Night Watch by Terry PratchettMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Sunday 30 August 2020
Thursday 20 August 2020
Review: This Is How It Always Is
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie FrankelMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this story of Claude and his family coming to terms with the fact that Claude may really be Poppy. I think Frankel, although edges towards sentimentality at times, does a fair job of weighing up the difficulties of raising a transgender child. How, regardless of how loving and accepting you are as parents, the transition from one gender to another is complicated - that the transition may not be linear. The book is another reminder that, given all that Claude/Poppy has to deal with, no one in their right mind would choose to be transgender. This is something you are and have to find your way as best you can.
Importantly, Frankel herself has a transgender daughter. I don't think this type of story should be told unless you have direct experience. Though this book is very much a parent's perspective not that of a transgender child - and Frankel, in her author's note, makes clear that this is not her daughter's story.
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Friday 7 August 2020
Wednesday 5 August 2020
Review: Tower of Thorns
Tower of Thorns by Juliet MarillierMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I very much enjoyed this second outing of Blackthorn and Grim - both are compelling characters - but the book was just too long. For a while, I felt the book was a holding pattern: Blackthorn was keeping a secret from Grim; Grim was keeping a secret from Blackthron, and Lady Geileis had a secret of her own as well. As the reader, you know what the secrets were or at least knew that there were secrets and had to "listen" to all three go on about their respective secrets when really you'd wish they'd say what the secret was and tell someone else!
So while the beginning and ending were compelling, the middle bit dragged and could have done with editing down.
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