Throne of Glass – Sarah J. Maas

Readers of this blog may have realised by now that I have a weakness for what I would lovingly refer to as “trash fantasy”. And boy was this the trashiest, I loved every second of it but this was such a bad book. Celaena Sardothien (incredible name – but not quite as incredible as her servant Philippa Spindlehead!) is everything I hate in a fantasy character. She’s beautiful, she has a tragic past, she’s ‘not like the other girls’, she’s literally the “world’s best assassin”, everyone falls madly in love with her, and she is only eighteen.

Oat milk in my tea – Cutting Down on Dairy Consumption Step 1: Complete.

Celeana’s internal monologue is unbelievably arrogant. Every new character she meets it’s like she is saying to herself, well if I wanted I could just snap his neck, with my bare hands, blindfolded, and with my legs tied together but I suppose he can live, this time! (This is not an actual quote). Also, forgive me if I don’t know all there is to know about ‘assassining’, but surely being able to blend into the background is an important trait. Celaena is absolutely desperate for attention. As part of the competition she is taking part in to earn her freedom she has been told to not show off and stay averagely in the middle (because of course if she tried she would be first) and let the other competitors ignore her, but it makes her so angry. The weapons master is praising Cain – her main competition – because he’s doing so well at the archery and wall climbing stuff, and she absolutely fumes because she is not the one getting the attention and praise. She is also really bad at allowing people to sneak up on her, and men are always just popping in to her room without her knowledge so that they can watch her sleep.

My other criticism of the book is that I thought the premise was supposed to be that she has escaped this incredibly traumatic year in the salt mines of Endovier but mostly she seems pretty unfazed by it all, and problems as they crop up are dealt with very quickly. For example, there is a scene in which she can’t sleep in a bed, and I thought wow this is really poignant, just like in the Count of Monte Cristo – who after his long imprisonment, at least in the film, never sleeps in a bed again – I wonder how this is going to impact her life, but no, the next night it’s all fine (see also writing, piano playing and waking screaming from nightmares).

Still, I thought Maas was pretty good at creating tension as the other competitors are picked off one by one by some mysterious beast, and I liked that she included Celaena coping with her period coming back (petition to have more women dealing with menstruation in fantasy?). I would also like to be clear, I thoroughly enjoyed every single page of this book but perhaps not enough to read another 7(!) books.

We are the Weather – Jonathan Safran Foer

‘Is there anything more narcissistic than believing the choices you make affect everyone? Only one thing: believing the choices you make affect no one’
Jonathan Safran Foer

My housemate works in a bookshop and so this is actually a proof copy I have borrowed, We are the Weather will be published 10th October, which if you live in the UK and have been inspired is also the middle of the first week of Extinction Rebellion’s Autumn Uprising.

Are you stressed about climate change? Well if you’re not right now you will be by the time you finish reading this book. We are the Weather is an incredibly powerful take on climate change and what actions are within out limits to affect change – namely giving up animal products or at least severely reducing their consumption (Foer recommends sticking to a ‘no animal products before dinner’ rule).

In many ways this is a very depressing book, Foer points out that even if, collectively as a planet, we meet our most ambitious targets, many of the irreversible changes and positive feedback loops – for example the more icecaps melt, the less sunlight is reflected back, so the warmer the planet gets and so more icecaps melt – have already begun. When we look at the response of most governments to this it is like a bad joke, just look at the $20 million (which sounds a lot but it actually a ridiculously pathetic figure) pledged by the G7 recently to stop the burning of the Amazon, the literal lungs of our planet, and which Bolsonaro has refused to accept anyway unless Macron apologises.

Foer challenges us to accept that our way of living on the planet is already dead. As a historical analogy he examines the 1943 Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, who after learning about the horrors the Nazi’s were inflicting upon the Jewish people in the Ghettos and Concentration Camps simply could not believe it, because his brain was simply not capable of imaging that horror as a real possibility. Because he was incapable of truly believing he was also incapable of truly acting. In the same way, Foer argues that, although the majority of people don’t think Climate Change is a hoax, or invented by the Chinese, we are incapable of imagining the real and horrifying effect that it will have on the planet, and indeed is already having on the planet. Especially as those most responsible, will be affected last. If we did truly believe then we would act, we would stop flying, we would stop mindlessly buying new things, and, most importantly, we would become vegans.

Nothing has more of an impact on reducing your carbon footprint, and yet in so many articles about saving the planet this is ignored in favour of switching to more energy efficient light bulbs, or cycling to work. Foer confesses he also struggles to believe enough to make the required change in a whole section in which he argues with himself about the futility of trying.

