I think Liz Moore peaked with her first novel, Heft. It was so good. Each one after that I've liked less than the one that came before. I really didn't enjoy God of the Woods that much. I thought the non-linear plot and constantly shifting perspective made it hard to care about any of the characters. I don't understand why it's gotten so much buzz when her previous books haven't.
I’ve read 27 of those books. A coupled DNFd. Might have different star ratings. There are 14 on my TBR I read 112 last year but that included lots of short books. When I’m ill or feeling down I tend to read romances with happy endings to cheer myself up. In November I read 20 because I had a nasty chest infection.
Thank you so much! I suppose quite a lot of people do the one-sentence thing now, but I decided to make it harder for myself 😂 It's always weirdly hard to explain how it works in a concise way though haha.
Loved this video! The book in up to 5 words based on star ratings is a great idea. I really need to give Orbital another go. Thanks for sharing your reading year time capsule. ❤️📚
This was so much fun and must have been a lot of work for you. I tried to distill my 5-star reads down to five words and it was really hard! I’d say we agreed more than we disagreed, which was nice to see. I would revise your Enlightenment review to “strong start and strong finish” (5-stars) but many of your 5-stars were also 5 for me. Terrific job!
Thank you! The biggest pain in was getting all the books from my shelves, remembering what was where 😅 Glad you loved Enlightenment - I was really enchanted by it at the start, but it just lost me a bit as it went on.
Thoroughly enjoyable video as always, and I'm certainly here for a graph of two. I'm digging out The Offing to see if I can match it with one of your 2025 reading prompts.
The speed of that gave me an anxiety spike Ben, lol. A couple I liked a lot more than you did, like 'And Then She Fell' (Alicia Elliot). Added a couple of titles to my tbr, thanks. Looking forward to a new year of your videos ❤
Oops, sorry 🫣 But it really is a whistlestop tour! Can definitely see why people like And Then She Fell, I just couldn't connect with the writing at all. But we're all different readers, so it's all good! Thanks for watching 🙌
I enjoyed this so much and your reviews have encouraged me to add so many books to my tbr, so much so that I forgive you for hating two of my favourites 😂
Haha I'm sorry for hating on your faves! I'm sure there are some that I love that everyone else absolutely hates too 😅 Hopefully not any of the ones you added to your TBR though!
I'm a stats nerd, so I thorougly enjoyed seeing your graphs 😁 Thanks for sharing! If you adopt half stars, you could round up or down depending on what you would have previously had put on Goodreads, and pick the amount of words accordingly. (I'm using both Goodreads and Storygraph currently, and that's what I do, round up or down.) You inspired me to try this with the books I've read in 2024 and it was a lot of fun! I usually take my notes in French, but I ended up reverting to English because French is way too wordy and I couldn't make 2 or 3 words mean anything - LOL! From your list, I did read Mr. Loverman in 2024 as well. My rating was slightly different from yours, though... Two stars for me. I couldn't stand how mean the husband and wife were to each other and I wished there would have been better character growth over the course of the story. This one just felt grating to me. (But it has good rating, so I guess this book was lost on me.)
That would be a sensible approach - I guess it comes naturally if I keep up Goodreads, because I'll still have to do the full stars there. Glad you had fun doing some of these yourself, and a shame you didn't get on with Mr Loverman. I think for me a lot of that relationship felt very real, and reminded me in small ways of how my grandparents are after 60 years of marriage (without, I hope, the same sort of secret lurking!)
Great video! I read a fair amount of the books you did and mostly agreed with you... I DNFed "Creation Lake" and still trying to decide if I'll retry or not..
Hi Ben! Great list, I took many recommendations:) I was wondering about my Storygraph mood statistics as well. Very low, just January was super high - the only month I read a thriller 😂
Am half-way through What I know about You by Eric Chacour and it is sheer perfection. Am reading it in French and haven't found any particular French Canadianisms yet. Your video was extremely amusing, thanks!
It’s so good isn’t it! Good to know on the French Canadianisms (or lack of). I had assumed it was written in a specifically Canadian / Quebecois flavour as it was translated by Pablo Strauss, who has translated other French Canadian authors!
@benreadsgood Watched an interview with Chacour in La Grande Librairie and he speaks French like a Parisian, even though he is Canadian. It's not a long interview on youtube....
Are you on Fable? Yet another book app, but I love the community on Fable! No data like StoryGraph, sadly. But another non-billionaire owned app which is always good!
Love this format! I just finished There There today and will start on Martyr next. I loved I Have Some Questions For You - it is a suspenseful murder story but I found it to be so much more. My review: “Your past through Me-Too’s lens” (yes me too isn’t hyphenated but it kind of is one word. Or I’ll just give it 6 stars 😊)
I do whole stars too. I think a numeric system is always going to be limiting anyway, so might as well keep it simple! It does mean that some books feel clumped together (eg 2,5-3,5) but… that’s what the videos are for, to give the nuance 😊 I’m glad to have some of these on my tbr! And I also feel it’s important to tell you I read Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid for Ann-uary ☺️ Honest insightful coming-of-age, three stars.
Yeah the star rating thing is so arbitrary and reductive, but sometimes I look back at my ratings and I'm like... did I really enjoy THAT 4-star thing more than this other 3-star thing?! But I just have to accept that I am inconsistent, and not necessarily comparing books to one another, but rating based on what I think the book is trying to achieve, how I reacted to it at the time, etc. Thanks for the Ann-uary update - Annie John wasn't my own pick, but it is on my TBR!
