violetturtledove's reviews
407 reviews

The Teenage Worrier's Guide to Lurve by Ros Asquith

funny informative lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

4.75

I'm definitely enjoying these books which were so essential to me as a young teen and seemed so very informative. They haven't aged badly, although there are more jokes about bestiality and politician scandals than I remember.

For those that worry about such things, The Cat is fine and still in fine form for the third book. 

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

reflective sad slow-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

3.25

I should start this by saying that so far, I'm not a huge Fitzgerald fan. I read his first two novels last year and after this I'll read Gatsby and stop (I was under the impression I was reading in chronological order but must have gotten mixed up).
Still, this was a lot more entertaining than the first two, the characters are interesting even though they tend to announce some of their thoughts quite blatantly, and others are either never explained or told in metaphor. There is a plot at work, more so than the other two books, but it still feels a bit messy, some points feel unexplored or unclear. The atmosphere of the book is more assured and I liked some of the description. Maybe this is all very faint praise for such a celebrated writer, but that's my impression. 

Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future by Svetlana Alexiévich

emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

I don't think I can really sum this up in any way that doesn't reduce the stories it contains to trite phrases. I don't even want to guess at how much the translation, editing etc contributes to the overall effect. The voices are the important thing and they should be read without too much introduction or analysis upfront. 

I Was a Teenage Worrier by Ros Asquith

funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.5

It's been v. v. comforting to revisit this classic of my (pre)teen years. It probably seems dated to any younger readers now, but at the time this was the height of teenage comedy and not a bad source of information either. I'm pleased to report that this hasn't aged too badly at all, and it's been nice to recognise some phrases and images that have lingered in my mind all these years. 

Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This one actually unsettled me. I thought the set up seemed very familiar (grieving parents, spooky countryside, hanging tree legend) and I had my doubts about the chapterless layout (it's just parts 1 and 2). But it soon had some original and unnerving images in my brain and the layout meant that I read this in a few eager (but uncomfortable) sittings. 

There's a sort of madness, or maybe more a portrayal of madness that has always made me feel uneasy in fiction. When the characters needs, wants or beliefs are undeniably unreasonable, and yet so keenly and earnestly felt. It's a worrying place to be, between something very alien and unknown, and yet at the same time so familiar. You can see how easy it would be to slip over into a different way of thinking and have a desperate need for something thar cannot be. 

That's the sort of madness described in this book and that's the lingering feeling I have after reading it. 

Secret Rendezvous by Kōbō Abe

challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

I'm really stuck for something to say about this one. I suppose I enjoyed it,  it was certainly different and a lovely read but I don't really understand what it was all about! No doubt there's a lot of subtle symbolism going on and I'm just not in the headspace to figure it out, but as fever dreams go it was pretty entertaining. 

Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin

funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.25

I think maybe I'm just in a bit of a slump and this is a perfectly good book but it didn't really grab me. As it's a fix-up novel (a series of linked short stories) there's not a great deal of development or reason to get invested in the ongoing story. 

It's entertaining, and the set-ups and solutions for each 'chapter' are quite clever, and while the main character is sympathetic he's just a little too clever and self-confident to be really likeable. 

A Geordie Scrapbook by Joe Ging

lighthearted medium-paced

2.25

I'm not really sure what I expected from a 'scrapbook' of this kind but I don't think it was this. It's mostly a series of anecdotes and comedy sketches (some of which probably work better performed, some of which are just very old). I didn't expect to be baffled by Geordie, but I think some of the references are just too old for me. Other bits seem to have been included because they were told by a Geordie but don't actually have much relevance to the area, if that makes sense. 

I can't exactly say it was bad but it just wasn't a book for me and I'm not sure quite what it was aiming for. 

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

So I this is the first book I've read by this author (maybe not the best choice) so I don't know how typical this is, but I found this one very slow to get into. It started with an interesting hook - the author himself is the main character, claiming to be finally telling the story of a real life experience. So we have an unreliable narrator from the start, but to what extent? We assume this isn't real life, but how much is real in the world of the story?

The slowness comes from the repetition of small details; every song played and road driven on is noted, and certain phrases are used again and again. Some of these do have relevance within the story - for example the narrator is never 'at home' but at 'the empty house on mulholland' (his parents being on an extended vacation). But although it conveys the narrators feeling of alienation, it's a clunkier phrase to read when it's used so often. 

Now I can appreciate a slow build up with interesting characters, but I was struggling to empathise with a load of rich, beautiful (if disconnected) teenagers. Maybe it's the nostalgia of the unreliable narrator, maybe it's what LA is actually like - they all seem incredibly self-assured and sophisticated, and yet still typical dumb kids when it comes to some things. Again, it demonstrates the social scene but didn't make it enjoyable to read. 

Regarding the mystery and ending, I was disappointed that this wasn't as big a part of the narrative as I'd expected. I was quite gripped by the end, but as I had a few ideas about what the 'twist' might be (including some I very much disliked) it was quite an uncomfortable reading experience. I wasn't exactly let down by the ending (I'd accepted that it wasn't going to be clear cut) but I wasn't quite satisfied either. 

Ulysses by James Joyce

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

So I doubt I'm going to be able to say anything original about this book, plenty of people cleverer than me have puzzled over it before and all I can hope is that some of them were similarly confused.

It's tempting to accuse Joyce of simply being a troll; creating the most obtuse, profound- seeming nonsense of a book and then laughing at the thought of people trying to figure it out. But even taken as that it's impressive. You need an immense knowledge of the English language to run it through the woodchipper like this, and that's without touching on the various allegories.

As it quickly became apparent how impenetrable I was going to find the book, I decided that this first reading was just going to be for 'the feel'. I wasn't going to look up references, translations or even worry too much if I got muddled about the characters. Even with that there were a lot of sentences and paragraphs I had to reread several times just to get the gist of what was going on, but some of the prose is quite poetic or funny so I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy parts. But it was definitely a struggle. I did look up a few words, but mainly when I started to feel he was just inventing them. 

Now that I've absorbed some of the book, by osmosis it feels, I will in future (when I feel up to it) reread and be ready to look up references and dig a bit deeper into it.