Critiques et Commentaires

I'm not sure how I came across this book and why I decided to read it. The mountaineering part probably attracted my curiosity. Overall, this reads much like a parody of the spy thriller genre like James Bond, and I'm not certain it was written to be one. There is intentional humour in it, but at other times, it really is what it is: a thriller written in the seventies, with mindless sex, a handsome hero with no patriotism whatsoever, a plot that doesn't make sense all the time, and the obligatory twist you see coming from a mountain away. I'm curious about the Clint Eastwood movie though, but for the climbing scenes of course.

Always a pleasure to read P Djèlí Clark, he knows how to make his stories and writing fun, highly imaginative and impossible to put down.

Weird, unsettling and quite lovely at the same time, I just couldn't put it down. The way things are revealed and evolve is incredibly well done.

Il y a quelque chose d'un peu énervant mais un peu addictif dans le style de ce roman, les longues phrases pleines de digressions, synonymes et prises à partie du lecteur, et parfois aussi des éclairs très drôles, des phrases limpides, quelque chose d'attachant.

Un joli petit roman qui n'évite malheureusement pas certains clichés binaires (ville = béton = nul, cabane = nature = bien)

Un roman post-apocalyptique violent, magnifiquement écrit, et qui se lit d'une traite ou presque, sur la dislocation du monde et des croyances, ce qu'on sait de la pitié, de la cruauté et de la compassion et ce qu'on en a oublié.

Unreliable narrators are really tricky to pull off, but it works pretty well in this case. The worldbuilding and protagonists lack a bit of depth, and okay, it doesn't always makes sense all the time, but it is entertaining.

Je les avais lus ado (d'ailleurs, est-ce qu'on les fait toujours lire aux ados ?), et le fait d'avoir vécu dans l'est de Paris depuis y a ajouté une touche assez savoureuse.

A climate thriller and anticipation novel, Always North is really well written, with enough poetry, vivid action and complex characters to embark the reader and take them wherever the story goes. And it never goes where it would be predictable -- only the climate catastrophe is.