scruffie's reviews
111 reviews

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.0

I've always liked Ishiguro's writing style and in my opinion this book was, once again, very well-written; I really enjoyed reading every single page of it. The themes of classism and identity persist throughout the entire book, tying into the book's dystopian setting which is slowly explained. If I had one complaint it would be that the world-building wasn't as elaborate as I would have liked.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
High Windows by Philip Larkin

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

Nice! This is the first collection I've read from Larkin. I found his poetry is a little too "classic" for my taste, but I really liked several of the poems in this collection ("The Trees", "The Old Fools", "The Building", "This Be The Verse", "Solar", "Vers de Societe", to name a few). Death and decay and the fear thereof are at the center of this book. Curious to read more of Larkin's poetry now.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

Edit on August 2023: 5 stars ⭐

A very difficult read for me, unbearably graphic and exceptionally dark. I'll probably find myself thinking about the contents of this book for years to come. Unless I'm seriously deluded, this book is not about vegetarianism.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr

Go to review page

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I absolutely loved this book. Storr's opinion that Solitude is indispensable to the human experience reverberates throughout the entire book. Though I learned quite a few things I have to admit that—and I'm clearly biased here—reading this book mostly confirmed my existing views; being rather solitary myself, I felt my views being confirmed and my person being validated.

Quite academic in style, this books is full of references to related/prior work and empirical data. This helps support Storr's views, though as a whole the book  clearly captures Storr's personal/subjective theory on the importance of Solitude. Being a psychology book, it contains many references to pathological situations I could give content warnings for, but they all felt rather minor to me (perhaps because the text is rather academic it was easier to keep some distance). Exception to that is certainly Chapter 4 on imprisonment and solitude, which I found to be pretty graphic, but I think one could skip reading it without hindering comprehension of the remainder of the book, if necessary.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Double Sin and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

Go to review page

mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

It was okay.
The Power by Naomi Alderman

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed reading this one, though the entire book is nightmare material (content warnings not to be taken lightly). Great pace, very tense, and adventurous. It draws attention to many social discrepancies and is full of female viewpoints and characters, which, in and of itself, felt refreshing.

That being said, I didn't appreciate the book's binary view on gender, the conflation of sex and gender, and the complete disregard for the multitude of gender identities; in this book "male" equals "man", "female" equals "woman", and that's all there is to it. Also, I had hoped that the book will have a more positive stance towards society; I've had my fill of the whoever-has-the-bigger-stick-must-oppress-whoever-has-the-smaller-stick point of view. That's alright though, I think the author delivered the narrative they chose pretty successfully.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

Go to review page

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I felt like I could have done without the very elaborate descriptions of the protagonists' surroundings, but other than that I really liked this book. The characters felt complex and I quite enjoyed reading about their concerns, even if said concerns don't perfectly match my own. A highly quotable book.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Hotel Silence by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Ritchie Robertson, Franz Kafka

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I found Crick's translation to be excellent, preserving much of the language ambiguity and other eccentricities that Kafka is known for. A pretty dark read overall, and very much to my liking. Quite slow-paced, especially if you also read the explanatory notes (which I recommend).

From the stories in this book "Meditation" didn't really work for me; I really liked all the others ("The Judgement", "The Metamorphosis", "In the Penal Colony", "Letter to his Father") though. I'm curious to read the remaining works of Kafka.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Go to review page

Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.
Though I felt intrigued by the first couple of chapters, everything else I read after that felt unbearably slow-paced. This boredom also made me acutely aware of several problematic passages. Two very short examples, if it helps:

p59. "He is as rich as a Jew."
p134. "Of the two draymen one was handsome and the other was fat [..]"

Can't muster the strength or motivation to finish this one.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings