliver’s prose and atmosphere works better in poetry form in my opinion. For some reason, I couldn’t connect with the way she wrote about nature here. There were definitely a lot of amazing quotable bits, but I personally didn’t find them in the parts about nature. It is possible that I just wasn’t in the right mindset for this collection — I read most of it while extremely tired and frequently felt the urge to rush through since I wasn’t really intrigued by the content. Most of the pieces about her love for writing and writers went over my head as I’m not the biggest classic literature buff, but the ones I did get were great (such as the Poe piece). As a whole, not a bad collection, but not for me.