Review - "The Sun Is Also A Star"

The Sun Is Also A Star
by Nicola Yoon
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 1st November 2016
spoilers? no

Goodreads

What I care about is you, and I'm sure that love is enough to overcome all the bullshit. And it is bullshit. All the handwringing. All the talk about cultures clashing or preserving cultures and what will happen to the kids. All of it is one hundred percent pure, unadulterated bullshit, and I just refuse to care.

Galley provided by publisher

This book made me tear up (and that's all I'm going to admit to!). The writing is so beautiful, and the characters were all amazing and nuanced and so real that I could even stand the instalove (which there is a lot of. I mean, it's the whole premise!).

There are a lot of different points of view in this one. The two main ones are Daniel and Natasha, but their sides of the story are interspersed with the points of view of several other side characters - Natasha's father, Daniel's father, Irene the security guard - all of which add to the story and make it that much better.

One of my favourite things about this book was that it subverts that "boys like science, girls like art" trope, which I really hate. Natasha was all into science and Daniel into poetry and this is honestly the kind of thing I love seeing. Every now and then there were interludes based on scientific concepts, and seriously, I am a sucker for science in books. Maybe one or two were a little simplified but that's understandable. And it didn't break up the flow of the book either; they slotted in easily.

On occasion, I found Daniel to be a little cringey (going on about all that meanttobe stuff, for example), and Natasha seemed, to begin with at least, a bit too invested in not being passionate and believing that doing art subjects was setting yourself up to fail, but then by the end she'd changed her tune (which was great character development, and I loved it, even if she did start heading down the Daniel cringeyness route).

Basically, it was great and I can't wait to read more of Nicola Yoon's books.

Review - "The Firebird's Tale"

The Firebird's Tale
by Anya Ow
rating:☆☆☆
published: 6th December 2016
spoilers? a few

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

The Firebird's Tale tells the story of a prince who has to marry whomsoever can make him smile. Unfortunately, the person who manages this is not only a thief, but not even human at all, and this is particularly problematic in a land where humans have all but eradicated magic.

The story mixes elements of Russian folklore with other Germanic fairytales, which I wouldn't say worked all too well. On the one hand, you have Koschei the Deathless making an appearance, then the next page there's Snow White (not literally making appearances, though). It's a little dissonant at times. Not to mention it appears to be set in some sort of alternative Russia, because it borders a country they call "the Orient", which seems to encompass the whole of Asia. Again, a problem.

If I'm honest, I was expecting this one to be more of a slow burn than it was. That's not to say I didn't like the direction it went, but I did feel that maybe in the context of the story, it was perhaps more necessary. Within about 40 pages Aleksei (the prince) and Nazar (the firebird) were kissing. But at this point, they didn't even seem to like each other. So you're then stuck with a strange relationship, where they don't really like one another but they're married and apparently that means they have to have a sexual relationship. All this somewhat obscures the way that they could possibly be gaining feelings for each other. Which was a disappointment.

In addition to this, the story didn't really pick up until about two thirds of the way through. Sure, it was easy reading up until that point but nothing really happened. Then when something does happen, you'd think that it'd drive some sort of division between Aleksei and Nazar (it is that Nazar is keeping secrets, and pretty important ones at that, from Aleksei) but Aleksei isn't even angry. Which is not really in keeping with his character in the rest of the book. He seems to spend the book switching back and forth between being this ice-prince kind of character, who gets annoyed at Nazar quite often, and someone friendlier. What I think would have worked better would have been to see him start of as the former and slowly become the latter.

But despite all that, I did enjoy the story to an extent. It left it on a bit of a cliffhanger too, so I'm hoping there's another book just to see how everything pans out.

Review - "The Whole Art of Detection"

The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
by Lyndsay Faye
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 7th March 2017
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I have never been Sherlock Holmes' biggest fan. Sure, I read them (or rather, my mum read them too me, and freaked me out a little), but I've not read any Holmes stories in at least 10 years. Lyndsay Faye's take on Holmes and Watson is wholly refreshing and, although some stories worked better than others, totally in the vein of the originals (or, what I can recall of the originals).

My first thought on starting the book, within the first paragraph, was how uncannily similar to Arthur Conan Doyle's writing the style is. Lyndsay Faye has managed to mimic his style so closely that it reads as if it would slot into his stories with ease. If I had any problem with the style it would be that, occasionally, the descriptiveness of the writing didn't suit the context it was in, like in the first few stories, where it's just Watson and Holmes recounting stories, the speech seemed somewhat stilted because it was very descriptive. But that problem disappears for the most part after the part one.

The best stories were, in fact, the ones that were written as entries into Holmes' diary. These were amusing, and managed not to seem condescending, as can happen when your detective is a Brilliant Detective who is a genius and therefore sees links mere mortals would not.

Part three was the saddest of the parts, as it follows Holmes' "death" (which, I'll admit, I never read), and this is where Lyndsay Faye's ability to make me emotional comes into play. It's very subtle; most of the time it's just a sentence thrown in almost carelessly, which is able to just force you to stop and think. It's a skill that most of my favourite authors appear to have, and she repeatedly does the same in her Timothy Wilde Mysteries.

Overall I think this is a great set of Sherlock Holmes stories which stay true to the characters and style (it's clear that she has done copious amounts of research, and is a huge fan of the original stories herself), and should satisfy both avid fans and those who are perhaps less so.