Great review! I came here because a trailer for the movie adaptation was just released, and I wanted to get a little more background. Sounds like a really interesting book.

I don't agree with your opinions on this book and you have a different more liberal view points. But your review was good. The book is not for everyone . The points you make on it are spot on.

One of my favorite books I’ve read in the last year or so, I’ve read it a handful of times myself but I can’t recommend the Audible version enough - ME reading it is a 9/10, but listening to Chiwetel Ejiofor read it HOLY COW 11/10 😮😮🤩

I found the main character and the disparity between his innocent perception of the world and that of the reader's quite simmilar to flowers for algernon. Also, as the story progresses, he loses that innocence but gains wisdom. It gave me a similar vibe while reading.

I... Think it is though? At the very least a very morally grey ethically ambiguous character. Like, she has her boundaries, but as do many hitmen and the occasional CEOs. But she is supposed to be a reimagined origin story of Wu Zetian, who had two rivals executed by having their limbs cut off then they are drowned in vats of wine. There's a lot more context than that of course, and yes she was a phenomenal ruler from an economic and quality of life for the people stand point, but vicious to get and maintain her position. So while i think we're supposed to relate to her in certain moments it's supposed to be too far for us in others.

Stephen King:"The idea of a man shrinking at the steady rate of one seventh of an inch per day goes beyond even the furthest realm of science fiction". Matheson admitted he "wince(d) daily" at that part

The insecticide was when walking around his neighborhood. The "out at sea" part was radiation while on a boat, and the two reacted. He was with his brother in novel, wife in film

Garbage

I do think a good portion of our brains are still roaming the savannah. Explains a lot, for me, anyway.

I absolutely LOVED this book. And the movie is so good as well!

Patio door still haunts me.

Im a native New Yorker, from the Bronx who only has a basic idea of Lovecraft. Finally got arpund to reading this. I think if youre from any city you get most things from this book. The little easter eggs for us locals are more the locations mentioned and borough interrelationships. The bristling friction between the Bronx and Brooklyn that has a grudging respect. Jersey City. I dont want to say more because of spoilers. Staten Island's background in particular. I agree on there's not as much Queens as I'd like. Hoping there's more of her in the next book. With regards to Lovecraft, i enjoyed the nod to The Horror at Red Hook was appreciated. I'm not familiar with R'Lyeh but a tiny bit with Cthulhu and a couple of others. So the first chapter gave some hints that there would be a lovecraftian influence. Overall I feel rhe love for the city througout the book and feel well respresented. Looking forward to the next one.

Totally enjoyed this book.

What a feel good premise. I think I'll pass.

Just finished and I had to look up reviews. This is the most conflicted I've been on a book in a while. I wish the characters had been a little older and more mature. I can see the LeGuin influence in the parts I really liked, but Anders just doesn't reach those same heights.

Thank You, for your review! I just ordered it as my summer beach read. And Thank You, for not giving anything away or spoilers. 🙌😊😘

4:09 I'm going to have to correct you here. Black magic _is_ inherently evil in the Dresdenverse. But not all evil advertises itself as such. Sometimes, someone like Kumori can turn to an evil course of action with the best of intentions, and don't end up seeing the evil they're creating even as their path takes them to worse and worse places.

The ending is so touching for a book like that.

ok but why did the war start? did i miss this part on the book? i was a little confused on that, or was it just drug territory ?

We and the Hobbits sound confused and ignorant to the Elves when we use a broad term like "magic". It's like a person from medieval times being transported into our time and calling diesel engines and smartphones "magic" because they don't have any idea how they work. But to us in the know, those are very different technologies.

I have one major problems with this book which is how it was written. I can not enjoy the frame in frame type of story that got told like this, I also don't enjoy how he drags out the story about Dutch's Creek. However I have to give the author pros for his story and horror element, kind of remind me of Lovecraft type of story.

Sounds like a right load of crap. If you've had kids - how dare you BLAME them for 'loss of career/self/money'. How dare you. Disgusting behaviour. There is no more rewarding and wonderful task than looking after and bringing up your own children. What must it do to children who think mummy blames me because she has a degree and she was bored because I needed to eat, or go to the toilet or wanted to go to the park. Society needs to make it easier for people to have children - birthrates are falling too fast - but we should not denegrate children in the process. Tantamount to abuse. I hope this generation of children in about ...say, 20 years, start publishing books about how their mothers thought they were 'too good' or 'better than' the task of raising or how they farmed them out to strangers and then expected bragworthy academic success from their offspring...

I was also so surprised that he was not a faun. The first time he described his feet and when he talked about the statue i was kinda sad but the rest of the book made it up. Brilliant story. How does one come up with things like these i wonder.

Huh.... and today I'm just finding out about this IP right now. Turns out it's being made into a movie with Amy Adams as the lead role

This is interesting to see because I personally like Libby way more than I like Parisa or Calum? I genuinely liked Libby actually😭

Just finifhed the audiobook of this. Loved it. Stephen King does the Norman sections and he is fantastic.

French use to be a very common tongue bit like english today , hence french being used in novels referencing period tales . Fun fact useless information . Kate mosses sepulchre is a great read i really got into it. Bit dan browny but different.

I just couldn't get on with the style of the story. You are told so many things yet almost nothing happens in the first third of the book. The female character offers nearly nothing to the book. The blurring of reality was interesting though and I could imagine the setting well. There was a lot of repitition though of so and so talks to someone then leaves then someone tells someone they should leave but then they don't then they walk to another room and talk to so and so and we get some hamdfisted exposition. I couldn't get past the first half. I fought to get that far.

