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theshiftyshadow's reviews
329 reviews
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The best way I can think to describe this book is that it feels a little like when you can remember a dream clearly until you try to think about something specific in it, and then it all disappears from your mind. I feel like I know what this book was about, and I can see it clearly in front of me, until I try to fully form a coherent thought on it, and it all starts to slip away. That could be because the author hasn't quite nailed what she was trying to do, or, far more likely, it's just gone slightly above my head and I can't quite put all the pieces together. It's definitely a book that makes me think I need to read other people's thoughts about, and find the pieces I'm missing so I can pull it all together properly.
As it is, I was very invested in all the characters, and it is essentially a story about family, grief, loss, and the inherited pain we carry with us through life. Elements of magical realism tie multiple timelines and characters together towards the end, and although that's not something I usually love in book, it's used very well here, and I think is what elevates the whole thing to being more than "just" a family drama. The ghosts of history weigh heavy on all these characters, and on the places they inhabit.
As it is, I was very invested in all the characters, and it is essentially a story about family, grief, loss, and the inherited pain we carry with us through life. Elements of magical realism tie multiple timelines and characters together towards the end, and although that's not something I usually love in book, it's used very well here, and I think is what elevates the whole thing to being more than "just" a family drama. The ghosts of history weigh heavy on all these characters, and on the places they inhabit.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
I don't love this but I didn't really hate it either, it just kind of exists? Maybe that's the vibe Hemingway was going for? It feels like the book is about the sort of futility of life, or how the world goes on turning regardless of what we do or don't do. So having read this book and it leaving no real impact on me feels appropriate, I guess.
His writing style is kind of repetitive, overly detailed, and annoying at times, but I'll give it credit, it does set the atmosphere. Especially in the Pamplona section. I never need to read another word about bull fighting but I did feel like I'd spent a week in the dusty heat of a Spanish summer once that section ended.
I guess I'm more interested in characters than in what they're doing and I found several times I wanted to know more about most of the ones in TSAR. Brett, for example, is responsible for what little action does happen here, but bar one line about her past, there's zero exploration or explanation for why she behaves that way, other than simply because she can. She's the kind of character you'd hope someone's done a modern retelling of from her POV.
As a side, I can overlook questionable language and attitudes in books from certain times, but there are a lot of slurs in this book, there's a conversation that happens that uses the N word about 30 times. It's not even used in a malicious way, it's just dropped into the conversation very casually. There's several questionable references to Jews, there's some mild homophobia, again very casually thrown in, and there's a fair bit of sexism too. It's to be expected, I suppose, but there's enough of it here to make you wonder about the writer. (If you didn't already know about the writer, of course)
His writing style is kind of repetitive, overly detailed, and annoying at times, but I'll give it credit, it does set the atmosphere. Especially in the Pamplona section. I never need to read another word about bull fighting but I did feel like I'd spent a week in the dusty heat of a Spanish summer once that section ended.
I guess I'm more interested in characters than in what they're doing and I found several times I wanted to know more about most of the ones in TSAR. Brett, for example, is responsible for what little action does happen here, but bar one line about her past, there's zero exploration or explanation for why she behaves that way, other than simply because she can. She's the kind of character you'd hope someone's done a modern retelling of from her POV.
As a side, I can overlook questionable language and attitudes in books from certain times, but there are a lot of slurs in this book, there's a conversation that happens that uses the N word about 30 times. It's not even used in a malicious way, it's just dropped into the conversation very casually. There's several questionable references to Jews, there's some mild homophobia, again very casually thrown in, and there's a fair bit of sexism too. It's to be expected, I suppose, but there's enough of it here to make you wonder about the writer. (If you didn't already know about the writer, of course)
Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
I felt quite early on that this wasn't for me but I kept ploughing through out of some sort of patriotic sense of duty. After what felt like 2 weeks, but was apparently only 5 days, I gave up.
This book is very slow, which normally I don't mind, but when listening to it on audiobook, speeded up, still feels like you're wading through treacle, it's a touch too slow even for me. I stopped at the halfway point of the book and honestly the plot had only just started to happen. The rest of it was this main character endlessly meandering through his fading memory, and I'm sorry to say none of it was interesting.
