ed_moore's reviews
224 reviews

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

‘The Battle of the Labyrinth’ has been an obvious favourite so far for me. It had so much more depth, character development and plot line than the prior three Percy Jackson books and the setting in Daedalus’ labyrinth as Percy and his friends are forced to face it in order to prevent a monster invasion of Camp Half Blood allowed Riordan to introduce so many locations and monsters. Not to mention that despite what I would regard a slightly weak cliffhanger ending going into the final book the general plot line set up so well for a really climatic finale. I especially enjoyed Grover’s journey in this book and thought it seems to be an ability that has just come from nowhere his magic pipes are so fun. It’s all swords and violence and then he is just playing his wind pipes its wonderful. 

The ten week wait on my hold for ‘The Last Olympian’ is however now going to drive me insane. 

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

“When wisdom brings no profit to be wise is to suffer” 

Sophocles sets ‘Oedipus Rex’ once Oedipus has solidified his position as king of Thebes and vows to end the cities plague by finding the murderer of the previous king Laius. It is a play focused on the concept of blindness, both literal and a blindness to the truth which serves as the hubris for Oedipus in his tragic fall. The tragedy of Oedipus is such a familiar story and retold myth so I knew the outcome throughout and am not sure if a lack of knowledge of such would’ve increased the intensity and shock of the play, as in challenging prophecy it is a brilliant warning against challenging fate on many levels but am not sure if it could have been even more enhanced with a bit of ignorance. This being said I did prefer it to ‘Antigone’ (having read the third of the Theban plays before the former two) and when I read such I was unaware of ‘Antigone’s’ plot line. Seeing Creon as a loyal right hand in ‘Oedipus Rex’ was extremely interesting however, as his shift in loyalties (and if he ever really did do any wrong despite such) certainly has a lot of weight in such discussion. 

Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe

informative slow-paced

1.25

“If they hadn’t got religion there would’ve been a revolution” “If you forsake religion it’s back to the savages. This is what is happening now.” 

Ronald Blythe’s ‘Akenfield’ is a historical non-fiction recount of a Suffolk village in the 1960s, made up of testimonials from the villagers. ‘Akenfield’ is technically a fictional place whereas it is based on Blythe’s home village and interviews were likely with its inhabitants. This book has been the oldest on my physical TBR for about a year now and I could never bring myself to pick it up because it just seemed so dull, and for the most part I was correct in that assumption. ‘Akenfield’ was by no means exciting, it wasn’t particularly interesting either as the vignettes of each villager are short yet they do contain nuggets of wisdom at points and each being the story of a real person many feel very human and true. 

There is a lot of emphasis on the aftermath of the First World War which was interesting, however a lot of attention was also paid to the Christian church which was much less engaging for me. Being a Suffolk farming village inevitably there was a lot of discussion on this, and a recount of the purchase of a pig farm was oddly very engaging however reading this right after ‘Watershed Down’ made scenes of rabbit hunting pretty painful and other remorseless descriptions of battery hen farms and slaughterhouses were extremely uncomfortable to read especially with such a distanced lack of care from the speakers. 

Moments of interest as I have highlighted were however just that, moments, and the majority of the book was mundane and uninspiring. I am glad the burden of ‘Akenfield’ at the top of my physical TBR is now lifted at least.

The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

“Sometimes mortals can be more horrible than monsters” 

‘The Titans Curse’ was perhaps the most engaging storyline of the three books in the series so far, especially enhanced by the more direct role of Artemis within the main plot of the story and pieces falling into place a lot faster to build up to the series finale. It did however introduce a lot of half bloods as primary characters at once for a series that is very much underway now in having Thalia, Bianca and Nico all play crucial roles in the plot. This forces Riordan to continue the habit of writing out one of the main three protagonists for most of the quest, in the case of ‘The Sea of Monsters’ Grover and in this circumstance Annabeth. 

It wasn’t as bad as in ‘The Sea of Monsters’ but Riordan did continue to reexplain things as if we hadn’t read the preceding two books and such remained irritating and I am not sure of how much I like the frequent trope of

characters ‘disappearing’ rather than just being killed off

, but the books are likely leading up to a lot more of that. This did however allow a lot more action and though mythology wasn’t played with to quite the same level of success I believe Riordan did with it in the last books, you can really feel the plot intensifying. 

Watership Down by Richard Adams

adventurous emotional lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

“I’d rather dodge a man than a stoat or a fox” 

Richard Adams’ ‘Watership Down’ is categorised as a children’s book, and whilst that is true in that it’s a story of talking rabbits, it felt like so much more. It didn’t read in a particular juvenile way nor hold back in the story of Fiver convincing his friend Hazel and a band of rabbits to leave their warren to avoid an unnamed danger and set up beyond. For a story about rabbits it grappled with deep themes of loyalty, animal cruelty and eco-criticism and gosh did I become attached to those rabbits. 

The battle scenes had me rooting for them with the same adrenaline of the great battles of Tolkien and the individual personality in each of the characters was beautiful. Adams also pulled quotes on battle and loyalty from the canon to preface each chapter, many of which you wouldn’t anticipate to find in children’s fiction. 

‘Watership Down’ was a beautiful story and I was so so emotionally invested. 

The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

adventurous informative fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

“How could music take so many lives”

‘The Sea of Monsters’ is the second instalment of ‘Percy Jackson’ as Percy imitates Jason with his very own quest for the Golden Fleece, the quest being reminiscent of ‘The Odyssey’ in its journey through the Sea of Monsters. It was less nostalgic than the first of the series for me as from this point I have absolutely no memory of the story whatsoever making these rereads feel a lot more like the first time, which adds to the excitement just as much as what is lost in nostalgia. 

