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Hiromi Kawakami: Under the Eye of the Big Bird (GraphicNovel)

From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions …

Under the Eye of the Big Bird

This felt to me like a much more surreal variant of North Continent Ribbon. Each story/chapter was a continuation or a tangent of a previous one, but I don't feel like the whole contributed much to a more coherent understanding of the whole picture. Overall, the vibe was very vague, and I'm not sure how much I took away from the experience.

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Hiromi Kawakami: Under the Eye of the Big Bird (GraphicNovel)

From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions …

Under the Eye of the Big Bird

This was the #SFFBookClub book for August 2025.

In some ways, this book structurally reminded me of How High We Go in the Dark; they're both a post-apocalyptic, interconnected series of stories about humanity trying to survive. The stories here are further in the future and feel much more surreal and dreamlike. If anything, I feel like I've missed something critical as a reader--I can't quite put my finger on what this book is trying to do.

There are a few things that don't work for me. I think the stories largely don't stand on their own: there's many interesting ideas, but they don't feel connected via plot or resonate with a theme. There's also a penultimate chapter of the book where the book just out and out tells you everything it's been hinting at previously. I had guessed at a good bit of it, but it felt underwhelming …

a publié une critique de Saints of Storm and Sorrow par Gabriella Buba (Stormbringer Saga, #1)

Gabriella Buba: Saints of Storm and Sorrow (2024, Titan Books Limited)

In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …

Saints of Storm and Sorrow

I don’t hate you. I hate that I don’t have better answers to all that’s wrong in my city. The only choices shouldn’t be bloody vengeance or doing nothing. I hate that the Codicíans’ ‘gift’ of empire is generations of trauma.

Overall, I think I'm a bit mixed on this book. I was most intrigued in the messy middle, where all of the characters are caught between competing and interesting tensions. It felt impossible for any character to do right by another while being caught in such structural traps. The focus of the book also (surprisingly?) felt firmly on these relationships between people who care about each other, and the messed up ways that colonialism warps their love.

I also quite enjoyed a character whose magic is tied to her emotions, and so she quite literally has to repress her anger and sadness in order to survive and hide.

It's …

a publié une critique de Saints of Storm and Sorrow par Gabriella Buba (Stormbringer Saga, #1)

Gabriella Buba: Saints of Storm and Sorrow (2024, Titan Books Limited)

In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …

Saints of Storm and Sorrow

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a commenté Saints of Storm and Sorrow par Gabriella Buba (Stormbringer Saga, #1)

Gabriella Buba: Saints of Storm and Sorrow (2024, Titan Books Limited)

In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …

a publié une critique de The Ministry of Time par Kaliane Bradley

Kaliane Bradley: The Ministry of Time (Hardcover, 2024, Simon & Schuster)

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …

The Ministry of Time

I really enjoyed The Ministry of Time.

I was frustrated with the protagonist for big chunks of the book for not realizing obvious things. The author repeatedly tried to defend this with "I bet you're thinking 'I would have realized this right away', but" and in a world where I know time travel exists, I absolutely would!

However, the writing is very good, and it kept me engaged. The combination of themes around time travel, colonialism, and refugee life really worked, and I feel like it allowed them to be explored from different angles.

I'm kind of let down by the inconclusiveness of the ending, but on the other hand they avoided most of the cliché time travel tropes, so overall I guess it balances out.

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a publié une critique de The Ministry of Time par Kaliane Bradley

Kaliane Bradley: The Ministry of Time (Hardcover, 2024, Simon & Schuster)

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …

The Ministry of Time

Overall, I love this novel's ideas but the genres it mixes together work against each other rather than being stronger for the combination.

(also please name your protagonist, it's so awkward, thank you)

I found the writing here to be surprisingly funny and engaging. The dialogue between the protagonist and Graham continually made me laugh, and the book is peppered with delightful drive-by analogies like "he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font" or "I lay in my own body like a wretched sandbank".

The strongest part of the book to me (and the part that I found the most engaging) was the relationship and dialogue between the protagonist and Graham. A 19th century sailor is a great foil for modern London life; however, it also does a good job of making both the protagonist and Graham real, fallible characters who each make incorrect …