My main problem with this book though is how Barry writes about abuse. Look, I'm Irish, I know what went on, whether it was priests, Christian Brothers, nuns, laundries, or any other institution. It's something that hangs heavy over us all as a society, and I have no problem with these things constantly making appearances in Irish writing. However, the detail he goes into when describing it feels completely unnecessary. This may be a generalisation, but I find male writers seem to feel the need to describe these things in horrific detail when really just the mention of priests, laundries etc. is enough to fill the mind with vivid images. Maybe he's written this for an audience that isn't Irish, that doesn't know, but even then it's too much. It screams bad writing to me. (Side note - some of the ways he talks about women, or the main guy repeatedly having a hard on or being aroused, even in relation to his wife, or just describing women felt a bit ick to me)
More than anything what listening to half this book made me think is how extraordinary a writer like Claire Keegan is. Her book, Small Things Like These, treads kind of similar ground to Old God's Time, at least in terms of dealing with the legacy of the Catholic Church, but she does it with so much more skill, and subtlety, and understanding, and she does it with a fraction of the page count too.
Long story short, this is the second Sebastian Barry book I've(kind of) read, and I won't be going back for a third.
This book is very slow, which normally I don't mind, but when listening to it on audiobook, speeded up, still feels like you're wading through treacle, it's a touch too slow even for me. I stopped at the halfway point of the book and honestly the plot had only just started to happen. The rest of it was this main character endlessly meandering through his fading memory, and I'm sorry to say none of it was interesting.
My main problem with this book though is how Barry writes about abuse. Look, I'm Irish, I know what went on, whether it was priests, Christian Brothers, nuns, laundries, or any other institution. It's something that hangs heavy over us all as a society, and I have no problem with these things constantly making appearances in Irish writing. However, the detail he goes into when describing it feels completely unnecessary. This may be a generalisation, but I find male writers seem to feel the need to describe these things in horrific detail when really just the mention of priests, laundries etc. is enough to fill the mind with vivid images. Maybe he's written this for an audience that isn't Irish, that doesn't know, but even then it's too much. It screams bad writing to me. (Side note - some of the ways he talks about women, or the main guy repeatedly having a hard on or being aroused, even in relation to his wife, or just describing women felt a bit ick to me)
More than anything what listening to half this book made me think is how extraordinary a writer like Claire Keegan is. Her book, Small Things Like These, treads kind of similar ground to Old God's Time, at least in terms of dealing with the legacy of the Catholic Church, but she does it with so much more skill, and subtlety, and understanding, and she does it with a fraction of the page count too.
Long story short, this is the second Sebastian Barry book I've(kind of) read, and I won't be going back for a third.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen
funny
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
It's very unfair to compare every single thing that comes out of Northern Ireland to Derry Girls, but unfortunately that's just what's going to happen for the foreseeable, and I'm going to do it here too.
Initially I struggled with this book because it did feel like an inferior version of Derry Girls. Some of the humour felt forced, even unnecessarily crude at times, and the main character, Maeve, veered too far into unlikable to get away with most of it. However, as it went on the writing began to settle a bit, the humour landed more, and the further into the story I went, the more I started to like it, and Maeve herself.
Factory Girls goes a lot deeper into the reality of growing up during the troubles. Whereas Derry Girls kept it somewhat in the background, this book really shows how the normal milestones of childhood, growing up, family, deaths, friendships, leaving school, leaving home, were all tied up in and warped by the troubles. And it's still funny with all that, in the very natural "sure if you didn't laugh you'd cry" way that these things tend to be.
Some elements of the plot felt kind of unnecessary, or at least like they weren't as integral to the main plot as I thought they would be early on. And what was going on in the factory felt a bit of a let down when it was revealed, but on reflection it ties in with what I said above about reflecting the realities of life during the troubles. There's always someone that can take advantage of any situation for their own benefit, usually at the expense of ones already suffering.
Initially I struggled with this book because it did feel like an inferior version of Derry Girls. Some of the humour felt forced, even unnecessarily crude at times, and the main character, Maeve, veered too far into unlikable to get away with most of it. However, as it went on the writing began to settle a bit, the humour landed more, and the further into the story I went, the more I started to like it, and Maeve herself.
