Review: Imagine: 7 Visualizations for Greater Clarity, Confidence, and Calm

Imagine: 7 Visualizations for Greater Clarity, Confidence, and Calm by Deganit Nuur
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Narrated by Deganit Nuur and Tim Murphy
Presented by Brilliance Audio

Wow I actually LOVED this.

This is a self-help book that requires nothing but self-reflection and imagination. Hello hi I am HERE for that.

So often, I find these self-help books ask me to write things down, or spend x amount of time doing this one thing, etc. Bro I'm reading a book, I don't want to stop for all of that stuff! So this was PERFECT for me.

I found it particularly useful in the audio format - I could be out walking and still practice these visualisations. It was quite relaxing, actually!

They seem ridiculously basic but that is what makes them so practical. These are all such small practices that trying them out is easy - there's no down side to giving it a go, and the worst that can happen is absolutely nothing. So I really warmed up to the exercises and appreciated their simplicity.

I truly love how the mind works sometimes.

The only downside for me really was the pace of the narration. I found I had to listen to it quite fast and there were still some long pauses that took me out of it. The narration itself though was clear and energetic, and as its narrated by the authors you can hear the belief in their voices. It added a lot of authenticity to this that was quite essential.

I'd easily recommend this to others on a self-improvement journey, and just anyone that wants to play around with some perfectly harmless visualisation exercises that may improve your life.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC

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Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very fancy words here - 10/10 for atmosphere!

Something about this kept me entertained, despite finding the story kind of dull. I feel like it went a little too long, and by the end it was really trying too hard to hammer home its message.

Still, beautifully lyrical; brilliant at setting the scene and Kya's place in it.

The story is about Kya, who is essentially an orphan living in a run down shack in the swamp. She spends her days feeding birds, collecting shells, and learning all about the environment around her.

Honestly, there's so much ecology here but it never got as dull as I'd expect - it was dosed out enough between the story that I didn't mind it so much.

The story however is kind of bland. It's broken family and first relationships and a murder mystery that takes a backseat to everything, really. Despite the setting and the glorious atmosphere, it's just another whodunnit.

I did have to force myself to pick it back up at times becausr there's nothing really driving the story. There was no curiosity that left me desperate to read more. Normally I'm a big fan of solving mysteries so the fact that this one did not really interest me at all shows how little importance it had in the story.

This is for slow readers who revel in atmosphere and things that are a little different. I can see why people hype it up, but I don't know that it's quite the standout I was expecting.

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Review: The Tokyo Zodiac Murders

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Sōji Shimada
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I actually found this a little dull right up until it challenged me to solve the mystery myself.

This detailed a 'locked-room mystery' in three parts - first, death of the patriarch, second, death of one of his daughters, third, the murder of his six other daughters and nieces.

The crimes are wild and I was certainly puzzled as to how they all connected.

This book lays out all the details - what occurred, all the clues, all the red herrings, and also blood type and star sign of each person. There are a LOT of details and it's clear this is designed to confuse things and make it harder to tease out what's important.

I found it fascinating, but at the same time nothing new is occurring which meant it was just two-thirds info dump. The case in question is decades old, so most of the relevant players have since died making it a confusing jumble of who's who. There's also not a lot of characterisation so again, hard to keep track of them all.

Still, when the gauntlet was thrown, I found myself going back to read the facts, study the details and the diagrams etc. I wound up solving the Who and the Why, but certainly came nowhere near the How. That sh*t was INSANE.

I really enjoyed the challenge at the end, and I think others will, too. Especially fans of crime who like to put the puzzle together themselves and make their own guesses.

Highly recommend for fans of the genre. Be patient with the overwhelming amount of detail and you'll have fun working the case yourself at the end.

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Review: The Ill-Made Mute

The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Narrated by Kim Bretton
Presented by Leaves of Gold Press

The first 25% of this really dragged, but it picked up enough that I ended up rather enjoying it! It's long and chaotic but does end up having some fun ideas.

I tuned out a lot the first time and ended up going back and re-listening to soak in more.

It begins with a mutilated orphan who has no memory of who they are. A local woman takes the child in and we spend the first third of the book at this outpost sitting around listening to ghost stories while the 'ugly creature' is bullied mercilessly. The bullying is a tired old trope and, while the stories were entertaining enough, as the opening of the story it just made me settle in for dull.

Eventually, though, adventure begins and things pick up. There are definitely a lot of superfluous words used and it takes its time repeating things over and over, but the adventure is fun and the supporting characters are entertaining. Our main character not so much. Very dull.

Speaking of, it does feel a bit dated in the sense that so much of the story relates to how ugly our main character is, and their desire to be attractive. I don't think that would fly quite as well today, and it did grate on me a little. There's no message about accepting who you are as you are, it's all, 'damn this thing is hideous so it must be treated accordingly'.

I do feel like this one was a bit all over the place. It's not a short book and it wanders all over the place; it never feels like a cohesive, purposeful story. More like our main character is just following along for the ride. I found it easy to get distracted and often zoned out but was able to pick back up fairly easily.

My feelings towards the narrator were a confusing mess. At first, it sounded like AI narration which I didn't like at all, but bumping it up to x2 speed made that problem go away. Beyond that, the differentiation between voices was incredible and brilliantly done, to the point that it didn't even sound like the same person. I ended up being really impressed with it.

A side note: I do get frustrated when I hear wrong pronunciation, so hearing 'valet' as 'val-et' twice bothered me, but then I heard it again in a TV show?? Is this a new thing? Because I would swear on my life it's always been pronounced with a silent T, like 'val-ehy'. HELP PLEASE.

Overall, this was a rather average introduction to the series, and not enough to get me to buy the second book. There's potential here, but it does feel a little like a story cobbled together from others ideas and while I'm curious about the adventures that await, I'm not curious enough to put it on the TBR.

I'd recommend it for fantasy fans who are looking for something a little more old-school, but be patient with it.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio copy

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Review: Honeyeater

Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A brilliant, mud-drenched ghost story of a haunted family and its fragile secrets.

I love Kathleen Jennings' writing, even if most of the time I feel like I'm not fully absorbing everything I'm supposed to. I love the atmosphere her words evoke and this book was no exception - the creek was a character itself, and the ghostly happenings were bizzarre and unique.

Our protagonist, Charlie, finds himself tasked with cleaning out his dead aunt's house before he can be rid of the town of Bellworth for good. But then Grace shows up on the doorstep and the blue roses pressing on her skin from within demand answers.

What follows is wet and weed-choked, ghostly and haunting. Horror of a new kind is brought to life as secrets begin to rise to the surface, and Charlie will never be the same.

The writing is abstract and evocative, and takes precedence over storytelling - meaning must be plucked carefully from between snaking vines and piercing thorns. Those who like to linger over clever words will enjoy indulging in the imagery here, though those who prefer a faster pace may get tangled up in all the allusion and word play.

There's a special kind of horror to this one; a pervasive sense of not having enough air in the lungs rather than any kind of definable terror. It leaves the skin crawling but doesn't stoop to jump scares.

The characters don't have too much opportunity to develop fully, which I found mildly disappointing but also seemed to suit this richly detailed setting. I wanted to know them all a little better but I think it kind of adds to the secrets and mystery of the whole thing.

This was another lyrical fantasy horror that really absorbed me. At times I did find it a little confusing to follow but inevitably I was swept up in the words and still thoroughly enjoyed the telling.

This won't be for everyone, but horror fans looking for something different should definitely give this a go. There's also something quite beautiful in the writing so fans of literary fiction should appreciate this tale.

With thanks to Macmillan for an ARC

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