Tag: reading2020

  • Read: The Obelisk Gate & We Are All the Same in the Dark

    Read: The Obelisk Gate & We Are All the Same in the Dark

    The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2)The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    *chef’s kiss* Muah!

    Mm. Yes. Please. More. Thank you.

    Loved this, – perhaps not as much as The Fifth Season but – it was everything I wanted from the series so far and more.

    The writing is excellent; character building is balanced and the sections with 2nd person PoV are well done and didn’t effect my immersion whatsoever.

    The story covers a shorter overall period of time than the first book; in this entry a little over a year passes during the course of the story in which both Essun and her daughter Nassun are improving and honing their skills, albeit they seem to be on a collision course with each other for the third instalment.

    Besides this I don’t think I can say much more without spoilers so sufficed to say this is a worthy follow-on and deeply enjoyable ‘next step’ in the trilogy. If you read and enjoyed The Fifth Season, definitely keep going.

    This was book 52 of 2020.


    We Are All the Same in the Dark: A NovelWe Are All the Same in the Dark: A Novel by Julia Heaberlin
    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    This was an Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley & the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

    We Are All the Same in the Dark is a mystery/thriller set in small town Texas where the stories of two missing girls ten years apart weave and wind together as local cops try to solve these cases.

    The PoV switches quite dramatically midway through so we primarily see things through the eyes of two different women. This keeps the story fresh and sets it apart from some the usual police-hunt-badguys thriller staples out there.

    Heaberlin builds up two solid, well built main characters who we can sympathise with and understand their motivations. Some of the supplementary characters are a little more obtuse but that’s necessity of the mystery genre.

    Overall it’s a well-structured, -paced and -finished novel that delivers a good storyline with believable characters.

    3.5/5

    I dropped it a half star in my mind because I guessed who the killer was in the first half.

    This was book 53 of 2020.


    If you appreciate my work, please consider supporting me via Ko-fi.com

    Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com
  • RaiReads: Reading Rush 2020 Wrap Up

    RaiReads: Reading Rush 2020 Wrap Up

    See what I read during the Reading Rush 2020
  • Read: Reality is Not What it Seems & Artificial Condition

    Read: Reality is Not What it Seems & Artificial Condition

    Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum GravityReality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    An inspirational read despite some rather dense science involved.

    Carlo Rovelli does a good job and explaining complex scientific ideas to non-experts. His prose is well-written and quite beautiful. It isn’t all hard science as there is a certain element of story-telling as he recounts the journey of knowledge that has brought us to where we stand today with quantum gravity and loop theory.

    That being said, you almost definitely need to have an interest in theoretical physics in order to persist through the more obtuse and complicated sections. I feel like I absorbed maybe 70% of the science explained in this book and the remaining 30% I suspect I may never fully grasp, although, as Rovelli argues science is all about butting up against those things we don’t know or don’t fully understand. I’m happy with what I did take away from the book.

    Aside from the formulae and theories and equations, this is an enlightening and inspirational read that will provoke some philosophical questions in its reader. How much more might we know now if the science of antiquity had not been destroyed? What might we be able to do if 1400 years hadn’t been lost to the dominion of religion over science? It’s an interesting question to think on, when reading Rovelli’s accounts of how much science has advanced since 1900, when it was free to do so.

    This was my 51st book of 2020.


    Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    Did Murderbot just make a… friend? In as much as it can, wants or cares to.

    Our anxious misanthrope of a free bot seeks out answers as to what happened to make it become Murderbot in this 2nd instalment of the series. Everything you loved about Mb in the first novella is still there now with added… hair? Thrown into the mix this time around is ART, the Asshole Research Transport Mb meets on the way to finding answers.

    Once again this is a brilliantly witty and well-written story by Wells, told in a diarised style (hence the series name) from the point of view of the eponymous Murderbot. The experiences with social anxiety are cleverly done and accurate. There’s not too much ‘hard science’ involved in these books so if you’re not a fan of that in your sci-fi then these books are definitely worth a gander. They’re short, quick reads that are immense fun.

    This was my 50th book of 2020.

    If you enjoy my content please consider supporting me via Ko-fi.

    Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

  • Read: The Gravity of Us & Jonathan Livingston Seagull

    Read: The Gravity of Us & Jonathan Livingston Seagull

    The Gravity of UsThe Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper
    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    An easy, light read that is good fun with a m/m romance that is very sweet.