This book is like Wind in the Willows meets Five Night's at Freddy's, really unexpected and glad i gave it a chance.

you summed up my thoughts on this book really well, although I think I liked it a little more! the "reveal" is pretty underwhelming since they literally give you all the clues in logical order but I did enjoy the romance subplot. I liked that although we all know the trope of the "i loved this other person but you were there for me the whole time", we really saw Prentice's development and by the end it felt earned. Great review!

Check out any book from Gerald Brom. If you need a suggestion on one, I would suggest "The Child Theif", it's a dark version of Peter Pan.

I thought IT was too gruesome to read. There were alot of distasteful moments during the book

Best book I’ve ever read. Hands down

I didn't enjoy this book. It was not well-developed, lacked nuance and creativity, and was more harmful than good for feminism.

Hey, just came here after finishing the book a few days ago. I found your review insightful, but I disagree with many things you said. At least for me it’s quite clear, that book is not about becoming a hero, but about thinking out of the box and looking at political systems / power dynamics with skepticism and always questioning the why. It’s about social injustice that has very deep roots due to indoctrination. It’s about criticizing actual real world politics. It’s about what it feels like to be caught up helplessly in systems that are designed to break you down and serve others. It’s about gender and it’s many different nuances and how prejudices against people with a certain AGAB (Assigned Gender At Birth) can influence the lives of great parts of the population. It’s fantasy, it’s sci-fi, it’s a gender-nonconforming take on a society that is purely led by capitalism, reputation and gaining (and keeping) power. It’s about horrors of war and how propaganda works. Being non-binary myself, like the author, I related to certain aspects of being pushed into gender roles. My expectations got flipped pretty often and mostly in the best ways. Some actions done by the protagonist weren’t the „right thing to do“ or didn’t have the moral high ground. But that’s not what Zetian‘s journey is about. It’s about rebelling and making people in power unhappy and returning the cruelty to those who dealt it in the first place. Very few characters in this book are „good“ people. That’s not the point of the book, but that violence will be used by this wo are oppressed in a fight for equality. I’m very excited for the 2nd book in the series and how Zetian will do in her new position, as well as to hear more about Huaxia‘s backstory!

The “strange” psychology in Ballard’s stories is Jungian. He was a believer in a collective and inherited subconscious mind. This is the basis of the scenes where he imagines us reverting to a previous era, for example the Devonian jungles etc. Jungian theory is rather out of fashion nowadays, but I mention it to clear up your confusion. There are 2 important Ballard things you didn’t mention. 1) With J.G.Ballard, it not what he writes about, it is about his writing. His literary style is so striking and individual, almost every sentence contains a simile, and almost no noun without an adjective, usually an unusual one. Here is a typical example from “The Day of Forever”: “This continuous transformation, whose colours were as strange as the bizarre paintings hung from the walls of his suite, seemed to Halliday to reveal the hidden perspectives of the landscape, and of the time whose hands were almost frozen on the dozen clocks standing on the mantlepiece and tables.” His writing style is at its most magical if you actually take the time to read it out loud. It transports you into his universe where everything is a juxtaposition of different eras or spaces. 2) Some people think that the story doesn’t really move forwards, but I call it his “steady state” writing, where the story doesn’t really develop, it just stays in the same state and you watch the slow passage of time in his surreal landscapes. So, to anyone reading this: My advice is to read Ballard and read him slowly and with delight. It is the act of reading that is the whole point of Ballard, and not what happens in the story.

thanks mate, loved the review

Okay, I agree with all! The movie PAN - for me was an awakening to Peters Narcissism and thus let me explore al male relationships in my life lmao thank god

Just finished it. You pretty much nailed it. Supposedly American, but British, really British. I kinda lost interest in the prolonged chase, and the characters’ insights during the chase. Overall, entertaining.

This sounds really good. I don't know much yet about Selkies but I'm interested to learn more about this old legend. Thanks for the recommendation📖👍🏻🙂

I’m glad you clarified about what “the long war” means. I finished the first book and liked it but was on the fence about continuing. Book 2 was a block because I didn’t want to read about a war in any book length form. Now I know I don’t have to, I will pick it up.

"Six angry people in a house" pretty much sums it up

A difficult book to read, but also empowering as well. Any story with publicly lauded people that have such a dark side is terrifying as they appear normal to the world.

I had an eerily similar experience with Reality Dysfunction. I felt like someone had made me do a fairly enjoyable 6 months of military training only to tell me I’d be fighting Donald Duck for the rest of the year. Or something.

I agree. It is the best I’ve read/listened to.

So many awesome books in here! I haven't heard of most of these 👀added The Salt Grows Heavy to my tbr that sounds awesome

I felt the same way about the Novik series. My favorites of those were the first trilogy. Dresden for me moved away from what I liked with Ghost Story. I love incident that propagated the change, but I hated the change itself. I don't read it anymore. Doesn't it feel great to get rid of books you no longer want. I have so many that I want to unhaul, but no one around where I live will take this many so I can only donate a few at a time.

I really liked 'The Salt Grows Heavy', i found 'Blackened Teeth' to be an odd little book, really well written, and loved one half of it, hated the second half, looking forward to hearing your thoughts

Piranesi is one of my favorite books too. I recently read Storm-Wake by Lucy Christopher which had a very similar vibe, I recommend it.

Barker, like King, really needs an editor. They are both fantastic writers who offer amazing insights and scenes but the endings rarely hang together.