Review: Where We Begin

Where We Begin by Christie Nieman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well that sure was 1000% more traumatic than anticipated.

What a mess.

Sigh.



Where do I begin? (See what I did there)

The blurb tells us Anna is running away from home. The destination: her grandparents' place (in country Victoria). Grandparents she has never met, so clearly there's a secret there. Plus, there's all the secrets surrounding why she's running. And secrets surrounding the weird relationship between Anna's grandparents and Leonie, an old friend of Anna's mum. Secrets, secrets, secrets. Eeeeeverybody's got secrets.

Sigh.

I hate secrets. Especially dark family secrets. I support Baz entirely on this one: 'Secrets are bullsh*t.'

But what can you do, other than power through the book and hope things turn out okay?

I'm gonna be straight up: the pain in this book is excruciating. But I guess that's what makes it important. It tells a tough story, but it's the same kind of story that so many people can relate to. There are so many elements to its pain that it's almost inevitable every reader will find something in it they relate to and/or empathise with.

For the cautious, here are your trigger warnings: (view spoiler)[domestic violence, abuse, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, racism, racial violence. (hide spoiler)]

At first, I was a little annoyed by how much of an idiot Anna was being. But then this story just became so much bigger and it was like a ten-car pile-up I couldn't take my eyes off. I felt like the secrets were kind of oozing out unimportantly and I thought it was going to miss the mark because I could see where it was all headed but the way it all played out went and got my feelings involved and suddenly I was far more invested than I'd realised.

It's not a perfect novel - it has a point to make, and at times it can feel a little forced with its tactics (for example, emphasising the importance of having open, honest discussions is fantastic but doing so through a 17yr old girl who has literally run away from responsibility seems a bit off to me). It works very hard to offer an appropriate method of dealing with these problems and unforunately it does feel a little hollow in places. But the pain is real and the echoes of it at times feel incredibly overwhelming. This is a story about generations of pain, and as such it is ... well, if I'm honest ... it's kind of a downer.

This is another one of those books that I didn't really enjoy reading, because it was so damn depressing, but I really appreciated the story it told.

It's hard to elaborate further without divulging some of the book's secrets, so I'll just say that this is a book that will make you think, and feel, and want to understand people a little better. It will hopefully make you think about how far pain can carry, and how one small act can affect many lives, whether it be an act of cruelty, or an act of thoughtlessness, or an act of kindness.

I'm pretty messed up over this one, I think.

Not fun at all but an important, thought-provoking read that I highly recommend.

With thanks to Macmillan for an ARC

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Review: Midnight Never Come

Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So when I started reading this it seemed a little bland, though I was getting through it fast enough. It felt a little lacking in feeling. But then around the halfway mark something clicked and I ended up really enjoying it!

It begins with a conversation between two would-be queens. Thirty years later, Devan finds himself in the services of Queen Elizabeth (the first) and, more directly, her spymaster Walsingham. Beneath London, in the secret realm of the Onyx Court, Lune seeks to regain the favour of the dark Faerie Queen, Indiviana. Naturally, the path of the mortal man and disgraced fae lady are destined to cross.

At first, it all seemed to be meandering along without much of a point. There's a tingle of mystery with the mostly-nonsense-but-sometimes-lucid babbling of Tiresias, the fae court's local mortal-turned-nutjob-from-overexposure, but aside from that, the plot itself wasn't particularly evident.

However I do really enjoy reading about this era of history, so I very much enjoyed the blend of historical fiction and fantasy. The way they threaded together was absolutely a highlight of this novel. There's definitely more of a focus on the fictional queen, but the morsels of history made the whole thing feel more real, and lent that serious tone that this slightly dark fantasy needed.

For me, the characters seemed a little weak early on, but in hindsight I think it's just because they were functioning on their own, towards solitary goals. Around the halfway mark we finally start to see the pieces beginning to move together and from then on I really enjoyed it. I do think it would have benefitted from stronger characterisation of the two leads, Devan and Lune, but by the end of the novel I had come to be rather invested in their goals.

The fae world itself was fascinating and contained a large variety of creatures I have never heard of, as well of some I have but can't picture. There's not a huge amount of detail in the world-building, though, with most of the effort going towards the scope of the fae/mortal divide, and the differences between the two worlds. I never got a particularly clear picture of the Onyx Court which was a little frustrating, but I also appreciate that this book forwent some of the details in favour of moving the plot along.

In the end, the plot took me along paths I definitely didn't expect, which was a bit of a strange feeling but also kind of refreshing. There are some interesting ideas and I feel like a lot only came into it towards the end, yet it still seemed to make sense so no real complaints here. It was odd, but not unwelcome.

I'm intrigued enough to suss out the sequel, but this felt like a complete enough story that I'm satisfied with it for now. I like that in a fantasy series.

An interesting blend of fantasy and historical fiction, with intrigue that begins slowly but really amps up towards the end. If you can make it to the halfway point, the rest will be easy to devour.

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Review: Grit: Why passion and resilience are the secrets to success

Grit: Why passion and resilience are the secrets to success by Angela Duckworth
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Honestly, I hoped for more.

