bookforthought's reviews
714 reviews

Scarlet by Genevieve Cogman

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adventurous funny slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I loved the premise for Scarlet - take the French Revolution and add vampires to it seemed like a recipe for mayhem honestly. I'm not really familiar with The Scarlet Pimpernel besides the name (which I'd heard before) so I don't really know how well the retelling element of this compares to the original, but I was very curious about this anyway.

Eleanor, a maid working in the service of a vampire aristocrat in England, bears a striking resemblance to Marie Antoinette and so is recruited by the mysterious League of the Scarlet Pimpernel to embark on a dangerous journey to France, impersonate the Queen and rescue the royal family from their imprisonment at the hands of the revolutionaries before their encounter with the guillotine.

This felt like a fresh look at a very famous historical event, and I really appreciated the portrayal of aristocrats as vampires. This kind of reminded me of the film El Conde, which had a similar premise with respect to Chilean dictator Pinochet. There were plenty of scenes which allowed for deeper reflections on society, social order, freedom and justice, but also some good humour and tense moments.

I also liked Eleanor as the main character. She is a smart, strong-willed young woman who joins a truly dangerous mission to save a complete stranger - and a royal one at that - just because she feels it would be the right thing to do. She does come across as a bit too naive at times, but I enjoyed the way her character developed by the end even though there were a few times when her choices felt slightly at odds with what we know of her.

That being said, I wasn't wholly in love with this book, even though on paper it had everything I usually love. It felt very slow for the most part, and quite repetitive in certain sections. The fantasy element is also not fully explained or even used for most of the book... I guess I expected the vampires to play a bigger role in this. As this is the first book in a trilogy I do wonder if everything will make sense by the end, since a few times this book really just felt as if it were setting the scene for bigger things to come.

Overall, this was a pleasant and at times funny read with some interesting insights, but I didn't really vibe with it. It felt like a slog to get through the middle section and, by the end, I felt as though I hadn't had enough and yet there was suddenly too much going on. It could be that I just wasn't in the right mood for this though, and I can definitely see other people enjoying this one. I'm not sure if I'll pick up the next book in the series, although I might just to see if I can find what was missing in this one.

I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.
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The Dilemma by Sarah Hawthorn

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dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It had been a while since I'd thrown myself in a historical novel filled with family secrets and, having basically devoured The Dilemma, I can confidently say that I had somewhat missed it.

Esme's story starts when she finds a mysterious letter while clearing her mother's house after her sudden death - a letter from many years before urging her mother to return to Guernsey. Except, as far as Esme knows, her mother had no links to the island, having left it as a young woman with no family. Desperate to leave her life in London as the man she loves announces his engagement to another woman, Esme sets off to Guernsey to shed some light on this mystery... and maybe find some family along the way.

The story is told in alternating POVs, moving between Esme - who is dealing with the aftermath of her mother's sudden death in 1950s London - and Jane - a young woman trying to make sense of the fact that her husband is presumed dead in action during WWI. Both women are compelling characters, very well depicted with all their contradictions and confusions as they grapple with huge events and the effects of choices made many years before. The double POV added depth to the characters, and it really helped to empathise with both women, who otherwise might have come off as completely different characters. I particularly enjoyed Esme's journey and her growth, as she fully develops into the wonderful woman she is and makes peace with her past.

The island setting also worked beautifully and I loved learning some more about it since I'm not really familiar with Guernsey (aside from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society). I really enjoyed how the author managed to convey the strong sense of community, with all its ups and downs, and the slower pace of island life that allows for reflection and healing in contrast with London's fast pace.

The mystery itself was intriguing but ultimately, for me, it was maybe the least convincing element to the story. For someone who reads a lot of books a fair number of twists will be quite easy to predict, removing a lot of the suspense, and a few things just seemed a bit too much. I won't go into further detail as I'm heading dangerously into spoiler territory, but there does seem to be an awful lot going on at times, which ends up making the story just a little too unrealistic for me to enjoy it fully. The ending also felt a tad abrupt, with a very easy resolution coming virtually out of nowhere and being a little too convenient.

Still, this was a very pleasant read overall and, despite a few small issues, I really enjoyed reading this book. I would recommend it to readers looking to dip their toes in historical fiction with an easy read focusing on mothers and daughters and lots (truly, lots!) of secrets.

I received a digital review copy of this book for free as part of the blog tour organised by Random Things Tours. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.
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Fratellino by Ibrahima Balde, Amets Arzallus Antia

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

3.5

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Tutto nella norma by Gaia Spizzichino

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Seguo l'autrice sui social da parecchio tempo e ho avuto modo di apprezzare la sua ironia e il suo sguardo sulla società moderna, motivo per cui ero parecchio incuriosita dal suo primo romanzo. Purtroppo l'ho trovato deludente, essenzialmente una lunga serie di stereotipi sui 30enni di oggi che pare una collezione di post uniti debolmente da una trama.

