This is some really symbolic and surrealist shit

Novik takes on dragons, kingdoms and magic. All very common tropes in fantasy, but Novik spins them around, plays with them. 

She also plays with female tropes in fantasy and twists them around as well, making this a a modern feminist fairytale. 

Here is also less good and evil, and more different ways of seeing things. Complicating the story in many ways.

A theme related to humans relation to nature also runs through the book and becomes particularly strong at the end. For those interested in ecocriticism, ecofeminism and deep ecology, there is plenty to dig through here. 

This is a fantasy book situated in Chinese history and folklore, tackling subjects like fascism, genocide and the rise of fascist states. 

It is in many ways a sociological study of the rise of fascism, but in a literary way. The storytelling with it's literary devices give you an unique insight into how such ideology gains foothold and spreads.

The complex magic system in the book is also a plus. 

Last, one of my favorite sayings are spoken by a teacher in this book: 

Third book in a series, that opens up some serious discussion about freedom, information and surveillance. The YA version of something that resembles Fahrenheit 451. The discussion will no doubt be continued in the last book in the series. 

The book has a very constant tempo. There are some underdeveloped twists and turns. The "happy helper"-characters take on their role a bit too quick for instance. As well as the creation of some red herrings and side stories to advance plot and keep the tempo high, and means having to put a demper on the world-building. This for instance means the readers very quickly learns about the world through an informative sentence after something happens, to explain why this happens. But it is never revealed how Ophelia would know this.

All in all, the drawbacks are not major, and the book is a good read and a good continuation of the series. All is set for a very interesting last book. 

This novel forces you to be in the audience and watch a man you don't really like break down on stage. It's uncomfortable. But you will also in the end have empathy for him. 

There's metaphors, symbolism and a whole parable to tackle. And perhaps even a reworked story of Peer Gynt in there 

The only question is if it becomes to self-centered on it's chosen format, or excercise in style. Does it really say anything new?

Chinese-american magical realism with many stories making up a grander story. With stories from the 1850s, 1860s, as well as 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. China and the US.

The book is a funny yet informative description of the yin realm and how the afterlife works. 

Also tackles the different variations of love: platonic, sisterly, family, love between couple, etc.

A good read. Recommend it. 

This is a good book, an Indonesian epic. 

There are a lot of content warnings for this book. And at times the amount of rape is at times so overwhelming and tiresome that the only thing you can do is just take a physical break from the book. 

However, this is also a central point of the book, as well as providing the reader with a feeling of neusea at times. This is the story of how Indonesia was raped, time and time again. 

Through the good use of Indonesian folklore as well as Indonesian history the story takes us through the most formative decades in contemporary Indonesian history. And it shows brutally, through the rape, incest and violence towards a family across generations how Indonesia, for all it's beauty, has time and time again been fucked over by other colonizing and conquering nations and states. But also how it has fought back, at times in really cunning ways.

A neccessary counterpoint to this is the use of dark humour and fairytales. Every chapter in itself could be read as a seperate modern fairytale, but is also an epic story of a family across generations.  The author is a brilliant storyteller.

If you can stomach it, it is highly recommended.  But be prepared for what lies ahead. Beauty is a wound. 

This book contains many small stories of a kid and her grandma at their summer house on an island. The stories could be read separately (in any order!) as well as a novel. Each story is a reflection on different aspects of life. A sort of everyday philosophy, without being banal. 

Everyone should have this book, and read it when they need some peace of mind at the same time as pondering the mysteries of life. Revealed through the intersections of being a kid and being an old woman. 

Capturing what it means to be a kid and how kids see the world, with perfection! 

Recommended. 

First off, the good:
The book, with its unreliable narrator and the style of requiring the reader to piece together an incomplete puzzle, can serve as a starting point for many interesting discussions related to the theme of robots. However, this is not really the point of the book. But rather a red herring.

What the book is at its core, is a discussion of humans' need for servants and hierarchy. Reading it with those optics makes it much more interesting and unsettling.

Klara is programmed to accept her status and what she "is" in relation to humans. This means that this book as it's most interesting is not about if robots can be humans or not, but rather about the human need for slaves or obedient servants. This is what makes the book the most interesting. It is a meditation on how humans relate to other things, and what we treat with dignity and not.  How do we treat things which are not human? 

Plus for good use of language.

Challenges the author has not solved that well:
The robot is the only narrator. Choosing the robot to be the only narrator means also having to address the mediation of machine vision, which sometimes does not escape an anthropocentric point of view. Is this really a robotic narration, or rather how a human envisions a robot reflecting? This narration humanizes her for us as readers.

This is for instance related to narrating how Klara literally views the world, where she is self-aware to some point about viewing her own software which is also visibly asserting itself in her field of vision. although there would be no need for this, as there is no human looking at an enhanced screen, rather the data would directly be processed without an outside view of it. Therefore, the inclusion of how Klara sees through boxes that sometimes appear seems to defy the logic of how she is software. There is no need for her to be made aware of what she herself is computing.

The second concerns her using the same language for talking about her feelings as humans would. Her feelings are limited to feelings that are positive to her servant family. She is also incapable of feeling any negative feelings, so it is clear that she is programmed to some sort of experience, but what are they really? The lack of negative emotions means this is something incapable of suffering. Which means it is not sentient.  However, as the narrator, the AF is anthropomorphized for us as readers. But it could be questioned if this is done with the intention of making the lack of dignity the humans in the story treat others with, including the AF, more visible for us as readers. 

As readers, we, therefore, relate more to her than the humans she is living with would. Because as readers we relate to "feeling of joy spreading through me". the humanized narration can lead us to believe a calculated answer by complex algorithms has led Klara to the conclusion that the Sun is an all-powerful god.

Other negative things:
Ishiguro for some reason introduced a bit of magic realism to the story so we could always say "oh but MAYBE The Sun is a god after all" which I found a bit unnecessary.

Minus for terrible unrealistic dialogue between kids/teenagers and portraying realistic teenagers. 

Read the novel, then read this article: "Artificial Animals", https://www.growbyginkgo.com/2022/01/18/artificial-animals/ 

Comparing it to the first in the series, this is much more plot-driven in a very continuous tempo (less variation). It is still very good in the world building and the explorations (and critique) of political systems, much in the same mood as Terry Pratchett. 

It fails to be as perfect as book #1 in the series, but still very well written.