I have been a vegetarian for a year now for environmental reasons but I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly fond of meat before hand so it hasn’t felt like a particularly big sacrifice. Despite the occasional craving for a good pork pie, I enjoy the smug feeling of knowing that I am doing the right thing too much to go back. But according to the BBC’s Climate Change Food Calculator, cheese is really only a tiny bit better than chicken in terms of it’s emissions, and I eat a lot of cheese (1). Basically, I gave up meat because it was easy, but as soon as I am required to do something that would actually impact my life negatively I refuse. Of course, the hedonistic part of me says that if we’re all doomed to die in 10 years anyway, I’d rather spend those 10 years eating cheese.

But Foer is right, if we truly believe, and want to ‘choose life’ and try to prevent this disaster looming in front of us, then our actions need to reflect our words. The book prompts a lot of uncomfortable self-reflecting, and I have been forced to confront my own hypocrisy. Pathetic though it is, I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to become a vegan, but I am going to try to start substituting out my animal products, and currently the only milk in my house is oat milk.

‘Climate change food calculator: What’s your diet’s carbon footprint?’ BBC News, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46459714

The Demon World – Sally Green

This weekend saw me huddled in a tent to escape the rain at a festival in Exeter, and I have to say this easy to read book made the whole experience a delight (especially as I am simultaneously working my way through Naomi Klein’s brilliant but heavy going – or at least full of very tiny print – No Logo).

The Demon World is the second in Green’s The Smoke Thieves series. The first of which I read in February last year (the proof copy – I was working in a Waterstones café at the time) and so I have had a long wait in between books – possibly too long as I could not for the life of me remember what any of the characters were doing.

Still, it is classic easy read fantasy, with short chapters split, Game of Thrones style, between the character’s points of view. Although I don’t really like that this book has been sold as ‘perfect for fans of Game of Thrones‘ because Green’s world pales in comparison to Westeros and George RR Martin is far better at creating complex characters and writing from their perspective.

I don’t think anyone would say this book is a masterpiece. It reads as very stereotypical fantasy – map at the front, warring kingdoms and characters with difficult to pronounce names. At times I thought the dialogue was very clunky. I can’t remember the exact quote and I have given the book to my sister so I can’t check but there’s a scene where Princess Catherine says to Ambrose something like ‘you’re a fighter not a lover’ and he replies ‘I’m a fighter and a lover’ (it might not be actually quite that bad but that’s how I remember it) . There is also this general theme of female empowerment, especially through the character of Catherine, which often felt annoyingly unsubtle and just really forcibly inserted in there.

That being said, I have a pretty high tolerance for trashy fantasy and I sped through it, the plot kept me hooked, slightly ridiculous though it was. It’s not a book that requires much thought which is exactly what I wanted this weekend, and to be honest I’ll probably read the next one when that gets published just so that I can find out how it ends.

Protector of the Small – Tamora Pierce

I discovered these books on Reddit, and then because recently I have been on an impulse buying binge (namely a full-blown upright piano), and because World of Books do free delivery and are currently offering 3 for 2 on all children’s books I went ahead and bought the entire series.

They don’t make covers like that anymore!

Protector of the Small is a series of four books (First Test, Page, Squire, Lady Knight) and each of their titles does rather spoil the ending of the book before. The series tells the story of Keladry of Mindelan who, 10 years after it has been decreed that women can become knights, is the first girl to apply to be trained as a page. She faces resistance from those in charge of the training as well as the boys she trains with, and I thought the book dealt with her struggle to be accepted as well as Kel’s own personal struggles to overcome her fear of heights in a very realistic way. There are so many books and films in which fully formed beautiful “bad-ass” (and often very one dimensional) warrior women appear so I really enjoyed the fact that she had to grow and learn how to balance becoming a woman with becoming a knight. It is the sort of coming of age story that I have read through the eyes of a plethora of male characters but almost no female ones. The only other fictional character I can really think of being portrayed in a similar was is George RR Martin’s Brienne of Tarth, which I have to confess is one of the reason’s I was so attracted to the story.

I think if I had read these books when I was ten they would have been absolute favourites of mine. Now, as a more cynical twenty-something adult, I found all the animal rescue bits and the way everything works out very happily quite trying. At the same time reading these books was an incredibly nostalgic experience for me, the writing style, the very early 2000s book covers, even the old library stamps inside – I felt like I had been transported directly into my childhood. In addition, by the time I got to Lady Knight (the books really get no prizes for imaginative titles), Kel was actually an adult and so I definitely enjoyed that one the most.

Because I worry that the Internet has destroyed my ability to concentrate I also really enjoyed how easy to read these books were. It’s possibly a bit sad that I needed a children’s book in order to be able to actually focus and read 150 pages or more in one sitting but maybe concentration is like a muscle and now it’s so weak I have to build it up again slowly. I read all four of these books in about a week, and I was so hooked on the last book that I even made myself a bit sick reading it in the car (something adult me is rarely stupid enough to try).

