nincrony1's reviews
54 reviews

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

dark emotional sad 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

Is this the crowning achievement of the Earthsea series? Quite possibly. Tehanu is at once a mournfully sad yet ultimately hopeful tale about ageing and womanhood (in particular) whilst also being a quiet undermining of the original Earthsea trilogy. The story picks up with Tenar from two books prior and continuing Ged’s story post-The Farthest Shore. Two legendary heroes now older and pass their prime; Tenar a widow and realising societal set gender norms have now made her obsolete and Ged no longer the archmage and powerless. In between them, a scarred burned traumatised girl named Therru where over the course of the book, the three of them find hope again - I love a found family story, after all. It’s a long and very trying road to get there though. This is a much darker novel than the first three, less of the high fantasy adventuring whilst tackling some heady themes and narratives points. For such a short book, it’s dense and impactful. Le Guin’s prose is so direct and beautiful. Almost 20 years of development separates this and her original Earthsea books and the maturity of the writing is apparent. The way she kneads in her philosophy and now focus on being an older woman is perfect. Just based on the first three books alone, she’s one of my favourite authors, but with Tehanu she earns her place as one of the best. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Child abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.25

Another excellent Stormlight Archives book. As the middle child in the five books that will make up the first major arc of the series, Oathbringer clearly needs to do a lot to get the characters and setting to certain points. Loads to sink in and think about with plenty of highlights. The Dalinar flashbacks were masterful - I loved finally learning the backstory of one of my favourite characters from the series. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about the Shallan stuff at first but by the second half it really paid off well and is a nice continuation to her character arc. Kaladin gets some great moments but he’s gone through some enormous changes in the first two books so I’m happy with him backseating in this one a little bit. The Szeth stuff is great; loved his interactions with Lift. There were two twists that made me gasp out loud. The final 150 pages are ridiculously thrilling. Whilst I do have issues with the pacing of the book at times, God above does Brandon know how to stick the landing. It went full on Avengers and I loved it.

That said, this one did feel its length. The narrative thrust and pace are a little all over the place, as the strands get more complicated and numerous. Sanderson more or less balances them out but I did get a little lost very occasionally with the secondary characters and some of the lore stuff. Some of it also felt like padding; thinking of a few of the characters getting stuck on a boat in particular. I also confess to not having read the Edgedancer novella before reading this but I will be reading both it and Dawnshard before starting Rhythm of War. Lift was still great fun regardless.

Overall, it’s another very worthy achievement for the series. As the middle chapter it does have a hard task to grapple with but I’m still very much thrilled at where this is going next.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

Taking it slowly, chipping away at it, I managed to read Crime & Punishment which I view as being a nice little milestone in my return to reading regularly. It wasn’t always easy and at times I did collapse under the weight of the names, the dense prose etc. But then something amazing would happen that would snap me back into the main narrative which I enjoyed overall. In particular Raskolnikov’s attempts to live with and justify what he did and the ensuing madness. I also enjoyed Dostoevsky’s almost Dickensian assessment of Tsarist Russia; the rampant poverty and complicated societal circles. 

It was not always an easy read, and I could really only dip in and out, but it was ultimately rewarding and left me just marvelling at the invention of Dostoevsky’s deliberate structuring of the novel. 

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.75

A good early Discworld book that neatly reinvents Granny Weatherwax in a light adventure that spoofs Macbeth before building to the characters staging their own play, not dissimilar to the Bard. This is still very much where the plots were loose frameworks to hang the jokes onto. That said, even if the narrative beats can be a bit inconsistent, I definitely think this is the best pre-Guards! Guards! novel (where for me Discworld really starts to come into its own with tighter plotted stories).

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad fast-paced

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

5.0

I finally got round to reading this in full Christmas Day morning whilst waiting for the family festivities to start (and at the behest of my mum, who reads it every year, after watching the Muppets film version last night for the 1000th time). And by everything great in classic literature, it was wonderful. There really is a reason this is such a timeless story. Dickens funnelled his life’s work of highlighting the plight of the Victorian working classic into a universal story of kindness, empathy and love into a succinct tale that is very witty (“there’s more gravy then grave about you”) yet also deeply sad but unwavering in its belief that humans are fundamentally good creatures. 

Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I found Cities of the Plain a little bit disappointing compared to the first two books. Thematically there’s a bit going on (ageing cowboys in the mid-20th century is ripe for that Death of the West trope I love so much) but I found the plot itself a bit plodding. The two returning lead characters from their respective books is a nice idea and the book effectively illustrates how they’ve aged. Older people but still very much the same in many ways; John Grady as the hopeless romantic and Billy Parham as the quieter plainsmen (with his love of animals). I feel there could be more to sow though from this concept and the plot that does emerge doesn’t quite click as naturally as the previous books (which were loose but allowed McCarthy to hang other things onto them). The previous books revel in the landscapes as much as the characters and obviously a lot of that is gone with the modernising of the world in this book. Thematically it’s all interesting but I think McCarthy struggles to make it engaging. The outcome to the tale is intentionally disappointing; John imagines a heroic rescue of a sex worker he had fallen in love with but it quickly goes south. I liked the Epilogue, with the rambling tale told by Death (?) a signpost to the infamous ending of No Country for Old Men and Sheriff Bell’s ruminations on his dreams. Cities of the Plain is still good and a nice cap-off to the trilogy but I was left wanting a bit more; but it’s also clearly a transitional novel. 

Call for the Dead by John le Carré

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

A cracking little Cold War spy mystery, with a great central hook and intriguing narrative. It’s easy to see how La Carre would continue to hone his craft as the premier espionage author. His debut is tight and to the point with plump, balding and jaded George Smiley standing in sharp contrast to Britain’s other famous literary spy. My only criticism of Call for the Dead is that it is brief and I wished some of the side characters had more time to breath. Looking forward to the reading the rest of the Smiley books (this read came about as I got a chapter into The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and realised it was the third book in the series)

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

Current world events got me thinking about Maus and returning to this masterwork as an adult (I think I first read it when I was a late teen) has been an overwhelming experience. Make no mistake - it is worth the hype and is a possible contender for one of the top 10 best books I’ve ever read; graphic novel or not.

The genius really is in the framing - Maus is at once an account of Vladek and Anja Spielgman surviving the Holocaust. The framing device is then about  their son (Art himself), decades later, interviewing his elderly (often difficult) father to piece their story together to create a comic. It’s a story about the Holocaust, yes, but also about memory, inter-generational trauma, and the creative process. 

Spielgman’s careful art style with its seemingly simple character designs belies that this a true master at work in its restraint, giving us the reader some distance from the harrowing real world events. That’s not to say it doesn’t shy from the horrors of the Holocaust - it just makes it more palatable. I also appreciate the book’s unflinching honesty - it must have taken some real guts to put this out into the world. Vladek is an incredibly complicated person - resourceful, quick-thinking and resilient but also overbearing, difficult to be around, and frustrating in his daily ways.  He isn’t a saint - he’s honestly someone who got incredibly lucky and somehow survived this awful tragic thing. He’s a person (or a mouse but whatever). 

This is required essential reading for all.

The Trial by Franz Kafka

challenging dark mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

My first slice of Kafka and whilst I found it very interesting and fairly stimulating, I think I like the concept better than the execution. Parts of this shine; like the early chapters with K learning about this strange world and beginning to understand the unnecessarily complicated laws and regulations that bind it. Haunting parts like stumbling across some offices being whipped or even the grim ending really stuck with me. But I felt some parts in execution were necessary (such as the long list of hypothetical results for K) but not always fun to read. Still; you have to respect and the stark prose (written in long blocks of paragraphs) really does subject you to the (ahem) Kafka-esque nightmare. 

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.5

The third entry in Earthsea is perhaps one of more famous ones in popular culture; mostly as the bones of the novel (in the loosest sense) became the Studio Ghibli film Tales from Earthsea. This instalment is much darker and sadder than previous books, as the world of Earthsea itself becomes consumed by a darkness, the hopeful ending of Tombs of Atuan undone.

In a way, I think this might be the most Earthsea Earthsea book and the strongest exploration of Le Guin’s philosophy for this world. Knowledge does not come without loss. The world works in a fine balance for all life to live and those who seek to unbalance are arbiters of their own doom. Le Guin’s prose is frankly stunning here - it’s crazy that a mere fours years separates this from the first book. I loved the trials of Ged and Arren who lose and gain so much on their journey. It’s easy to see why for so long this felt like the ending of the series, until Tehanu upended that (can’t wait to read that one). My only criticism is that the narrative itself is not as tight as Atuan and can be a victim of its own deliberately slow and occasionally meandering pace at times; though I found it the most thematically rich of the novels. Brilliant stuff.