Cuckoo Song - Frances Hardinge

72%
25.04.20

Finally, something worth reading. In other hands, the simile-heavy style would be overwritten, and the Gothic/fantasy/social commentary plot disjointed. But somehow Hardinge makes it work, and work like a, well, song. Even better than 'A Skinful of Shadows' (but unfortunately with the same occasional jarring phrasing that a decent copy edit should have sorted out).

The Glass Room - Simon Mawer

53%
11.11.11

Grand Designs is one of the few TV shows I watch. This was Grand Designs with added sex and politics, which was a promising pitch before I read it. Not so much during. The constant heavy-handed metaphor became wearying before the house was even built, so it was really quite annoying after 200 pages of the juxtaposition of light and darkness, public and private, plain and beautiful against a backdrop of war and peace. The historical context was well created but the characters never really came alive. Maybe the house was the hero, but, without Kevin McCloud, there was no passion in the interpretation.