Review: Kindred by Octavia Butler

Kindred by Octavia Butler

My Rating:

 

As part of the TBR Canine Jar Challenge, Kindred was chosen by Enya. Kindred is her third pick from the jar this year, her previous picks being The Exorcist and Middlesex. 

 
I went into this expecting it to blow my socks off as I've seen many people raving about it, but that's not what happened. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, it was engaging, the plot was great, and I flew through it in no time, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

The writing was simplistic and easily readable. It didn't require much concentration or dedication to get through and I wasn't expecting that. I don't know if I am disappointed because my expectations were too high, or because the author approached the important topics of race relations and slavery using such simplistic language and writing style.

I went into it with something more complex in mind, a deeper hard to read story and message, but I feel it was overly simplified and somewhat dumbed down in order to entertain or make it a lighter read. I highly doubt it was used as a plot device for entertainment purposes, but at times it felt that way. Perhaps it's a victim of its time, had it been written more recently this wouldn't have been the case as today's readers are more open to the truth of the brutality and realism of slavery.

The above makes it sound like I didn't enjoy it, I did and I'm keen to read more by Octavia Butler, but I'm left with questions. The time travel just happens, there's no explanation given for Dana being pulled back in time. How was Rufus able to pull Dana back to his time? What effect did her interactions with her past relatives have on her present timeline, family, and bloodline?




Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin

Reviw: See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

My Rating:


One for the DNF pile. I can't get into it at all, every time I pick it up I find myself becoming bored and I have to try and force myself to keep reading in the hope that it will improve.

I just don't care for the characters. There's nothing likeable about them in the slightest and I honestly couldn't care less what happens to them or where their stories are heading. I'm not a fan of the writing style either. Definitely not a book for me.

It's taken me 5 days to read 26%, time to admit defeat.

Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin

Review: The Night Brother by Rosie Garland

The Night Brother by Rosie Garland

My Rating:


I would like to thank HarperCollins UK for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this book.

The Night Brother is a unique and unusual read and is unlike anything that I've read before. It's also a book that is hard to discuss without spoilers so this review will be rather brief and to the point.

At its heart, The Night Brother is a historical fiction novel but it also has a touch of magical realism and fantasy. It explores both gender identity and fluidity, and sibling rivalry. The plot was original and unique and the writing style appealing, but the overall concept wasn't clearly explained in the end.

I did enjoy it, the authors writing was engaging, it was a pleasure to read and it easily held my attention, but I am left with lots of questions. For example: Why was this happening to Edie and Gnome? Is it a curse placed on them and their family? Who placed it, when and for what reason? If it wasn't a curse then what was it? Was it medical? Psychological? There's was no clear explanation given. Had there been then this would probably have been a 4 star read for me but the lack of explanation knocks it down to 3 stars.




Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin

Review: Dark Asylum by E. S. Thomson

Dark Asylum by E. S. Thomson

My Rating:

I would like to thank Little Brown Books and Constable for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this book.

For a good few years I have avoided historical fiction, it's a genre that I used to read a lot of but found myself losing interest in. There was plenty of it out there but I just wasn't feeling it - they were all starting to run into each other, none stood out and I felt that they all read much the same. That is, until I came across E.S. Thomson's debut novel Beloved Poison and was blown away by how fantastic the book was. So fantastic, in fact, that it was my top read of 2016 and I have been recommending it to everyone ever since.

I was like a child on Christmas morning when Dark Asylum landed on my doorstep, but I have to admit I was a little apprehensive at first because I was scared it wouldn't live up to the first book. I needn't have worried, I loved it every bit as much as Beloved Poison.

It was such a joy to be with Jem and Will again and to be back on the streets of Victorian London. The sights, the sounds, the streets, the smells, the mood, the atmosphere, all so vivid that I was transported easily to another time and place. Like with Beloved Poison, the world around me ceased to exist while this book was in my hands.

The author's knowledge of medicine and of the time period is clear to see in the historical detail within the story. It's also clear that she enjoys what she does and has put a lot of love and dedication into the book.

And can I just point out that cover! This is one of the rare occasions where you can safely judge a book by its gorgeous cover and know that the story inside is every bit as amazing.

E.S. Thomson has made me fall in love with historical fiction all over again.

Highly recommended. One of my favourite reads of 2017 so far!

Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin

Review: The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown

The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown

My Rating:

I would like to thank Penguin Books for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this book.

The Witch Finder's Sister is a fictional tale based on the life of Matthew Hopkins - a witch hunter believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 300 women between the years 1644 and 1646. The story is told through the eyes of his sister Alice who experiences his obsession first hand and recounts the tale to the reader.

Initially, when I first started reading the book I thought I was going to love it. The writing style appealed to me, it felt like Alice was talking directly to me and I was excited to read more. But, unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. It concentrated too much on Alice's emotions, inner thoughts, and memories. She was a bystander lost within her own past and present, looking in rather than looking out at the horror of what was actually taking place. There were so many missed opportunities to escalate the storyline and to ramp up the tension, but they were missed because of the way the storyline advanced in regards to Alice's character.

