Books #43

[Pinkii]

Oh no, I bloody loved Bat Eater and the blurb already had me worried I wouldn't like this.

I'm learning to never read an author's next book after their debut or breakout - it's always either rushed to capitalise on hype, or whatever they'd previously written that publishers didn't want.

I haven’t read bat Eater but you might still enjoy this?

its not my usual genre so could have just been me and everything going over my head? I liked the premise of the story and I can see what the writer was going for but it was just all over the place for me and i’m a bit confused by the end ( but I kind of just skimmed it by that point)

 

[QueenBW]

I do love a yearn! But I’m not sure I’m mentally equipped so soon after into the blue.

Oh I did not vibe with that one. Like at all. Put me in a terrible slump

 

[Lola123]

People pleaser, speaks to the feminist in me! Not too long either

 

[Cheddar Chalpupa]

Someone in a recent thread recommended a series of detective novels and I cannot for the life of me remember what the author's name is..they were a series with a police offer at the centre, English based. Can anyone help??

haha that's narrowed it down!

(but yeah probably, Logan or Kett or Grimm)

 

[anniemouse]

Finished reading ‘in memoriam’- I was So looking forward to reading this but it fell flat for me.

the characters felt a bit one dimensional and starting the book with them already in ‘a relationship’ felt really meh, and just too many under developed characters.

you can just tell when some authors write books and the hopes of it becoming a film or a show whatever and this felt like that to me

gave it 3 - i actually enjoyed the war parts more than the ‘romance’

I really enjoyed the war parts

 

[Chocolategoggler]

Yeah but if you race through it it'll be be over too quick. I never wanted it to end!!

That sounds good. I'm a fast reader so I'll have to try to read slowly.

 

[Harlot O'Scara]

The Mitford Girls is one of my favourite non-fiction books/biographies. Jessica's downward mobility and the losses in her life . Unity was quite tragic too,. Only Debo and Pam seem almost normal

Jessica did suffer terrible losses but she lived a very full life and forged an impressive career. She was lucky to have two very happy marriages, even if the first ended so tragically.

It's very hard to sympathise with Unity considering what she did, but she was pretty clearly mentally ill, in my opinion.

 

[Booklover]

One of my least favourite ever is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I will never read anything else he has written. What a load of tedious mawkish old shite and it goes on forever.

this. Dreadful book.

 

[ahkrin]

New quiz on radio 4 called bookmarks. Some of the contestants are a bit too "pick me" but I suppose they have to be to want to be on the radio. The Write Stuff is the superior book quiz but since we can't have new episodes of that this one will do.

 

[Multi-21]

i would have been too it’s one of the books where i genuinely think i had a dud copy with completely different content to what there should have been because how can so many people love it so much.

his smug wow this is such a great metaphor i’m so good writing style still haunts me.

Oh no someone has just lent me this and I was going to start it tonight! Bit wary now

 

[Chocolategoggler]

A good 87% of the characters are just Edmond pretending to be someone else!

The Andrea bloke has got me. My brain is holding so many characters now . I think he's Benedetto but have forgotten his story. Possibly his mum was shot through the throat and B was a delinquent child?

 

[LaBlonde]

Spoiler: For those who haven’t read Lost lambs

i found the religion bit and how it was handled odd? particularly the contrast between Christianity being framed as something that helps “repair” or redeem a character’s life. That on its own isn’t necessarily an issue, but it becomes more questionable in how it’s positioned against other religions in the story.

I felt Islam was portrayed in a very stereotypical and quite offensive way. For example, Louise’s online chat boyfriend, who is explicitly described as Muslim, is linked to helping plan a terrorist attack ( not saying grooming like this doesn’t happen jn real life) . I just found this really distasteful and kept waiting for a twist or some kind of subversion of that stereotype, but it never came.

i even wondered if it was meant to be satire or commentary, but there’s nothing in the text to suggest that. It felt quite straightforward and abrupt, which made it hard to read it as anything other than an unhelpful and quite offensive portrayal

also the whole sex trafficking/epstein vibes as well, all very weird overall and then nothing came of any thing!?

this makes perfect sense to me - the sex trafficking thing in particular left a bad taste in my mouth because i feel like it just wasn’t the right tone for that. and then she was like oh and all the beautiful girls went to prom or something and i was like okay so no discussion of trauma or anything here, okay.

the religion thing is interesting and really true. if i remember the precocious youngest daughter character also engages with christianity in an interested way but is dismissive of other faiths. i hadn’t noticed it beyond the stereotypical online boyfriend but it’s really interesting!

 

[Harlot O'Scara]

Ah here, you can’t compare women murdered in crime fiction with men killed in battles that actually happened. Like the characters may be fiction, but the wars definitely occurred. You have a point re relatability, but the comparison doesn’t work.

But why are fictional women dying treated as somehow being some sort of problem to the point of requiring media think pieces? These women don't even exist. They were never "alive" in the first place. I just don't get why I'm supposed to care?

 

[Pinkii]

Im sorryyy I wanted to love it! Went in with such high hopes!

 

[ToxicPony]

Help me pick my next read please…!View attachment 4001698

I've read three of these and of them, Drive Your Plow...was my favourite.

 

[Kerrie86]

Anyone watching/watched Every Year After, the "adaptation" of Carley Fortune's Every Summer After?

I feel like I deserve compensation for how bad it was and how I endured all 8 episodes.

Are her books good? I was pondering one yesterday as it was 99p but the blurb didn’t really call to me.

 

[CommentBelow]

Not yet! I got it a while ago after reading a review that praised how the author wrote about sex. Have you?

I have! Planned to space it out a bit from Almost Life as similar premise but my paperback pre-order dropped through the letterbox a couple of weeks ago, I read the first page (I tend to do this when I get new books) and got sucked in.

 

[emmer_moans]

https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...026/jun/06/readers-top-100-novels-of-all-time

Another list

18 for me this time, with a few on the TBR still. The ranking confused me though.

 

[AllieBee]

Help me pick my next read please…!View attachment 4001698

The Lost Letters of William Woolf - loved it so much

 

[AllieBee]

They had the first one though? I splurged and bought all 7 just before midnight as I'd almost forgotten. I put the remaining 3 on my wishlist and just bought 1 more in today's deals. Only 2 remaining now and I really hope I like them

Haha did they? I must have flicked through too quick and missed it!