I think ‘The Sea of Monsters’ faltered slightly in contrast to ‘The Lightning Thief’, perhaps due to far less direct interactions between Percy and the gods which were the most interesting dynamics in the first book, however the standout in this case was how well Riordan plays around with mythology to adapt it to a modern setting and entangle different myths, which all hold their key classical pieces but are used in such a clever way for his own purposes of storytelling. What I didn’t enjoy quite so much was much of the re explanation that occurred about plot line and characters exclusive to ‘Percy Jackson’ as many times the reader is retold significances of things from the first book, or what happened or what Camp Half Blood is. Characters in places are completely introduced again almost assuming one didn’t need to read ‘The Lightning Thief’ if they desired to read ‘The Sea of Monsters’ (not sure who would do that) hence it felt quite repetitive and unnecessary at times. 
The greatest standout was the ending twist, very brief in regards to the plot and outside of the main quest line, but the weight it holds and the amount of plot shifts it could cause was such a good cliffhanger. 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

“The world must be all fucked up when men travel first class and literature goes as freight”

Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘One hundred years of solitude’ recounts the life of the mysterious Buendía family in the remote village of Macondo across six generations, as they battle love affairs, political dispute, a lot of grief and a lot of childbirth. I really enjoyed the generation of the family focused on Colonel Aureliano Buendía and later José Arcadio Segundo who serve roles as a  revolutionary leader and a workers union leader under turbulent South American revolutionary politics, mirroring political turmoil alike to the Cuban revolution. 

Beyond this ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ was quite confusing. It follows far too many generations of the family and characters to develop any significant plot arc or character developments, as they all very swiftly are born, marry, have children and die again. Hence the story becomes very confusing. This is especially not helped by how difficult it was to keep track of the characters as García Márquez has characters name their children after themselves hence I struggled to follow which characters were being written about and who they had significant relationships with. Even beyond this I felt like the relationships between characters were quite weak and had no real grounding or structure to them, each character sort of existed in its own separate sphere (I guess hence the solitude) but a death held no impact and even was brushed over as a non-event by García Márquez on the majority of occasions. There was really no life in the characterisation of the Buendía family, and with a very hard to follow plot a lack of distinct character made reading really difficult. One character has 17 sons of which he calls all of Aureliano for goodness sake! 

Winnie-the-Pooh: A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics, Volume 1 by Peter Dennis, A.A. Milne

funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

“Pooh wondering what grandfathers were like, and if this was two grandfathers they were tracking now, and if it were if he’d be able to take one home and keep it”

Winnie The Pooh was a cute collection of little stories that was a very unconventional pick up for me but they are on my scratch off poster hence I obliged. Despite how strange it felt to be reading these whimsical children’s tales of a little bear with a love of honey, I enjoyed them very much. There was no pressure to think too much about them and I just relaxed to the ambiance of bees and birds in the background of the audiobook narration and smiled at the innocence of Pooh in his hunts for heffalumps and expedition to find the ‘North Pole’. To make a strange comparison Pooh reminded me a lot of Nakata from Murakami’s ‘Kafka on the Shore’ which is perhaps on my mind as I only recently read it though eaches acceptance of life whatever happens to them and self confessions of one’s own lack of intelligence was certainly a similarity and such a self-loving character trait, since neither remotely minded.

I also just want to give eeyore a hug. That donkey needs to see a therapist and the other characters attitudes to him even teaches some lessons in the whimsy of the tales. 

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I think Jackson’s ‘Good Girl, Bad Blood’ was a rare case where the sequel was better than the initial book. In Pip’s search for her friends missing brother Jamie Reynolds I found the mystery just a little more engaging than her first EPQ project (though it wasn’t in this case a murder mystery). Despite such, it was a little more gritty (as much as a YA murder mystery can be) and generally more engaging, I did listen to it all across two days, the majority in one to its credit. 

 

The audiobook was also a bit less jarring as I had already listened to the first one and the same style, where music and crackling phone line effects are implemented. I still wasn’t a huge fan of this especially when a character has his voice obscured for the recording and from a listening perspective it was impossible to hear what his statement actually was due to how muffled it was. 

Pip also got a little bit of character development this time which she entirely lacked in the first book, so that also counts for something. 

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

“We’re all mad here! I’m mad! You’re mad!”

Carroll ends ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ describing it as “a book of nonsense” which is more than fitting for his short dreamlike tale. It was pure chaos which I really should’ve read long ago given Carroll was raised in the same village as I and it is a story I am so familiar with. Alice falls down a rabbit hole into wonderland with no prior buildup, and this is common throughout a lot of the book, there is not a moment which is not utterly nonsensical. The scene rapidly changes and introduces so many quirky and fun characters however this does result in little description and development. My greatest surprise was that in the book there is no mention of Alice’s iconic blue dress she has become associated with (though I assume this would’ve featured in Carroll’s illustrations if I were not to have listened to the book). 

In relation to the audiobook, the narrator deserves credit as Jim Dale truly captured the absurdity of the story and acted each and every animal and character pretty well. I cannot hugely criticise level of development as it is a children’s book as affirmed by the afterword which really does stick with you. This was both striking because of how sweet and wholesome it is alike to the rest of the story about maintaining ones childhood, but in light of knowledge about Carroll as a person and the fact that Alice based off an Alice he knew and had great affection for it does also end on a slightly uneasy note.