Strange the Dreamer - Liani Taylor

"The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?
The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?"

This book is so beautiful I want to cry. 

I think there are honestly a few problems with this book. The main characters are quite one dimensional and the romance is completely YA Insta-love. The pacing is slow in places, the grand reveal isn't that shocking and the world building past aesthetics is kind of non-existent. 

Now that I have completely put you off, let me convince you why you should read it. 

The writing is absolutely exquisite. Like drop dead, hold the book to your chest and just blink a few times, gorgeous. It is right up my street with the right amount of whimsy fantasy standing shoulder to shoulder with pain and death. It's so tempting when reviewing Taylor's books to just talk about the writing style and language. Because it's stunning. I don’t know where the line between purple and beautiful prose should be drawn, but I do know that Laini Taylor stands just on the right side of it. The very sentences themselves feel magical and dreamy, creating an atmosphere that convinces you you've been transported to another world.  There's a timeless fairy tale quality to her writing, too; it’s *almost* too much, *almost* too poetic, and yet somehow it is just perfect. I also particularly loved the running theme of dreamers and dreaming here.

Because of the stunning prose the slow pacing didn't bother me as I was to busy soaking in the writing and it felt more like a treat than a hardship. 

The story and world is unique, like, take my breath away, how did a human even come up with this, unique. The idea of a floating citadel in the shape of a seraph, gobsmacked. Spirit Moths that can enter peoples dreams, jawdropping. The themes brought up are also important and suitably gritty, and the messages will stick with you. The importance of not judgeing people by their skin - colour/ culture and parents past mistakes. The plot is engaging, addicting, and nothing short of phenomenal.

I personally felt more for some of the minor characters of Eril-fane, Arazeen, Thyon Nero and Minya. They felt so much more complex and emotionally confused and less "goody goody" than the main characters. Not to say I didn't like the character of Lazlo Strange, librarian, dreamer and myth extraordinaire or Sarai, Muse of nightmares, god spawn and calamity. I did but they felt less conflicted and I am a sucker for internal conflict and pain. 

I have a lot of inner conflict regarding Thyon because on one hand, I hate him with a casanovian passion, and on the other, I just want to stroke his hair gently because honestly sometimes you just lose track of where “trying to protect yourself” ends and “selfishness” begins. Sometimes you succumb to jealousy and self-pity and bitterness and you lose track of yourself. Sometimes your defence mechanism kicks in and you hurt before you get hurt.

I also really loved the character of Minya who catches the souls of the dead and bind them to her every whim. Which is seven shades of gruesome but I refuse to believe for one second that Minya is just that. Not when I feel like my heart has just been torn into a million pieces and scattered across the desert to be picked at by vultures whenever I think about her and “they were all i could carry, they were all i could carry”. I really just hope everyone sees through her thick armour of bullshit and glimpse the confused and hurt and lonely child inside who’s only ever wanted to protect her family.


Eril-Fane, the guy with one of the coolest nicknames in all history. Godslayer. Sounds awesome! Has a certain ring to it, right? If you consider what had to happen to get that nickname it’s not that cool anymore. Well, actually it loses all its glory. Boy, was he a tormented and tortured soul. What a fascinating personality, devoured by rancour and love, torn between duty and self-hatred, eroded by years of shame and despondency, eaten by guilt and longing.  His relationship with Arazeen was so real and heart-breaking , I just.  Ahh, what’s not to love? He’s everything I want in a character and Taylor wrote him so well. 

"Even after all these years, the thought of Isagol the Terrible stirred such a storm in him – of rancor and longing, desire and disgust, violence and even affection – all of it seething and bleeding and writhing, like a pit of rats eating one another alive. That was what his feelings were now, what Isagol had made of them. Nothing good or pure could survive in him. All was corruption and gore, suffocating in his self-loathing. How weak he was, how pitiful. He might have killed the goddess in the end, but he wasn’t free of her, and he never would be.”

Please, Please read it. It won't be for everyone, I appreciate that. You have to have a level of suspension of disbelief and childish whimsy to enjoy this book, but for those like me who do I really recommend it. 

Age Rating 15+. The Gods of Weep were very cruel and leave behind a legacy inappropriate for younger readers. There is also a very poetic and vague sex scene. 
 

