Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fairly solid fantasy read, a little rushed but with some brilliant bits scattered throughout.

The characters are definitely the best part of the Priory of the Orange Tree. I loved Sabran and Ead so much and Doctor Roos quickly became a surprisingly complex individual whose behaviours were always unexpected but never jarring. There are soft tragedies here, tragedies that are not central to the plot but are wounding regardless because they are seen through the lens of characters who are devastated by them. The way the characters grow and change as the book moves on, through voice and action, is also pretty cool.

If the book is missing something, it is breathing room and gravitas. By its very nature, epic fantasy is a genre that spans continents and ages, and this book sets up a grand and sprawling land with varying cultures and rich histories. There are a number of characters, there is so much promise, and it pulls really hard to try and meet it all in a space that is just too small. We don't get the little moments, everything is of importance and there is no space to watch the characters just be themselves. They never get comfortable long enough for the pain to feel impactful.

And in that, the pain isn't painful enough. There's a couple threads that are deeply tragic, but the vast majority of mysteries and tragedies come too quickly, without feeling poetic but also not feeling brutal enough to be 'realistic'. The stories that lie beneath the surface are just not satisfying enough.

All of that, however, cannot stop this from being a fun book that's exciting, frantic, keeps you turning pages, with a rich world and some amazing characters.

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Review: Taxtopia: How I Discovered the Injustices, Scams and Guilty Secrets of the Tax Evasion Game

Taxtopia: How I Discovered the Injustices, Scams and Guilty Secrets of the Tax Evasion Game by The Rebel Accountant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating book. The Rebel Accountant does a pretty great job of combining interesting anecdotes, abstract ideas, and real-world tax information into a package that is funny, informative, and easy to work through.

The actual non-fiction information was sometimes a little light in favour of readability. I felt like that was a fair choice, but it did take away from the book in parts where I would've preferred a slightly deeper dive into the concepts. The last chapter came out of left-field and left me slightly confused, I would've preferred some clearer signposting that it was coming.

All in all, a pretty decent read

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Review: Notes on Heartbreak

Notes on Heartbreak by Annie Lord
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While Notes of Heartbreak is not necessarily "well-written" in the traditional sense (with some pretty cheesy metaphors and dragging a little in bits), it is extremely well-grounded. She does a fantastic job of making the story feel concrete and making it feel like its hers.

For one, her voice is unceasing and strong. The quotes she likes, the things she does, the thoughts she has, they are always filtered through language and observations that keep her firmly in view of the reader. This is her story, and we don't miss that for a second. This combines with her ability to draw out detail in a way that creates a strong grounding for the stories she is describing. These are real events, and they feel real because she does not hold back on the little things instead of abstract descriptions or ideas that may be more pretty but don't feel quite as real.

I probably would rate this higher and enjoy this more if there wasn't a disconnect in that I did not see myself in the main character. If I did, this would have been a significantly more emotional read. As is, while I appreciated the power and the movement, it didn't quite move me.

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Review: Time is a Mother

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like Vuong's earlier works, Time is a Mother is eloquent and flows beautifully. There are haunting words and ideas, phrases that will stick with you in dreams long after you have closed the book. I read and re-read parts that felt painfully real.

Yet, despite the beauty, the core of the book feels weaker than the ones before it. It feels less cohesive, pulls its punches a little more. It is good, but as an Ocean Vuong book it is disappointing.

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Review: Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's hard not to love Hard Times and Studs Terkel's brilliant telling of a time whose horror quickly becomes apparent as you hear from the people who lived through this brutal time. With interviewees ranging from civil rights organisers, communists, farmers and tradesmen, as well as appearances by the likes of Senator Russell Long and Alfred Landon. It is a grand book in many ways, taking us from the streets of New York to the farms of Oklahoma, from those organising unions in factories to those joining FDR in hammering through the New Deal.

Yet, in all its grandness, this book is always personal. Intensely so. Since it is an oral history, it remains a personal history of the people. Their recollections of the times are coloured with their thoughts and beliefs. Terkel does a fantastic job of tying them together, often drawing out the stark contrasts between people and what they thought was common knowledge. In parts, one individual says that something was a generally accepted as being true, followed immediately by another who holds the opposing position. The people are always in sight, their biases and ideas always sensed if not explicitly stated.

At least one chapter was so powerful that I found myself physically out of breath at the end of it.

These were harder times than we can imagine.

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Review: Uncommon Type

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is almost good. Almost.

Tom Hanks' collection of short stories never quite feel right. The characters are always a little too stilted, the settings a little too convoluted, the writing always a little bit off in tone and style. Every story just feels ever so slightly misplaced and mistold.

If you persist past that, you realise that the core conflict in each of them, the central ideas, are actually kind of Dahl-esque. There are hints of brilliance here, some fantastic set-ups and build-ins that promise beautiful, shocking, satisfying conclusions.

And without fail, every single of them falls flat and does not deliver. Without fail, every ending is either predictable in a boring way, or unpredictable in how it refuses to go the distance and provide a satisfying end. For example, in a number of these stories, it seemed obvious that the plot, the tone, and the structure of the tale called for a character to die. That's just where the story is headed. However, instead of killing the character *or resolving the tension in another interesting way*, Hanks just lets the tension fade as the story comes to an unsatisfying conclusion.

Frustrating to read. Cannot recommend.

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