Recent Book Reviews

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My Sister, Sophie (not to be confused with Sofia), has been recommending that I read this for a very long time since she read it but I had always felt it wasn't going to be my kind of thing. Despite that when given the opportunity to get a free audiobook about a year ago I chose this, committing at least to give it a go.

At last after finishing my last exam of university I knew it was time to get back to what I enjoyed most in my free time, reading, and such I chose to start this book, once again committing to at least give it a go. And indeed I did give it a go, finishing it in just one night from 6:20PM until 1:50AM (7.5 hours). Perhaps finishing it within one night can be attributed to the audiobook format which makes it hard to stop, but really I didn't want to stop anyway so I'm sure if it was in my hands I would have managed anyway.

Enough about my life though onto the book itself, starting with plot. I went into this almost blind, only reading the blurb before I started, and I think that was the right way to do it. Many of my long time fans will know I have a certain disdain for romance in my novels, as often it takes away from the core story and serves as pure fan service, but the blurb was right when it said "it's not a romance, but it is about love", and I think that's a distinction that many authors have failed to draw in their works. I should mention now that this will almost certainly contain spoilers. The core plot of the story follows 2.5 main characters (Sam, Sadie and Marx partially) as they work to create a games company, but really that is more of a vessel for the deeper plot, what really matters is the relationship between Sam and Sadie throughout their lives, from meeting in the hospital to saying goodbye at the airport and beyond. It worked so well to me because it felt so real, and even when I couldn't necessarily relate to the choices they were making, they were making them for reasons I could understand. A lesser novel oft rely on misunderstandings, or seemingly irrational choices to guide their characters to go to the places they want to go, but I never felt like Zevin was forcing them to do anything they wouldn't and that made the plot feel so organic and real. That's not to say there weren't many misunderstandings that felt frustrating I couldn't resolve, but sadly that's the nature of real relationships so I could always understand the lack of communication through character motivations. I also felt relieved that Sam and Sadie never ended up together romantically, as I did fear they would, because that would have somewhat invalidated huge sections of the message I got from it, that sometimes no matter how much you love someone you just aren't right for each other. Their love felt obsessive, and perhaps only ever peripheral to their love of the game, so why should they deserve that sort of happy ending.

That leads very well onto the characters which hopefully you can tell I loved. Marx was probably my favourite character, although it does feel unfair to make them compete, and although I did describe him as only half of a main character above he held the most depth for me. This was greatly aided by the NPC chapter, which was wholly dedicated to him, in there was something he said that I can't quite remember but goes like 'If I make enough of an impact when i'm there, they will imagine me there when i'm not'. This was perhaps a little on the nose considering the main plot of that chapter but it was moving and encapsulates his impact on the novel so well, even if he wasn't there for a lot of it. Sam and Sadie are far harder pin down, they both felt selfish and dislikable and yet it was very hard not to understand why they are the way that they are. Situations don't excuse actions but it was hard to blame them for the cruelty they inflicted upon each other in pursuit of an aim they didn't truly reap the pleasures of. When I think back upon when in the novel they were happiest the only real answer was when they first met as children, everything later when they reached their own ideas of success felt as though it only made them more miserable and pulled them apart.

Finally I would like to touch on the prose briefly, as I feel like it is harder to comment on when only consumed audibly. Zevins ability to carefully weave together jumps between times in their lives was masterful and there was never a point when I felt confused about when we were supposed to be, as often there are in other novels. The two 'special' chapters were also an incredible achievement to pull off so well, changing perspective so drastically not once but twice requires a lot of confidence in your work, and clearly she was right to be confident as it drew me in even closer.

I would highly recommend you read this book, even if I have spoiled many sections, and it was incredible and thank you for reading this review.

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'll start by saying it has been almost a year since I finished this book so I can't promise the most in depth analysis but while reviewing The Sirens of Titan, I was reminded that I had not written a review yet and that was a true tragedy. If you want a brief comparison of the two you can find that in my review of sirens (below this if you're reading on my website or click the link and scroll down if you're on Goodreads).

But enough about what brought me to writing this, this book was definitely strange, as all of Vonnegut's novels tend to be, but it had a very strong heart which kept me invested throughout the jumps forwards and backwards through time. Time is a very important part of this novel, our main character, Billy Pilgrim, lives his life jumping between different points in time, which lead to a structure that could have been very hard to follow if not for the grounding of Pilgrim also being in the same confusing situation.

Unsurprisingly the plot goes to a lot of places, including space, but the most important location is the titular Slaughterhouse Five in Dresden during World War II. Hopefully if you are reading this you know that Dresden was bombed heavily during the war, something Vonnegut certainly knew as he was there in the war. This makes the novel a sort of semi-autobiography because certainly he lived through a lot of the events of it, though I do not believe he went to space. This added clearer messaging to the novel about the damage that war can have on everyone involved. One possible reading of the text is that Pilgrim does not actually jump through time but instead it is told from within the head of an older version of him who has PTSD and is reliving his experiences. I can't say with any certainty if this is true but it's an interesting interpretation for sure. Regardless the novel is written with an apathetic view of death, where after every one he says 'so it goes', forcing a sort of passiveness onto the events. What stuck with me the most though was Billy Pilgrim's thought of a potential epitaph for himself: "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt". This was objectively not true and yet to Pilgrim it might well have been, in the end he knew it would all work out so why shouldn't life be beautiful.