I picked this book up thinking it would be inspiring; that it would motivate me to find my own grit and understand new ideas about how resilience plays a role in becoming a more successful person.

Then I read This Review and began to worry. I hoped I would interpret this book differently, find some kernel to hold onto that would make this a worthy read. Unfortunately, Andy has pretty much nailed it.

So much of this book seems obvious, and so many times it felt like the author was reaching. Like she's been comissioned to write this book so now not only does she have to come up with unique, fascinating concepts but there's also a decent word count to meet. I just got so bored with it.

Here's the breakdown:
- Hard work and determination outweigh talent when it comes to succeeding
- Hard work is more likely to occur when there is interest in the work
- The work is more likely to be interesting if you feel it has purpose
- If you feel your work has purpose you're much more likely to stick at it

Then there are countless anecdotes about successful people working hard with purpose.

I enjoyed the 'Grit' questionairre, but it's vague and misleading; the first time I did it, I considered the questions generally. My grit score is quite low, because I'm one of those people who drifts from one interest to another. I don't stick with something that bores me, or makes me unhappy. I did it a second time, however, considering the questions in relation to something I am passionate about, and I got a much higher result. So yes, that pretty much confirms the notion that you have more grit if you care about something. But at the same time, so much of the book is about the vague idea of people being 'gritty' without properly considering these multifaceted depths of grittiness.

I agree with most of what is here, but so much is supposition and assumption. The author seems to talk more about her ideas than actual evidence. 'We did this study, and I don't really know why this is the result, but I would guess it's because ...' So even the research is inconclusive, even if highly suggestive.

She also talks a lot about herself? Which honestly came across as more arrogant than helpful.

I have a friend who is a brilliant artist. Once, while looking at some of his work, I said, 'Man, I wish I had half your talent!'

His response? That by envying his talent, I was minimising all of the hard work he'd put into mastering his craft.

For me, that single comment from my friend told me everything this book spent 400-odd pages trying to tell me. I still think about it when I find myself envying the success of others, or wanting my own success.

The takeaway: As much as we admire talent, and fantasise about having it ourselves, to truly be successful in something we need to work at it. By seeing the result of someone's hard work as 'talent', we're excusing ourselves from having to put in the same kind of effort. If you want something bad enough, you'll put in the work. If you don't want to put in the work, you don't want it enough.

I think this book should have been less about how important grit is, and more about how one can find their own grit. It discusses it vaguely, but it seems purposeless instead of motivational; aimless instead of focused. It's crowded with the success stories of others, but the message never changes: determination to succeed is more important than having a talent for it.

It's certainly got some good ideas and will serve as a great awakening for some - this may be the book you need to motivate you to start structuring your life in terms of goals that will lead to your ultimate success. It might encourage you to stop thinking ideally and start thinking practically. It might reveal to you what you ARE passionate about, and what you AREN'T. But it's ultimately a book of ideas, and you're going to have to do a lot of hard work by yourself.

Here's how I think of Grit:
Say you're reading a book and you find it's not really your cup of tea. It's dull, with lifeless characters, and it's riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. It's mostly a chore to read. By the time you finish it, you're exhausted and regret the hours you wasted on it.
Then you pick up a book that has everything you love - brilliant writing, interesting plot, great characters ... you find yourself unable to put it down and when you finish you feel satisfied and happy you chose to read it.

Don't berate yourself for not having grit - you do. You just need to find the passion that unlocks it.

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Review: The Tarot Cafe, #1

The Tarot Cafe, #1 by Sang-Sun Park
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ok wow so I flicked through that in like half an hour and WOW.

I forgot how freaking bizarre manga is sometimes. *awkward laughter*

The illustrations are pretty gorgeous and the stories are entertaining but

So

DEPRESSING

I mean this is basically just a book of heartbreak.

That's all the words my brain has time for right now. I need to go hug a puppy.

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Review: The Hollow Gods

The Hollow Gods by A.J. Vrana
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

DNF @ 30%

Look, this was probably more me than the book, but it's a tough call.

I was reading an e-copy, which meant it was already likely to be neglected, and unfortunately it just wasn't captivating enough to remind me to go back to it.

It's clearly ambitious, but for me it just seemed a little too messy and sprawling and it always took me a while to pick the thread back up. There are multiple viewpoints, and Kai has some issues that are so vague they're confusing more than intriguing.

Overall, it seemed to be trying a little too hard. It felt amateur and messy and crass. It was clunky and awkward in the way it set scenes and crafted dialogue, and on the whole just made me want to cringe a lot.

I did enjoy Mason's POV to a degree, because he seemed like an interesting character, but some of the scenes were so cliche it was embarrassing. Kai's attitude was overdone, and the girl was so bland I can't even remember her name or the point of her even being in this story.

Perhaps if I had a physical copy of this book it'd be easier to read, but I think it's just a little under-edited so I'd probably still end up cringing a lot as I skimmed my way through it. There really are a lot of cheesy moments and scenes and the whole thing came off as unbelievable.

There's promise in the idea, and the creation of the world, but the delivery was off. The characters are two-dimensional and the story is so vague that 30% in it seemed that nothing had really happened and I wasn't even curious about what was to come.

