its_kievan's reviews
183 reviews

I saw a lot of reviews talking about Bear’s prose. And, yes, her writing is very pretty, with long paragraphs describing elaborate clothes or grand throne rooms in exquisite detail. But it comes at a cost. The Stone in the Skull is a fairly short book, and to make room for this descriptiveness Bear jettisons plot and character and structure. All the characters feel curiously blank, and huge events like

the kidnapping of a prince and the destruction of an entire city

are given less attention than the gold dust scattered on a palace floor. Bear is clearly talented enough to hold a coherent narrative together despite all this, but she handicaps herself from the very beginning and never quite manages to recover.

Look, it’s a cute book! I liked the characters, I liked the central idea, I enjoyed reading it. But if I can be boring for a second, the politics of Legends & Lattes (and, by extension, the cosy fantasy genre as a whole) are really weirdly conservative.

The central conceit of L&L is that friendship and idealism will get you a happy ending without violence - so long as that happy ending is a very individualistic one. A big subplot is the presence of an organised criminal gang powerful enough to co-opt the local police force, which extorts all businesses in the cities. Viv refuses to pay them off, but also refuses to fight back. Instead she… gives them pastries? Which is just extortion with extra steps. At no point is there any attempt to examine the morality of this arrangement, no hint that Viv might bear some responsibility to other members of the community who will continue to be extorted. Nope, instead the local crime lord helps rebuild her coffee shop so I guess everything is fine. “Fuck you, I got mine” is hardly a “cosy” slogan, but it seems to be the motto of this book. I get - believe me I get - the desire to withdraw from real-world politics, but what happens when your comfort world simply swaps one set of politics for another? There are ways to write comforting stories without writing a weird reactionary fantasy about small business owners getting a leg-up from the mob.

I don’t know. Like I said, I liked the book. It was cute, and fun (if underdeveloped), and let me kill a couple otherwise-boring hours at work. It’s just weird.

hooks is obviously an incredible writer and thinker, but what you get out of All About Love really depends on what you put in, and for whatever reason I just wasn’t able to put much of myself in. Maybe the blend of self-help, spiritualism, and practical politics just didn’t do it for me. I don’t know. I almost feel bad giving any kind of numerical rating, because this is such an intensely personal reading experience that I’m rating myself more than anything. Anyway. Shout out Ms. hooks, love your work, sorry this didn’t land for me but I think you’d be okay with that.

Would have been sick as hell to read if I was getting it a chapter a day in 1800s France. Unfortunately I am not a 19th century Frenchman, so instead it was a slow, meandering slog where I felt like I was missing pretty much all the context for everything that was happening. There were glimmers, here and there, of what made The Three Musketeers so influential - not enough to make me love it, but enough that I get why other people do. I can guarantee any decent movie adaptation will be infinitely better, simply because time constraints mean they have to keep the good stuff and cut out the bullshit parts. Maybe that's sacrilege in the literature sphere, but I stand by it.

Also, D'Artagnan

straight up rapes Milady

. Like, I know it was a different time and all but jesus christ.

I’m pretty sure this might be the first biography I’ve actually read, and I think it did suffer from misplaced expectations. I’m on a real “early American politics” kick at the moment, but McCullough is far more interested in Adams’ personality than his politics. Which is fair - it’s a biography after all, and Adams was a very interesting guy - but it does mean he spends twice as long talking about Adams’ time in France than his time as, y’know, President of the United States. Anyway, that aside, it’s a pretty good biography! A bit slow, at times, and probably confusing for someone without previous knowledge of the area, but McCullough offers a vivid and intimate portrait of Adams that I really appreciated. Perfect for people who really like history and really hate Hamilton.

A very good 200-page mystery that Bennett seems to have accidentally turned into a 400-page book.

Neither history nor theology, but a secret third thing (an interesting journal article awkwardly inflated into an underwhelming book).

Unlike any other history book I’ve read, to be honest. This is very obviously a supplemental book, assuming a fairly decent understanding of early American history. Ellis looks at six key historical events: the Hamilton-Burr duel, the Jefferson-Madison-Hamilton dinner, early debates on slavery, Washington’s Farewell Address, the 1796 election, and Adams and Jefferson’s post-politics friendship. The first few chapters are rocky - interesting, but not very compelling. The last three chapters, on the other hand… Ellis clearly has his favourites, and they are Jefferson and especially Adams. His portrait of their decades-long friendship and rivalry makes for some of the best historical writing I’ve ever read. This isn’t a book for everyone, but for anyone interested in this era is an absolute essential.

One of the most beautifully written fantasy novels I’ve read. Would probably have been 5 stars if I hadn’t picked it up during the most insane month of my life.

Cried my little autistic ass off when Dawes got a POV chapter