    I am not typically either a YA or Romance reader so if you’re in the same boat; I found this definitely worth the read. It’s easy to read, first-person story told by Cal, an internet-famous 17 year old whose life is uprooted when is dad is (unexpectedly) accepted into a space program to Mars. The family moves from New York to Texas to take up residence in Houston for the father’s astronaut training.

    It is written in the lexicon of a teenager in 2020 and I feel that lends to a more authentic feel as a personal coming-of-age story under exceptional circumstances. The romance is key to the story but not 100% central so you can’t get sick of too much soppy stuff. Not that there’s much anyway as Cal and Leon are more the kind of sweet young love than the drippy overly saccharine sort.

    Besides the queer romance, the book deals with themes of mental health, loss, fame and integrity and does so very well. All of these aspects come together to build the story up and to ensure it has the strength to stand on it’s own and is not just a romance novel. It is clever, funny and moving.


    Jonathan Livingston SeagullJonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    This is a short philosophical book that explores the cycles of community beliefs and how a single pebble can cause ripples that change far more than could have been predicted. This version is one reprinted with the fourth section (previously languishing in a desk drawer) and I definitely think the addition of that final section makes the whole story feel more finished. The cycle is completed by that last section; a full turn of the wheel.

    “…the forces of rulers and ritual slowly, slowly will kill our freedom to live as we choose.”

    Yes there is an obvious spiritual aspect to the tale but don’t be put off if you are not religious; it seems equal parts positive and critical of organised religion or organised belief systems. It is worth reading regardless.


    These were my 45th and 46th books of 2020.

    If you enjoy my content please consider supporting me via Ko-fi.

    Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com
  • Read: Black Sunday

    Black SundayBlack Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham
    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    Black Sunday follows the children of a fractured family who end up abandoned by both parents to live with their Grandmother in a poor Lagos neighbourhood. Twin older sisters Bibike and Ariyike are more in focus than their two younger brothers Andrew and Peter. The story is told mostly in first person segments from the points of view of each of the four children with one exception in a segment of Peter’s where it was written in second person, which seemed like an odd choice to go against the trend of the rest of the book.

    The story spans two decades of their lives growing up and trying to survive poor and parent-less in Lagos and how they each find different ways to carve out their own futures. The girls start working to put their brothers through school and University; Ariyike becoming a famous Christian radio presenter and later moving to Christian TV with the very same church who conned her father out of their family home and destroyed their lives.

    Some sections seem a little stilted in the prose, however it’s important to remember these are being told from the point of view of children. As the four grow up the prose becomes more smooth as the characters are maturing. The story can be difficult to digest as it demonstrates the personal suffering of this family and even moreso the suffering of the twin sisters as girls and women growing up in a deeply misogynistic, male-dominated society.

    Within the blurb for the book it mentions: “the twins’ paths diverge once the household shatters: one embracing modernity as the years pass, the other consumed by religion.” I had this in mind as I read through the book and I was expecting one sister to stay with their Yoruba grandmother (one does) and for that to be the one ‘consumed by religion’. However, to me it seemed the sister consumed by religion was also the one who embraced modernity – embracing modern technology and the movement of power into the use of those technologies. Each sister seems to embrace modernity in a different way and both have religion in their lives to a greater or lesser extent. It is not quite as clear-cut as the blurb might imply.

    The ending of the book initially seemed a little flat to me but after thinking about it for a while I feel it does provide what I was after, only much more subtly than I was expecting. That is a common theme with the book, there is a lot happening that is big, bold and obvious, smacking you in the face but underneath there is a lot working subtly in the background that might take you a little longer to recognise and appreciate.

    This was my 47th book of 2020.

    If you enjoy my content please consider supporting me via Ko-fi.

    Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com
  • Read: The Archived

    The Archived (The Archived, #1)The Archived by Victoria Schwab
    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    I read this as part of the #SchwabReadalong organised over Twitter/Booktube (twitter.com/schwabreadalong) and this was the first book of the schedule. I haven’t read Schwab before but have seen her pop up with both her YA and adult fantasy books as a recommended author for me quite a few times so I decided now’s as good a time as any!

    The Archived was a good story exploring ideas of death, grieving, family, friendships and desire from the perspective of a 16 year old. The overall concept of a supernatural style library that catalogues the dead who in turn have a tendency to get up and wander off is one I’ve seen done elsewhere, nevertheless this book does a good job at exploring the idea.

    It is well written for the target audience (YA) however I found some of it frustratingly simple at times; I also found myself getting annoyed at some of the decisions the characters were making and some of the martial expertise of the 16 year old protagonist seemed a little far-fetched. It was a good story but I am happy with leaving it at just The Archived personally, as opposed to reading the 2nd book.

