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viiemzee's reviews
453 reviews
V. by Thomas Pynchon
4.0
It took me five whole months to read this book and I am so ashamed by that fact. But sometimes a book grabs you and you breeze through it. Other times, a book is gripping, but it’s too heavy to finish in a single sitting.
When I heard of this book the first time, it was in a class when a professor told us that this book had the best description of Valletta he had ever read. Surprised that a book written by an American featured Malta so heavily, I bought it and promised myself I would read it and fully enjoy it one day.
This book, first off, is heavy. I’m not talking only material and plot wise, I mean physically. This book is huge and weighs a ton, but damn if it isn’t a good read. But plot-wise, there is so much going on all the time that I was very confused at first until I learned who all the characters were. It was like watching Game of Thrones for the first time and struggling to remember who everyone was and their relation to each other.
Trying to explain this book simply is a bit of a struggle, but we can try, anyway.
The story takes place in America and Malta, but it actually also bounces between a lot of different locations in flashbacks. It follows a group of disillusioned individuals – some of them navy deserters, some of them artists trying too hard to be the next best things, and some of them deadbeats and prostitutes – who all meet and live together (in some capacity) in New York City. A common tie between some of them is the island of Malta, and one particular individual named Stencil is obsessed with ‘V’. Stencil’s only problem is that he doesn’t know if V is a person, a place, or an object, and he has dedicated his entire life to finding out. In Stencil’s eyes, finding out what V is will bring him one step closer to his father, who died in Malta in the 1919 riots.
The entire novel keeps you guessing up until the last second what, who, or where V actually is, and introduces you to a host of different characters with different connections that could all be V. And Pynchon really knows how to make characters memorable. Every single one of his characters, big and small, is given a brilliantly explained backstory and exposition, making them seem so lifelike even if they are just background characters who don’t contribute much. A small thing I really enjoyed was his ties to his other novel The Crying of Lot 49, with the brief mention of an industrious company that is a big part of The Crying.
I think one of my biggest qualms with Pynchon’s writing, and it comes out very clearly in this novel, is his long-winding sentences. Sometimes I get lost reading, and forget who’s talking and what they’re talking about, which is probably why it took me so long to finish the book.
Another thing that bothered but also pleased me slightly was his use of Maltese. Pynchon tries his very best to make Valletta as accurate as possible, and he really does try to include Maltese words and names into the whole thing, which really made me happy. I wish that the spelling of Maltese words had been more accurate, but then again it is a language that most of us Maltese aren’t sure how to spell either so I can’t fault him too much for that.
However, another positive point for this novel is that he does the whole idea of magical realism quite well. While it isn’t really outright said that there is an element of magical realism to the book, there is the sense that some things are being done in that vein. There is also the way that characters speak that lends to this idea, because the way that most characters speak makes it seem like they’re actually caricatures rather than real people. And I think that Pynchon is trying to make a pretty successful point here about how our idea of the American Dream, or really of life itself, is all a caricature and isn’t real. And these characters who are striving for just that have in turn become caricatures as they try to pursue something that doesn’t exist.
Did I enjoy this book, though? Yes. Immensely. I’m really glad I read it. Do I recommend that you’re in the right head space to read it? 100%. It’s heavy, and you might need to take breaks or even take notes while you’re reading it, but it’s so worth it in the end. I give it a 4/5, simply because the long-winding sentences really put me off while I was reading, but the story ties together beautifully in the end and I can’t fault him for that, or for depicting my homeland so accurately.
When I heard of this book the first time, it was in a class when a professor told us that this book had the best description of Valletta he had ever read. Surprised that a book written by an American featured Malta so heavily, I bought it and promised myself I would read it and fully enjoy it one day.
This book, first off, is heavy. I’m not talking only material and plot wise, I mean physically. This book is huge and weighs a ton, but damn if it isn’t a good read. But plot-wise, there is so much going on all the time that I was very confused at first until I learned who all the characters were. It was like watching Game of Thrones for the first time and struggling to remember who everyone was and their relation to each other.
