sharkybookshelf's reviews
482 reviews

Octogenarian Evie Beaulieu is a renowned champion of the marine world; Ina Aroita has grown up around the Pacific and finds refuge in art; two high school friends obsessed with Go have followed radically different paths - their stories all converge on the French Polynesian island of Makatea which has been chosen for an ambitious seasteading project…

A book about the oceans should have been a slam-dunk for me, but while the story was interesting enough, it felt rather…listless and stereotyped. Now, perhaps this was on purpose to make a point about the revelation at the end. But if so, the result was a bit dull, when the potential was certainly there for an exciting read about the impunity of tech moguls, the wonder of the oceans and the conflict between small communities and the legacy of colonialism in the Pacific and how that ties into the environment. Yes, the themes are important, but neither the story nor the storytelling felt particularly innovative or refreshing.

So basically, that’s all to say that it was fine. Until the end, which was an absolute cop out and I just cannot get over it - I read through 400 unremarkable pages for THAT?! I am still so incensed that I deducted a whole star from my rating.

A slightly listless, ultimately dissatisfying story of the ocean’s wonders intersecting with tech moguls.

1961 The Netherlands, Isabel lives a quiet, disciplined life in her late mother’s country house until her brother deposits his new girlfriend Eva to stay for several weeks…

Told with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, I can’t tell if the story’s revelations are meant to be a surprise to the reader or not. Either way, I guessed the entire plot on page 10, which completely took the wind out of the story’s sails for me - I wasn’t invested enough by that point to feel particularly curious about whether I was correct. (If I hadn’t been set on reading the whole Booker shortlist, I might have DNFed.)

Set during an overlooked period of recentish European history - a decade or so post-WWII where cosmetic war damage has mostly disappeared, but a deeper reckoning has proved elusive - there was real potential to the story. It’s difficult to really say much without spoilers, but essentially, whilst it covers some important topics (I’d have liked far more of the third part and less of the rest), much of it felt heavy-handed.

I never quite bought into Isabel as a character - her rigidity and helpless reliance on her allowance felt more pre-WWI than post-WWII, and it felt like there was some character backstory missing. Eva was a more intriguing character, with a more complicated (thus interesting) perspective to offer.

A predictable and heavy-handed post-WWII story of love, loss and reckoning with the past.

The unnamed narrator is desperate to get out of Barcelona and to escape the roles imposed on her by society and her family…

This was fine, but didn’t manage to really hold my interest, possibly because the themes of chasing a sense of escape through love affairs and repeated thoughts of suicide just didn’t particularly draw me in.

I’m also not convinced that Baltasar’s writing style is quite for me (annoyingly, because I want to love it) - there was a deliberately abrasive quality to the narration that I didn’t enjoy. Almost every line was an acerbic quip and whilst it’s accomplished, I frankly didn’t have the energy for it.

A caustically witty story of a lesbian chasing an escape from societal expectations.

After the outbreak of WWII, Tommy and Tuppence are unofficially hired to sniff out Nazi spies at an English seaside resort…

Buckle your swashes (🤷🏼‍♀️), it’s Tommy and Tuppence adventure mystery time! Look, over 80 years later, it’s a little hard to take this one seriously - at times it feels a bit like Christie writing an episode of Dad’s Army (full disclosure: I’ve never actually watched Dad’s Army) - but nonetheless it was a fun puzzle. And clever, of course.

I figured out the identity of one of the spies, but I’m fairly sure I’ve previously read this one, so I’m not sure how much of that came from vague buried memories vs actually deducing it correctly. Either way, it was still a fun read - Tommy and Tuppence might be middle-aged now but they’re just as gung-ho as when they were Bright Young Things™ in their previous two books.

A swashbuckling WWII spy mystery romp, faintly ridiculous but nonetheless a good puzzle.

1861, James overhears that he is about to be separated from his family and sold on - he decides to hide but finds himself embarking on a journey down the Mississippi River with young Huck Finn who has faked his own death…

This was good - very good even - but honestly, it just did not knock my socks off in the way I expected given all the praise it has been getting. I’ve only read two of Everett’s other books (The Trees and Dr No) but this feels rather conventional in comparison, leaving me ever so slightly disappointed. On the flip side, I guess that does make it more accessible to a broader public.

So it’s more a case that I went in with overly high expectations, because this IS a clever novel, if a little over-explained at times. It is also funny - Everett doesn’t hold back on poking fun at the white characters (and fair enough, too) and manages to pack a lot in through his dark, absurdist humour: the realities of slavery (for the slaves), what freedom means and the intricacies of passing. The language element was also a great touch and cleverly done, though also over-explained at times.

I did find that the plot relied on a few too many convenient coincidences to move forward. I haven’t read Huckleberry Finn (yet), so don’t know how much of that is due to the constraints imposed by the original story - I’m willing to give Everett the benefit of the doubt on that one.

A clever, funny and accessible slave-centred retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, very good but not Everett’s best.

A woman looks back on getting an abortion at seventeen; reflections on a love affair later in life; a lifetime of friendship is unexpectedly upended.

I’m reviewing these together [with Dix-sept Ans & La Tendresse du Crawl], since they’ve recently been translated into English and published together in one volume. A decision which I’m not entirely sold on - two of the novellas are about love but the third one about deep friendship feels like a thematic odd-one-out.

