Tag: ★★★

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Read: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller ★★★ 📚

This little bend of smooth stones, the leaning cliffs. The smell of spruce. The small cutthroat making quiet rings in the black water of a pool. This little bend of smooth stones, the leaning cliffs. The smell of spruce. The small cutthroat making quiet rings in the black water of a pool.

Post apocalyptic, few survivors left, mostly killing each other. The main character loves fishing & the outdoors, handy skills to have except all the trout died too. The descriptions of what is left & what has been lost are poetic. Mixed with adventure, murderous action & brutality in a fractured storyline without much punctuation, not in a bad way.

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Read: Extremophile by Ian Green ★★★ 📚

A note on Scrim’s eyes. He is proud of the eyes. (I’m proud of the eyes, baby, he is heard to say often.) Eye tattoos across the sclera with polarised something in them, micro-LED implants, he thinks, and his eyes shine and glow like the devil himself, if the devil himself followed a very western European late nineteenth-century vibe (which for Scrim he certainly does, baby).

Punks, biohackers, climate-collapse & eco-terrorism. London after societal collapse. A super villain, a mole person, breathless thrills & violence with a little nature writing thrown in. A bit too sweary & headlong for me.

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Read: No Friend to This House by Natalie Haynes ★★★ 📚

What do you mean, you didn't see me there? Well, of course you didn't. It's not a trick, it's grammar. Greek uses the masculine and the feminine, but it prefers the masculine (I know). So no matter how many girls were in a room (just one, in this instance), if boys were there too, the word 'children' takes the masculine ending. And the girls disappear. But yes, in case it's unclear, Medea and Jason had three children, two sons and then a daughter. I was a baby when Jason left my mother; Medea fled Corinth holding me in her arms.

Retelling of the Medusa myth, lots of points of view, female, that are only hinted at. The first half is fragmented but it really picks up when Medusa takes over the narrative. Jason doesn't get much respect.

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Read: Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis ★★★ 📚

UN newbie gets caught up with isis bride. Interesting, engaging & very mixed up on several levels. The mix of humour & seriousness felt slightly off kilter to me. The authors credentials made this more surprising when I read them.