#2018 read

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Genre: Fantasy

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway

Review

Holy shit I don’t know where to start. This was just amazing, and I’m sad the book is over already.

I’m normally not a fan of a story told in time jumps that go back and forth, but here they just fit seamlessly and led to no confusion, only more curiosity and these little moments were pieces of a puzzle are slowly added together. It was very carefully crafted and read wonderfully smooth.

I absolutely loved the writing style, it’s so wonderfully descriptive and full of details and just perfect to describe the circus, its magic and also the characters associated with it. The characters also felt very natural and relatable - my favourite is Tsukiko, I guess :)

There’s a love story in the book, but while the love of our main characters definitely motivated many things, it wasn’t taking everything over. It was perfectly balanced and also very beautiful.

Even the chapter length was great, not too short, not too long…

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Genre: Dystopia

Offred is a Handmaid. She has only one function: to breed. If she refuses to play her part she will, like all dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. She may walk daily to the market and utter demure words to other Handmaids, but her role is fixed, her freedom a forgotten concept.

Offred remembers her old life - love, family, a job, access to the news. It has all been taken away. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire.

Review

This book is as good as it is scary, at least for me as a female reader, since it hits close to home. In this book, women have been stripped off their rights, became property again, their only purpose to give birth in a society driven by religion. They are brainwashed into thinking that this protects them, that it’s better than the way the world was before. But it’s easy to see through these claims and see the horrible reality behind, and the parallels to past and current societies and also to things men out there wish women to be - property, breeding machines.

I was always caught between not wanting to read more about the reality of that new state but also wanted to know how it goes on. So you could say it drew me in XD

The story is told in mixes of memories and reality, which slowly builds a whole picture of how it came to this, and how our protagonist came to her current position. I would say while the pace is relatively slow, that does fit the story in my opinion - Offred is caught in a position where time moves slowly, where she barely has any purpose apart from going shopping and the ceremony nights (-> rape nights). Her time is mostly spent with waiting, long stretches of time where nothing happens, so the slow pace mirrors that, the reader is longing for something to happen with her. In my eyes, not a lack of skill but a stylistic device.

I kinda want to watch the show they made out of it, but I also don’t, just like how I wanted to continue reading and then also not, which is a weird feeling. I also like how women all over the world use the costume of the handmaids during protests for women’s rights as a symbol that we don’t own our reproductive health in many places of this world (Argentina, I cry for you. #NoPierdasLaEsperanza ).

It’s a picture with much impact and meaning.

A Study In Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

Genre: Crime

When Dr John Watson takes rooms in Baker Street with amateur detective Sherlock Holmes, he has no idea that he is about to enter a shadowy world of criminality and violence. Accompanying Holmes to an ill-omened house in south London, Watson is startled to find a dead man whose face is contorted in a rictus of horror. There is no mark of violence on the body yet a single word is written on the wall in blood. Dr Watson is as baffled as the police, but Holmes's brilliant analytical skills soon uncover a trail of murder, revenge and lost love . . .

Review

I became a big fan of BBC’s Sherlock and thought it would be interesting to see where the awesomeness started.

I gotta admit, I fangirled loads when I saw the parallels to the first episode, and I loved how they took some key points and made their own thing in the series.

I loved this book, seriously. It has a pleasant pace, the characters are nicely done, there were some passages I found quite amusing, and I also liked how Doyle explained the whole background of the crime, took the time to put everything into context.