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nhborg's reviews
378 reviews
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
DNF at 44%
Oh boy.. I’m so sad I didn’t like this. I don’t know what to say other than that this writing style really wasn’t for me. Personally I found it wayy too dry and descriptive, and my brain just shuts down when the paragraphs are peppered full of strange names of people, places, alien concepts. I felt like I was reading page after page and getting nothing out of it. It didn’t help that the audiobook narrator had the most lifeless, staggering, tedious reading voice I’ve ever heard (my apologies to the man behind it). Once in a while I arrived at a quirky formulation or a short presentation of an interesting concept, but it didn’t feel worth it to continue reading based on the low enjoyment:disinterest ratio. Is it wrong to say that I got a lot more out of the author’s introduction than the actual novel?
Oh boy.. I’m so sad I didn’t like this. I don’t know what to say other than that this writing style really wasn’t for me. Personally I found it wayy too dry and descriptive, and my brain just shuts down when the paragraphs are peppered full of strange names of people, places, alien concepts. I felt like I was reading page after page and getting nothing out of it. It didn’t help that the audiobook narrator had the most lifeless, staggering, tedious reading voice I’ve ever heard (my apologies to the man behind it). Once in a while I arrived at a quirky formulation or a short presentation of an interesting concept, but it didn’t feel worth it to continue reading based on the low enjoyment:disinterest ratio. Is it wrong to say that I got a lot more out of the author’s introduction than the actual novel?
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi
3.0
2.5
Nope… didn’t work for me:/ The thing is, I like what the book is trying to do, and there are many elements which made this a potential win for me: the gothic atmosphere, the language, the mystery, the cultishness. Yet it fell flat. Maybe the audiobook is somewhat to blame, but the story felt incredibly monotone and dragging. One of the POVs always failed to make an impact, amounting to ~50% of the book feeling like a waste of time. It also just didn’t feel original; every new aspect introduced was just a slightly modified version of a tale I’ve already heard before. Overall, this was very forgettable and will probably only reside in my mind as a slight annoyance over Indigo.
Nope… didn’t work for me:/ The thing is, I like what the book is trying to do, and there are many elements which made this a potential win for me: the gothic atmosphere, the language, the mystery, the cultishness. Yet it fell flat. Maybe the audiobook is somewhat to blame, but the story felt incredibly monotone and dragging. One of the POVs always failed to make an impact, amounting to ~50% of the book feeling like a waste of time. It also just didn’t feel original; every new aspect introduced was just a slightly modified version of a tale I’ve already heard before. Overall, this was very forgettable and will probably only reside in my mind as a slight annoyance over Indigo.
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
4.0
Biig exhale after a rollercoaster of a trilogy…
Hear me out: I’d rate this book 3 stars for enjoyment, but 5 for originality and the pure world-building genius we are dealing with here. This series is epic in the truest sense; the entire freaking globe is at stake, and the powers at play are dizzyingly grand. You can tell that N. K. Jemisin is 100% present in her own fictive universe, and the lore and storylines are thus beautifully crafted. On top of it all you can relate this fantasy story to relevant real-world issues such as climate change, overexploitation, unwillingness to acknowledge own responsibility, oppression and genocide, consequences of neglectful parenting, and the list goes on… In addition to the thematic depth, there is also a cleverness to the storytelling that will blow your mind by tying all aspects together in a beautiful unity. For these reasons I want to acknowledge «The Broken Earth» trilogy as quite the literary masterpiece.
However, the reason for the drop in enjoyment rating is that the books themselves had a tendency of being dry and hard to get through. Especially applicable to the 2nd and 3rd book, the first half/two thirds feel very monotonous and filler-y, while the wow-factor doesn’t hit until the finale and then makes the journey worth it. Still, I can’t ignore the fact that much of the series is quite boring to read and difficult to follow. Some of my struggles are my own fault, either by a) having forgotten parts of the story from book 1 and 2 before finishing book 3 and therefore not being fully up to date, b) being too impatient to pay close enough attention and catch all the details, or c) simply not being big brain enough. Despite this, I’ve seen several other reviews describing a similar reading experience. My impression is that the author sometimes is so caught up with the story that she writes out the explanations more to herself rather than paying attention to how it would pace out for a relatively unknowing audience. That made the books feel patchy, with some chapters being quite interesting and resparking the interest, and others just proceeding before my eyes without being fully processed.
For this book, I really liked the last third; it suddenly went back to being as dark, eerie and existential as I’d remembered the series to be. Someday in the future I might reread the whole series just to see if I’ll be able to understand even more to appreciate it fully.
Finally, I’d like to suggest listening to the «Enchanted land» fantasy ambience music (on YouTube) in the background while reading. IMHO it set the perfect tone:)
Hear me out: I’d rate this book 3 stars for enjoyment, but 5 for originality and the pure world-building genius we are dealing with here. This series is epic in the truest sense; the entire freaking globe is at stake, and the powers at play are dizzyingly grand. You can tell that N. K. Jemisin is 100% present in her own fictive universe, and the lore and storylines are thus beautifully crafted. On top of it all you can relate this fantasy story to relevant real-world issues such as climate change, overexploitation, unwillingness to acknowledge own responsibility, oppression and genocide, consequences of neglectful parenting, and the list goes on… In addition to the thematic depth, there is also a cleverness to the storytelling that will blow your mind by tying all aspects together in a beautiful unity. For these reasons I want to acknowledge «The Broken Earth» trilogy as quite the literary masterpiece.
However, the reason for the drop in enjoyment rating is that the books themselves had a tendency of being dry and hard to get through. Especially applicable to the 2nd and 3rd book, the first half/two thirds feel very monotonous and filler-y, while the wow-factor doesn’t hit until the finale and then makes the journey worth it. Still, I can’t ignore the fact that much of the series is quite boring to read and difficult to follow. Some of my struggles are my own fault, either by a) having forgotten parts of the story from book 1 and 2 before finishing book 3 and therefore not being fully up to date, b) being too impatient to pay close enough attention and catch all the details, or c) simply not being big brain enough. Despite this, I’ve seen several other reviews describing a similar reading experience. My impression is that the author sometimes is so caught up with the story that she writes out the explanations more to herself rather than paying attention to how it would pace out for a relatively unknowing audience. That made the books feel patchy, with some chapters being quite interesting and resparking the interest, and others just proceeding before my eyes without being fully processed.
For this book, I really liked the last third; it suddenly went back to being as dark, eerie and existential as I’d remembered the series to be. Someday in the future I might reread the whole series just to see if I’ll be able to understand even more to appreciate it fully.
Finally, I’d like to suggest listening to the «Enchanted land» fantasy ambience music (on YouTube) in the background while reading. IMHO it set the perfect tone:)