sky_books_pmm's reviews
169 reviews

The Last Days of John Lennon by James Patterson

dark informative reflective sad fast-paced

1.5

Distasteful.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-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? Yes

4.0

Favourite parts: Axl, Gawain, incorporation of Arthurian legend and imagining of the times after.
Dislikes: Beatrice, oh my god. Shh.

The Shining by Stephen King

dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

3.75

Stephen King is a great storyteller, but tbh not a great writer. You keep reading because each sentence is wilder than the last, but not because each leads well into the next. I don't like reading Stephen King, but once I start, I can't stop until the whole book is finished. Interesting experience, not the kind I'd like to emulate, but obviously successful.

Maurice by E.M. Forster

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

There are classics and there are classics, and I think for me, now, my experience can be split into two categories: ones I 'get' (I get the concept, I get the message, but neither are new to me, and the execution wasn't to my taste), and ones I <i> get </i> (I get the message, the nuance, the characters resonate deep in my soul, and the characters crop up in my thoughts daily). Unfortunately this book falls somewhere in the middle, nearer to the former than the latter. I feel like another read-through might clear some things up for me, but the whole superiority complex of the people that recommended it to me really put me off my usual process of figuring things out for myself - I think that's why I often tend to fall for classics that are more disliked than liked by the general public, because there's less pressure in the reading, less shame when I don't understand exactly what the author is trying to convey, and is overall a more private process where I can mull over things at my own pace. I think that is the great fault of those who are always complaining that my generation don't 'read' any more - they don't see the barrier that their every pretentious word sets up between the young reader and the great classics.

Anyway. What I'm trying to say is, I think this would've been a great classic, but the style wasn't exactly for me, and it was harder to overlook due to the various middle-aged men (there were four, in the span of the three or so days in which I was reading this book) that kept on telling me that this book was going to 'change my life'. It put pressure on me, but even more pressure on the author to outperform impossible expectations.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

dark funny mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

What a wild book. Funny, satirical, ironic, and wise at the same time. I hated and loved all the characters unequally, and emotions swung like a pendulum on every page, much like the plot swung like a boat in a storm - finally settling in a morbid eternity as the ocean freezes over with Ice-nine (is that a spoiler? I think it was pretty clear from the beginning what was to happen).

I do wish this book focused more on what it promised in the beginning, though. Mad scientist, freak children, mysterious coincidences - it really leads one on into the Point Of No DNF in a novel, then swerves off the tracks into a depressing little island on which nothing but the end of the world happens, and a bunch of cynics have hilariously sad conversations.

Again with the books recommended by other people, though, I think they raise my expectations too high. I was on the verge of giving this three stars before I realised that though it didn't 'change my life', it was a great little book, that did everything it intended to, and was funny on the way.

One thing I would ask the author though, if I got to meet him, is: "Why this story? An entire world at your fingertips to display the stupidity and pointlessness of everything and mankind, why Ice-nine? Why Mr. President Hoosier? And how did you do it?"

Loveless by Alice Oseman

adventurous emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective 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

4.25

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

adventurous funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

Great book, had me hooked from the start, launched me straight out of a reading slump - would've totally been five stars if not for the little plot holes, and the fact that I disliked the protagonist. He was immature, inconsistent, proud, and unreliable. But the world Ernest Cline created was absolutely stunning, and I plan on rewatching the movie as soon as I get a chance. I'm not sure if I'll go for the second book though, given its reputation - and this book works perfectly as a standalone.

Unfortunately, it's far from the type of book you read seriously. Every page has to be taken with a healthy dose of good humour, and the constant geeking can get irritating after a couple hundred pages. Ultimately, the ending didn't live up to the beginning for me - I don't like when humble characters get super-powerful and start defeating enemies that were taken seriously in the beginning with a single sweep of the arm. What happened to the cleverness, the slyness? All gone. Though satisfying, it loses its charm quickly. But good for this book, all I was looking for in it was a read to remind me of how large the spectrum of books are - and it did just that. I will be looking for silly little YA books to intersperse between the depressing contemporaries and stern classics from now on :).

Longer review coming, maybe, if I'm in the mood.

Highly recommend for SF/fantasy/computer-game geeks, anyone that loves a fast read in an accessible and beautiful world, anyone that loves a mixture of contemporary and fantasy but just can't get into magical realism (like me).

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Neil Gaiman to me reads like Murakami, except more unproblematic. Much of this book was bizarre, and I kept thinking wow, this would be an amazing read, if I could actually understand what was going on. That's the case with a lot of his books, for me. Maybe I just need to give it a few years and try again when, maybe, there's more for me to relate to.

But through the bizarrity of the author's fiction and his mysterious characters (who are just as much of a mystery to themselves as they are to the reader), shines through the quality that is imbued in all of Gaiman's work - so human, so bittersweet. The beginning of the book is not the beginning of the story, and the story never ends, even after the last page. It is the story of everything, and this is just a peek at a microscopic part of the weave of the universe. And Shadow is just a man, unique in a way that none of us can relate to, human in a way that we are all in his shoes.

America is a bad land for gods, but I wouldn't be surprised if in a hundred years there is an unaging entity strolling around, commenting on the mountains and the clouds in his famous soothing voice. This book isn't "best thing I've read in my life!", revelation material, but it's the kind of thing that lingers, that seeps into your everyday thoughts, that you would bring to a new land with you, that you will continue to worship by turning its pages.

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.75