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opheliapo's reviews
345 reviews
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
3.0
The Casual Vacancy had something very strong going for it, but lost it along the way. The connections I felt toward the characters (one character in particular), were hanging by threads by the time I reached the third act, and when the catastrophic conclusion takes place I was unperturbed. I did not even cry and I felt guilty about that, for I was sure I had grown to like these characters enough for it, at least.
In retrospect, this was probably because, what at it’s core should have been a story about relationships, small town living, and class divide, was swamped with random snippets of information which were unnecessarily, and too many characters introduced too quickly, so that by the end I was still having to piece together which character was which.
That being said, I did enjoy reading this book, and occasionally I even (dare I say it?) had some grasp about what was going on.
In retrospect, this was probably because, what at it’s core should have been a story about relationships, small town living, and class divide, was swamped with random snippets of information which were unnecessarily, and too many characters introduced too quickly, so that by the end I was still having to piece together which character was which.
That being said, I did enjoy reading this book, and occasionally I even (dare I say it?) had some grasp about what was going on.
Letters from a Lost Uncle by Mervyn Peake
4.0
Quaint. Charming. Simple. Striking.
Perhaps no literary masterpiece, perhaps no artistic triumph, but so rich in charisma and creative indulgence that I could not help but be swept along like a polar wind, by the Letters from a Lost Uncle.
Perhaps no literary masterpiece, perhaps no artistic triumph, but so rich in charisma and creative indulgence that I could not help but be swept along like a polar wind, by the Letters from a Lost Uncle.
Curly Verse: Selected Poems by Michael Leunig
3.0
I don’t know what I was smoking when I rated this collection 5 stars in 2017, but it barely scraped 3 this time around. I did enjoy the quaint simplicity, but i’ve read this nursery rhyme, moral style of poetry a hundred times before, and usually by amateur writers.
The collection peaked on page 1, with the only poem I will actually remember from Curly Verse. So to save anybody having to buy the full collection, here it is:
Sitting on the Fence:
Come sit down beside me,
I said to myself,
And although it doesn’t make sense,
I held my own hand
As a small sign of trust
And together I sat on the fence.
Review Aug 2017:
5 stars.
I've found a new favourite poet. This book is simple, sharp, and quintessentially weird, but also somewhat reminds me of my grandmother (if she were a writer of Sunday comic strips).
The collection peaked on page 1, with the only poem I will actually remember from Curly Verse. So to save anybody having to buy the full collection, here it is:
Sitting on the Fence:
Come sit down beside me,
I said to myself,
And although it doesn’t make sense,
I held my own hand
As a small sign of trust
And together I sat on the fence.
Review Aug 2017:
5 stars.
I've found a new favourite poet. This book is simple, sharp, and quintessentially weird, but also somewhat reminds me of my grandmother (if she were a writer of Sunday comic strips).
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
4.0
Most of the reviews i’ve heard about this book are either about praising or condemning the 1980’s nostalgia goggle ridden fetishisation of everything geeky from that time. Which isn’t wrong, but it does feel like concentrating on that alone really cheapens the book as a whole.
Even though I was born over 6 years after the end of the 80’s, I still experienced a nostalgia ripple effect as a child, having a father who was fully invested in cult classic movies and anything related to computing. So I did appreciate the whirlwind tour of that era, which Cline so kindly took me on.
More than that, though, I appreciated the character development, the puzzles, and the world-building. For a spectacularly fast-paced book that barely paused for breath, I still felt that each of these elements were rich and well handled. And not to mention, the whole atmosphere had flare. I got to experience my favourite paradox of feelings - both wanting to read on because it’s just too good, and wanting to take a break because I didn’t want it to end.
Although it frustrated me a little at first, I appreciated Cline making his characters authentic teens: boastful, socially clumsy, cringey idiots (consider Parzival’s: ’I studied Monty Python. And NOT JUST Holy Grail, either.’ p.62. Oh boy. Or Art3mis’ referring to herself as an ‘obsessive-compulsive geek’ (p.351)). This included Wade’s ‘fetish’ over ‘cute, geeky girls playing 80’s cover tunes on ukuleles’ (p.63) and Halliday’s personal thoughts on the importance of ‘slapping the salami’ and ‘[discovering] the little man in the canoe.’ (p.194), both of which made me laugh out loud.
His use of text-chat was also well handled, to the point where I was reading messages between Aech and Parzival that I had actually sent to my own friends in the past.
In fact, by the end, I was a big fan of all of the characters, in and out of the OASIS. But i’ll get to that in the spoilers section.
With that being said, this wasn’t a perfect book.