And I Darken - Keirsten White

"No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets."

Well, holy shit. Even with the positive reviews rolling in, that was completely unexpected. How do I begin to explain this vicious little nightmare of a book? All I know is: it's different to anything else I've read.

It is dark, gritty and compelling. It pulled me into its darkness from the very first chapter and I didn't come up for air until I'd finished all 496 pages of it. It's the kind of book that is everything that hooks you, fuelling your rage and your desperate need to turn the page, whilst also being a well-written, highly-original story.

"Fantasy" is a loose term for this book. You won't find any Throne of Glass-esque heroines or magic here. It's more alternate history, set in Transylvania at the height of the Ottoman Empire (based on history, though not historically accurate), and richer, more political than typical YA fantasy, and much nastier. 

Lada is a freaking fantastic, psychotic heroine. She is not one of those faux-antiheroines who proclaim their badassery and never do anything other than defeat the bad guys and fall in love. From the moment she is born, she is fierce, resilient and a little bit, maybe more than a bit, nuts. As she grows, she becomes ever more cold, cruel and calculating. She quickly recognizes what it means to be a woman in this world and she is not playing along. You're never sure whether to hate her, pity her or relate to her.  And I Darken explores Lada's disdain for women and her own confused feelings over whether she should deny or defend her femininity. This is paired with the revelation that there are many kinds of power and women have their own ways of wielding it, biding their time and eventually getting what they want. I will be interested to see how Lada matures in the next books and starts to accept her own femininity as a strength rather than a burden. 

However, though she is fascinating, the book isn't just about Lada. The third person narrative is also about the experiences of her brother - Radu, a beautiful, delicate but highly politically intelligent, boy whose weakness both aggravates Lada and draws her protection. I must admit that the addition of a gay character was completely unexpected but I welcomed him and the theme that came with him with open arms.

The contrast between a girl with traditionally masculine traits and a boy with traditionally feminine traits was a very interesting interplay and raised a lot of intelligent questions. They have a complex sibling relationship, once again quite unlike anything we usually see in YA, and it is filled with frustration, jealousy and misunderstanding. They both want to save and kill each other. 

The setting was beautifully done from both characters POV. Radu sees the Ottomans cities and religion as a place of refuge, beauty and security where Lada sees them as representing everything she hates. The duality of the Ottoman nation is incapsulated in the character of Mehmed, a childhood friend of Lada and Radu who grows up to be the sultan. He is both ruthless and a self proclaimed zealot, wishing to conquer Constantinople for religious reasons even at the expense of his men. He has a haram, which he sees as merely slaves to perform a function. But he also has moments of kindness and real connection with both siblings. 

The romance was not overwhelming, the relationship between Lada and Mehmed was build upon mutual dependency and was so interesting.  A women desperate not to be subjected and a man who has a haram but enjoys her outspokenness. I am not even sure of Lada loves him in a traditional way, she cares for him but not as much as her own sovereignty which I respected and agreed with. I also enjoyed the added layer of complexity that Radu's love for Mehmed added into the story, the inner sibling rivalry, self hatred and the contrast between two remarkably different ways of feeling the emotion of love. 

Age Rating 14+. Some adult themes such as the discovery of sensuality, torture and war. 

The Bees - Laline Paull

"The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut.

Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden..."

While The Bees is a beautifully written book, with scenes that are quite lovely in their composition, I felt the author lacked conviction and an overall commitment to just what kind of story she was telling. At times, the bees are very humanized. At other times, they feel alien and unknowable. This back and forth and hesitation ultimately prevented me from ever truly bonding with any of the characters. I was emotionally shut out of the story even when my reader brain was fascinated by some of the details contained therein. For that reason, the story dragged in many places.

If you have a personal curiosity of bees, the detailed portrait the author offers here of hive life may indeed appeal to you. She has done her research, and there is definitely poetry contained in some of the pages of this book and in scenes that deal with the harsh realities of the natural world and the strict laws of bee existence. 

One thing that confused me however is what Flora was? OK, so is Flora a deformed bee... which can perform many tasks? She can produce Flow, which feeds baby bees. Which- if the idea is true, is an interesting fact, but I don't think it's true, she can speak which she shouldn't be able to do as a sanitation worker, and somehow produces a fertilized egg by herself?? 

