skconaghan's reviews
452 reviews

The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love by India Holton

adventurous funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

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

4.0

Holton’s writing is sharp, owlishly witty, intelligent, and provokes gut-giggles with her creation of bird-brained capers that she injects with outrageous hyperboles, misappropriations, and well-placed understatements. She weaves our chirping, warbling lovers in an flashy courtship dance like no other, hits on all the feminist issues of the mid-1800s, and as we fly through twists and turns in raucous encounters with madcap hilarity, she brings us to the flapping end of a flitting flight in superb satisfaction!

One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious 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

4.0

 

This is one of the most unique thrillers I’ve ever read. The whole idea of the inner castle as a reflection of the external, multiple voices from the system speaking within the one body, and the sick (sick!) idea of the hunt…so creative… What a wild, twisted mystery, hurtling towards its paranormal psychotic spinning end, full of deeper meaning and social politics and multiple issues that careen towards a violent storm of explosive fireworks. I loved how distinct and individual each personality was throughout, each with their own voice to contribute, or to confound. Addictive writing!

 

This would be an incredible challenge to put on screen, but then: Fight Club… 

The Dagger and the Flame by Catherine Doyle

adventurous 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

4.0

Fast paced fantasy with a good dose of dark intrigue and sworn enemies reluctantly finding romance amid their clashing disagreements and battles. Monsters and magic together cast a dark shadow over the city, and all the twists and turns come entirely unexpected. A fascinating start to what promises to be an entertaining fantasy series. 

The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton

adventurous funny relaxing 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? Yes

4.0

Ridiculous silly fun, this one is full of a lotta mo hot spicy scenes that are nothing dark or sensual but lightly bouncing with hilarity, sarcasm, humour and farce. It’s another bout of house-sailing pirates and their rivals—an order of religiously legalistic thieves—a Dogberry of a policeman, and a whole bunch of daft peasants, not to mention the shrugging royalty. This is a high-stakes ‘we-should-hate-each-other-but-go-on-and-please-hurry-and-please-never-mind-the-buttons’ kind of fast-paced romance that revisits all our favourites from the The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels.

Holton is a cheeky storyteller with a sharp wit who thrives on irony and an unconventional use of classic literary culture to spin her saucy tale.

Just some damned good fun!

Gai-Jin by James Clavell

adventurous challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A sort of linking novel between Shōgun, Noble House, and Tai-Pan, Gai-Jin continues the story of the British in Japan with particular interest in business and politics in Hong Kong. Crossing these distinct cultures at a crucial junction in history, the story transports us into the minds of leaders and significant change-makers within each Asian political camp, and several of the Europeans and Americans in their midst.

Amid the heating political tension, a young French girl is trying to gain her footing in this man’s world. She juggles her desire for love and her need to secure her future in ways that men never have to consider—and Clavell relates her innermost thoughts with astounding insight. All these spiralling stories rotate around our anti-heroine, Angelique Richaud, like a series of spinning plates, poised to fall at any moment and destroy her tranquility and all hopes for her future.

It is apt that in what should be the tenderest scenes of human intimacy here, the lights are dimmed, the deed is done in violence or in secret shame, and the air often reeks of death or the threat of death. I found the contrast between unsatisfactory intimacy and a steady looming threat to be a poignant theme throughout this novel, and it makes it all the more real at the brink of our modern age. It is symbolic that the book opens with a dishonourable scene of murder which takes place out in the open, leading to a scene of rape in the shadows under the very noses of those who claim to be living in the light. This set the scene for the rest of this epic piece; if not exactly historically accurate (it is fiction), most definitely a realistic picture of 1862, at the dawning of the modern global age in Asia, most specifically in Japan.