Trying to explain this book simply is a bit of a struggle, but we can try, anyway.
The story takes place in America and Malta, but it actually also bounces between a lot of different locations in flashbacks. It follows a group of disillusioned individuals – some of them navy deserters, some of them artists trying too hard to be the next best things, and some of them deadbeats and prostitutes – who all meet and live together (in some capacity) in New York City. A common tie between some of them is the island of Malta, and one particular individual named Stencil is obsessed with ‘V’. Stencil’s only problem is that he doesn’t know if V is a person, a place, or an object, and he has dedicated his entire life to finding out. In Stencil’s eyes, finding out what V is will bring him one step closer to his father, who died in Malta in the 1919 riots.
The entire novel keeps you guessing up until the last second what, who, or where V actually is, and introduces you to a host of different characters with different connections that could all be V. And Pynchon really knows how to make characters memorable. Every single one of his characters, big and small, is given a brilliantly explained backstory and exposition, making them seem so lifelike even if they are just background characters who don’t contribute much. A small thing I really enjoyed was his ties to his other novel The Crying of Lot 49, with the brief mention of an industrious company that is a big part of The Crying.
I think one of my biggest qualms with Pynchon’s writing, and it comes out very clearly in this novel, is his long-winding sentences. Sometimes I get lost reading, and forget who’s talking and what they’re talking about, which is probably why it took me so long to finish the book.
Another thing that bothered but also pleased me slightly was his use of Maltese. Pynchon tries his very best to make Valletta as accurate as possible, and he really does try to include Maltese words and names into the whole thing, which really made me happy. I wish that the spelling of Maltese words had been more accurate, but then again it is a language that most of us Maltese aren’t sure how to spell either so I can’t fault him too much for that.
However, another positive point for this novel is that he does the whole idea of magical realism quite well. While it isn’t really outright said that there is an element of magical realism to the book, there is the sense that some things are being done in that vein. There is also the way that characters speak that lends to this idea, because the way that most characters speak makes it seem like they’re actually caricatures rather than real people. And I think that Pynchon is trying to make a pretty successful point here about how our idea of the American Dream, or really of life itself, is all a caricature and isn’t real. And these characters who are striving for just that have in turn become caricatures as they try to pursue something that doesn’t exist.
Did I enjoy this book, though? Yes. Immensely. I’m really glad I read it. Do I recommend that you’re in the right head space to read it? 100%. It’s heavy, and you might need to take breaks or even take notes while you’re reading it, but it’s so worth it in the end. I give it a 4/5, simply because the long-winding sentences really put me off while I was reading, but the story ties together beautifully in the end and I can’t fault him for that, or for depicting my homeland so accurately.
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
4.0
I fully read the book after watching the mini-series based on this book, which was very uncharacteristic of me. In my defence, I wasn’t aware of the book until I had already heard of the series and was way too impatient and really wanted to watch it first.
Somebody at university had told me that they thought the book was ‘too pornographic’. I’ll come back to that comment later, but I do remember thinking ‘Wow, what a prude’ at first, because I didn’t think it could be that bad.
I remember that one of my fist thoughts about the mini-series was that it was miles ahead of its time with its depiction of queer characters. I mean, there’s actual sex between two women happening, and considering that the series was out in 2002 that was a big deal.
But what is it about, you might be asking?
Well.
Tipping the Velvet is the story of Nancy, a young girl from Whitstable, a small fishing village in England. Her family owns an oyster house and she has spent her entire life so far working there. She knows more about oysters than she knows about anything else. But she also loves the theatre. Nancy’s sister is seeing a boy who works at the theatre and he often gets them free tickets to see shows. One particular show involves a cross-dressing woman named Kitty Butler, and Nancy falls in love. In a feverish move that only people falling in love for the first time would do, Nancy moves away with Kitty as her personal assistant, falling more and more in love with her, and eventually becoming a cross-dresser herself.