Non ha aiutato il fatto che la protagonista mi sia risultata profondamente irritante e supponente e che la narrazione in prima persona non abbia aiutato nell'approfondire né il personaggio principale né quelli secondari, che appunto risultano estremamente piatti. La crescita finale della protagonista (se così si può chiamare) è troppo repentina e priva di basi solide per funzionare coerentemente nel contesto del romanzo, e purtroppo non aiuta a migliorarne il giudizio finale.

Peccato, perché in alcuni (pochi) passaggi ho effettivamente ritrovato quella voce originale e ironica che normalmente apprezzo e che avrebbe potuto produrre un'ottima critica della società moderna ma che, purtroppo, qui generalmente è mancata.
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Il welfare. Tra vecchie e nuove disuguaglianze by Chiara Saraceno

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informative fast-paced

3.0

Interessante panoramica dei sistemi di welfare, con un'attenzione specifica verso alcune politiche (es. sanità e scuola). Può essere utile come ripasso o per ottenere spunti aggiuntivi se si ha già una conoscenza di base delle logiche sottostanti il welfare state e le politiche associate. Altrimenti, risulta un po' troppo specifico per un'introduzione (dando anche molti concetti per scontati) e troppo generico per gli addetti ai lavori.
The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Always a pleasure to see what the gang is up to next. This one was particularly touching at times but still with several moments of its trademark humour and some surprising turns.
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Hare House by Sally Hinchcliffe

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I read this book in full spooky season because the blurb made it sound perfect: gothic atmosphere, a remote estate, secrets, witchcraft... basically spooky gold. And yet, when I finished it, I found myself disappointed and left wanting, although I couldn't really articulate why. I gave myself some time to process (a little longer in truth than I'd planned to be honest), trying to get some clarity but several weeks on I'm still no further in this.

Starting off with the positives, the atmosphere is spot on. The author does a great job with the settings and captures the dark, cold weather particularly well. I could almost feel the cold seeping through the page (and my headphones for the parts I listened to on audiobook). The settings are vivid and the tension is palpable, which is the main reason I didn't abandon this halfway through, because for the rest I was fairly disappointed.

The characters were profoundly unlikeable, and not in a good, interesting way. The main character, a woman trying to leave her past behind as a mysterious event led to her losing her job in London, had all the cards to be an interesting, complex character but ended up being quite flat for me. The rest of the cast is entirely forgettable, and I actually mixed them up pretty frequently aside from the mansion owner, his sister and the MC's neighbour, who came across as very one-dimensional.

Quite a few mysterious happenings occur throughout, which may or may not amount to witchcraft, but I became increasingly frustrated as it felt as though the story wasn't really going anywhere. Eventually, I was just bored and the ending felt completely anticlimactic. Nothing is really explained, a lot of things just fall into the void, and what is implied to have happened would contrast with everything we've read up to that point, making the whole thing even more confusing.

Essentially, this didn't quite have enough plot for my taste, feeling to me more as directionless meandering, but also didn't go deep enough in exploring its characters to read like a character study. Such a shame, because the ideas were clearly there and the writing itself was actually good, but I was left very unsatisfied overall.

I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.
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The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

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dark emotional inspiring fast-paced
No rating as it just doesn't feel right to rate my "enjoyment" of Britney Spears' life.

I don't typically read memoirs as I'm not really into the genre, but having grown up with Spears' music as a teenager I was very interested in (finally) hearing her side of the story. This is truly heartbreaking at times, thinking just how much she suffered over the years and how despicably she was treated, let down by those closest to her, by the media and by society as a whole. It isn't the best-written book, and it probably could have used a bit more depth and editing in certain passages, especially those exposing the misogyny in the industry and in society as a whole. At times it feels more like a therapeutic exercise than something meant to be read by a wide public, but it is important for Spears' voice to be heard again in whichever way she sees fit, and I do hope getting her story out in the world brings her some solace. Michelle Williams was a wonderful narrator for the audio version.
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L'unica persona nera nella stanza by Nadeesha Uyangoda

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challenging informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

Analisi lucida e chiara, ricca di esempi tratti da esperienze autobiografiche, libri e media per illustrare, comprendere e cominciare a decostruire il razzismo in Italia.
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L'incendio: Reportage su una generazione tra Iran, Ucraina e Afghanistan by Cecilia Sala

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informative fast-paced

4.0

Bel reportage, anche se per chi segue regolarmente il podcast dell'autrice, Stories, potrebbe risultare ripetitivo in alcuni passaggi. Lettura scorrevole nonostante i temi trattati e la sintassi a volte un po' ostica.
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