I did enjoy the story (especially once Kel was not quite so young), and if I can find something similar but for adults I will be reading that, but for now I think these books can go back to a charity shop where hopefully someone else can discover their joy.

The Hero of Ages- Brandon Sanderson

It’s the Final Mistborn! (do do do dooooo, duh duh diit diit doooo)

I really wanted to enjoy these books! So many people on the internet absolutely love them and I thought the first book was brilliant but it has been such a slog from then on.

No tea today, just a slightly unhappy plant.

After the first book, with the exception perhaps of Tensoon (the kandra) and the other creatures created by the Lord Ruler, I really lost interest. There is a moment quite early on in this book when you discover that the Lord Ruler had used the power in the Well of Ascension to literally change the Earth’s orbit, and I just found that to be a step too far really. I mean there is power which allows you to jump in the air or see really well, and then there is power that gives you the ability to move planets and I really struggled to imagine how that would work. (I know that sounds a bit ridiculous when you’re talking about a fantasy book).

My other problem with this book, and it’s predecessor, is that none of the characters matched Kelsier for likeability or interesting backstory. I am sorry Mistborn fans but I found Vin and Elend (and their relationship) increasingly dull and massively over-powerful. In addition, again as with The Well of Ascension, not much happens for large chunks of the book, countless chapters are spent while Vin and Elend debate how best to conquer the city of Fadrex, and there are so many parts of the book that are just huge paragraphs of exposition about the “three Metallic Arts”, the properties of the “Allomatic Metals” and the two powers of the world – Ruin and Preservation.

It wasn’t all bad, I do think Sanderson is an incredible world builder, and the parts of the book which focused on the religions and societies of the Final Empire were probably my favourite sections. I enjoyed the Religion of the Survivor’s parallels with early Christianity, as well as Sazed’s struggle with faith and the search for “the truth”. There are definitely some good points to the books but I just found the whole thing incredibly detail heavy with a plot that moved at such a painfully slow pace.

So… I wrote the above review when I was on about page 500 because after a book and three-quarters of boredom I didn’t really expect much to change. But I have to be honest, the ending of the trilogy is absolutely brilliant. It’s bittersweet, it’s poignant, there are some amazing plot twists, everything comes together in an incredible way and at one point I thought I was going to cry. Does that mean it was worth the 1300 pages I really struggled to get through? Well, I honestly don’t know, I have a lot of conflicting feelings about these books now. Anyway, I’m glad I’ve finished them, but I will also be very glad to return them to my friend and read something different.

The Flat Share – Beth O’Leary

After Catch 22 this book was like a tiny holiday for my brain, I read it cover to cover in three days and it was really just a delight from beginning to end. It is, as my housemate would say, a proper “pink book”, with pink pages and everything. Leon works nights as a nurse and Tiffy works during the day as an assistant editor for a publishing house specialising in books about crafts (the best job ever?) and so the story revolves around the delightful premise that these two flat mates, despite sleeping in the same bed, have never actually met. Slowly, they grow to know each other through the medium of post-it.

My only worry is that this book made me think I just might be too cynical a person to properly enjoy a good uplifting romance book. Not that everything is all sunshine and roses in either of the characters lives, a brother in prison and an emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend certainly provide more than enough problems for the characters to deal with. I also thought O’ Leary handled the issues raised in the book, such as gas-lighting, with a great deal of sensitivity. But every time Tiffy phoned her best friends Mo and Gerty, they would just drop everything to be with her, and a part of me was just left thinking, “maybe Mo and Gerty have lives too.” It is I think just a natural consequence of reading something from one characters perspective but when she interacted with any of her friends it was all just a bit, let’s talk about me and my life. It is also probably because I am definitely more on the introverted side of things and so her level of immediate oversharing was frankly terrifying.

But I can’t be too critical about a book I put down literally just so I could sleep or go to work or eat. It had me hooked and it was such a lot of fun to read. If wonderful, uplifting, happy ending romance is your jam then this one comes highly recommended.

Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions…. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.
“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.”
Joseph Heller

I started reading this book in 2014, at which point I managed to crawl through about 100 pages before my loan expired and I had to return it to the library. A couple of years later I found it in a charity shop and reached page 51 before leaving it for pastures new. The announcement that George Clooney was producing a six part television show spurred me on to have one last crack at it. Well clearly with modern classics, the third time’s the charm.

And it is a good book, brilliantly funny and relentlessly depressing, but I would not say it is an easy read. Sometimes I felt like I was becoming as crazy as its characters and at one point, after re-reading a sentence three times, I had to check with my housemate that it did indeed, not make any sense at all.

The majority of the characters are also such despicable and frustrating people that sometimes you just really didn’t want to know what terrible thing they were going to do next. Milo Minderbinder, mess officer and war profiteer (also winner of the Best Name in Book award), takes self serving greed to a sociopathic level, to the point of bombing his own squadron and stealing their medical supplies for the good of “the Syndicate”. Heller himself flew 60 missions during the Second World War for the US Army Air Corps and it is clear that he drew from his experiences when writing about the madness of war and governmental bureaucracy.

The TV show is a brilliant adaptation which manages to capture this jarring mix of humour and tragedy, the cast are superb and unlike the book it also shows the events happening in mostly chronological order which makes it far easier to follow. It also uses, almost verbatim whole chunks of Heller’s delightful dialogue, so if you don’t fancy reading the book I would wholeheartedly recommend watching the show instead.

On a side note, isn’t this delightful, a new (to me) mug decorated with the Ladybird illustrations. So nostalgic and only slightly creepy.

Old Baggage – Lissa Evans

My Mum says she saw this book and thought of me and I’m not quite sure what to make of that.

This was the perfect book for a rainy afternoon, which is fortunate because we have had plenty of those recently. Set in the late 1920’s as equal suffrage is granted to women in the UK for the first time, Old Baggage follows the story of Mattie Simpkin, a former suffragette who has given her whole life to the cause and is wondering what to do with herself next. She is a wonderful character, convinced that she knows what is right and will follow her convictions no matter who she tramples, but also witty and steadfast with a wonderful sense of exasperation for all the men in the world granted the countless opportunities denied to her. She decides that she needs to teach the young women of Hampstead Heath, who about to be granted the right to the vote for the first time, to think for themselves. And so she sets up a rival group to the Empire Youth League (a nationalist group run by supporters of Mussolini) called the Amazons.

It did remind me a little of the Pawnee Godesses

It is a book about women, and the few men within it are delightfully backstage but it doesn’t paint the suffragettes as angels. They have been scarred, by poverty, by awful husbands, and by police brutality but it is also a wonderful story of friendship between women and the scene where these now quite elderly ladies vote for the first time was particularly poignant.

The Well of Ascension – Brandon Sanderson

I will be honest, this was a struggle. I read 5 other books while I was reading this tome and I think I really only made it to the end because it was my friend who lent me the series and I wanted to finish them before I gave them back.

That’s not to say that it is bad necessarily, I think it just suffered a lot from middle book syndrome. The first book’s story had a very satisfying ending and I thought it took a long time for this book to work out what the next story was going to be. When we begin the story Elend is clinging on to power as king while enemy armies gather outside the city gates, and 500 pages later that is still the situation.

I did enjoy the political intrigue and the struggle of rebuilding the civilisation after the death of the man who had ruled them for over a thousand years. But I think there is a reason why it is the part of the story that is normally confined to an epilogue. It was a bit like if after Harry Potter defeated Voldemort there was another 700 pages of book left.

On the other hand there were some very satisfying plot twists and, slightly annoyingly, the end left me really wanting to find out what happens next. I think I am going to have to read the final book!

The Hedge Knight – George RR Martin

Season 8 has left me with big Game of Thrones itch that the final episode just could not scratch. Luckily, I was visiting my parents this weekend so I had access to the dumping ground of books that is my childhood bedroom. Hipster that I am, I last read the series before I watched the show (this had nothing at all to do with not having Sky and being too innocent to know other, more nefarious, ways of accessing the show). Rereading them after such a long time did make me realise how much of all the incredible dialogue in the show was directly lifted from the books. Really, up until season 7 the writers were just copy and pasting from the book into a script (I’m sure it does take a lot of skill). The same is true in the Lord of the Rings, the reason why the dialogue in those films is so brilliant is that they have taken great care to use as much of the book as possible, even if that means giving one character another character’s lines. I think this goes a long way to explaining why the final season did feel too rushed, and the dialogue often repetitive and simple. However, if the writers had been forced to wait until Martin had finished we might never have had a final season at all, and anyway r/freefolk is helping me to work through the 5 stages of grief via the medium of memes.

Actually I just think all the saltiness just keeps me firmly in the denial stage but I love it.

I don’t really read short stories so this collection of works by George RR Martin (Dreamsongs volume II) has been sitting on my shelf gathering dust for a good couple of years, but I was lured in by the promise of a return to Westeros.

The Hedge Knight is the first of three novellas Martin has written following the story of Dunk, or Ser Duncan as he becomes, and his squire Egg. This novella has everything you want from reading George RR Martin, a trial by combat, some gory deaths and a secret Targaryen. While also being very short and (dare I say it?) completed! I thought it did suffer a little from the traditional who are all these characters problem. There are so many Targaryens in this tiny book I really couldn’t keep track of who was whose brother/son/uncle but I have become adept at just ignoring it, and if it really bothered you I am sure there are plenty of family trees bouncing around on the internet. It is a fun story and while I do enjoy bouncing around between all the characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, it was nice to stay in one place and enjoy a story coming to a satisfying end.