There were a few parts that WERE just straight up cringey. Like the character of I-r0k, who I wish Cline had abandoned entirely, and even Daito and Shoto. I know the point was that they were meant to be acting as champions of their culture through the lens of 80’s samurai movies, but most of the time it just felt like every Japanese stereotype mashed into one. There were only so many times I could read the word ‘honour’ without wondering if he was taking the piss.
There were also a few... holes here and there that broke my immersion, as it were. Like when Wade is able to log into a new OASIS account for work, even though it’s mentioned earlier that each person is allowed only one account each. Or when we find out that Wade just happens to be able to shred on the guitar AND carries a guitar pick everywhere he goes, even though this wasn’t mentioned even once in the previous 263 pages.
With that being said, for most of the story I was quite easily able to suspend my disbelief.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Right. Lets talk about Aech. When I first learned that both Aech’s race and gender were different from their character’s I was disappointed. I can admit that. I don’t know what kind of platonic white boy fantasy I had cooked up in my head, but Aech turning out to be a girl felt wrong. Then I did a full 180. As soon as it became apparent that the dynamic of their friendship wasn’t going to change at all, I realised that the only reason I had originally been upset over the idea was because I had my own preconceptions about the way gender affects relationships. I had even made an annotation earlier in the book that read ‘really positive platonic male friendship’. Well NOW it was a really positive platonic MALE/FEMALE friendship. Cline made me question my own unconscious reactions to gender, and I really appreciated that.
I thought that Art3mis was a badass. Her relationship with Wade was a little juvenile, but totally healthy, and it’s unusual to find a pairing who are actually shown to be well matched. I made my fair share of excited noises every time she got a chance to prove herself, which she did on several occasions. And the birth mark? Loved it. Though I hear that they underplayed it in the movie, which is a shame (reminds me of Emma Roberts’ barely visible ‘scars’ in the It’s Kind of a Funny Story adaptation).
I’ve already mentioned that I wasn’t a fan of Daito and Shoto’s portrayals, although I ended up appreciating Shoto a lot more as the novel went on. I did feel a little bit like Shoto’s eventual in-game self-sacrifice was a little bit obvious. I saw that shit coming as soon as they mentioned that they only needed three keys to open the final gate. Convenient.
Through it all, however, I really loved this novel, and I will almost certainly read it again. Through the epic battles and the often painfully obvious but nonetheless charming references (my favourite was Parzival’s dance software being called ‘Travoltra’) I grew genuinely attached to the characters, the world, and not least, the game.
Even though I was born over 6 years after the end of the 80’s, I still experienced a nostalgia ripple effect as a child, having a father who was fully invested in cult classic movies and anything related to computing. So I did appreciate the whirlwind tour of that era, which Cline so kindly took me on.
More than that, though, I appreciated the character development, the puzzles, and the world-building. For a spectacularly fast-paced book that barely paused for breath, I still felt that each of these elements were rich and well handled. And not to mention, the whole atmosphere had flare. I got to experience my favourite paradox of feelings - both wanting to read on because it’s just too good, and wanting to take a break because I didn’t want it to end.
Although it frustrated me a little at first, I appreciated Cline making his characters authentic teens: boastful, socially clumsy, cringey idiots (consider Parzival’s: ’I studied Monty Python. And NOT JUST Holy Grail, either.’ p.62. Oh boy. Or Art3mis’ referring to herself as an ‘obsessive-compulsive geek’ (p.351)). This included Wade’s ‘fetish’ over ‘cute, geeky girls playing 80’s cover tunes on ukuleles’ (p.63) and Halliday’s personal thoughts on the importance of ‘slapping the salami’ and ‘[discovering] the little man in the canoe.’ (p.194), both of which made me laugh out loud.
His use of text-chat was also well handled, to the point where I was reading messages between Aech and Parzival that I had actually sent to my own friends in the past.
In fact, by the end, I was a big fan of all of the characters, in and out of the OASIS. But i’ll get to that in the spoilers section.
With that being said, this wasn’t a perfect book.
There were a few parts that WERE just straight up cringey. Like the character of I-r0k, who I wish Cline had abandoned entirely, and even Daito and Shoto. I know the point was that they were meant to be acting as champions of their culture through the lens of 80’s samurai movies, but most of the time it just felt like every Japanese stereotype mashed into one. There were only so many times I could read the word ‘honour’ without wondering if he was taking the piss.
