sharkybookshelf's reviews
482 reviews

We return to the Funiculi Funicula coffee shop where customers can briefly time travel but must return before the coffee gets cold…

Look, at this point Kawaguchi is basically flogging a dead horse with the concept, and yet…I just can’t stop reading these.

I’ve struggled with the odd tone in all three of the previous books in the series (even the first, which I loved), but did not find myself particularly annoyed this time - either the tone has changed for the better or I am now used to it. I did, however, find the POV shifts a little jarring - I don’t remember them in the previous books. All that is to say, this is not a book to read for the writing.

It’s the idea of the book that draws me in - why do these characters choose to go back in time so briefly, knowing that it cannot change any outcomes. The four stories all relate to death, and the way the characters navigate their regrets and the finality of death fascinates me. It’s not really about whether I agree with the characters and their reasoning, but thinking how I might respond in such a situation.

An improved outing in the series, touching on grief, regrets and different forms of love.

This attempts to be a sweeping family epic of love and loss and the human condition in the most desperate of times, whilst spotlighting events of twentieth century Europe through the lens of the individual. At least, I assume that’s what it’s trying to be.

Instead, it turned out to be an opaque quagmire of fragmentation that frankly felt rather pretentious. Every possible aspect of the book was fragmentary - the overall timeline of the book, the characters we follow and how they all fit together, and the individual timelines within each POV section. For the record, I often enjoy fragmented storytelling, but this failed to come together into a cohesive whole.

The writing was poetic, but so much so that it got in the way of understanding what was actually happening plot-wise. Oblique imagery is great, but not at the expense of comprehension. It also turns out that poetic descriptions of WWI trench warfare really irritate me - I do enjoy beautiful writing, but in this case, call a spade a spade, otherwise it feels a little like sweeping the immensity of the horrors under the rug - and I think that got under my skin and set me up to be vexed by the rest of the book.

A grandiose, overly fragmented multi-generational story that lacked cohesion.

Zauner reflects on her complicated relationship with her Korean mum, growing up as the only Asian-American kid in her school in Oregon and navigating her mum’s cancer diagnosis.

This was a case of misplaced expectations - billed as a memoir of grief, family and identity, I did not expect so much of the memoir to focus on the details of her mum’s cancer battle. I know I sound like a dick by saying this, but I repeatedly found myself zoning out whilst listening to the audiobook (sorry).

Obviously it’s heart-breaking to read about somebody losing their parent, but I thought I was in for an introspective focus on Zauner’s inner relationship with her mixed cultural identity and her grief after her mother’s death. She does talk about relating to two cultures and feeling outside of a culture that you should feel part of, but as much as I enjoyed those bits, they all felt rather surface level.

Zauner’s search for the foods she grew up with in light of losing the person who cooked them and the link to culture that food provides were well written and the most enjoyable aspect of the book for me. I think most of us can relate to those visceral emotions and nostalgia that certain foods can rake up.

A memoir of the heart-breaking, protracted loss of her mum and navigating a multi-cultural identity, obviously touching to read but lacking the deep introspection to really draw me in.

Growing up in 1980s East Germany, slightly rebellious Tanja tries to forge her own path, but then must find her feet as everything changes post-reunification…

Having enjoyed Oskamp’s Marzahn, Mon Amour, I enthusiastically ordered this one without really reading the blurb, so I hadn’t registered that this was A) her debut and B) not actually about swimming. More fool me.

I was expecting a rich portrait, but regrettably, this was bland, patchy and shallow - it’s not awful but the story is nothing special and nor is the writing. As for the lack of swimming, I was disappointed, but willingly concede that that’s largely my own fault for not reading the blurb properly.

That’s all I really have to say about it - if you want to read a coming-of-age story set in the final days of the GDR, more interesting options are available.

In an apparent crime of passion, beautiful Arlena Stuart is found strangled on the beach of an exclusive English holiday resort where Poirot happens to be on holiday…

I had a faint sense of déjà vu throughout this one, which was a little distracting, but it did help point me in the direction of whodunnit. Not how it was done though (not even close), and it was a satisfyingly clever solution with a number of unexpected twists.

Poirot was on fine form as usual - yet another of his holidays interrupted by a murder (at this point, what are the odds of him going on an uneventful holiday?). But honestly, the highlight of this one is some of the descriptions, with one of the characters described as “pretty in a negative way” (what does that even mean?) and women hikers are described as “hefty young women in shorts” (ouch).

Poirot engages his little grey cells whilst on holiday in this clever, twisty murder mystery.

