ed_moore's reviews
275 reviews

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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

3.75

“Life doesn’t get easier simply because it gets more glamorous”

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ shows the good, the bad and the ugly of the Hollywood life and explores the scandal behind all the money and fame through the eyes of superstar actor Evelyn Hugo as she sacrifices her identity and sexuality for stardom. It is written from the perspective of a tell-all interview with Monique who Evelyn hires to write her biography that is requested to be published after she’s died. 

In a book with focus on a woman’s seven marriages, there are many scenes of sex and exploitation, but the book plays the primary hook to be who was Evelyn’s true love among all these men. The conclusion of this was however very predictable and I also worked out the later twists. Even knowing there were seven marriages to get through at times the in and outing of relationships also felt very messy. It was enthralling however nonetheless. 

Evelyn was the protagonist but not the narrator, Monique took this role and the narrative would occasionally look at Monique’s personal life that I found myself really not caring for, it was a mundane among all the intensity of Evelyn. It didn’t take up huge chunks of the story though so this wasn’t too bad. 

Jenkins Reid makes comment on how riches will never guarantee happiness, and the slippery slope of greed and corruption that comes from stardom, and the lack of remorse for all that are hurt along the way.

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Kallocain by Karin Boye

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

4.75

‘“Because then you would see that you’ve been scraped bare, exposed right down to your naked skeleton - and who has the strength to see that? Who wants to see his wretchedness until he is compelled to? Not compelled by human beings. Compelled by the emptiness and the cold” 

Karin Boye’s ‘Kallocain’ depicts a totalitarian society similar in power structures to the Airstrip One of ‘1984’. It follows the development of the drug kallocain that forces those accused to speak the truth, a terrifying decay in free speech and free will.

Leo Kall, the protagonist and inventor of the drug remains loyal to the state however has an Oppenheimer-esque guilt complex that he battles with, this exploring the human reaction to the greater effects of one’s creations, something that could be associated to the development of artificial intelligence in the modern day. A limited pool of characters allowed for good development in a not so long book, though Linda is really given the tougher end of things. 

Boye’s political vision written in the early years of WW2 does a very successful job of exploring the bleak and likely looking future for society in the wake of Nazi power, and can too be reciprocal of the modern day.
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

“I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”

‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ is just as nonsensical a tale as ‘Alice in Wonderland’  though rather than a world based on a deck of cards Looking Glass Land mirrors a game of chess where Alice progresses through as a pawn, meeting the likes of Humpty Dumpty, Tweedle Dum and Dee and the Lion and the Unicorn to become a queen herself at the end of the board. It was fun and full of interludes of song and nursery rhyme, however also an improvement on ‘Wonderland’ in the terms that it is much more coherent in its narrative, however much less iconic also. There were curiously a pair of chapters that were each just a sentence or so long in the conclusion that caught me out a little however. Despite no Mad Hatters or Cheshire Cats I do think I preferred ‘Looking Glass’ just for being equally fun and nonsensical but a much more structured plot and narrative. 
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

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adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

‘The Last Olympian’ was a very fitting finale to the Percy Jackson series, cumulating in a defence of Manhattan that brings together all the characters from the previous books against a huge host of monsters. The whole of the book was pretty much the battle of Manhattan and was persistently full of action and a generally satisfying conclusion to the series with pretty much all the main characters having a fulfilling conclusive arc. 
The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche, Shaun Whiteside, Michael Tanner

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challenging informative slow-paced

2.25

“The best of all things is something entirely out of your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best thing for you - is to die soon” 

‘The Birth of Tragedy’ was one difficult read. It is Nietzsche’s philosophical explanation of the founding of Greek Tragedy, its demise and then its rebirth among his contemporary German Tragedians. Nietzsche explores the realms of the Apolline and the Dionysiac and how they are connected in art and music, working in tandem to define tragedy as a genre. In places it was long and confusing, but generally interesting despite taking an awful lot of mental power to absorb and attempt to understand, hence my rating being on the lower side. It also somehow despite looking a lot at the artistic relationships that make up tragedy did not seem to give a definitive suggestion or theory on the birth of tragedy, contrary to the title itself. Nietzsche offered many a clever suggestion, perhaps overemphasised the idea of a rebirth among the German Tragedians, but it was ultimately a Herculean effort to read a not-so-large book. 
In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka

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

3.25

Kafka’s ‘In the Penal Colony’ is a short commentary on law and order, where an unnamed visitor of the penal colony is invited to watch an execution of a man who has not been told what his crime was nor given a trial. Kafka takes time to explain the intricate process of the torture and execution following the prisoners arrest, the officer emphasising the brilliance of it yet the visitor morally objecting to it. 