There were also a few... holes here and there that broke my immersion, as it were. Like when Wade is able to log into a new OASIS account for work, even though it’s mentioned earlier that each person is allowed only one account each. Or when we find out that Wade just happens to be able to shred on the guitar AND carries a guitar pick everywhere he goes, even though this wasn’t mentioned even once in the previous 263 pages.
With that being said, for most of the story I was quite easily able to suspend my disbelief.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Right. Lets talk about Aech. When I first learned that both Aech’s race and gender were different from their character’s I was disappointed. I can admit that. I don’t know what kind of platonic white boy fantasy I had cooked up in my head, but Aech turning out to be a girl felt wrong. Then I did a full 180. As soon as it became apparent that the dynamic of their friendship wasn’t going to change at all, I realised that the only reason I had originally been upset over the idea was because I had my own preconceptions about the way gender affects relationships. I had even made an annotation earlier in the book that read ‘really positive platonic male friendship’. Well NOW it was a really positive platonic MALE/FEMALE friendship. Cline made me question my own unconscious reactions to gender, and I really appreciated that.
I thought that Art3mis was a badass. Her relationship with Wade was a little juvenile, but totally healthy, and it’s unusual to find a pairing who are actually shown to be well matched. I made my fair share of excited noises every time she got a chance to prove herself, which she did on several occasions. And the birth mark? Loved it. Though I hear that they underplayed it in the movie, which is a shame (reminds me of Emma Roberts’ barely visible ‘scars’ in the It’s Kind of a Funny Story adaptation).
I’ve already mentioned that I wasn’t a fan of Daito and Shoto’s portrayals, although I ended up appreciating Shoto a lot more as the novel went on. I did feel a little bit like Shoto’s eventual in-game self-sacrifice was a little bit obvious. I saw that shit coming as soon as they mentioned that they only needed three keys to open the final gate. Convenient.
Through it all, however, I really loved this novel, and I will almost certainly read it again. Through the epic battles and the often painfully obvious but nonetheless charming references (my favourite was Parzival’s dance software being called ‘Travoltra’) I grew genuinely attached to the characters, the world, and not least, the game.
Grimm Fairy Tales: Robyn Hood by Patrick Shand
1.0
Well, that was... Worse than I remember.
The intent was interesting, and I enjoyed the reimagining of certain elements from the classic tale, but all in all it fell very short. Each episode barely held itself together, there were inconsistencies in the details (Robyn mentions she’s been hanging out with The Merry Men for a month in #3 and then says she’s barely known Little John for more than a few days in #4), and love interest Will Scarlet gave me the willies with his ‘my girl’ nonsense. Plus, I just couldn’t get into Watts’ art style, it looks wrong more often than it looks right.
I’ll read on because I have the next graphic novel already, and if I can find them for free I may read more Grimm Fairy Tales, but there are most certainly better retellings out there.
The intent was interesting, and I enjoyed the reimagining of certain elements from the classic tale, but all in all it fell very short. Each episode barely held itself together, there were inconsistencies in the details (Robyn mentions she’s been hanging out with The Merry Men for a month in #3 and then says she’s barely known Little John for more than a few days in #4), and love interest Will Scarlet gave me the willies with his ‘my girl’ nonsense. Plus, I just couldn’t get into Watts’ art style, it looks wrong more often than it looks right.
I’ll read on because I have the next graphic novel already, and if I can find them for free I may read more Grimm Fairy Tales, but there are most certainly better retellings out there.
The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards
1.0
This book has been sitting on my TBR for far too long. I think I was gifted it by a relative, and for some reason there was just an air about it that made me sure it was not going to be to my taste. But hey, never judge a book by its cover, right? Or its blurb. Or its reviews.
Maybe I have a sixth sense about bad books then, because every negative assumption I had about this one turned out to be true.
My main criticism, that to some extent encompasses all of my criticisms, is that Kim Edwards utilises what I have been calling ‘aesthetic apathy’.
The overall tone of the book is clearly supposed to be that of some mysterious ‘eastern wisdom’ (from a Texan writer, I might add). One of the reviews on the back of the book even describes it as being ‘like the work of a wise traveller’. It may have been intended that way, but the result is a thinly veiled style that barely disguises its own ignorance.
The flowery writing is clumsy to say the least. It gave me PTSD flashbacks to The Book Thief, it was so misplaced.
For example, in the first story, ‘The Great Chain of Being’, Edwards describes her protagonist’s wrists and ankles as being ‘as delicate as bone’. Ah yes. Wrists and ankles. Made of skin, and flesh, and muscle, and... bone. Does comparing something to itself really class as a simile? After reading that my eyes were as startled as two round organs located in my sockets.