The story, while it can be seen as a story about first love and how it breaks your heart and how you come back from the pain of it, to me read more as a story of self-discovery. Nancy finds herself, finds out what she’s good at and learns how to make it work for herself. She falls in love, and in doing so starts to understand more about herself. She goes through the hardships of life and through the pain of leaving home and losing touch with your family and even through the confusion of leaving the quiet countryside for the city where everything feels so much larger and quicker.
Nancy’s story is so well told and well written. It’s a first-person story, and the way that Waters uses Nancy’s experiences to colour the way she sees things around her is so beautifully done. Nancy leaves no stone untouched, and she feels like a very reliable and safe narrator to listen to. Rarely do you feel, as you are reading, that Nancy is trying to trick you into believing a story that she is exaggerating or making up.
Which is what makes the sex scenes all the more jarring.
Before reading the book, as mentioned before, I did think that maybe whoever passed that comment was being rather prudish. After reading the book for myself, though, I can safely say that they were right.
While I don’t consider myself prudish, I do understand that sometimes ‘too much’ is a thing. And in this book’s case, it is ‘too much detail’. I really don’t need to know every single detail in Nancy’s sex life, but for some reason I can’t stop reading. But really, the whole thing reads as very well-written porn in some instances, which can make some readers uncomfortable (as it did for me).
All in all, I give this book a solider 4/5. The historical accuracy is all there, as is the clever innuendos and brilliant narration. Like I said, could have done without all the unnecessary sex scenes, but hey, to each their own. It’s a good book anyway.
Somebody at university had told me that they thought the book was ‘too pornographic’. I’ll come back to that comment later, but I do remember thinking ‘Wow, what a prude’ at first, because I didn’t think it could be that bad.
I remember that one of my fist thoughts about the mini-series was that it was miles ahead of its time with its depiction of queer characters. I mean, there’s actual sex between two women happening, and considering that the series was out in 2002 that was a big deal.
But what is it about, you might be asking?
Well.
Tipping the Velvet is the story of Nancy, a young girl from Whitstable, a small fishing village in England. Her family owns an oyster house and she has spent her entire life so far working there. She knows more about oysters than she knows about anything else. But she also loves the theatre. Nancy’s sister is seeing a boy who works at the theatre and he often gets them free tickets to see shows. One particular show involves a cross-dressing woman named Kitty Butler, and Nancy falls in love. In a feverish move that only people falling in love for the first time would do, Nancy moves away with Kitty as her personal assistant, falling more and more in love with her, and eventually becoming a cross-dresser herself.
The story, while it can be seen as a story about first love and how it breaks your heart and how you come back from the pain of it, to me read more as a story of self-discovery. Nancy finds herself, finds out what she’s good at and learns how to make it work for herself. She falls in love, and in doing so starts to understand more about herself. She goes through the hardships of life and through the pain of leaving home and losing touch with your family and even through the confusion of leaving the quiet countryside for the city where everything feels so much larger and quicker.
Nancy’s story is so well told and well written. It’s a first-person story, and the way that Waters uses Nancy’s experiences to colour the way she sees things around her is so beautifully done. Nancy leaves no stone untouched, and she feels like a very reliable and safe narrator to listen to. Rarely do you feel, as you are reading, that Nancy is trying to trick you into believing a story that she is exaggerating or making up.
Which is what makes the sex scenes all the more jarring.
Before reading the book, as mentioned before, I did think that maybe whoever passed that comment was being rather prudish. After reading the book for myself, though, I can safely say that they were right.
While I don’t consider myself prudish, I do understand that sometimes ‘too much’ is a thing. And in this book’s case, it is ‘too much detail’. I really don’t need to know every single detail in Nancy’s sex life, but for some reason I can’t stop reading. But really, the whole thing reads as very well-written porn in some instances, which can make some readers uncomfortable (as it did for me).
All in all, I give this book a solider 4/5. The historical accuracy is all there, as is the clever innuendos and brilliant narration. Like I said, could have done without all the unnecessary sex scenes, but hey, to each their own. It’s a good book anyway.
Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
4.0
As some of you might know, I’m a high school English teacher teaching Form 2/8th Grade. For our book this year, we’re reading this wonderful World War I era novel by Michael Morpurgo.