It’s not my favourite of the series, though it remains some of the most fantastic story-telling of the 20th Century. This addition to the ‘Asian Saga’ series lacked the tenderness of those relationships the An-Jin developed with Toranaga-San and Mariko in Shōgun, and didn’t quite storm in with all the contrasting boldness of Dirk Struan and his vulnerable intimacy with May-May as in Tai-Pan. Equally, Toranaga Yoshi longs to live up to the ancient example of his forefather, yet never seems to get it right—and embarrassingly, the young Emperor is a shadow of what the man in the position had once been. Indeed, many of the characters in this novel were wont to be like the greater men and women who came in generations before, always striving and never quite feeling the satisfaction of arrival. Appropriately, as I read this incredible epic story, I also felt that I was always hoping for more, but constantly having to settle for a mediocre less.

Shōgun, Part Two by James Clavell

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense 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

5.0

An absolutely epic saga… these characters get under your skin, into your bones, squeeze your heart, manipulate your emotions… They are beautiful and treacherous and confounding and inspirational, and they own you for the duration of the two parts that make up this novel…and beyond. I’m even going to venture to say that this is one of those 5 star novels that makes the shelf with Anna Karenina and Vilette, with the names of Mary Shelley and Brontë, Dickens and Hardy, somewhere on the 20th Century end of the pile, near the top of the last 200 years of best novels. While not an overly poetic piece of prose, it has its breathtaking moments of literary imagery, traverses cultural lines of diversity with ease, draws us into its sensuality in intimate scenes of awkward tenderness, delivers us into battles and betrayals and beheadings with shocking pain, and definitely should be on the same shelf as some of the classic greats… 

Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Beautiful writing… 

 

The line that for me sums up the feeling you get from this story and the writing style is: ‘What trauma? I don’t have any trauma.’ And as it falls drily and with candour off the lips of an Iranian war correspondent, the last image in his mind of starving children scavenging amid the rubble of a smouldering city and the leg of his friend—only the leg—he sees dangling from beneath the shroud as they carry away the body through the settling crumbs of cement, wiped from the skyline by another zealous martyr, this one line sums up a novel that turns the page on one trauma only to present the next in the same calm tone you might be asked what you take in your coffee. 

 

But that’s just it: the disconnect; the fantasy and the horror of it; the senselessness of war and continued war and man’s need to always be at war, when the children suffer starvation and loss and still manage to play footie between the landmines and the scattered buildings and bodies; the deep down necessity to focus on normal mundane daily activities when the heightened awareness, the adrenaline of wondering when the next person with nothing left to live for will walk through the door wearing a cardigan, which reminds you of your grandfather, packed with explosives. 

 

In stark relatable dialogue, Abdoh brings us to the fringes to sit behind the protective glass of a cosy Starbucks while we watch the horror unfold in the streets of Syria, Iraq, and Iran, as we scroll through stories on our phones and the reporters enchant us with rich, vibrant language that transports us… as we watch the tv series that will twist and turn the plot of facts into something more palatable to boost viewership… but oh, we feel like we can relate now, now we know, now we feel like we were there too, now we feel like we can also have an opinion…as we sip that skinny-decaf-latte-hold-the-whipped-cream... 

 

At times melancholic, often tragic, with bouts of hope strewn recklessly amid the preposterous, Abdoh draws a contrast  between modern Western life and freedoms, and the rigid yet raging realities of things we see every day on the news from the Middle East in a never-ending barrage of wars and rumours of wars. 

 

Such captivating writing. Reminiscent in bits of Hemingway in style and content, a war correspondent with a tendency towards being a philosopher of few words, making sudden bald pronouncements at the end of probing monologues. 

 

I smiled a lot while reading this, which worries me, since it was so so sad… 

Heir by Sabaa Tahir

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Took quite a while to dig hooks into my interest. Exactly 40% of insipid story. But then a hint of a spark flashed as a major reveal unfolded its purpose and a timeline divided unexpectedly, but still: 

 

5 stars to me for finishing this 484 page window-wedge. 