Anyway, despite my general misgivings with autofiction, I did enjoy these - the writing is astute without embellishment. Set amongst the liberal Parisian bourgeoisie, Schneck is self-aware of the bubble she is part of and the privilege of a comfortable upbringing and life.

Dix-sept Ans and La Tendresse du Crawl worked well together - between young “love” and later love, they feel like book-ends of adulthood and complement each other nicely. One deals with getting a (legal) abortion at seventeen, reflecting on this hard-fought right. The other considers love later in life, perhaps unexpected, certainly a different, more complex experience. Plus some swimming (I love it).

As for Deux Petites Bourgeoises, it’s a moving story of deep, lifelong friendship and grief. Friendship can be a more important relationship than romantic love, but is often overlooked.

Three astute stories of love, friendship and grief set in the liberal bourgeoisie of Paris.

A woman looks back on getting an abortion at seventeen; reflections on a love affair later in life; a lifetime of friendship is unexpectedly upended.

I’m reviewing these together [with Deux Petites Bourgeoises] since they’ve recently been translated into English and published together in one volume. A decision which I’m not entirely sold on - two of the novellas are about love but the third one about deep friendship feels like a thematic odd-one-out.

Anyway, despite my general misgivings with autofiction, I did enjoy these - the writing is astute without embellishment. Set amongst the liberal Parisian bourgeoisie, Schneck is self-aware of the bubble she is part of and the privilege of a comfortable upbringing and life.

Dix-sept Ans and La Tendresse du Crawl worked well together - between young “love” and later love, they feel like book-ends of adulthood and complement each other nicely. One deals with getting a (legal) abortion at seventeen, reflecting on this hard-fought right. The other considers love later in life, perhaps unexpected, certainly a different, more complex experience. Plus some swimming (I love it).

As for Deux Petites Bourgeoises, it’s a moving story of deep, lifelong friendship and grief. Friendship can be a more important relationship than romantic love, but is often overlooked.

Three astute stories of love, friendship and grief set in the liberal bourgeoisie of Paris.

A 34-year-old American secret agent, alias Sadie Smith, is sent to infiltrate a commune of young eco-activists in rural France but finds herself drawn in by their mentor and his counter-histories…

To be honest, I approached this one with some trepidation - Americans writing about France can be…painful - but I needn’t have worried because I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This was sharp and entertaining, and sure, there were some jibes about the French (and Europe generally), but, as much as I hate to admit it, they were fair and funny.

Everybody is basically a crackpot, including the narrator, who is brash and doesn’t hold back on her opinions, and it’s a lot of fun actually. But don’t mistake fun for silly - Kushner is incisively lampooning a certain type of anarchist/activist. Pointed insights on class and privilege, political machinations and environmental movements abound.

There’s a sizeable chunk of the book dedicated to the mentor’s fascination with Neanderthals - it’s not as overbearing as reviews had led me to believe, and if, like me, you like reading about random stuff you don’t know much about, it’s actually rather interesting to sift through. And it added to the slightly madcap feeling (in a good way) of the whole book.

A sharp, entertaining and pointed story of infiltrating an eco-activist commune undercover and crackpot personalities.

Slime: somewhere between liquid and solid, it inspires revulsion yet is vital to life…

This was pretty interesting, filled with plenty of weird and wonderful creatures who are either slimy or use slime in curious and clever ways. But for a book with “a natural history” as the subtitle, I did expect slightly more biological detail (which I reckon would have been possible without making it any less accessible to non-biologists) and I never quite found myself itching to pick it up. Also, some pictures and/or diagrams would not have gone amiss.

I didn’t expect the first chapter on slime in popular culture - specifically our association with slime as a negative thing (aliens, supernatural goo, etc.) and how that shows up in books and films. I have abysmal pop culture knowledge, particularly in terms of the horror and sci-fi canons, so this was actually rather fascinating. Until it carried through into the subsequent chapters and got a bit annoying, because I was most interested in the natural history side of things.

An accessible, wide-ranging book about slimy creatures and various biological uses of slime in the natural world, full of fun little facts and information tidbits but heavy on the pop culture references.

Four recent graduates travel to France for the grape harvest, but things don’t go to plan at all and they find themselves working at an industrial chicken farm…

This was good, if a bit mental, though I have gotten more from it on reflection than whilst reading it. Perhaps because my main impression (hopefully wrong) whilst reading was that the author thought pretty highly of himself (preening is the word that comes to mind), and that was a little off-putting.

Anyway, I guess the joke is kind of on me since there was rather more going on in this short book than I initially realised. Of course, there’s the obvious commentary on capitalism, industrial farming and consumers’ divorce from the reality of what that actually looks like. But there’s also a lot in there about agency work, who works those jobs and the internal hierarchy, the psychological impact, the impunity of those at the top, class divides and a little bit around immigration and the French flavour of insidious racism. It’s all cleverly woven together into a story which slowly escalates and becomes increasingly bonkers as the characters’ plan falls apart and they steadily lose it.

Worth noting that Munir does not gloss over any of the horrors of the industrial chicken farm - you know best if you can tolerate reading that or not.

A slightly bonkers story of precarious employment, capitalism and the horrifying realities behind consumerism, clever but with a self-satisfied vibe to the writing.