Factory Girls goes a lot deeper into the reality of growing up during the troubles. Whereas Derry Girls kept it somewhat in the background, this book really shows how the normal milestones of childhood, growing up, family, deaths, friendships, leaving school, leaving home, were all tied up in and warped by the troubles. And it's still funny with all that, in the very natural "sure if you didn't laugh you'd cry" way that these things tend to be.
Some elements of the plot felt kind of unnecessary, or at least like they weren't as integral to the main plot as I thought they would be early on. And what was going on in the factory felt a bit of a let down when it was revealed, but on reflection it ties in with what I said above about reflecting the realities of life during the troubles. There's always someone that can take advantage of any situation for their own benefit, usually at the expense of ones already suffering.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
I'm not a fan of horror in any format but I really don't get it when it comes to books. I just don't think a book can actually be scary. So from that point of view, this was always going to be a non starter for me.
I can see how this would work well on screen though, as a psychological thriller rather than straight up horror. I think the ambiguous nature of the whole thing would work much better on screen too.
I can see how this would work well on screen though, as a psychological thriller rather than straight up horror. I think the ambiguous nature of the whole thing would work much better on screen too.
The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I enjoyed this a little bit more than Exciting Times, I think, but it still just falls short of 5 stars for me.
I think my main issue with this, is just like Ava in Exciting Times, one of the main characters in The Happy Couple, Luke, can't/won't make a decision to save his f**king life! Now, to be fair, I think this book does deal with that better than Exciting Times because it actually acknowledges it as a thing that's happening, and how it leads to other people getting hurt, even if that's never really Luke's intention. (Luke is also not a passive character in his lack of decision making, he actively chooses to do some things, bad things, but still, he makes things happen)
And, on reflection it's probably an accurate reflection of a lot of people and relationships in real life. So it's not that I don't find it believable, or relatable, there's just something about that kind of character that irks me a little. I also found that Luke's section of the book veered at times a little into sounding like the author just wanting to make loads of little points about things, and while most of them were pretty interesting and/or accurate, that section of the book just slowed everything down a bit too much for me.
I will acknowledge though that any "problems" I had with anything here are definitely me things, and I liked way more about it than I didn't. It really feels like a forward step from Exciting Times, and I'm excited to see what Dolan does next.
I think my main issue with this, is just like Ava in Exciting Times, one of the main characters in The Happy Couple, Luke, can't/won't make a decision to save his f**king life! Now, to be fair, I think this book does deal with that better than Exciting Times because it actually acknowledges it as a thing that's happening, and how it leads to other people getting hurt, even if that's never really Luke's intention. (Luke is also not a passive character in his lack of decision making, he actively chooses to do some things, bad things, but still, he makes things happen)
And, on reflection it's probably an accurate reflection of a lot of people and relationships in real life. So it's not that I don't find it believable, or relatable, there's just something about that kind of character that irks me a little. I also found that Luke's section of the book veered at times a little into sounding like the author just wanting to make loads of little points about things, and while most of them were pretty interesting and/or accurate, that section of the book just slowed everything down a bit too much for me.
I will acknowledge though that any "problems" I had with anything here are definitely me things, and I liked way more about it than I didn't. It really feels like a forward step from Exciting Times, and I'm excited to see what Dolan does next.
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
I've only ever read one Dickens book, Great Expectations, and I really loved it. Oliver Twist, however, is a dreadful bore, filled with annoying characters, an awful lot of filler, soap opera levels of coincidence, and pretty sure rampant antisemitism.
I know that a lot of Dickens' stories were originally published in periodicals, a chapter at a time or whatever rate it was, so the fact this reads like a soap isn't that much of a surprise. Soapy twists and "duff duff" moments abound, but it's the seemingly endless filler that kills me. Imagine following along with this as it was being published, and waiting however many weeks for a new chapter and all you get is Mr Bumble trying to get the workhouse lady to marry him. I'd have been fuming!
