This book makes a beautiful case for the existence of life and it's purpose. Poignant, poetic and inspiring.This book makes a beautiful case for the existence of life and it's purpose. Poignant, poetic and inspiring....more
I wrote a big review of this and GoodReads decided to refresh in the middle like a good-natured doofus and everything was gone. All that effort, for nI wrote a big review of this and GoodReads decided to refresh in the middle like a good-natured doofus and everything was gone. All that effort, for nothing....more
The Watch comes onto its own in this book. It feels complete, it feels important and it finally feels like the characters have been fleshed out and thThe Watch comes onto its own in this book. It feels complete, it feels important and it finally feels like the characters have been fleshed out and they have whatever degree of importance necessary to make it feel like they matter.
I didn't like Guards! Guards! because things seemed inconsequential. The characters seemed clueless, except of course, the Patrician; but I'd have done well to realise that it was only the introduction to a world, a city, and the characters. Their complex interplay doesn't come into effect if they aren't established first, and the first book did just that. I just wish I'd have been a little more mature to realise that.
This book has everything - death of an important character, mystery, intrigue, introduction of hilarious new species, more insight into how Ankh-Morpork works as a city, and of course, Death. I'm finally beginning to appreciate Pratchett's clever and sarcastic prose, and it finally doesn't feel like it's all fluff and no substance. I love the inclusion of new characters, Detritus, Cuddy, Angua and Gaspode, and all of them, everything comes together very nicely.
I actually can't wait to read Feet of Clay, and I'm happy with myself that I'm finally appreciating Discworld....more
First things first, I'm a sucker for good covers, and these covers are gorgeous! I'm partial to the British covers because I don'Oh boy, these books..
First things first, I'm a sucker for good covers, and these covers are gorgeous! I'm partial to the British covers because I don't like people on my covers, but all of them are amazing, including the amazingly illustrated Night of Cake & Puppets.
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(Top row: US covers, bottom row: UK covers with the amazing companion novel)
Truth be told, when I first started with Daughter of Smoke and Bone, or even ended that book, I didn't have my hopes up. It seemed like a generic YA-ish, romantic plot with fantasy overtones, and the first book ended with a big reveal - a cliffhanger end the likes of which I'm not fond of. I didn't feel engaged with the characters, and even though the quality of writing was good, I just wasn't into it.
But buoyed by the strong recommendation of the lovely Subrata, I continued reading through the series, and boy, am I glad that I did. Little did I know that the first books was just setting the stage for an epic story of honourable characters being pitted against each other, for unfortunate circumstances. There are, of course, the proverbial villains, people who are bad because they are inherently bad, but what overshadows and shines through in the book is the inherent humanity and the kindness in the characters. No matter how much suffering the characters have gone through, they always seemed to put decency and kindness ahead of their own (sometimes pressing) needs. Now, these level of stoic unselfishness might be considered unrealistic by some but these are Seraphim / angels we are talking about! In all seriousness, the amount of stoicism might not be realistic, but there are people like that in real life. In any case, it might be a good thing to read and think about, because I believe in the "Aim for the stars so that you can at least reach the moon" philosophy to quite an extent.
The characters are great. As much as Akiva, Liraz, Hazael, and Karou and Brimstone are amazing, the characters who really steal the spotlight are the secondary and little Neek-neek and Mik. Zuzana and Mik wins me over with their earnestness, hilarity, zeal and spontaneity. Especially Zuzana, with her adorable "kiss/punch"es in her letters to Karou, her unwavering courageousness in the face of overwhelming odds, and her manic-pixie upbeatness, and her zeal towards life and friends. If she were a girl in real life, I'd date her so hard. Move over Mik with his stupid, natural, Stormhunter-entrancing violin playing skills, I'll learn the violin for her from scratch and become as good as him.
[image] (I always saw Zuze as Zooey Deschanel from "Failure to Launch")
As I was saying, the series really redeems itself in the last two books. It doesn't fall trap to common tropes, there are a couple of very well-done twists, and the ending is properly done without being too sickly saccharine. The ending does sound like it could result in another series or two, but I love how the series is now, and would not really want to see more books added to it.
In a nutshell, I recommend this series. You just have to read through the first book, but the next two books will make up for it, I promise....more
An amazing collection of short stories. True to Murakami's style, most of these are centered around the loneliness people feel at different stages of An amazing collection of short stories. True to Murakami's style, most of these are centered around the loneliness people feel at different stages of their lives - whether it's an old couple whose son doesn't come to celebrate his birthday with him anymore, or a young adult who feels alienated from his divorced mother, or a demented lady finding companionship with the birds who flew into her apartment. Curated from some of the more prominent writers, Murakami writes a short introduction before each story to tell what the author (and sometimes, a little bit of the story) is about.
The book ends with a story by Murakami himself, which I found a bit underwhelming, although very characteristic of him. All in all, the stories are delightful and I had a great time reading them....more
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