The Love Artist | Review

The Love-Artist by Jane Alison

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Love Artist
I really wanted to like this book. The beginning was superb and the obvious immersion on the author's side with the subject (and her subjects) really made me want to like this book. But in the end it had too many things working against it.
Over all, I did like the writing, style and tone of the book a lot. It has been criticized for its lack of plot and dialogue etc (also the ever lamented "misbalance" of tell over show, even though I do not see that here so much, as with a lot of inner monologues and emotions etc ...) and these are things that I won't miss. I don't like dialogue. I can take it, if it's necessary and well done, but in general, the less of it the better imo. And I also never understood this plot obsession. Here's a story being told, not necessarily a plot, though, but the story is what matters to me.
And I also did not find the much criticized "too much" or "trying too hard" in the writing style. The style I liked.
So why the rather low rating... Probably because after the exceptional and great beginning I felt a bit disappointed by the rest of the book.
Many things were left untold, but not in a good way, rather in a way that left the reader feeling a bit stupid. Yes, I could have gone and googled all kinds of historical or poetical (literary, rather) details, but I didn't. In that case ( and if you are writing such a special book, especially if you've done an immense amount of research, that went into it), why not a glossary. Why not use that research and let the reader know about the details outside of the novel itself?
But there were some other things left untold, which left me kind of clueless, too. BIT OF A SPOILER HERE! Like how this sudden and so absolute switch from lovers and artist/muse relationship turned into something else entierly right after they came to Rome. I could make up some explanations, but leaving the reader on his own here also took away a lot from the reading experience of the rest of the story.
Especially towards the end the book also lost too much coherence for me. It became harder and harder to read and I really had to make myself read the last 40 pages or so.
So this is acutally a 2.5 star rating. I wanted to like it, but it was not easy. I'm glad I read it, though.



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Brave New World | Review

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As with the other 4 or 5 times I read this: I like it. It's such an easy to get into world, this time for the first time I payed attention to the Shakespeare quotes and motifs and enjoyed it even more (and want to go read Shakespeare now,but I know I must watch Shakespeare, not read him...), so yeah, great book. And naturally: as red-hot as ever. Just ordered "Island", b/c I finally must read something else by Huxley


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I realize how this is not much of a review... I don't have more right now.

Currently Reading: Brave New World

So I was in the mood for more SF and dystopian stuff and finally picked up "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley again. This is probably the fourth time I'm reading this. And I forgot how great it reads. The whole book reads as elegantly as the title sounds. I love it. Also: I have this pretty Vintage Classics edition now:

Getting Started

Alright then.
I can't make up my mind to actually join the booktube, as a booktuber, so here goes a blog (first, for now, mabye...?).
I might as well just start with posting a few reviews of books I read lately.

The Quantum Thief | Review

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


So... well, I have a really hard time with rating this book (it would come in as 2.5 stars, rather). I also didn't have an easy time reading it.

On one hand the sci-fi ideas and concepts are really, really great and also: way cool. "Passing a comemory" is something I've wanted to do at least a million times... The whole world the book takes place in with its mixture of the tangible with the abstract is really amazing and opens a million possibilities which would be so fun (and frightening...) to explore. So world that is built is great, amazing, really, really intriguing. It's the way of world-building I have a problem with, because...

On the other hand I really, really disliked the writing style of the book. It may be one of the principles of hard SF to write a lot of combat and fight scenes into the novel (which is in any case something that I could do without), but I thought the writing as a whole was really ... ugly. I can't really pinpoint it to specific things that I disliked. But the writing style really did make me not want to read the book, and it - of course - became especially clear during those fight scenes, when I was really questioning why I read it in the first place. (And yes, I have read good written - imo - scenes of that kind, too.
My dislike may be due to my general dislike of show-over-tell. I just think it's a stupid concept. For me to like a book it always needs a clear predomination of descriptive parts, I simply don't like reading the show parts. (And again, yes, sometimes some parts where the show outweighs the tell can be good and necessary to a book, and I've read good examples of that, too.)
What I also disliked was the main character. This might also be related to the decision to make his parts a first person narrator. I get that he's supposed to be this bragging kind of master thief, but his first person voice does not seem consistent nor personal in any way. The characters could have been a super interesting part of this book and kind of story (and they probably should have been, as with a classic heist plot you'd need something to set you apart from a million similar stories), but they weren't. There were moments when you got a glimpse of an idea of who these characters are, but those were fleeting and didn't add up. (And again, I love the mysterious, I love hints and I love an author who leaves space for a reader's imagination, this was not what it was like here, though.)
I realize this is the first part of a trilogy and maybe the weaker points of this book will be worked on/filled in in the next parts of the series, but honestly at this point I'm so disinterested that I just don't care.

I also might have a problem with the sheer abundance of ideas being packed into a relatively short novel (yes, I probably would not have even finished it, when it had more pages, as it is) combined with a confusing heist plot. With this huge newly created world it would have made for a huge book, a real tombstone, as well. (Think "Game of Thrones", "Harry Potter" or anything Ken Follet, what have you...)
Also, maybe, if the world building takes up so much of the reader's attention, it is not the best move to complicate things even further by mixing many different plot and time lines within a chapter all the time.

So, to sum up: SF concepts parts: wonderfully done. Writing style: Couldn't be worse for the kind of reader I am. I'll just be hoping that they will one day make some wonderful movies out of this book and the trilogy and I'll go watch these.

PS: Yes, many of my points of displeasure may be due to the genre, maybe I just don't like what is called "hard SF". But in that case I can only say that it is such a pity that this book belongs to the genre and it would have such amazing potential in a different genre. ;)



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