Later, in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ Edwards describes the children’s language skills, explaining that they spoke ‘imperfectly but fluently.’ I think that she may have meant ‘fluidly’ here, or else she needs to get a hold of a dictionary, as you cannot be both imperfect at a language and fluent.
Finally, in ‘The Way it Felt to be Falling’ Edwards writes about how a young man threatens the protagonist, aggressively seizing her to the point of bruising. I was expecting the male character to be condemned at this point, but instead, when the bruises themselves are described, they are ‘delicate, shaped like a fan.’ EW. That is truly the definition of aesthetics over empathy. You do not describe the wounds of an abuser as beautiful, especially when the story is told from a third person perspective.
My next quarrel is with the cultural elements of this book. Edwards travels a lot around the world throughout these stories, though you might miss it, as I often found myself wondering where the hell we were, what time period we were in, and why the author felt the need to keep that information from us, when it was clearly so relevant.
Not to mention, some of the cultural aspects were a little misplaced, to say the least. There is definitely some stereotyping involved that made me uncomfortable, like the Korean war bride ‘Jade Moon’ in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ and Yukiko Santiago in ‘Aristotle’s Lantern’, who was the ‘daughter of a Japanese Samurai family’ and whose grandfather had ‘supported the imperial army and committed seppuku’. That last one is a bit of a pet peeve for me. If all I knew about Japanese culture was through modern, western literature, then I would think every Japanese person was a geisha-samurai who carried a katana and lived by their family’s ‘honour’.
Plus, almost every female protagonist or focal character was described, in some manner or another, as being pale and thin. Very multicultural.
Throughout it all, though, I just found the characters to be flat, and the plots to be underwhelming. There were ‘bad’ characters with surface level bigotry, and ‘misunderstood’ characters with no depth, and I just didn’t care for them or their journeys.
I will forget about this book.
Maybe I have a sixth sense about bad books then, because every negative assumption I had about this one turned out to be true.
My main criticism, that to some extent encompasses all of my criticisms, is that Kim Edwards utilises what I have been calling ‘aesthetic apathy’.
The overall tone of the book is clearly supposed to be that of some mysterious ‘eastern wisdom’ (from a Texan writer, I might add). One of the reviews on the back of the book even describes it as being ‘like the work of a wise traveller’. It may have been intended that way, but the result is a thinly veiled style that barely disguises its own ignorance.
The flowery writing is clumsy to say the least. It gave me PTSD flashbacks to The Book Thief, it was so misplaced.
For example, in the first story, ‘The Great Chain of Being’, Edwards describes her protagonist’s wrists and ankles as being ‘as delicate as bone’. Ah yes. Wrists and ankles. Made of skin, and flesh, and muscle, and... bone. Does comparing something to itself really class as a simile? After reading that my eyes were as startled as two round organs located in my sockets.
Later, in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ Edwards describes the children’s language skills, explaining that they spoke ‘imperfectly but fluently.’ I think that she may have meant ‘fluidly’ here, or else she needs to get a hold of a dictionary, as you cannot be both imperfect at a language and fluent.
Finally, in ‘The Way it Felt to be Falling’ Edwards writes about how a young man threatens the protagonist, aggressively seizing her to the point of bruising. I was expecting the male character to be condemned at this point, but instead, when the bruises themselves are described, they are ‘delicate, shaped like a fan.’ EW. That is truly the definition of aesthetics over empathy. You do not describe the wounds of an abuser as beautiful, especially when the story is told from a third person perspective.
My next quarrel is with the cultural elements of this book. Edwards travels a lot around the world throughout these stories, though you might miss it, as I often found myself wondering where the hell we were, what time period we were in, and why the author felt the need to keep that information from us, when it was clearly so relevant.
Not to mention, some of the cultural aspects were a little misplaced, to say the least. There is definitely some stereotyping involved that made me uncomfortable, like the Korean war bride ‘Jade Moon’ in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ and Yukiko Santiago in ‘Aristotle’s Lantern’, who was the ‘daughter of a Japanese Samurai family’ and whose grandfather had ‘supported the imperial army and committed seppuku’. That last one is a bit of a pet peeve for me. If all I knew about Japanese culture was through modern, western literature, then I would think every Japanese person was a geisha-samurai who carried a katana and lived by their family’s ‘honour’.
Plus, almost every female protagonist or focal character was described, in some manner or another, as being pale and thin. Very multicultural.
Throughout it all, though, I just found the characters to be flat, and the plots to be underwhelming. There were ‘bad’ characters with surface level bigotry, and ‘misunderstood’ characters with no depth, and I just didn’t care for them or their journeys.
I will forget about this book.