 

Sure, there was a lot of action, fast-paced adventure in deserts and on seas, a few noggin-scratching twists, predictable juvenile romances [parenthesis here: apart from beginning with a scene implying forced sex, there isn’t any gag-me smut in this novel, and for that I was grateful, but I still wouldn’t recommend it to younger than 15 year olds for suggestiveness and other mature themes], and I don’t know if it’s that I’ve now read way too many in this genre that they begin to blend…? or that this one just didn’t have the spark of djinn magic I was hoping for…? The main characters did naught to convince me I needed to ‘give two figs’ about them or their people, and they were a fickle group of young adults, jumping from one thing to the next, changing lovers and brothers by chapters, never tucking in their chairs nor cleaning up their messes as they flew willy-nilly to the next disastrous relationship. They were a shockingly shallow group of 20-somethings, utterly absorbed in themselves and their own perspectives on politics and people—like I’ve never seen that before. How strange. 

 

However, this story did stab several points of political interest square in the chest; a none-too-subtle allegory for anyone who’s been paying attention to Middle Eastern politics and governments for the last half-century (or this year). The social commentary behind the fiction churned in the old thinker, suggesting that the generations-old conflicts between neighbouring nations, thought to be based on their spiritual or religious leanings, really has its roots in something older, far older, some entity entirely other... 

 

Considering the political landscape from the Red Sea to the borders of The Stans at the edge of Mesopotamia, these are issues and ideologies ripe for consideration (when are they not?). They were the meat and bones of the novel, but I found that the characters—in dialogue, relationships and action—detracted from the severity of the issues with their pettiness and narcissism, and while this all ended on a ding with a lightbulb, it took far too long with too many flighty fickle types to get there. 

 

I have heard that this is a spin-off from another, more complex series with characters that grip you by the guts and garters. I’d go for that by this author, she certainly can tell a story. 

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense 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

5.0

(Oh, please let me I finish this before the votes for the historical fiction of the year open up… I need Quinn to WIN…)

SIX BLOODY STARS. 

Kate Quinn is the best American author of our time. My admiration is turning into a bit of hero worship now; I’d geek out to meet this woman. I don’t love the idea of unchecked capitalism, though I understand a foreigner’s draw towards America enough. But this woman ignites a love for an America that could be beneath all the conflict and racism and nationalism and the confused politics…and wow…

A sharp-witted commentary on America’s starkly differing ideologies and philosophies and religions, the borrowed mismatched commentary of new immigrants and generations of American-born original immigrants— told through the lives of several women as they rub shoulders living in the same Washington DC boarding house in 1950-1954; the backdrop for a murder case that weaves its way through and acts as bookends to their irresistible stories. These women (and a few men) are all grateful for the America that saved them, that welcomed them, that opened its doors to giving them a new life—even if it had been somewhat reluctantly … and an America that allows for differing ideologies to come together at the table and talk about their ideas and learn to live with differences of opinion amid religious and cultural diversity. And each character speaks with a unique individual voice, every distinct personality peppers the pages in a way that sparks and carries your interest. 

These intertwined stories are heartbreaking and empowering and beautiful. I loved the recipes—and now I need to buy the book. What a big bountiful caress for all the wonderful multifaceted varietals the bowl of America contains…

Yes, Kate, keep your wrists healthy and active—and Saskia is LONG OVERDUE for an Audie. Long overdue.

One of the many good quotes: ‘This country did take me in. She’s my country now, yes, but does that mean she gets a pass on criticism forever, even when she’s wrong? Wouldn’t that go against freedom of speech and all that?’

Red Tigress by Amélie Wen Zhao

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

3.75

3.75 stars, I’d say. I do love a book with a map.

Perfect for 14-19 year olds; a fast-paced adventure, a touch of multiple romances (or the promise of), loads of political intrigue, and a landscape of battles and bloodshed. People with magic powers and powerful people without—across a fantasy world that crosses unique cultures and glowing seas. 

A great wee original story, taking an unexpected turn from the opening novel in the series (4 stars), that continues with the same complex characters and some new ones along the way.

My only criticism would be the somewhat repetitive phrasing and clichés used throughout, but the focus isn’t the language as much as the story. And the story here is complex and entertaining. 

This is fine for teen readers.