onegin's reviews
36 reviews

Järjettömiä asioita by Saara Turunen

funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

Hauska ja söpö kirja rakkauden, luokan ja kulttuurin ristiriidasta. Henkilöhahmot tuntuivat inhimillisiltä, ja kirja oli täynnä pieneitä oivalluksia ja nokkelaita lauseita. Mukava lukukokemus, en odottanutkaan!

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Did not finish book. Stopped at 16%.

If you like stories about stories, and Harry Potter references, this is for you. Not for me though. The pop culture references felt misplaced, and the whole 'all stories are important/we're all just a story' has been overdone.

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone
Did not finish book. Stopped at 11%.

It came with good recommendations and I could see it's appeal from what I've read, it just isn't for me.

Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories by Masha Gessen, Joseph Huff-Hannon

emotional informative fast-paced

As soon as I saw this cover, I knew I wanted to read this book. It's a collection of interviews of a couple dozen LGBTQ+ Russians. This book was published on 2014, right before the Olympics in Sochi when the infamous law against homosexual propaganda was under attention in international media. That was seven years ago, and in a country like Russia, it's a long time, yet this book remains current, as the interviewees reflect on how the new legislation changed the attitude of the people around them.
As the editors pointed out, there's a slight selection bias in the interviewees - the editors couldn't reach out to every single gay person in Russia, and not everyone they reached out to agreed to be interviewed. But even in this selection there's a diversity of opinions, and different life situations - just like in any group of people. There are couples who raise children in Russia, others that seek political asylum in the USA, some that are LGBTQ+ activists, while others have carefully tucked themselves away in the closet. Each interview was not more than a couple pages long. In total, I'd say this gives a very general and surface level view of life as gay in Russia, yet this is still more than I've seen anywhere else.
This is a bilingual book: the first half is in English, the second half is the same text, but in Russian (I read the Russian half). When I started reading it, I thought it would make me sad and worried, but mostly, it made me hopeful. These are love stories, after all.

Trumpet av bleck och drömmar by Gabrielle Roy

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Bokens tema är fattigdom, och jag hade väntat mig att den skulle vara dyster och hopplös, på samma sätt som andra böcker med temat är. Jag hade fel. Även om huvudpersonerna inte alltid hade mat på bordet gottade sig inte berättelsen i lidandet, den behandlade inte personerna som offer och martyrer. Vad jag gillade mest var hur mänskliga personerna var.
Varje person i familjen Lacasse förhöll sig till sin fattigdom på olika sätt. Vissa försökte fly, andra förnekade den, medan den sista försökte få varje mynt att räcka till. Deras förhållande till de mer välbeställda personerna i boken var ytterligare en spegel genom vilken fattigdomen syntes. När sönerna tog värvning gick de till samma krig, men orsakerna var annorlunda: för Letourneau hade råd att gå i krig för mänsklighetens skull, medan för Eugene Lacasse var det först och främst en pålitlig månadsinkomst.
Det var personerna som gjorde boken levande. Som läsare kände jag mig närvarande och delaktig i deras vardag. Den var inte lång, men jag lärde känna personerna på ett sätt jag sällan gjort i liknande böcker.

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold

challenging emotional fast-paced

5.0

Lois McMaster Bujold has established in the Vorkosigan saga novels one infallible law: Miles Vorkosigan always wins. And even when the reader remembers this law, as Miles is plunged into yet another seemingly unbeatable challenge, the reader pores over the pages, anxiously wondering: how is Miles going to overcome this challenge? And, most importantly: at what cost?

This far into the series, the reader is closely familiar with the characters. The reader knows each character's fears, values, and what they desire above all. LMB puts these in conflict with each other, to masterful results: each choice comes with an emotional weight, and which the reader intimately understands.

The above is true for the other Vorkosigan saga novels as well, but (as far as I've read in the series) Memory hits the jackpot. I had to take breaks reading it - sometimes even between paragraphs! - to take a breather as I read about Miles' grip of his desires and dreams slip loose. As his personal world changes, he must ask himself: what does he really want, and what is he willing to sacrifice for it? This question is a trademark of the Vorkosigan saga: desire and integrity are pitted against each other.

Reading Memory, I also enjoyed returning to Miles' home planet, Barrayar. I'm most appreciative of the world-building of the Barrayan society: it's entirely believable. The characters are aware that the idea of the monarchy and nobility is a construct, and as a reader it is satisfying to see the small details that reveal how much effort the characters put into holding up and navigating this social construct.

I cannot express how much fun I had reading Memory. Although Miles and the other characters had to face deeply personal horrors, it was extremely satisfying to experience the emotional beats of the plot. I will also not discard Miles' dry humour, as well as some hilariously ironic reveals. 

