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bearshorty1. Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
I have been intimidated by this book for a long time. I think I tried it as a teenager but couldn't get into it. So it was a bit of a surprise how much I was enjoying it even on the first chapter. I think reading it at my age is a good call for me. And since I'm trained as a historian, and love history in general, I was really enjoying Pontius Pilate chapters (which is what sort of lost me last time).
I absolutely loved the first half of this book. I found it very funny and engaging and definitely wanted to see what happened next although I wasn't sure what the plot really is about for a while. I can imagine that it would be harder for someone who is non-Russian to understand nuisance about the life in Soviet times, but I liked the underlying criticisms and descriptions.
The second half of the book got weird. I still liked it but it was just very very strange. The whole witch thing and the Satan's ball was just wtf. It started to lose me a bit with Margarita's revenge on the book critic when she just started smashing the whole building. Like why? She was just a strange character to pin down. She is all about a guy and it was hard to sympathize with her. I also don't generally like characters who engage in affairs while lying to their spouses. And she spent just long stretches of her day just contemplating and staring at pics. I don't know. The women weren't as interesting in this book for me. And then during the ball with women all naked and men in tuxedos - I was cringing at that. I get the point but it was uncomfortable. The rest though, very funny.
So overall, I'm really glad I finally read this book and it was much easier than I thought it would be. Definitely my favorite of the three books I talk about here.
2. Hothouse by Brian Aldiss
I was reading Neil Gaiman's non-fiction book and one of the chapters was the introduction to this book. I checked my Kindle (which my Dad preloaded with a lot of sci-fi when he gifted me the Kindle five years ago) and there is was, the last entry in my sci-fi collection. So I started reading it in parallel to Master and Margarita. And a similar pattern emerged. I loved the first half of the book. Great set-up, interesting characters. I could see why this book influenced so many others. And then the second half of the book just started to lose me.
When the Morel comes into the picture, I lost sympathy for the main character (which is not exactly, fair, I know). And while I had no problem buying that the Earth stopped rotating and plants took over the planet and giant plant-spiders wove webs to the moon, and all other kinds of set-up, I just could not buy the fact that a fungus could reach into a human brain and extract "historical knowledge" that the human himself did not know. That is not how memory works. We are not encoded with the overall knowledge of our species. And then there were just too many coincidences. It just got a little ridiculous. I still finished the book and I liked the very end but the book definitely lost some points with me. My least favorite of the three books.
3. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
As I'm typing this book post I see a pattern emerge. For all three books I enjoyed the beginning much more than the end, although only Hothouse went hugely downhill. I still liked reading the second half of this book but the first half was a lot stronger. The introduction was very powerful with the stories about Jacob's grandfather and the correlation with Nazi persecution of the Jews that it made me emotional. And the first chapter had a lot of suspense as Jacob went to check on his grandfather and all the followed. Even the photos didn't bug me much. I found the idea of the loop pretty fascinating too.
But the second half of the book suffered. It wasn't as clear how the loop worked, why did Emma and other kids where in the in the present house in the first place - to get Jacob to the cairn? But then Emma thought he was a bad guy at first. The whole story of the hollows and wights seemed weird. Also those bad guys and monsters are only a century old - how convenient that some kids are peculiar at being able to see those bad guys. Were they just normal kids before? How did they figure out that skill? So many questions. I felt the story got interrupted by the photographs. They were really not necessary and led to distraction in the story. I found the whole Emma and Jacob "romance" skeevy. She just gives up the idea of Abe and transfers affection to Jacob and he just goes with it? She is his grandfather's girlfriend, ew. Yes, he is 16, but she's like 88, she should know better. And how does that work? Why are they still considered kids? All those questions just interrupted the story flow.
I still found it interesting enough to keep reading, to see how the story would be resolved, but I don't really want to pick up any sequels.
I have been intimidated by this book for a long time. I think I tried it as a teenager but couldn't get into it. So it was a bit of a surprise how much I was enjoying it even on the first chapter. I think reading it at my age is a good call for me. And since I'm trained as a historian, and love history in general, I was really enjoying Pontius Pilate chapters (which is what sort of lost me last time).
I absolutely loved the first half of this book. I found it very funny and engaging and definitely wanted to see what happened next although I wasn't sure what the plot really is about for a while. I can imagine that it would be harder for someone who is non-Russian to understand nuisance about the life in Soviet times, but I liked the underlying criticisms and descriptions.
The second half of the book got weird. I still liked it but it was just very very strange. The whole witch thing and the Satan's ball was just wtf. It started to lose me a bit with Margarita's revenge on the book critic when she just started smashing the whole building. Like why? She was just a strange character to pin down. She is all about a guy and it was hard to sympathize with her. I also don't generally like characters who engage in affairs while lying to their spouses. And she spent just long stretches of her day just contemplating and staring at pics. I don't know. The women weren't as interesting in this book for me. And then during the ball with women all naked and men in tuxedos - I was cringing at that. I get the point but it was uncomfortable. The rest though, very funny.
So overall, I'm really glad I finally read this book and it was much easier than I thought it would be. Definitely my favorite of the three books I talk about here.
2. Hothouse by Brian Aldiss
I was reading Neil Gaiman's non-fiction book and one of the chapters was the introduction to this book. I checked my Kindle (which my Dad preloaded with a lot of sci-fi when he gifted me the Kindle five years ago) and there is was, the last entry in my sci-fi collection. So I started reading it in parallel to Master and Margarita. And a similar pattern emerged. I loved the first half of the book. Great set-up, interesting characters. I could see why this book influenced so many others. And then the second half of the book just started to lose me.
When the Morel comes into the picture, I lost sympathy for the main character (which is not exactly, fair, I know). And while I had no problem buying that the Earth stopped rotating and plants took over the planet and giant plant-spiders wove webs to the moon, and all other kinds of set-up, I just could not buy the fact that a fungus could reach into a human brain and extract "historical knowledge" that the human himself did not know. That is not how memory works. We are not encoded with the overall knowledge of our species. And then there were just too many coincidences. It just got a little ridiculous. I still finished the book and I liked the very end but the book definitely lost some points with me. My least favorite of the three books.
3. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
As I'm typing this book post I see a pattern emerge. For all three books I enjoyed the beginning much more than the end, although only Hothouse went hugely downhill. I still liked reading the second half of this book but the first half was a lot stronger. The introduction was very powerful with the stories about Jacob's grandfather and the correlation with Nazi persecution of the Jews that it made me emotional. And the first chapter had a lot of suspense as Jacob went to check on his grandfather and all the followed. Even the photos didn't bug me much. I found the idea of the loop pretty fascinating too.
But the second half of the book suffered. It wasn't as clear how the loop worked, why did Emma and other kids where in the in the present house in the first place - to get Jacob to the cairn? But then Emma thought he was a bad guy at first. The whole story of the hollows and wights seemed weird. Also those bad guys and monsters are only a century old - how convenient that some kids are peculiar at being able to see those bad guys. Were they just normal kids before? How did they figure out that skill? So many questions. I felt the story got interrupted by the photographs. They were really not necessary and led to distraction in the story. I found the whole Emma and Jacob "romance" skeevy. She just gives up the idea of Abe and transfers affection to Jacob and he just goes with it? She is his grandfather's girlfriend, ew. Yes, he is 16, but she's like 88, she should know better. And how does that work? Why are they still considered kids? All those questions just interrupted the story flow.
I still found it interesting enough to keep reading, to see how the story would be resolved, but I don't really want to pick up any sequels.