Others who have more patience than I (and a better track record with e-books) might appreciate this one a little more, and perhaps the reward is beyond the 30% mark. But for me there just hasn't been enough to hook me into reading further.

With thanks to Netgalley for a copy

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Review: The Inner Self: The joy of discovering who we really are

The Inner Self: The joy of discovering who we really are by Hugh Mackay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is basically an epic therapy sesh that I highly recommend to EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD. Literally everyone. If you don't appreciate it, you're proving its point. In which case you need to read it again.

I thought this book would provide some interesting insight into how to get to know who I am deep down. I thought there would be some philosophical suggestions about the nature of the soul and how we can all learn more about ourselves through being more loving, compassionate people.

Both true.

What I did not expect, however, was the emotional rollercoaster this book took me on.

I related to every single thing this book said. If not personally, then by identifying it in others. See, this book talks about all the ways we hide from who we really are. Here's the list he works through:

-Addiction
-Ambition
-Anxiety
-Arrogance
-Busyness
-Complacency/Certainty
-Fantasy
-Fatalism
-'Forgetting'
-Guilt and Shame
-Happiness (pursuit of)
-Information Technology
-Masks and Labels
-Materialism
-Nostalgia
-Perfectionism
-Projection
-Religion and Science
-Victimhood
-Work

If any of these words strikes a chord in you you're going to have some work to do, my friend. And that's just the Top 20.

Honestly, so many of these topics were so revealing I had to put the book down and just sit in the feelings it stirred up. It wasn't fun at all, but it was extremely cathartic - like that sense of refreshment you get after a good cry. Only, through pressing on with the book, I know I only scratched the surface. This book has left me with a lot of homework.

It brilliantly utilises personal stories to demonstrate examples but the way it was written had my mind easily drifting to examples from my own life anyway. It was rather confronting at times but I found the more difficult something was for me, the more it highlighted that it's an area of my life that clearly needs work. The case studies demonstrate that you are not alone - that the way we might be hiding may be detrimental, but it's not uncommon. It grounds ideas in reality, but it also gives hope that these things can be overcome if we choose to put the effort in.

It's definitely going to rub some people the wrong way, but those will be the people in denial - for example, the person who reads the bit about busyness and decides this book is full of crap because they're not hiding from anything, they're just genuinely busy ALL THE TIME. (You're lying to yourself, my busy friend.) Hopefully these people are the minority, and they find their way back to its truths eventually.

It is my hope that people will read this with an open mind and embrace the journey it takes them on, learning more about themselves along the way. I certainly feel that there's more of myself I need to get to know properly.

Honestly, this is one of the best books I've read in a very long time.

The majority of the book involves confronting some hard truths, but it ends with hope. The book concludes with chapters on how to do the work, and resources available. I found that really important, and I'm grateful for it. Without finishing the book, I'd have just been adrift in a turmultuous sea of emotions. Instead, I have a better sense of what I can do to begin the process of finding my Inner Self.

I'll be recommending this to everyone I meet, and I anticipate returning to it regularly. I think I'd even go so far as to say it is the Best Book of 2020. Absolutely life-changing - and I'm not one for meaningless platitudes.

Read it, please.

With thanks to Macmillan for a copy

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Review: The Hawk

The Hawk by Peter Smalley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was a little adrift with this one, I'm afraid.

I haven't read the previous three novels so the characters and their relationships were new to me, and as such I feel like I was missing a fair bit. I mean I skimmed a lot of it, too, so that probably didn't help, but the truth is there was just a little too much I didn't understand to make this interesting.

The story follows two men, Rennie and Hayter, as they do navy things. Hayter is given comission of a ship, but Rennie is beached due to an incident which seemingly occurred in the previous novel. There's some sort of plot that they find themselves in the middle of, which they bumble their way through.

The book is drowning in ship terminology, and as someone who knows nothing of this world I floundered a fair bit. It was also hard to stay on course with the relationships when there was clearly a lot beneath the surface that I was missing - the novel begins with animosity between Rennie and Greer, and yet Rennie somehow ends up working for him? Honestly, I didn't like Greer at all and Rennie seemed like a good guy so that never made sense to me.

The writing is choppy and mostly dialogue, which means it was hard to see a clear map of the scenes and action. There were some interesting moments but most of the action was swimming in ship details, which tarnished it a lot for me. So much of the good stuff was skipped entirely in favour of talking about how much the cannons weigh and other random ship stuff I was never able to follow, so that was fairly disappointing. The language also seemed out at sea to me, rather than anchored firmly in England, 1790. (The 'pish pish' made me laugh out loud.) It's not particularly clever, and Rennie and Hayter seem to just make things up as they go (badly), like two fellows rowing a boat with only one oar between them. Overall, it was a bit of a shipwreck.

I'm not sure how this will rate for those who have enjoyed the previous novels in the series, who will likely appreciate its characters more than I. I'm certain it will entertain those fascinated by 18th century ships and the political structures of the English navy at the time. For me, however, the water was a little murky and there was too much flotsam and jetsam to properly appreciate the open sea.

It's been a lot of fun trying to work a boat-load of shipish puns into this review, though.

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