Khaled leaves Libya for university but is unable to return as a result of the rash decision to protest outside the Libyan Embassy - his friendships with with compatriots Mustafa and Hosam render exile bearable…

I very much enjoyed this story of how one decision, one moment in time can completely alter the course of one’s life. Despite the heavy topic, the smooth writing and short chapters made it a little too easy to just keep reading a few more pages…

Life rarely works out as imagined, but this is a whole other level. Matar poignantly portrays the limbo of exile - the feeling of drifting off course, of knowing that your family is permanently out of reach, that their lives will continue whilst yours is paused indefinitely, that even if one day they are able to converge, you’ll have missed out on so much.

But it’s also a beautiful story of friendship and those crucial, deep friendships born out of understanding each other’s experiences without requiring an explanation - here, those friendships become keystones of Khaled’s exile - and how they can change over time. It’s also about the importance of writing and telling stories.

A poignant, smoothly-written story of the limbo of exile, deep friendship and storytelling.

Fleeing from her mistakes, Nat rents a house in the small village of La Escapa to start work on her first literary translation…

I enjoyed this one, which kept me on my toes and turns the idea of idyllic small village life firmly on its head. The story took two unexpected, very dramatic turns and I saw neither of them coming.

Mesa perfectly captures the suffocation of tiny village life, the prying eyes, the way everyone somehow knows each other’s business, the judgements and bulldozing through boundaries. The dismissive treatment of a single woman, community dynamics, neighbourly relations - it’s all there and all enhanced by the fishbowl effect of a small community. And it also all (understandably) feeds into Nat’s increasingly unhinged spiralling, which I almost wanted to read through my fingers.

A claustrophobic, spiralling story of trying to make a life in an isolated community as an outsider and toxic relationships.

The members of a university mystery club take a trip to Tsunojima Island, site of a set of grisly, unsolved murders, to put their amateur sleuthing skills to the test - when one of them is murdered, they realise they are being picked off themselves…

I haven’t really read any Japanese murder mysteries because for some reason I thought they tended towards the gory, and I enjoy murder mysteries for the puzzle factor rather than the grisly details. But my interest was obviously piqued by the blurb’s mention that this was inspired by Christie’s And Then There Were None… and it turns out it wasn’t especially gruesome.

I was hooked and I did not figure the solution out until the very last second. Actually, that’s not quite true - I correctly guessed whodunnit near the start, but immediately dismissed my reasoning as too basic. I certainly didn’t figure out how it was all done. Familiarity with And Then There Were None isn’t necessary nor particularly helpful (clearly), but it does add an extra layer of appreciation whilst reading the book - clever little references abound.

The problem with being inspired by a specific Christie is that, as a reader, it’s hard not to compare and Ayatsuji doesn’t quite match Christie’s brilliance. To be clear, this is still very good with an ingenious solution, and although it leaned slightly towards the verbose, I’ll certainly be reading more of Ayatsuji’s murder mysteries.

An ingenious, twisty closed-room murder mystery.

A non-religious woman leaves her life to seclude herself in a tiny, rural religious community near where she grew up, but her days shaped by contemplation of her mother’s death and banal logistics are soon thrown into turmoil…

I’m drawn to books about grief, so this one caught my attention when the Booker longlist was announced. Sadly, it fell rather flat for me - I mean, it was fine, but I was expecting rather more from it. Things happen and yet it feels like nothing actually happens other than a whole bunch of mouse-killing (and whether this bothers you probably depends on whether you’ve had to deal with mice yourself (hopefully never on this scale if you have)).

Wood explores choosing solitude, finding solace in quietude and the rippling waves of a disturbance. The book is contemplative with some astute lines, but ultimately it all felt rather aimless and I struggled to connect with any particular aspect of the book.

A contemplative but pointless story of solitude and solace.

As her daughter prepares to go abroad for uni, each night Jihad tells her a story from her life…

Jihad’s life story with her family’s displacement from Palestine to Kuwait to Jordan and her later move to Dubai were interesting to read about. The stories are filled with family dynamics, details of everyday life within their community of Palestinian refugees and women trying to make ends meet and run their homes with never quite enough resources.

I really wanted to love it, but there was something missing for me, and I’m struggling to put my finger on precisely what. Maybe it’s that I didn’t really click with the storytelling style - there was no preamble to the overall story and without reading the blurb, I’m not sure I’d have cottoned on until near the end that the book is Jihad telling her daughter a series of stories. Instead, I felt as if I’d been dropped into the middle of the overall story and never quite found my footing.

A Palestinian diaspora story rich with details of everyday life and family dynamics - interesting yet a little lacklustre.