Memory would not work as well as it did without the work done establishing the characters in the previous novels. But boy, does it pay off.

Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

I'm almost ashamed to admit how much I enjoyed this book? It's always a feast whenever I read the Vorkosigan saga, and I indulge myself fully. Lois McMaster Bujold is a master of writing thrill and intrigue, the plot draws you in - but above all, the characters shine. What characters! They're flawed, yet wonderful, and their heroic actions are drawn from those flaws, their humanity - their incredible feats of heroism are believable.

The content warnings* for this book are extensive - there's really so much fucked up shit that happens to the characters. And yet - as I read through the horrible events in the books, I trusted that it was worth it, and LMB delivered themes of identity, love, duty… The fucked up shit was never unnecessarily explicit, only enough words were spent on it to get across what was happening and how it affected the characters.

Any instalment for the Vorkosigan saga is a fantastic read, but Mirror Dance, with its main theme of identity, hit above the mark for me.

*make sure to look them up on the book's profile! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Torture, Medical trauma, Sexual violence, and Gore

Moderate: Rape and Pedophilia

Sammetsdiktaturen : motstånd och medlöpare i dagens Ryssland by Anna-Lena Laurén

hopeful informative fast-paced

4.5

 I västerländsk media brukar bilden av Ryssland vara svartvit - ryssarna är antingen homofobiska putindyrkare, eller förtryckta stackare, hjälplösa mot statens korrupta maskineri. Såklart finns det sådana människor i Ryssland, men däremellan finns det så många nyanser som ofta faller mellan raderna.

Anna-Lena Laurén har i sin nya bok illustrerat dessa nyanser. På tvåhundra sidor kan man omöjligt ge en komplett överblick av dagens Ryssland, men det är en bra början. Jag gillade särskilt hur hon satte ord på den verklighet som ryssarna lever i - illusionen som staten målar upp och som alla vet är bara en illusion, men den finns där ändå. Likaså förklarar hon hur Putin tillsvidare hade haft ett stort stöd - och hur hans grepp om makten nu börjar slinka.

Sammetsdiktaturen är fylld av hopp. Ryssland är i förändring, och det tack vare sitt folk som kämpar för denna förändring. Ännu finns det många som tror att det är omöjligt för Ryssland att ändras - men när det väl händer, kommer man att säga, att det var oundvikligt.

Jag misstänker att Sammetsdiktaturen kommer att föråldras snabbt - den är skriven mitt under en pandemi som rivstartat förändringar i hela världen, för att inte tala om ett land som Ryssland. Boken är en inblick i vad Laurén - och så många andra som trots allt väljer att bo där - ser i detta land.

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

 Pakistan is a perfect fit for a modern retelling of the beloved Pride and Prejudice. The characters were beautifully human, and their motives were so perfectly clear: why did Mrs. Binat insist so much on her daughters getting married? Why was it so upsetting for her, that Alysba declined Dr Kaleen's proposal? Why did Sherry instead agree to marry him? And why was it a true family emergency, when Lady ran away with Wickaam?

Unmarriageable was obviously written for a foreign (Western) audience, and the feminist Alysba was an excellent medium for explaining the culture for those in the unknown. The reader never once forgot where the story is set: the endless description of food and clothes made sure of it.

In addition to the P&P plot, the book also discusses the influence of English culture (colonisation) in Pakistan, with a special attention to how society values English literature more than local literature. I also loved the tongue-in-cheek references to P&P.

Because this is a retelling, the book assumes the reader is familiar with P&P from before. And although I knew how the book would end (spoiler alert: Alysba and Darsee will obviously end up happy together), I was drawn in by the characters' warmth and energy.
I enjoyed this book immensely.

The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter

challenging informative slow-paced

3.75

The Price of Peace is a really good book, but I can't bear myself to give it even four starts because of how difficult it was to read. I learned a lot reading it, but it really took a lot of effort to read.
This is less of a biography of Keynes than it is a biography of Keynesianism. The life of Keynes was necessary to tell in order to explain the sources of his ideas, as well as a very detailed description of the political and economical situation of (Western) Europe and the US in the 20th century. After Keynes death, there was still four chapter of this book left, which were spent on describing the state of Keynesianism in the US until today.
What made this book so dense was its thoroughness - everything was explained in great detail, which on any other topic would have been its bane, but (macro)economics is really that complicated. To understand economics, you also need to understand politics. To understand politics, you need history - and this book provided all of it.
This book is for everyone who is interested in economics, particularly economics in the US. It's a detailed explanation on why the US economy (and economics school of thought) looks like it does today.