    This was my 43rd book of 2020.

    Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com
  • Read: Final Cut

    Final CutFinal Cut by S.J. Watson
    My rating: 2 of 5 stars

    Note: this was an e-ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

    To me, one of the key features of a thriller or mystery book is that I can’t guess the ending. Unfortunately for Final Cut, I guessed the ‘big twist’ within the first 20% of the book and spent the rest of the time waiting to be proved right as the author threw things at me to try and convince me otherwise. By the final 10%, where said twist is revealed and everything I had guessed was confirmed I felt more like I had been reading as a chore and that the majority of the story had been inconsequential.

    The MC at times behaves contrary to all the information she has available to her; pursuing a man she’s accusing of murdering girls that in a previous or next chapter she’s adamant are both alive despite everyone she ‘trusts’ in the village telling her said man wouldn’t have done such a thing, that he’s harmless and he’s only ever tried to help. Her complete belligerence at blaming him for events seems completely at odds with her relatively logical approach to everything else. It felt too much like the author was trying to force a distraction on the reader to disguise the truth. The MC trusts some complete strangers that no-one has vouched for but then doesn’t trust this other stranger who everyone has vouched for.

    The story itself had potential and is almost certainly, and depressingly, based on the terrible abuses real people have suffered and it is a shame it has been executed so poorly here in Final Cut. While the MC is struggling with her memory, I still don’t think that forgives the confused signals we get from her and her motivations.

    Finally, I am unsure whether the e-ARC I received had chapters out of order as there were two occasions were the MC references other characters by name who we have not been introduced to yet and in a subsequent chapter we’re then introduced to them. As I say, I’m not sure if this was a mistake and edits will be done before publication or whether it was intentional as an attempt to make the reader doubt their own memory, much as our MC does throughout the book. In either event, I found it frustrating and it felt like a mistake so made me wonder about the editing process. There was one other instance that I spotted which seemed to have been missed in editing – whether that’s picked up on between now and retail, maybe, so I let it slide.

    Overall, there was a bit too much that didn’t make sense in the book on top of the poor characterisation, weird editing decisions and the endless buffeting of distractions away from an otherwise predictable ending.

    Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com
  • Read: The Arkhel Conundrum

    The Arkhel Conundrum (Tears of Artamon, #4)The Arkhel Conundrum by Sarah Ash
    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    I read the original trilogy shortly after publication and discovering there was to be a new instalment in the saga was a wonderful surprise. After 14 years, I certainly hadn’t expected a new book in the series! That’s also a reason I delayed reading it. ‘What if it spoils the memory of the originals? What if my tastes have changed and I don’t like it?’ I was both excited and anxious to read The Arkhel Conundrum and in the end I needn’t have been worried: it is every bit as excellent as the first three books.

    The rear cover has a quote comparing Ash to Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time) and George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) and rightly so; she is an expert in weaving a tale of epic proportions with a wide cast, all of whom are well-written and fleshed out, without falling foul of overly complex plot threads.

    Yes, you will almost certainly need to read the Tears of Artamon in full in order to appreciate The Arkhel Conundrum as there are references back to events in the previous books that you might not understand without reading them. You could go in straight at book 4 and get by with what’s in this book alone and still enjoy the new story-lines but I heartily recommend the trilogy as it is excellent.

    In this instalment we meet back up with Gavril and Kiukiu and start the story in earnest almost a year after the end of Children of the Serpent Gate and after the birth of their daughter who, it turns out, was conceived before Gavril was freed of his dragon-demon Khezef. Little Larisa is a very special baby and once Elder Ones and Heavenly Guardians alike discover her existence, she becomes very popular indeed.

    Emperor Eugene, in the absence of his mentor and magus Kaspar Linnaius, launches a competition to construct a flying craft, which accidentally opens him up to new threats. We’re also introduced to a handful of new characters, including Toran Arkhel and Gerard Bernay, who feel like we’ve known them long before this book, such is the strength of their characterisation.

    In the high/epic fantasy style there are different plots weaving together towards two climax points that are expertly done and I foresee those two story-lines coming together in a 5th book. PoV shifts between chapters so that we can feel and experience the world from different character perspectives where even seemingly minor characters are still key to the overall story.

    I feel I cannot proselytise about this series enough. I loved it when I first read it and still love it now. I look forward to the next book and won’t be quite so anxious to keep going next time! 

    This was my 42nd book of 2020.

    Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com
  • RaiReads: June Wrap-Up

    RaiReads: June Wrap-Up

    All the books I read in June 2020