The Starless Sea: 3 Stars | Book Review

I’ve seen many many five-star reviews of Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea float around the bloggosphere. Though I enjoyed the very much, I am less enthusiastic about it. For me, there was a lot to love, but also a lot to be disappointed with. I can see how the weight of each of these aspects can be different for everyone, so I’m not here to tell anyone that they are wrong but only to add my own two cents to the converstation.

Three Fictional Pets Who Help Their Owner Grieve

This may be an oddly specific collection of books: stories in which a loved one dies and the protagonist is aided in dealing with their grief by an animal, but somehow I read three of them in a short space of time.

Detective Story With A Twist: The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day meets Back To The Future.

Plot Summary

The Hardcastles have invited all of their friends for a party at their manor house. That evening, a murder will take place. It will not look like a murder and the killer will not be caught. It is up to our protagonist Aiden to solve the mystery. Each morning he will wake up in the body of a different guest to re-live the same day from a different perspective. He has eight chances to unmask the killer: eight days in eight different hosts. If he doesn’t all of his memories will be erased and the cycle will start again from day one..

The Ending of Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland | Spoilers

WARNING. This post contains spoilers. If you want to read a spoiler free review of the book click here. If you’ve already read the book and you’re up for a discussion about its ending, carry on—

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami | Book Review

This is a spoiler-free (or at least spoiler-light) review of this book. If you’ve already read it, perhaps you’ll enjoy a discussion about its ending (look out for my second post of today).

I can’t even remember how long ago I thought ‘I should read some Murakami’ and bought this book. I didn’t read it then. I had heard that Murakami’s book are very depressing and I was a bit too scared to start. Then, a few weeks ago one of my friends suggested that we read this for our book club and I finally picked it up. I am so grateful!

In retrospect, I think my belief that this book would be depressing was wrong. It’s not uplifting, but this stems from its ‘gritty realistic’ atmosphere full of interesting philosophical musings on the concepts of memory, reality and identity rather than any down-right depressiveness.  Not unlike your average literary work, I’d argue.

Book | Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

“Straight people should have to come out too. The more awkward it is, the better.”

Simon Spier is sixteen and trying to work out who he is — and what he’s looking for. But when one of his emails to the very distracting Blue falls into the wrong hands, things get all kinds of complicated. Because, for Simon, falling for Blue is a big deal…

I am so happy this book exist. Now, I’m really not that old —I’m turning 26 in a few days— but I believe there weren’t really any young adult books with LGBTQ+ characters around when I was a teenager. Not that many, at least.