I absolutely think you should read this, especially if you are Sofia, because it is the best Vonnegut novel I have read and you liked his other works.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book, as I did enjoy Vonnegut's other books I've read, especially Slaughterhouse-Five. It was unfortunately more like the first of his books I read, Breakfast of Champions, in the sense that I didn't have a clue what was going on in the whole thing. That does seem to be his style and there's nothing wrong with an interesting style, but I didn't understand what it was all meant to mean. Slaughterhouse Five was weird and wacky and hard to follow but it was also very clearly a novel that had something to say about war and its impact on life. Why did it succeed more than the other two? well that answer to me is simple, the book is a semi-autobiography, Kurt himself was within the real slaughterhouse five when he was young and in the war. But this isn't a review of slaughterhouse five, which I do still need to write so I apologise to my fans.

If we put aside slaughterhouse five, the real question then is what made this worse to me than Breakfast of Champions? I would have to say the structure, breakfast pulled me right in by giving me the end but sirens did not. And obviously maybe doing the exact same starting technique in two novels isn't a great idea, but it would have worked so well. Essentially the only driving force of the novel is Rumfoord (and the Tralfamadorians by proxy) who's entire thing is that he is scattered through space and time and knows the future, which lends itself quite well to that sort of narrative structure. In fairness he does 'predict' the general plot of the story at the beginning but that didn't really bring much joy.

Onto the plot then, it just didn't interest me, it felt as though it was three vaguely related plots that jumped so randomly one onto the next that it didn't lend itself to an enjoyable flow. I think what really held it back was as previously said Rumfoord steers everything that happens and frankly I never actually knew why he did anything and it's very hard to get stuck into a plot that seems to be happening because it was always going to happen and he's just pushing the cart down a pre-determined road with no enjoyment. In many places he is shown to not be enjoying what he is doing, as though everything that was happening was not his own doing. And at a shallow level I can understand its meant to be a criticism of organised religion, which I think he directly says somewhere in the novel but I can't quite remember because it took so long to read. But I think a critique has to be a critique textually rather than just nominally and it failed at that.

Characters:
There certainly were characters, none of them really got me invested and much like my criticism of the plot they all felt like they were doing things because the novel required them to do that not for any logical reason. Half of the main characters forget who they are and are mind controlled for a third of the novel, quite literally making them quite literally do whatever is required of them.
It was only in the epilogue when we could sit with the characters for any period of time that I felt even a hint of connection to them, and even that was fleeting.

In the end this review has become more negative than I had hoped for but if you liked Vonnegut's other works I do think its worth at least trying to read, but Slaughterhouse Five was better and I really do need to write a positive review for it :)

Down the Drain by Julia Fox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Anyone who's even glanced at my read books will know that I don't read non-fiction, in fact I dare say this might be one of only two that I recall. But when its time to leave your comfort zone it's good to do it with a bang. This book definitely achieved that and more.

I will start by mentioning I 'read' this as an audiobook, for I had heard it was the best medium for an autobiography and I can see why people say that, having Fox tell the stories in her own voice adds a lot of weight to the story, making you really appreciate that everything you hear did actually happen to her.

I'll admit I knew very little about Julia Fox's life before this, just she was famous in the New York scene and referenced in the hit album BRAT. I think knowing so little played to the book's benefit, as every twist and turn of her life came as a shock, and golly were there are a lot of shocks. I never knew quite how much she had done in her life, from work as a dominatrix to an acting career, it's really all there.

I don't really know what I can say, normally i'd talk about the plot and characters in these reviews but I don't think that's how it works for autobiographies, can't really review real life people, or maybe you can idk?

What's important is it was a fascinating read and I believe I made a great choice for my first autobiography. Jennette McCurdy's one is coming next I believe, whenever I get around to that.

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I will admit I read this almost a year ago so my memory of the text might not be the best but better late than never.

I will start by saying I loved Hyperion, it was a truly brilliant book, very cleverly in the format of the Canterbury Tales, with the pilgrims taking turns telling their story, and importantly the book ending before they arrive. This made sense because its about the journey not the destination, which I loved. So then when I saw there was a sequel I was confused, in my mind it did not need one because the story was complete.

Assuming you've already seen that I've given this 4 stars, it is clear that I changed my mind while reading the book. I think it succeeding in convincing me that it should exist by being so different to the first. Simmons did not shy away from changing the formula, gone was the recounting the past, it was all go go go in the future. It was also nice to get the outer world fleshed out a lot more, what it takes to choose to send 7 people into what is thought to be eternal torture in the hopes of preventing disaster, and what that does for the greater society is a fascinating concept. Unsurprisingly the character work remained incredible, benefited by the plentiful background we had from the previous book.

All together this is a great book and a worthy sequel to Hyperion, now its time to see if the next few in the series can continue to hold up as well.