There is an underlying religious allegory between old and new with frequent emphasis placed on the ‘old governor’ or testament and its methods of justice, versus the greater morals of the new. The depiction of the torture device itself was utterly stomach churning and so uncomfortable to read and picture. ‘In the Penal Colony’ felt similar to ‘The Trial’ in its commentary however expressed it in a far more basic and violent manner. 
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Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

“There will be no revolution in England while there are aspridistras in the window”
 
Orwell’s ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ is a grim satire about capitalist 1920s London, where down and out poet Gordon Comstock insist to live his life waging war on what he deems the ‘money god’. The aspidistra becomes the symbol of accepting the mediocre worklife and getting-by within capitalist society, and the frequent use of that symbolism was pretty clever. In places Orwell’s dry humour was genuinely funny and as per usual his criticisms of society were second to none. With a poet as protagonist poetry was interwoven reflecting the bleak state of society which was a pleasant inclusion.
 
On the contrary, Gordon as a protagonist was by no means a great one, in declaring his war on ‘the money god’ he was whiny and insufferable, and while Orwell succeeded in not presenting any specific female characters awfully (what an achievement), Rosemary being such a powerhouse though also frustrating in her persistence with Gordon, generally the male characters were very assumptive and demeaning of the entire female sex. Orwell also curiously uses many character names featuring in his other works and he hasn’t written masses. 
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

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

3.0

“No matter what difficulties people face they will always have the strength to overcome them, it just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose” 

‘Before the coffee gets cold’ is a series of interlinked short stories based in the cafe Funiculi Funicula where if a number of conditions are met one can travel back in time and meet someone who had once visited the cafe, just they have to return before their coffee gets cold. I was expecting a more coherent narrative but rather the four tales told are interlinked by the cafe and its staff. 

It is a very quaint tale that explores human emotion, relationships, child brith, illness and grief but does this in a very cosy and manageable manner, at no point is this upsetting or distressing but rather very open to being accepting of it and making the best of it. ‘Before the coffee gets cold’ was by no means revolutionary, and no character arcs are particularly major due to the nature of the shifting perspectives in each of the four tales and a lot of the mechanics of the time travel are unexplained and justified as just ‘the rules’. I would’ve loved to hear more about the mysterious ghost figure that remains present throughout the whole novel but always in the background, and maybe this will be a topic of one of the sequels. It just remains a quiet novel about an overlooked little cafe. 

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The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

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challenging reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“To hell with her, it wouldn’t be a man’s world when she finished with it”

‘The Queen’s Gambit follows 8 year old chess prodigy Beth Harmon as she learns to play in the orphanage basement and grows, competing in tournaments and earning a reputation for herself as one of the greatest. Alongside this journey she battles addiction struggles to build relationships, Tevis telling a bildungsroman of a brilliant but broken girl. 

The scenes of chess were obviously the primary focus, and some were brushed over and other more crucial games in Beth’s development intricately described, and this wasn’t dull at all. I was really into how each game played out and the problem solving occurred, I assume this was immensely helped by having a decent knowledge of the game and could see how ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ could be a book quite difficult to engage with without much former knowledge. Whereas in Beth’s success and character arc a consequence of she being a child prodigy her successes were very predictable and it was inevitable she would win the various tournaments competed in throughout the book. Hence chess is not the crucial theme explored. 

Tevis handles addiction, grief, womanhood and sexuality among the key moments of chess games, and in the beginning of the book I didn’t really like the way this was dealt with, especially the role of Jolene who is idolised by Beth and never really condemned as a character however a character who was very flawed and I really didn’t like. As Beth aged however the handling of various themes became a much more key factor and better integrated, and the story as a whole became very encapsulating and enjoyable.
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Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles

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

3.25

“If here and now someone came up and threatened to take your life, your innocent life, would you pause to ask if he were your father - or deal with him out of hand?”

‘Oedipus at Colonus’ is set between ‘Oedipus Rex’ and ‘Antigone’, though chronologically was Sophocles’ final play. It follows Oedipus after his exile as he and Antigone arrive at Colonus near Athens and Oedipus curses Thebes and blesses Colonus if he is permitted to die in the city. It doesn’t follow the formula of a tragedy, hence the tag of the trilogy being ‘The Theban Plays’ as oppose to ‘Theban Tragedies’ and here I felt that ‘Oedipus at Colonus’ was very different in tone to the other two plays and its more distanced perspective made it as a standalone play much weaker. ‘Oedipus Rex’ and ‘Antigone’ both could exist outside of the trilogy, but ‘Oedipus at Colonus’ depends on the other two to have an impactful plot, it is solely a bridging device in a way. 

That being said, Creon did really shine in ‘Oedipus at Colonus’. The loyal Creon of ‘Oedipus Rex’ becoming the tyrannical leader of ‘Antigone’ felt quote unusual, and Oedipus’ curse explains his character shift. His path to becoming the antagonist doesn’t really exist and he immediately changes to fulfil this role in ‘Colonus’ but he certainly fills it explosively. He completely dictated the story and Oedipus, despite being the eponymous character, is cast to the background. Even still, I don’t think Creon is particularly in the wrong!