Tentatively shelving as YA (my first YA book in literal years) although I don't fully know if I would actually consider this YA -- I view it as more NTentatively shelving as YA (my first YA book in literal years) although I don't fully know if I would actually consider this YA -- I view it as more NA, but that wasn't really a category 20 years ago when this was initially published. Yelena's gone through a LOT, but I feel like that's pretty par for the course with more modern YA.
I'll admit I did not have any high hopes for this book. I picked it up on a whim and nearly put it down but returned after reading The Five. I was really pleasantly surprised by the characters and worldbuilding in general. It's also nice to read something with romance but the romance is not the main focus. That's not my jam and why I tend to avoid a lot of modern romantasy, but this was pretty solid. I'll admit I picked up the next book pretty much immediately and I'm about ~100 pages into that.
Valek is pretty great, although in my head I keep calling him Vanek because the Sabres had a player fifteen years ago called Thomas Vanek, so he's like an assassin hockey-player in my head. Yelena was also a pretty winning character. I was worried that she was going to be Not Like Other Girls all the time (look, the 2000s were a rough time to be a teen girl ... not that it's not rough now, obviously, but there were a lot more limiting), but she's not at all. (view spoiler)[I was also pleasantly surprised with the Commander's subplot/secret. I think it might be written/handled a bit more differently now, but especially given that this came out in 2005 it was pretty empathetic. (hide spoiler)]...more
What a lovely, dark little gem of a book. Both laugh-out-loud funny and clever in its construction, full of characters you love to hate (as well as soWhat a lovely, dark little gem of a book. Both laugh-out-loud funny and clever in its construction, full of characters you love to hate (as well as some you love to root for). I've described this to a couple folks as Jane Austen-level wit but in mid-century Britain; learning Kennedy wrote a biography of Jane Austen also explains a lot about her own writing. She's brilliant at giving the reader subtle hints rather than spelling out each character's sins/backstories. I had so much fun reading this, and would love to pick up another one of her books.
Shoutout to the McNally editions display at Carmichael's Bookstore, which got me to pick this up -- otherwise I never would've known about this! Has also made me curious about other McNally editions to see what other gems I've been missing out on....more
I really wanted to like this one a lot more, but ultimately it was underwhelming. Conceptually I think it's awesome having a mute character trying to I really wanted to like this one a lot more, but ultimately it was underwhelming. Conceptually I think it's awesome having a mute character trying to communicate and having them be misunderstood by others in the community (sometimes willfully, sometimes just because they're not groking what she's conveying), but it left me wanting in certain places. A creative writing professor once told me that characters can be passive, but they have to choose to be passive -- and while I think there are a few times it happens here, largely it felt like a lot of things happened to Martha and she just didn't take action, rather than choosing to remain silent.
There was also some cool stuff in here involving the poppet, but (perhaps this is the fantasy part of me popping out) I wanted it to be real magic and to do actual stuff. There were also bits that were fully glossed over that I thought would've worked a lot better in scene, namely a lot of the torture Martha faces. Yes, it's brutal to read even in summary, but if that's what the author was going for, it would've been perhaps more evocative to have the reader bear witness to what exactly happened to these women.
I don't know what I expected from this book -- it's a bummer because it's about witch trials and the utter cruelty perpetuated by towns that turned on their own, it would be kind of weird if it wasn't upsetting at all -- but in the end I just felt kind of "meh" about the whole thing, which is unfortunate....more
(Reviewing everything belatedly from my UK trip -- this is what happens when I don't write reviews immediately after reading books, I end up with a li(Reviewing everything belatedly from my UK trip -- this is what happens when I don't write reviews immediately after reading books, I end up with a little backlog.)
I was a bit hesitant about this one at first because I thought Linette might be "not like other girls" in historical fiction, i.e. wearing trousers, not caring about love... not that I mind headstrong female characters (in fact, I love them), but I feel like a lot of the time in historical fiction, that flavour of character can become kind of samey and more of a modern feminist, rather than feeling like a real human being from that time period. Thankfully this subverted that, and I'm glad I continued reading.
There were a lot of fun, if not a bit eyebrow-raising, twists in here. (view spoiler)[I gasped aloud when we got the twin reveal -- again, a bit over-the-top but I thought it was pretty well done, and I didn't see it coming. I was less impressed with Rowena's heel-turn. For some reason I can accept secret twins, but I draw the line at the quiet love interest working for the big bad the whole time?? I think if the twins hadn't been there, I might've been able to swallow it a bit better, but having those revelations back-to-back was a lot to work with. (hide spoiler)]
Richly written and a lovely little ode to Wales. Will definitely check out this author's other work in the future....more
I flew through this one, and I think I actually made an effort to finish it kind of quickly because I was afraid that I'd stay up too late the night bI flew through this one, and I think I actually made an effort to finish it kind of quickly because I was afraid that I'd stay up too late the night before my marathon reading to get to the end.
I thought that this was a really interesting story of friendship, although I had a couple issues with it. One is that while this has the "dark academia" atmosphere of an elite boarding school and rich people being weird fuckos, I wouldn't actually consider this one to be super dark academia at all. Let me explain. Dark academia is not just, in my mind, "bad things happen at a school." The academics and prestige usually play a massive part in what's happening as well, or the view that the characters are smarter than everyone else and they're getting away with something bigger. I ... don't know if I'd say The Four meets this criteria. Instead, it's more of a story about lengths people will go to protect the ones they love.