As for the story itself, Oliver is so annoying. I know he's supposed to be so sweet and kind, despite the hardships he faces, but honestly he's far too passive for my liking. Nancy is by far the most interesting character, but she's used very little, and we all know how she ends up.
I know that a lot of Dickens' stories were originally published in periodicals, a chapter at a time or whatever rate it was, so the fact this reads like a soap isn't that much of a surprise. Soapy twists and "duff duff" moments abound, but it's the seemingly endless filler that kills me. Imagine following along with this as it was being published, and waiting however many weeks for a new chapter and all you get is Mr Bumble trying to get the workhouse lady to marry him. I'd have been fuming!
As for the story itself, Oliver is so annoying. I know he's supposed to be so sweet and kind, despite the hardships he faces, but honestly he's far too passive for my liking. Nancy is by far the most interesting character, but she's used very little, and we all know how she ends up.
The Strays by Emily Bitto
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
For a large portion of this book I really thought it was going to be a 5 star read. All of the time spent building up this world, and the characters that inhabited it, knowing it was leading to something happening, was all fantastic. I was engrossed by it all.
Then, the thing happened.
And it was not the thing I had assumed was going to be the thing. Which wasn't really a problem, because it was a pretty massive bomb to throw into the middle of this established world. The actual problem was what came next, which was unfortunately very little.
I understand that the story is being told from Lily's point of view, as this child outsider, brought into this strange world of adults, and when things kick off and she is excluded from the families lives, she doesn't know what's happening. But that's where the book falls down for me, because it just returns to the present and drops a paragraph here and there to fill in years at a time.
And I understand the idea that maybe that's the point of the book, how Lily's life was so changed by that friendship, and those people, but she was never as big a part of their lives as they were of hers. But it ultimately ends up feeling like a book that is brilliant for about two thirds, and then the author just wanted to wrap it all up. A very flat ending, I thought.
Then, the thing happened.
And it was not the thing I had assumed was going to be the thing. Which wasn't really a problem, because it was a pretty massive bomb to throw into the middle of this established world. The actual problem was what came next, which was unfortunately very little.
I understand that the story is being told from Lily's point of view, as this child outsider, brought into this strange world of adults, and when things kick off and she is excluded from the families lives, she doesn't know what's happening. But that's where the book falls down for me, because it just returns to the present and drops a paragraph here and there to fill in years at a time.
And I understand the idea that maybe that's the point of the book, how Lily's life was so changed by that friendship, and those people, but she was never as big a part of their lives as they were of hers. But it ultimately ends up feeling like a book that is brilliant for about two thirds, and then the author just wanted to wrap it all up. A very flat ending, I thought.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
The Hungry Road by Marita Conlon-McKenna
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
Marita Conlon-McKenna's book, Under The Hawthorn Tree, is a much loved children's classic and is probably how multiple generations of Irish children first learned about the famine. So when I saw she'd written another famine set book for adults, I was curious to see how much more she could do without the restrictions of writing for kids.
Unfortunately The Hungry Road just didn't do much for me. While reading it I kept wondering who exactly it was written for, and came to the conclusion it's for people who know very little, if anything, about the famine. So not really for an Irish reader. For me it read like an endless list of all the worst things I've already seen, read, and heard about the famine. There's multiple characters that she tells the story through, and it jumps around between them all, and through time, but I never felt a connection to any of them.
All that is not to say this is a bad book. If all you know about the famine is that there was no potatoes and everyone died, then this book would probably widen your understanding a little. The problem for me was that it tries to cover too much, and as a result doesn't cover anything with any real depth.
Unfortunately The Hungry Road just didn't do much for me. While reading it I kept wondering who exactly it was written for, and came to the conclusion it's for people who know very little, if anything, about the famine. So not really for an Irish reader. For me it read like an endless list of all the worst things I've already seen, read, and heard about the famine. There's multiple characters that she tells the story through, and it jumps around between them all, and through time, but I never felt a connection to any of them.
All that is not to say this is a bad book. If all you know about the famine is that there was no potatoes and everyone died, then this book would probably widen your understanding a little. The problem for me was that it tries to cover too much, and as a result doesn't cover anything with any real depth.