Tommo Peaceful is our narrator and main character, telling us the story as he lie during a lull in battle in the trenches in France, digging through his memories and explaining how he even ended up where he is now. Tommo is young – barely eighteen yet – and he’s never really left his sleepy hometown in the middle of the countryside before this moment. Tommo’s life was pretty simple – he went to a sort of school until he was old enough to work, he loved his mother and brothers and this one girl in the village named Molly, and when the war come knocking on their door, Tommo found himself answering the call along with his brother Charlie.
What I find interesting about this story is that it isn’t actually about Tommo. Tommo is an intermediary character, a mere observer to the grander story that is Charlie. Charlie is Tommo’s older brother, two years his major and always his protector. Charlie is infinitely more interesting than Tommo, in my opinion. And really and truly, Tommo as a character only serves to tell Charlie’s story.
What I love about the story is the historical accuracy of it all, without it being shoved into anyone’s face outright. Charlie and Tommo were never very educated beyond their brief stint in school, which means that they have very little knowledge of what is actually happening in the world outside their village. They hear about the war and are very confused about it, not understanding where Sarajevo is or who the Archduke Ferdinand was. They enlist not really understanding what is going to happen to them, and they endure the whole thing knowing then that they might die.
The whole experience of reading this book was actually quite sobering, and I can only imagine what it does to a bunch of twelve-year-olds. The book’s overarching story of World War I does really well to complement the more personal story of Tommo and Charlie and their experience of the world and how the War not only changes it, but ruins it for them. The story is quite sad, but then again not everything can be sunshine and rainbows, and the reality of life in war is death and pain. Without making it too gory, violent or aggressive, the book does a pretty good job of showing that to people.
This book gets a rating of 4/5 from me as a reader (rather than a teacher). I think it’s a really good book and I’ve always thought that Morpurgo is a good writer. The themes of family, death and love in this book are well written out, and I feel like it’s also a really good young adult novel for those who like history.
Tommo Peaceful is our narrator and main character, telling us the story as he lie during a lull in battle in the trenches in France, digging through his memories and explaining how he even ended up where he is now. Tommo is young – barely eighteen yet – and he’s never really left his sleepy hometown in the middle of the countryside before this moment. Tommo’s life was pretty simple – he went to a sort of school until he was old enough to work, he loved his mother and brothers and this one girl in the village named Molly, and when the war come knocking on their door, Tommo found himself answering the call along with his brother Charlie.
What I find interesting about this story is that it isn’t actually about Tommo. Tommo is an intermediary character, a mere observer to the grander story that is Charlie. Charlie is Tommo’s older brother, two years his major and always his protector. Charlie is infinitely more interesting than Tommo, in my opinion. And really and truly, Tommo as a character only serves to tell Charlie’s story.
What I love about the story is the historical accuracy of it all, without it being shoved into anyone’s face outright. Charlie and Tommo were never very educated beyond their brief stint in school, which means that they have very little knowledge of what is actually happening in the world outside their village. They hear about the war and are very confused about it, not understanding where Sarajevo is or who the Archduke Ferdinand was. They enlist not really understanding what is going to happen to them, and they endure the whole thing knowing then that they might die.
The whole experience of reading this book was actually quite sobering, and I can only imagine what it does to a bunch of twelve-year-olds. The book’s overarching story of World War I does really well to complement the more personal story of Tommo and Charlie and their experience of the world and how the War not only changes it, but ruins it for them. The story is quite sad, but then again not everything can be sunshine and rainbows, and the reality of life in war is death and pain. Without making it too gory, violent or aggressive, the book does a pretty good job of showing that to people.
This book gets a rating of 4/5 from me as a reader (rather than a teacher). I think it’s a really good book and I’ve always thought that Morpurgo is a good writer. The themes of family, death and love in this book are well written out, and I feel like it’s also a really good young adult novel for those who like history.
Holes by Louis Sachar
5.0
I keep trying to find a way to describe this book to people and I can never do it in three sentences or less. It always takes a few minutes to get me through the whole thing, but…that’s why we have book reviews online!