Rose and Marta were really interesting characters to follow. I appreciate that this wasn't the typical "hot magnetic girl that I've become best friends with," as it tends to be in dark academia. (I mean, I get it, I'd do the same thing, but it can be a bit much.) Marta is extremely interesting in part because she's prickly and intelligent as hell but also a bit slippery. (view spoiler)[One of my favourite things about Marta -- and something I REALLY wish had been more of a feature in the story -- was that there were times when we didn't know if she was telling the truth or not. The revelation that Marta lied about her mother dying was FANTASTIC. I loved that! But then it played out as "ah yeah, I only lied about that, everything else is true though." I would've loved to follow that down to "how much of Marta's life story can be trusted, and why should we?" It's not that I don't want to believe her, especially after the stuff her father did to her, but I love a great unreliable narrator, and I wanted more of this angle. (hide spoiler)]
There were a couple plot points I could've done without, though. (view spoiler)[Notably Marta's rape at the hands of another student once he discovered where she was hiding. It felt really brutal but unnecessary, and I was also surprised that it was that particular character. I'm not trying to keep everything veiled, I just can't remember names because I read this about two weeks ago and am slowly catching up on my reviews now. It would've made more sense for maybe the prick whose girlfriend Marta hit to do this, as some kind of revenge for hurting her, but as it stood ... it sucked. I was also expecting it to act as a revelation that Marta had lied about her father and had told a good story, but that the reality of an attack was so much worse than what she thought. It wasn't, which then made me question why it was even there to begin with. Just kind of a lot to deal with. (hide spoiler)]
The epilogue was a bit too neat for my liking, as well. While I do have a lot of quibbles about this one, I also read it in, like, two days and was fully engrossed on trains and stuff while reading it. I think it's good for what it is, but I'm not sure it's a good example of "dark academia" specifically....more
The most entertaining and enlightening book about shit/sewers I've ever read. Also a neat look not just into epidemiology but also city design and whaThe most entertaining and enlightening book about shit/sewers I've ever read. Also a neat look not just into epidemiology but also city design and what was learned/should be learnt from the Broad Street Pump. I liked the macro view that Johnson took towards the end, although it was a bit spooky reading a book that was published in 2006 in 2025, as it noted that "scientists predict there could be some kind of pandemic as big as the Spanish flu around 2018 or 2019." He wasn't wrong.
Great narrative history, brought the folks involved to life and made for compelling (if at times kind of disgusting) reading....more
I really wanted to like this one, and I want to note that my issues have nothing to do with the actual writing itself. As with the previous installmenI really wanted to like this one, and I want to note that my issues have nothing to do with the actual writing itself. As with the previous installments in this series, May writes a compelling narrative that had me reading well past my bedtime. I liked seeing our normal cast of characters again and was pleased that Marsaili was more of a character in this one. But ... there were a couple major issues I had with the narrative of this.
My smaller issue is that I don't understand why eighteen-year-old Caitlin has a television show and is referred to as a "television personality." I understand that it seems kind of localized but ... this entire angle felt super unnecessary and just strange. I couldn't tell if it was meant to make Caitlin straddle the line between teenager and adult (and thus potentially justify an affair with her) but it didn't seem to play much of a role in here. She could've just been a student. Maybe it's just me but I had trouble believing a teenage girl and her friend would have multiple seasons of programme, even on a local network. If May really wanted to use this angle, I think Caitlin should've been aged up a bit and maybe come back to the island with the goal of spotlighting the island in her burgeoning television career.
The other much bigger thing is the backstory involving the fishing scam. The thing that sticks with me from the first book is the puffin-hunting; I will never forget all those descriptions and what happened to Fin and Artair there. It's suitably horrifying and traumatic. What I do take issue with is introducing/involving "childhood friends" who have never been mentioned previously and doing more dramatic backstory plots. The issue with having all of this set on a relatively small island is that everyone knows one another, so it's strange when new characters are introduced as having had pretty significant roles in the protagonist's life. It happened in the previous book but I was willing to overlook it; here, not so much, in part due to what's portrayed.
(view spoiler)[YOU CANNOT SUDDENLY HAVE A BACKSTORY INVOLVING THE TRAGIC DROWNING OF AN ACQUAINTANCE AND RETROSPECTIVELY PAINT IT AS A SUPER PIVOTAL MOMENT IN A PERSON'S LIFE WHEN IT'S NEVER BEEN MENTIONED BEFORE AND OTHER THINGS WERE ALREADY INDICATED TO BE MAYBE THE MOST TRAUMATIC. This was what really took me out of the story. Seeing a friend your age drown ... awful! This would've been good in maybe the second book as part of backstory! But for it to have never come up before, not even in a repressed memory way but in a "mmmm, yeah, guess I kind of just forgot about it" way IS LITERALLY INSANE at this stage given Fin's backstory over multiple books. Again, this would be fine if it had been in an earlier volume, but being introduced this late in the game when we've known Fin for quite some time now ... come on. This man sounds like he dealt with a lot of traumatic incidents before he left school. There's no more room for them!!! You gotta have a limit somewhere! Otherwise it just feels like a soap opera. (hide spoiler)]
I did still find this gripping but I couldn't hang onto the plot due to said spoilers above. A shame, really, as I've enjoyed the series overall, but this one sadly did not hit the mark for me. ...more
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