jayisreading's reviews
512 reviews

It took me a little under a year to finish reading The Count of Monte Cristo, which I think is somewhat understandable, given that it’s a pretty damn long novel. It was fascinating to see Dumas’s mind at work as he spun together a complex plot that had themes ranging from vengeance to forgiveness. I know there were a fair number of details that flew over my head, and this is absolutely one of those novels which, if you’re familiar with the historical events of when this novel took place, the reading experience will be significantly richer. Unfortunately for me, this was just outside of the period I’m more familiar with, so I greatly appreciated the footnotes that were in my translated edition.

The Count of Monte Cristo was a challenging novel for me to read, in part because it was long, but mostly because there were so many moving parts, so much that I seriously considered taking notes to remind myself who certain characters were, their motives, etc. The pacing did slow a fair bit towards the middle, with Dumas taking up hundreds of pages to lay the intricate groundwork for Edmond Dantès to exact his revenge on the three men who ruined his life. I admit that there were numerous occasions when I wondered why I needed to know a particular detail—and to be frank, I think there were a lot of details that weren’t necessary but were included anyway because Dumas was likely paid by the word—but patience paid off when I reached the ending and saw how everything unfolded.

I can see why some people may not enjoy how consumed Dantès was in seeking vengeance (especially when he was introduced as a just and good-natured man), but I quite liked how Dumas contemplated the nuances of revenge through his protagonist’s merits and flaws (but I also like a good Byronic hero, so there’s that).

Would I ever revisit this novel? Honestly, I don’t know if I would, mainly because it’s so long, but I’m glad to have finally gotten around to reading a sprawling and highly regarded classic. 

I really wanted to like this one, but the storytelling and characters were just too flat for me.

The writing style isn't for me.

I'm not in the right headspace to read this right now. I'll have to revisit this one sometime in the future.

I enjoyed Vértiz’s intimate approach to the body, both in the sensual and fleshy sense, as well as the mechanical. The personal touch of having been raised and near auto body shops make her poems stand out for their unique connections between automobiles and humans. There was a particular tenderness to these poems that I didn’t expect, but I think this was strengthened by the beautiful and unapologetic incorporation of Spanish into many of these poems.

On a more personal note, I didn’t particularly love or hate these poems when it came to style and structure, which is definitely a matter of personal taste.

This collection was definitely a mixed bag, with either me enjoying the short story or caring very little about it (if at all). Without a doubt, though, Chiang really knows how to craft a world and situation; even for the short stories I struggled with due to disinterest, I was still impressed with the way he wove everything together. Furthermore, each story posed such interesting questions and challenges to reflect on, whether it be the unreliability of mathematics as we know it, reckoning with the undeniable presence of God and His angels, or reconfiguring one’s reality through language. Perhaps not surprisingly, the gem of this collection is “Story of Your Life,” which may have been one of the best short stories I have read in a long while. (It has certainly incentivized me to finally get around to watching Arrival.) I now understand why it has received as much praise as it has.

To me, the short stories that are worth reading are: “Story of Your Life” (this one is a must, I’d say), “Tower of Babylon,” “Understand,” and possibly “Hell Is the Absence of God.”

These poems are really going to make you think, especially with how challenging they were. For one, Liu plays a lot with form in different ways. He effortlessly switches between English and Japanese (and not romanized, I should add), Frankensteining existing texts to create new meaning, incorporates half-finished musical notation, and more. In other words, Liu becomes Dr. Frankenstein himself in crafting monstrous poems that come alive with care and ferocity.

Another challenge is understanding Liu’s intentions in these poems. I’m aware of his particular interest in masculinity/ies, the monstrosity of it all, and the ties to other monstrosities such as racism and capitalism (among others). Frankly, I never would have pieced these together from the poems alone, and it was his notes at the end of the collection (titled “The Monstrosity: Notes Towards a Frankenpo”) that made things a lot clearer. (I’d even go so far as to suggest reading these first before the poems themselves.) Even with these notes, though, I found myself struggling a bit to fully grasp how these poems connected to these ideas. With that said, I know one of the reasons for this struggle was due to a lack of familiarity with a few of the referenced texts in this collection.

I’m going to have to revisit this collection again in the future. I’m intrigued by what Liu laid out in so many ways, but I definitely had a tough time making sense of a lot of it.