Some of you might have heard of the movie which stars Shia LeBeouf. I have never watched this movie, but I did know it was a book. When I started working at the high school where I teach, I found out that the Form 1s/7th Graders study this book, so I decided to borrow it and read it for myself.
I loved every second of it.
Louis Sachar has such an amazing narrative voice that I feel we’ve all been sleeping on his genius for so long. How come more people haven’t read this book that I know of? The way he writes is insanely good and gripping, and I read this book in literally two days. It would have been less, but I had to go to work.
The story follows Stanley Yelnats III, a young boy who has incredible bad luck following him everywhere he goes. Stanley has been accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and now has to work in a juvenile labour camp to pay off his dues to society for stealing something he didn’t actually steal. He has to dig holes that are five feet wide and five feet deep – a hole a day – for fifteen months until it’s his time to leave.
When asked why they dig holes, all the adults tell Stanley that it’s to build character, but Stanley has a feeling that they’re looking for something, he just doesn’t know what.
What I loved about reading this book is that Stanley never actually learns everything there is to know, but Sachar tells us, the reader, everything, and it’s such a satisfying moment when we get to piece everything together as the book closes off. The novel is effectively a three-generation novel, as Stanley’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all feature in the novel as Sachar jumps between the past and the present and tell us all about how Stanley got all the bad luck in the first place, and his connection to the site where he’s digging holes (Camp Green Lake, which is neither green nor has a lake).
Seriously, this book is a gold mine of amazing story. It’s the perfect introduction to mystery for younger adults, and it’s also just a really entertaining read for anyone who’s young at heart. I highly recommend it – it gets a 6/5 from me for the amazing story and the phenomenal delivery of it.
Please, do yourself a favour and buy this book.
Some of you might have heard of the movie which stars Shia LeBeouf. I have never watched this movie, but I did know it was a book. When I started working at the high school where I teach, I found out that the Form 1s/7th Graders study this book, so I decided to borrow it and read it for myself.
I loved every second of it.
Louis Sachar has such an amazing narrative voice that I feel we’ve all been sleeping on his genius for so long. How come more people haven’t read this book that I know of? The way he writes is insanely good and gripping, and I read this book in literally two days. It would have been less, but I had to go to work.
The story follows Stanley Yelnats III, a young boy who has incredible bad luck following him everywhere he goes. Stanley has been accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and now has to work in a juvenile labour camp to pay off his dues to society for stealing something he didn’t actually steal. He has to dig holes that are five feet wide and five feet deep – a hole a day – for fifteen months until it’s his time to leave.
When asked why they dig holes, all the adults tell Stanley that it’s to build character, but Stanley has a feeling that they’re looking for something, he just doesn’t know what.
What I loved about reading this book is that Stanley never actually learns everything there is to know, but Sachar tells us, the reader, everything, and it’s such a satisfying moment when we get to piece everything together as the book closes off. The novel is effectively a three-generation novel, as Stanley’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all feature in the novel as Sachar jumps between the past and the present and tell us all about how Stanley got all the bad luck in the first place, and his connection to the site where he’s digging holes (Camp Green Lake, which is neither green nor has a lake).
Seriously, this book is a gold mine of amazing story. It’s the perfect introduction to mystery for younger adults, and it’s also just a really entertaining read for anyone who’s young at heart. I highly recommend it – it gets a 6/5 from me for the amazing story and the phenomenal delivery of it.
Please, do yourself a favour and buy this book.
Runaways Vol. 10: Rock Zombies by
3.0
Containing some of the more lackluster Runaways adventures, this volume wasn't very coherent and went through about 4 different filler plots after the Xavin saga. Really could have done better with this volume.
Runaways, Vol. 9: Dead Wrong by Christina Strain, Terry Moore, Dave Meikis, Humberto Ramos
5.0
The saddest volume of Runaways. Why did Xavin have to do that? It's been years since I first read this and I still cry like a baby over Xavin's sacrifice. If I could have one consolidation from the new run of comics for Runaways it would be that Xavin somehow comes back to right wrongs and fix her marriage to Karolina.