gabberjaws's reviews
553 reviews

Moses Ose Utomi wasn't on my radar before this stunning cover caught my eye, but he is now.

This dark-fantasy, African-inspired novella is everything you want a fable to be. It strikes with precision and surety, and is incredibly effective in driving its message home. Utomi's writing is relatively simple, but there's a richness to it that I adore.

The Lies of the Ajungo was beautifully crafted and juuuust shy of perfection. What I personally found a little lacking was the exploration of Tutu's relationships with the people he loved - namely the people he met on his journey. I know it wouldn't have suited the fable-ness of this book very well, but I'd have really loved to see Tutu's relationships with Funme, Asilah, and Lami delved into a little more so that we could really feel the impact of the events of the book, and so that Tutu's emotions and decisions had bigger punch.

But that's just me, and I still think this was fantastic regardless. I can't wait to read more of Utomi's work.

 

There are some books that come your way at the right time and Our Wives Under the Sea was very much one of those books for me. This review is about to get exceedingly personal, so buckle in folks. 

You see, when I first read this book I was in the middle of grieving my grandmother. She’d died 8 months before I’d picked this up, and the year preceding her death had been extremely difficult for me and my family. Nana was diagnosed with dementia in July 2021 and her memory and other cognitive functions began deteriorating rapidly. And then if that wasn’t bad enough, that same October, she started having difficulty breathing and was rushed to hospital, where she had to stay an entire month. When she was finally released from hospital, it was with a cancer diagnosis. Terminal.

My relationship with my grandmother had always been turbulent, and I could go on about the complexities of our relationship until the cows come home, but the only thing that matters to us today is the bottom line; I loved her. This was someone I’d known and lived with my entire life, and I had to sit and watch helplessly while she slowly forgot who I was, what she was doing, and where she was. 

When I picked up Our Wives Under the Sea, I was several months into mourning, and I didn’t expect to have the grief stirred up quite the way it was - but if you have read this book, then you see how the events of in this story paralleled everything I went through in the previous year. Reading this was a gut punch.

Our Wives Under the Sea follows Miri and Leah, a couple in the middle of an event that, as is made clear right from the beginning, will not have a happy ending. Leah’s returned from an voyage under the sea that has left her changed and changing still, and we follow Miri as she both grieves the loss of the Leah she used to know and tries to grapple with what she fears may come.

At its core, Our Wives Under the Sea is a story about grief, loss, and the fear of loss. It’s about the inevitable end of all things, all relationships - even the ones that last a lifetime. It’s an odd, but powerful tale, and because of my state of grieving when I read this, it had me sobbing uncontrollably for pages on end. 

Armfield writes with a masterful command of language. Her writing is lyrical and poetic, but without being clunky or awkward. It flowed like water, and it was incredibly easy to get lost in her words and the story she was weaving. 

This book definitely won’t be for everyone - like I said, it is a little odd. But if you like poetic, profound, slightly weird stories, then please do give this a chance. I still can’t fully put into words how cathartic and meloncholic it was to read this book (it certainly didn’t help that the two MCs reminded me of my partner and I), but Our Wives Under the Sea was a powerful little book, and I will carry this story with me for a long time. 

 

We had a Show vs Tell discussion at a book club just last week, and if I could time travel, I'd take this book back with me as an example of what not to do for a Tell-Only Narrative. I forced myself to make it to chapter four, and I was bored to tears the entire time.

I try to be kinder with debut authors, but man this really could have used an editor. The sentence structure was unnecessarily clunky and verbose, paragraphs started and ended in strange places, and the mc repeated her thoughts a lot? I had to reread multiple passages before I could parse what was actually written because a lot of this was utter word salad.

 

Full disclosure, I tried to read this book twice before this, and gave up fairly early because I wasn't in the mood for it. I didn't dislike the book by any means - just knew I wasn't in the right headspace to finish it yet. So I put it down each time, with the promise to come back to it when I was ready.

I’m glad I waited.

The Poppy War was a phenomenal read. This book is an examination of power, the horrors of war, and vengeance. It asks the question “What happens if the hero doesn’t do the noble thing. What if the hero chooses to do exactly what was done onto them” and it follows it through to the grim end.

Rin was a beautifully complex, layered character. I like her, but I am not rooting for her to succeed in her personal goals, and I think R. F Kuang is remarkably talented for being able to make me feel this way about a character. I've seen unlikable characters that I can root for, and I've enjoyed them for it. A likeable, sympathetic character who I don't want to succeed? That's hard to do, but she did it so well.

In this exceedingly grim, extremely traumatic world, Rin never feels like a hardened adult. She comes across as exactly what she is; a nineteen year old girl, a child, really, who's been through immense suffering and is understandably consumed by her thirst for vengeance and assured of her own power.

Ultimately, I think the only thing that didn't really work for me was how different quickly the tone of the book changed between the first half and the second half. Felt a little whiplashy, tbh. And I'm not sure if I understood Rin's feelings for Altan. Seeking kinship, yeah, that I get. Being in love with him? Eh.

But I digress. I think this was a truly great book, and though I'll take some time to read the rest of this trilogy, I will definitely be reading the rest. If you're able to stomach the contents and themes of this one, I think everyone interested in fantasy that has something to say should give this a go. But really folks, please don’t ignore the content warnings on this one; this book is very heavily based on the Massacre of Nanjing, and it does not sugarcoat the atrocities committed.

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9/02/2023
Not me with my whole head empty and not realizing this was based on the Nanjing Massacre UNTIL I WAS 70% OF THE WAY IN. 

 What better way to start off the new year than by reading my first Pratchett?

Yes, this is Baby’s First Pratchett, and I’m glad I was convinced me to start the Discworld series with this book, because Career Criminal Becomes (somewhat) Decent Human Being Against His Will is ABSOLUTELY my shit. I pretty much wanted to inject this book directly into my veins.

There’s not much I can say about this book that probably hasn’t been said before. It’s curious, funny, and filled with insightful commentary; just an overall good time. I’m so excited to read more of these books.

Also, Lord Vetinari is my Problematic Fave.

 You know that one episode of Friends, where Joey has to write a recommendation letter to an adoption agency on Monica and Chandler's behalf, and how, on his first attempt, he uses the thesaurus on every single word? Yeah, that's what this book felt like.

Listen. I like flowery, lyrical prose as much as the next person, but my god. Did every single line have to be this deep, mishmash of utter nonsense that barely conveyed what this author was trying to say? I went into this book expecting a profound, horror-tinged character study; what I got was a migraine.

This book was filled with little nuggets of gold like this and,,, what the fuck is ANY of this supposed to mean!?

The worst part is that I got the distinct impression of smugness from the writing. Like it thought it was clever and intensely profound with its verbosity, and that I, the reader, should be in awe at what I was reading. No, friend. I just want to understand.

If the bad writing wasn't bad enough, I was also struggling to see the point of this book. If it was just a metaphor of a rocky marriage, and finding the strength and love to work through your problems and come out the other end still together, then... it was okay,??? I guess??? But if there was something more it was trying to say, I genuinely don’t see it.

There was so much build up and so many horror elements seemingly tossed in there for the heck of it, that it ended up muddying the waters to the point that even the marriage commentary was nearly drowned out. And if the study of this rocky marriage was the only point to this book, then it was entirely too long and not at all worth it. The horror had no pay-off and the commentary was about as substantial as onion skin.