48%
27.09.26What I said about King's Writers and Lovers? That. Exactly that. Same story, same protagonist, same unrelenting pretentiousness and sense of inconsequence, with everybody hiding behind literature to avoid actual emotions. (They did that in the Pym I've just read too. It's not a trope to get the reader onside.)
This is the second book from the 2026 Women's Prize shortlist that I've read and the second book I thought was a bit rubbish. Does that say more about me or the judges?
26.09.26
Pym's debut novel is really a pilot for her more successful later ones. Dated and staid as it is, there are glimpses of Pym's wicked humour and sharp characterisation.
39%
21.09.26The only thing I liked about this book were the local references. Otherwise, what I said about previous books in the series (Cromer and Fakenham) remains true - too many pointless characters, too much pointless exposition and relentlessly boring writing stops the story in its tracks (ha!).
54%
17.09.26I mean, this was fine - an undemanding, wistfully positive, contemporary queer romance. The author clearly has never met any British people or knows anything about British universities (where you don't tend to have roommates or call yourself a freshman; at least she didn't try to set it in the UK) and the academics could have been STEM rather than art, and nothing much happened, but generally it was... fine.
10.09.26 / 12.09.26
Just as crazy and confused and surprisingly feminist as the first two in the series but just as much fun, especially the last book, which went off in all sorts of unexpected directions.
04.09.26 / 06.09.26
More dark fantasy fun, this one even more violent than usual. There was, however, just as much need for a proper proofread (e.g. using 'little' five times in one paragraph and the constant focus on a particularly 'masculine jawline') but Hignett's irrepressible heroines and wry humour mean she is one of the few authors for whom I can overlook her lack of editing.
01.09.26
If this story is anything to go by, cosy dystopia is as problematic a genre as it sounds. Or, detached from its setting, it's just a typical 'underdog heroes fight the villain' story. It was fine but I've read better 'what makes us human' novels.
39%
30.08.26As with the first in the series, a good idea, poorly executed. It's inexplicably well reviewed on Amazon so maybe other people don't care about the poor quality of writing and lack of editing and proofreading (so, many, comma, splices) that make it a confusing, hard-to-read mess. It reinforces all my assumptions about self-published fiction but gets points for being about Magical Norwich.
28.08.26
The wry observational characterisation almost made it not matter that there wasn't much plot or that the characters would be mostly unbearable if they were real. What did matter was the lack of believability, whether that was fact checking (I'm starting to wonder whether New York time actually is ahead of Europe, it comes up so often) and the weirdnesses placed only to help the story along (why would you make your young adult, who has just graduated high school, take Spanish lessons on vacation?). Not as insightful as it's no doubt supposed to be.
24.08.26
Holly Black is a good writer but this was a bit of a mess. The incidental worldbuilding was refreshing - the details (oh, so it's the '90s, oh, so these are the features of faeries) meant there wasn't the usual tedious exposition. But that also made it confusing to work out what was going on - was there even a central plot driving towards a specific goal or really any reason for the characters doing what they were doing?
41%
20.08.26An engaging concept with strong (if overcomplicated) worldbuilding and much darker and more political than the cover suggests. But it had the whiff of AI about it that became stronger towards the (entirely unresolved) ending. If this author did write it all herself, she needs to humanise - and generally improve - her style, sci fi theme or not.
11.08.26
Self-indulgent and confusing 'mystery' which seemed to hate everything about writers, editors and publishing - rather an ungrateful move for the two successful co-authors whose poorly written novel was going to sell well no matter how bad it was.
While the narrator was unrelentingly self-pitying and mostly unsympathetic, I was still drawn into her dark little office world. The romance aspect in particular was done well, playing out without overwhelming the rest of the story. I may have shed a tear or two.
28.07.26
It's set in 1976, you know. 1976! Yes, 1976! Can you tell? Can you tell? Are there enough irrelevant pop culture details and political references and endless updates on the heatwave (which actually sounds quite mild compared with 2026's brutal summer) to hint at it being, you'd never guess, 1976? And let's add so much background description that readers might not notice the flimsy, predictable plot.
57%
18.07.26I'm reviewing these two books together because the whole series might as well have been a single, continuous story, and there's not much to tell them apart anyway. Because it's fun, fairly feminist, vivid (if with slightly stereotyped characters) and has a not-entirely-predictable storyline, I'll overlook the lack of editing in places, and how some parts didn't really make sense.
14.07.26
I liked this book more than the Trinidad Tourist Office probably does, and more than I should when the author had to justify some of her narrative choices in an endnote. It did a good job of juxtaposing Trinidad's violence and poverty with its aspiration and luxury, and managed to stay engaging despite having so few sympathetic characters.
58%
12.07.26This was slightly messier than the previous book in the series and could have done with a slightly more thorough edit at times but was still good violent fun with some deeper messages in amongst the craziness.
60%
09.07.26Since I have free Kindle Unlimited again, I couldn't resist returning to Lauretta Hignett's urban (well, smalltown) fantasy world. I was right about the first in the series just acting as a springboard as this was much better. The humour is balanced with a fair helping of violence, darkness and angst, along with strong character development.
47%
06.07.26Passable Heyer / Austen / Quinn fanfic that would have worked better if it hadn't tried so hard to shove in irrelevant historical events and 21st-century sensibilities.
30.06.26
A competent smalltown 'kids on bikes' (well, teens in cars) mystery that wasn't particularly distinct from similar YA stories and TV shows.