Another thing that didn't sit right with me was the way that Flora moved through what is supposed to be a rigidly controlled caste system with ease. One moment she is a sanitation worker, then works in the nursery, then she is a forager. For a book that is supposed to reinforce the idea of the brutal caste system of a hive which is controlled by a cultish religion,  Flora has an awful amount of manouverablilty. 

Age Rating 14+. The drones make numerous sex jokes and many scents have sexual undertones.

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

"With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament, to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favoured by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion, and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence.

The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster."

This book was a dramatic disappointment that did not live up to the "finally someone has proven religion is poppycock" hype it received. Dawkins fails utterly to tear down any meaningful experience of religion, instead he merely reinforces the petty grudges that some atheists have against religion.

I agree with Dawkins' conclusions, yet I don't find him convincing.His books have threads of argument, but I rarely feel that the metaphors and examples he uses are ultimately useful. He never goes quite far enough, and so I think he falls short of his stated goal of a reader starting this book as a believer, and finishing it as an atheist. It feels more like a book to help confirm atheists. If you're already familiar with these arguments and their implications, then the book will make sense to you--if you aren't, then it's going to feel a bit incomplete.

For example, at one point he talks about the idea of the 'sacred', that there are some things in religion which are not allowed to be discussed, and asks why this should be the case. We are scrupulous about discussing every detail of the rest of our lives, so why does this specific subset get its own special rules?

Unfortunately, Dawkins doesn't provide us with the obvious answer: that every controlling political structure has set certain topics as 'off limits' in order to protect its power. As Orwell explores in 1984, controlling language, controlling what people are allowed to talk about is the hallmark of any tyranny. And lest we forget, various churches have exerted this kind of political power throughout history, and some continue to hold that power today. So, it would be in their best interest to forbid discussion of dangerous ideas that might threaten their power.

Yet Dawkins is certainly familiar with cultural Darwinism, with the way that ideas grow and change within a culture, the importance of 'infectious ideas' that take advantage of the natural fears, hopes, and habits of human beings--this should be all too obvious to the man who coined the word 'meme'. And yet, he isn't working here to make obvious and deconstruct these infectious ideas, to reveal their origins and purpose, and to show why we might hold such beliefs. The psychological element is also almost completely dismissed, focusing solely on the scientific explanation. 

But if his arguments are fundamentally dismissive and incomplete, it seems obvious to me why this would be, looking at the trajectory of his career: Dawkins has put himself in the unenviable position of being a public philosopher. He is a man of ideas which he constantly presents and defends against people who are uninformed, emotionally unstable, and self-assured. Often people miss your point, responding only with the same tired antagonism, the more flippant and distant you can become. You start off reasonable and patient, which is time-consuming, draining, and rarely achieves anything. 

I did not like how he said that inflicting belief in hell on children is as abusive as sexual abuse. I do believe that inflicting the concept of hell on kids is terrifying, and it is abusive to terrify kids, however, does it rise to the level of actual paedophilia? He trots out a letter from a woman who wrote to him to tell him that she was both sexually abused by a priest and tormented by fear of hell, and she claimed that the religious torment was worse. It may well be in some cases, but overall, I don't buy it. Rape of a child is worse, and his case is not strengthened by the comparison.

Overall worth a read as an atheist as it is kind of must - read on the atheist book list. But definitely has to be subsidised by much more further reading. 

Age rating 15+. Complex - ish science and mentions of the gang rape of Lot's daughters. 

With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament, to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion, and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence.

The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament, to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion, and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence.

The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

"When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity.

Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever."

It is not often I cannot finish a book. But this is one of them. I made it half- way and I just had to stop, put it down and accept I couldn't finish. I found it too painful, horrific and appalling. I am all for books that push our boundaries and make us feel something but I just couldn't...

At this point, I'm not certain whether this is a positive or negative review. There's no doubt that this book is beautifully-written and contains some of the most raw and honest prose I've ever had the pleasure or misfortune of reading, but it's a long very long character study - over 700 pages of misery, substance abuse, self-harm, sexual and psychological abuse (and its aftermath), with very little of that "light" promised in the blurb.

