I wish I had reread The Silent Companions first; then I would have probably caught more references, but overall, this book does work well even as a standalone. I really enjoy Laura Purcell´s writing, and her ability to tap the potential of a haunted house is still in full swing. The story evolves at an ever-increasing pace, the beginning being languid, and then the narrative keeps picking up speed once we reach a halfway point. Not the scariest of scary books, but still good.
Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Place Where You Are Standing
Author: Jadwiga Pindelska-Lech, Pawel Sawicki
A collection of historical photographs capturing two transports of the Hungarian Jews into Auschwitz, put together with pictures of the same captured places within the camp, selected with great precision. Even if the match is not completely accurate, they are more than haunting. I bought this short book during my recent (and third) school trip, which I had organised for my students, and will definitely use it while teaching in the future. I do not feel like it should be rated, though, and so I will not.
Like.... sure, this was fine. I was interested enough to finish it, but I did not particularly care about anyone in the story besides the dog. I get people who say this is good, but to me, it is far from the peak of literature. I guess I hoped for much more art stuff and got a lot more of under(and of)age drug abuse instead.
I thought this was pretty well written, and the gothic atmosphere certainly pervaded the whole narrative deliciously. The use of Carmilla also felt quite clever (a vampire as an impulse for a personal revolt is a new one to me), and I was not opposed to the ending at all. There were moments when the story felt repetitive regarding the recollections of the past, but this is still an interesting offering.
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
It doesn´t matter that you didn´t know Adichie´s father or that this account of her grief upon his passing is extremely personal to her. There are tones we all can hear and feel. Grief is wonderfully universal. Wonderfully, because it is, in the end, what makes us human.
The Last Murder at the End of the World
A murderous fog had covered the entire world except for a small island. What remains is fewer than 200 people. One day, one of the leaders is found dead, and the barriers that had kept the fog at bay are down. And nobody remembers anything. A fantastic premise for a dystopian book, and I must say that the first half gave me the uneasy feelings of claustrophobia and existential dread (which is great; that is what books should do: make you feel as if you are a part of that story). It was all very cleverly constructed, and the ending I felt was satisfactory as well. Unfortunately, the investigation part itself felt much less urgent than I would have expected and at times, I felt all of the conclusions were being reached out of little more than the imagination of the main character rather than solid evidence. Still, I felt entertained throughout. One of those books that makes me wish we could give half stars on Goodreads, because it wasn´t exactly a four-star, but it was better than a three-star.
Author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
Upon starting the book, I was afraid it would fall into the same pitfall as the author´s debut, the Water Moon - all enticing images, wordplay and vibes, but hardly any character development or plot. Fortunately, The Elsewhere Express, though definitely decorated with the enticing images and vibes, does take the reader on an interesting exploration of guilt, hope, denial and sacrifice, where characters are anything but one-dimensional. There is an aftertaste of saccharine sweetness; you do need to simply accept that time has no meaning, and it can make your head spin with the images and information you keep being fed on every page, but at the same time, I kept thinking, "I need to read this again sometime", which can surely only count as a positive.
I wish I had read this when I was about 15. Ruta Sepetys, as is her habit, jumps into a turbulent time of events and serves it to young readers through the eyes of teenagers in short chapter servings. It reads easily and well, it brings attention to historical events that may not be overly familiar to a regular person, and just when you are ready to say this was really good, you are offered a somewhat half-baked anticlimax. I did like it, but wished for more.
I can hardly believe this is by the same author as the utterly delightful The Other Bennet Sister. I could perhaps forgive the fact that the most interesting part of the main character´s life (for she was a real person) is skipped over in favour of her later years' doomed affair; I could perhaps cope with a strangely cold and impersonal tone of the narrative, and I would not even protest that the story is about a woman who never held onto any resolution because she was a slave to her passions. What I could not get over, though, was how repetitive the situations were and, most importantly, that instead of an intimate and interesting portrait we get a truly pathetic worship at the altar of the most abject self-pity. I don´t know what the real Harriet was like, but the book Harriet I could not stand. Then again, I could hardly stand anyone appearing in these pages.
I am not interested in birds, and personal memoirs often seem needlessly self-indulgent to me. What could Helen Macdonald offer me then? Surely this is not a book for me. At least that is what I thought when I bought this second-hand and then let it rest at the bottom of an endless pile of other books that populate my tin flat. The only reason why I eventually decided to give it a shot was my favourite booktuber BookOlive raving about it. (But she does love birds, so duh). I can honestly say this is the most beautiful book I have read all year and something I shall be returning to in years to come. There is so much more than just hawking - and even that I now find of interest. IT is a book about grief and complicated feelings towards oneself. It is about loss, confusion and depression. There are interesting historical and natural facts as well as one disturbing and incredibly fascinating life journey of a (fairly) famous writer. It has some of the most compelling and enchanting nature writing imaginable. You feel like you are taking the steps yourself while reading, like you are breathing the cold morning air, like you are the one with the hawk on your fist. And you feel everything, every word, deep within your soul. This is not really a book about hawking. It is about what is vulnerable in being human.
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