Admittedly, the main reason I decided to pick this novel up was because I was so drawn into the cover, which might be one of my favorites this year. However, the reason I really stuck around was because I appreciated that Hur gave attention to a rather dark period of Korean history that isn’t considered as often as, say, the twentieth century. Perhaps because it is a YA novel, Hur doesn’t get into the specific details of the atrocities committed by King Yeonsan, though she doesn’t shy away from frequently mentioning that they happened. It would be difficult not to mention them, considering that it’s his tyrannical reign that served as one of the reasons as to why the plot progressed the way it did—

Regarding plot, the novel was part-political intrigue, part-murder mystery, and part-romance. This is all to say that Hur had all the ingredients to craft the novel version of a historical K-drama, aha. Even some of the dialogue between characters read a bit too much like lines from a K-drama, but I still found myself engrossed. While I did feel that the mystery portion of the novel wasn’t the strongest, I think it synthesized well enough with everything else that it didn’t leave me frustrated. One other small critique I have is that I found the rapid development of the romance a bit unrealistic, but that’s also the cynic in me speaking. Who knows, maybe there are people who fall in love in a similar fashion as Iseul and Prince Daehyun. And, regarding characters, Iseul isn’t a particularly likable protagonist, especially at the start (in a way, she’s something of an anti-heroine), but I thought it worked well for the novel Hur wanted to craft. I could see how Iseul would drive some readers away though.

Overall, I thought the novel was a solid mix of being plot- and character-driven. Hur writes in an engaging way that will keep you reading, especially when the stakes are raised, and you see how the relationship between the two protagonists develop. I’ll have to check her other works out, especially knowing that she has written other works focusing on Korean history.

I wouldn’t call myself an aficionado of the science fiction genre, but I have enough of a grasp that I have some expectations. Ashing-Giwa’s The Splinter in the Sky is a welcome standalone novel, in the sense that the genre is always in need of more marginalized voices, especially ones drawing attention to topics such as the consequences of colonialism (a prevalent theme in the genre yet rarely critiqued). That being said, I found that this commentary was far too heavy-handed, to the point that by the time I was a quarter into the novel (not even halfway), I found myself thinking, I get it, can we please get to something new now?

On another note, I always felt that standalone sci-fi novels are especially tricky to write, particularly because of the incredible care that must go into good worldbuilding. This is the author’s one chance to craft a convincing world that won’t be expanded any further, so the stakes are a bit high on this front. Unfortunately, I felt that there was a lot left to be desired in this novel. There were a number of ideas and elements introduced throughout that I found fascinating, but many of them came and went in a blink of an eye, leaving the reader very little time to actually appreciate the universe Ashing-Giwa created.

Relatedly, one would think this must mean the plot was especially interesting to make up for the worldbuilding. While there was political intrigue (and a bit complex, too), I didn’t think it came together as well as it could have, which was in part because of the worldbuilding that was somewhat hastily put together, it seems. The plot was fairly predictable, the characters and their relationships lacked complexity (and, in the protagonist’s case, flaws), and I felt there were one too many deus ex machina moments.

One positive thing I will say about The Splinter in the Sky is that it is a very approachable and straightforward science fiction novel. I know the genre can be daunting for some readers, but Ashing-Giwa’s writing style is an accessible one—even with its flaws—and it could make for a good jumping point into denser novels.

Ultimately, I think this novel could have afforded to have been longer (or even turned into a duology or something) to really flesh out the universe and characters. The pieces were there, but they didn’t come together as well as the author may have thought.

This feminist collection features eighteen very short stories that explore how Palestinian Bedouin girls and women navigate societal expectations, especially when facing misogyny. Each story is a brief but powerful glimpse into their lives, with characters standing up for themselves through small acts of rebellion. In addition, many of these characters express a sense of desire and longing for freedom: something more for themselves and for the place they call home. Helawy quietly touches on the Israeli occupation of her homeland, which is inherently part of the experience of contemporary Palestinian Bedouin society, even if it’s not at the foreground. However, at the heart of this collection is to shine a light on the girls and women who share her identity, to uplift their stories, as so few have written about their experiences (including hers).

Regarding personal enjoyment, I admit I wasn’t especially attached to a lot of the stories in this collection, mainly due to how short they were, but there were absolutely a few that had me thinking. I’d be curious to read more of Helawy’s writings, though, should more be translated into English in the future.