As a reader, I only got little peeks into the true horrors of what Matthew was doing. Right before the witch hunts approached their worst, just when things were starting to get interesting and were really about to kick off, the author decided to lock Alice in the attic, which of course resulted in the reader being locked in that attic alongside Alice.

What happened in that dark attic? Not much at all - meanwhile, Matthew and his witch trials are causing chaos. The trials are approaching their worst, hundreds of women are being killed, months of mayhem and murder are taking place, and the reader is sat in the dark with Alice. There was so much going on outside that attic that the reader was excluded from, all the chaos and horrors that would have made this a book to remember, and instead we're given a just few pages of Alice in the dark. What a let down that was.

The book is categorised by the publisher as being adult general fiction, mystery, and thriller, but to be honest there wasn't much mystery or thrills to be found. The pacing was very slow, there wasn't enough action, and characters were hard to connect with. The ending, in particular, had me rolling my eyes.

Not one I would recommend. The blurb and the cover quotes promised much and delivered little.

Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin

Review: The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan

My Rating:


I would like to thank HarperCollins UK for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this book.

"It was as if on the edge of manhood he too remembered everything we had shared, that he was the man who was still, in his heart, my little boy, late for school.

And then he was gone."

The Childbury Ladies' Choir is told in diary entry format, jumping back and forth between the diary entries of the different characters. This format took a bit of getting used to, it didn't lend itself well to getting to know the characters as individuals. The characters were initially just names at the top of a diary post, there was nothing there that allowed me to create a mental image of them as a person. I had to differentiate each by their voice and it took reading a good few entries from each individual character before I managed to match those voices to something a little more substantial than just a name.

Once I was able to separate the characters I was then somewhat able to slowly build a mental image of each from the bits of information scattered across all the different diary entries. However, the pieces were a bit too scattered and I couldn't build as clear a picture of each as I would have liked, and as a result, the characters never felt real. I was outside looking in, reading their stories from a distance rather than experiencing them. They were almost strangers, strangers that I knew by little more than their name, and because of this I never found myself becoming immersed in the storyline or characters enough that I reached that point of forgetting I was reading a story.

Despite the above, I did still enjoy the book and I did learn a few things. It was fascinating to get a peek into village life during the war, but I found it easy to put down. I also found myself thinking of other books or TV programs that I have watched that are set during the war, taking what I had read in this book and placing more memorable characters from other stories into their situation, or comparing them, which made me realise just how distant I felt from the characters in the book.

Like I said, I did enjoy it while reading, it was an OK read but not a great read. I'm hesitant to recommend it because if like me, you like to have a clear picture in your mind and want to immerse yourself in the story rather than watch from a distance, then this isn't the book for you.




Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin

Review: The Good People by Hannah Kent

The Good People by Hannah Kent

My Rating:


I would like to thank Picador for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this book.

The Good People is an engaging, emotional, and at times an uncomfortable read. It's beautifully written and pulls the reader into a world that oozes atmosphere and superstition. I really enjoyed it. I felt like I was there, that I knew these people and was a part of their world. A world that was so easily pictured, right down to the smallest of leaves on the trees, the ripples on the water, and the smells in the air. I could see everything clearly as I read. The characters felt real to me. I felt their pain, I lived, hoped, dreamed, and struggled alongside them.

I particularly loved the lore and superstition surrounding the faeries. The belief that illness, bad crop yields, and animals not producing were because of the faeries being angered, and the way daily rituals were carried out to protect harvests, households, families, and to keep food on the table, totally captivated me. I have fond memories of my grandparents doing similar things for the "wee folk". I remember as a child making small trinkets and gifts to leave around the farm for the wee folk, pouring fresh milk from the goats into a bowl on the doorstep, and also leaving out honey and oatcakes. I did the same with my own children when they were growing up, they used to leave gifts for the faeries under the tree in the garden.

Definitely, one I would recommend. I will be reading more from this author in the near future.



Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin

Review: The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse

The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse

My Rating:

 

 

As part of the TBR Canine Jar Challenge, The Taxidermist's Daughter was chosen by Mae. I have to say, she didn't choose very well this time.

 


I was disappointed with The Taxidermist's Daughter. I found it to be dull, slow, and easily forgettable.

The characters were flat, under established and faceless. They merged into one another rather than standing out as individuals. The plot was dull and uneventful and plodded along extremely slowly. There was no tension or anticipation. No thrill of a mystery being unravelled and revealed. Nothing to draw me in. I honestly didn't care who did what to whom and the conclusion was as much of a let down as everything that came before.

There were, however, small parts where the portrayal of the surroundings stood out. The descriptions of the environment really shined at certain points. It was dark and stormy and created a wonderful gothic atmosphere, but sadly this was a rare occurrence. Like the characters, the different settings were all very similar and merged into each another.

Overall, I found The Taxidermist's Daughter to be dull and tedious and not one I would recommend.




Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | LibraryThing

You can also follow me on Bloglovin