The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi - Shannon Chakraborty

 70%

17.11.24

All the buckles were swashed in this well-written, well-researched feminist adventure. With its vivid historical and fantasy world building, interesting characterisation and enough humour to balance out the violence and grit, it makes other books seem rather lame. I mean, what's the point of a novel unless it stars a badass female pirate?

Apprentice to the Villain - Hannah Nicole Maehrer

 43%

13.11.24

I was really looking forward to reading this sequel but it started out muddled and confusing and didn't stop being muddled and confusing. The annoying characters, boring romance and lack of explanation of what on earth was going on didn't help. And so much more could have been made of the 'villain' idea. How disappointing.

Lady of Quality - Georgette Heyer

 64%

05.11.24

I maintain that Heyer was one of the best authors of the 20th century and isn't taken seriously because she wrote romances. This is a particularly delightful example, with sparkling dialogue and the usual strongly drawn characters (except, oddly, for the love interest, who was a bit of a bore). 

Funny Story - Emily Henry

57% 

02.11.24

This was indeed quite a funny story in places, but painfully contrived in others. Although it had a little depth, it did follow the usual romcom formula, which made the 80%-through 'all is lost' scenes feel forced when the main character suddenly had a personality transplant. But it was well written and did a good job on behalf of North Michigan tourism.

An Unwanted Inheritance - Imogen Clark

 42%

30.10.24

You wouldn't want to meet any of the horrible, entitled characters in this book (especially the sanctimonious 'main' character) but that's OK, because nobody actually behaves like them in real life. It was all tedious telling and not showing, with no real emotional engagement. And it didn't actually address the ultimate point - even if (spoiler) the cash was not ill-gotten, the rest of the estate probably was.

Rock Paper Scissors - Alice Feeney

 44%

29.10.24

No realistic people were harmed in the making of this novel.

What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty

 62%

24.10.24

Moriarty's tenth novel is about to come out so finding the only other one I hadn't read in the library was serendipitous. This was a fun yet surprisingly complex read - a woman forgetting the last ten years was almost like time travel but it cleverly stopped short of 'young her undoes the mistakes of older her', examining all the implications. Talking of mistakes, I enjoyed it all the way up to the ending(s), which were hugely disappointing, considering what had gone before.

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect - Benjamin Stevenson

58%

21.10.24

Fair play to Stevenson for tackling that difficult 'second in the series' with so much meta energy. His decision to continue with the trademark self-referential elements livened up the old 'murder on a train' cliche, but the characters and plot were still too confusing and I don't think I'll remember much about it.

Bride - Ali Hazelwood

 66%

18.10.24

Ali Hazelwood is The Current Thing so I thought I'd give this a go. Romantasy isn't her usual genre and in many ways this read like a very good satire of the slightly problematic 'fated mate' trope, improved by the heroine being a feisty vampire instead of the usual passive girl-next-door. The sex was overdone and the twists (such as they were) telescoped but it was hugely entertaining, with an engaging tone of voice and non-stop action - other writers should take note.

Listen for the Lie - Amy Tintera

 63%

14.10.24

This was fun, even if I didn't notice any proper twists and it didn't entirely make sense at the end. The interweaving of podcast episodes worked well, as did the rather unpredictable main character. And it was refreshing, if slightly weird, that no police involved themselves in this 'detective' story.

A Love Story for Bewildered Girls - Emma Morgan

46%

13.10.24

I was bewildered about the point of this book. As with The Rachel Incident, what's interesting about young adults behaving like teenagers? It was readable enough but not particularly well written - I often had to stop and reread passages to work out who was doing what and when. The perfect tense exists for a reason and that reason is clarity.

(This also belongs to a subset of contemporary books with a prejudice against people with no siblings. Usually, kids are quite happy to be only children and their parents are quite happy to have only one. It is not going to mess anyone up or make them somehow incomplete.)

The Fury - Alex Michaelides

60%

09.10.24

I think people are getting the concept of an unreliable narrator mixed up with the concept of plot twists. Nothing that happened in this story (within a story within a story) was much of a surprise - information was just withheld and filtered by the narrator. Which made the story more engaging than a third-person omniscient narrator would have been, even if it was, overall, totally farfetched.

The Gathering - C J Tudor

68%

03.10.24

Despite the sometimes clunky phrasing, despite having too many characters, despite the confusing plot with an ending that had me asking, "OK, but what about...?", despite not being a fan of gory horror, despite the moral messaging that was as subtle as, well, a vampire, I kind of loved this. The tone, the pacing, the ethical grey areas, the setting and above all the clever worldbuilding all had me caught up in this alternative - yet maybe not so alternative after all - universe.

The Rachel Incident - Caroline O'Donoghue

 47%

29.09.24

I didn't really get the point of this book. It read as if it was semi-autobiographical but that doesn't make the tedious non-dramas of self-indulgent young adults who behave like children any more interesting or deep. The quality of the writing was fine but I was left thinking, so what?

And I've only just realised the also-disappointing All Our Hidden Gifts is by the same author.

The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde

 50%

26.10.24

I have no memory of buying this so I read it - and I only remembered I'd read it after finishing the book I'd read after it, a few days later, which isn't a good sign. It was fine - amusing, with good worldbuilding, but the story was confusing and not particularly exciting for a YA adventure. It was (Fforde's adult fantasy/satire) Shades of Grey lite.

My Vampire Plus-One - Jenna Levin

 51%

21.09.24

Vampires, sure, I can suspend my disbelief about them. The coincidences and continuity errors, though? No way. Also, while the author tried hard to present the female lead as an independent and successful career woman (who amusingly brought down the villain with her accountancy superpowers), these types of books follow a problematic formula of 'woman tamed by monster' that I can't buy into.

Ralph's Party - Lisa Jewell

46%

14.09.24

The 1990s seems like yesterday but this book has aged like a fax machine. Was it really so toxic then - both literally (so much smoking!) and metaphorically (so much unremarked sexism, sizism, racism)? It's also interesting to note that popular books were badly written with two-dimensional characters even then.

Sun Damage - Sabine Durrant

 67%

06.09.24

Looks like a beach read, reads like literary fiction that happens to be both layered and fun. Not psychologically complex but vividly written, the claustrophobic south of France in August the strongest character of all.

Girls and Their Horses - Eliza Jane Brazier

65%

31.08.24

I thought this would just be throwaway fun but it turned out to be one of the best things I've read this year. Well enough written that the exposition didn't seem forced, serious enough for the funny parts to be very funny, and a vivid enough insight into a weird wealthy world to be educational and entertaining. The 'murder mystery', such as it was, hardly seemed necessary.

A Scandalous Match - Jane Dunn

 52%

26.08.24

The problem with a book emulating Georgette Heyer is that it's not Georgette Heyer. Even if you try not to compare, you can't help thinking that Heyer wouldn't explain every thought and action, wouldn't focus so much on exposition, that her heroine wouldn't need rescuing quite so much, that her characters would sparkle and the grasp of social etiquette would be stronger. (Also it would be properly edited and proofread - this had several iffy editorial moments.) I mean, this is fun and has a strong historical basis that didn't shy away from the gritty lives of the poor but it needed a stronger basis and more differentiation from Heyer to really break free. (Note that I've also given a couple of Heyer's books 51/52%.)