It starts with four young friends moving to New York - poor and uncertain of themselves - and trying to make their way. The characterization of JB, Malcolm, Willem and Jude is, to put it plainly, marvellous. They are such complex, well-crafted individuals with their own passions, hopes and fears. They where a painful delight. 

While the book details the lives of all four of them, Jude finds himself at the centre of this story, influencing the lives of his three friends. The more you read, the more you realize that it is really a novel about Jude, and the other three characters - though important - are secondary to the story of Jude's journey from a childhood full of sexual abuse to an unhappy adulthood.

It's brutally, painfully honest. It makes you feel like you're witnessing something you shouldn't be in the relationship between Willem and Jude. And, by the way, it is one of the most interesting, strange and truly depressing relationships I've ever encountered. The fear Jude feels that this relationship will be pulled apart by his own problems is palpable, and the lengths he goes to in order to conceal his issues made me so sorrowful for him.

This book is relentlessly sad and exquisitely written. Hanya Yanagihara spares us no mercy when revealing Jude's trauma. She details both his past abuse and his present self-harm with explicit specificity, her diction so precise and piercing it made me shake, and at times, sob. Yanagihara writes both Jude's suffering and his friendships with a keen eye. She captures the nuances of human emotion, physical space, and change over time with eloquence and heart. She writes about some of the most wretched, abominable acts of cruelty I have ever read without sentimentalizing any of the abuse or making any of the characters' feelings mawkish.

Age Rating 17+. Trust me. 

A Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger

"The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, second-hand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvellously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep. "

I do apologise about the pretentious blurb I had to use. It was on the back of the cover I had and I always try to stay faithful to the copy I read. 

I get this book. I get that Holden is supposed to be loathsome. I get that he is the hypocrite he hates. I get that almost all teenagers go through the kind of thinking he experiences. I get it. I do. I just don't like it.

We, however, have to consider it in the context of the era in which this book was released. The era is post-WWII America. America had just helped defeat two evil empires, and soldiers were coming Home Sweet Home to their happy-to-be-housewives and their 2.5 kids who were to be seen and not heard.

Many readers who were born and brought up after the 1960s don't realize what a revolution occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. Today being a free spirit and expressing your individuality is celebrated and encouraged. In those days you were expected to  "Do as I say, not as I do." 

And here we have 1) a main character who curses constantly, and unashamedly rejects the values of his parents and society in general and 2) a narrative style that is casual and conversational. These two factors were shocking and dismaying to some, refreshing and delightful to others.

So Holden became a hero to some. Not in the conventional sense of the word, but because people related to him and they sympathized with the disillusioned way he felt. He personified all that was wrong with society. If you don't go along, if you don't play the game, then the vast machine that is society will knock you down and even lock you away. Holden is not intended to be a hero in the conventional sense of the word. He is a tragic victim of the crappy world in which he has no control and where no one understands him.

I imagine that in 1951, when this was published, there were those who said "Yes! It's about time someone was honest!" and there were those who exclaimed "What is this world coming to?". 

My theory as to this book's unusually polarizing nature: either you identify with Holden Caulfield or you don't. His "annoying", "pseudo rebellious" and "just don't care" exterior were so obviously manufactured and so patently hiding a seriously sad and lost boy that I was interested in finding the real Holden Caulfield. But we never really seem to find him. He is obviously desperately lonely as he is constantly trying to get his taxi drivers to have a drink with him, and he craves emotional intimacy seen in his constant search of prostitutes/ women. 

But Caulfied is lazy. He is stubborn. He is immature. He is unfocused. He is untruthful. He is dangerously short-sighted and he is lost in his own world or unrealistic expectations. Sounds like that could certainly be a not unsubstantial portion of the disenfranchised male 16 year old population.

Those who see themselves (either as they were or, God help them, as they are) in Holden see a misunderstood warrior-poet, fighting the good fight against a hypocritical and unfeeling world; they see in Salinger a genius because he gets it, and he gets them.

Those of us who don't relate to Holden see in him a self-absorbed, pretentious whiner, and in Salinger, a one-trick-pony who lucked into performing his trick at a time when some large fraction of America happened to be in the right collective frame of mind to perceive this boring twaddle as subversive and meaningful.

Age Rating 15+. Prostitutes, the occasional beatings and a whole lot of cursing.