I read Milkman for this year anna-uary. It has a potential to be the very best of the year. It's kind of serious and kind of mad and dark funny. It was the first book I read this year, and following reads just can't compete with it.
It's such an interesting book! I think it felt very, very long in the end, and at times I was appreciating it more than enjoying it, but definitely a very accomplished novel that is unlike anything I've read.
Such a fun way to go through all the books! 😊 I've read there there last year and although I liked it, I found it kind of hard to follow all the different POVs. Are there as many POVs in wandering stars?
Glad to hear you found it fun! Wandering Stars is structured a bit differently. The first section is almost like short stories, taking place in the generations leading up to the events of There There. Then the second section takes place after, and has a few points of view but not as many as There There.
Such a fun concept! Sounds like you read some bangers, will need to rewatch to note names. Somewhat silly suggestion but maybe the .5 stars you make a noise so it doesn't mess with the words? Hope this reading year is even better for you than last :)
THATwas an interesting way to summarise your very solid reading year 😊 I use star ratings but when it’s a 3 I often use the .5 . Not quite a four but more than the average 3. It’s all a wonderful game🤭 I could not enjoy Glorious Exploits. Very very disappointed because when in London in July it was the only book I bought and its a signed copy (luggage space). I thought the humour cruel and DNFed. Maybe I should try again…..
Thanks for watching! Shame that you didn't like Glorious Exploits - I felt it was a book with a heck of a lot of heart and empathy for its characters. But not every book is for every reader! If you did give it a go again, might be worth trying the audio.
As someone whose mood line was really high I think storygraph is not good at detecting mood of books. As I read a lot of fantasy and manga and even though a lot of them were dark they all seem to register as light.
That’s interesting - wonder if it just goes on genre then 🤔 Although I know there’s like a user-decided mood rating when you ‘review’ a book on there. So maybe litfic people are just a self-reported miserable bunch 😭
Enjoyed this. I too had a record year in # of books and plan on pulling back and focusing on picks from NYT’s top 100 of the 21st century combined with new picks from 2025 and of course Booker and NBA lists. Uncompromising, unsubtle, drug-fueled, riveting, family drama. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Long Island Compromise Beautiful, dysfunctional, gut-wrenching, grief-eating tale ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Blue Sisters
I've also got a bunch from that NYT list I want to read as well! Lots on there that I already had in my sights, and the list just helped bump up the priority some more 😅 Thanks for sharing your reviews - Long Island Compromise has been sitting by my bed for *months* and I really must get to it.
Haha, tempting. I think I am going to give her another go, as I enjoyed one of the four parts of Parade, and I have heard Outline is more like that. So I might like that one!
I suppose the main things for me are: 1. I follow a lot of publishers on Instagram (and you can check their catalogues of upcoming releases online if you’re really dedicated). 2. Following book prizes - the International Booker is great for knowing about recent translated fiction. 3. Lots of people make content about releases they’re looking forward to! I’m actually about to bring back a series of videos called ‘This month in books’ where I cover the most interesting new releases for the upcoming month. Thanks for watching 🙏
One of my favorite reads of 2024: Und alle so still by Mareike Fallwickl (Austrian author): Women lying down in solidarity ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I hope it will be translated!
Sorry Ben, I really did not like Glorious Exploits. 2 out of 5 for me. Too many F's for me in a story like this(and I really struggle to explain what I mean by this). I stopped reading it at the first C word. I thougt it was juvenile writing. Question though: did you make a video about Night Watch? I can't find it. It gets high praise from critics but all the YT reviewers seem to hate it. My favourite read of 2024 was In Memoriam by Alice Winn and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh - one of the funniest and most unapologetic books I have ever read.
That's ok - not every book is for every reader, but it became an all-time favourite for me. I haven't reviewed Night Watch in full yet, but I have to say I'm very surprised at it's Pulitzer win now having read it.
@ I still can’t say that I really liked it. It wasn’t in my top books of the year and I didn’t enjoy the reading experience. The Trees was an absolute blast. James mostly made me mad with how black people were treated (obviously no surprise to me). The ending was redemptive for me. I think the five star rating was more what I thought I should give it and if I rated it for how much enjoyment I got from it, it would be more like three stars.
Been very pleased with the Kiwi stuff I read last year! And definitely planning to read more this year: Chidgey's The Axeman's Carnival and her new one, The Book of Guilt; The Bone People by Keri Hulme; and I'd really like to read Auē by Becky Manawatu but I don't have a copy and should really prioritise the books I do have 😅
Somehow I completely missed off The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. So here's the review: Bloated but enjoyable ⭐⭐⭐
I think Liz Moore peaked with her first novel, Heft. It was so good. Each one after that I've liked less than the one that came before. I really didn't enjoy God of the Woods that much. I thought the non-linear plot and constantly shifting perspective made it hard to care about any of the characters. I don't understand why it's gotten so much buzz when her previous books haven't.
Soooooo bloated. There’s a great 300 page thriller there.
Will watch again while note-taking ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Very good 👏 Thanks for watching!
loved this review style!
It's always a fun one to put together. Thanks!
"great fun with a coffee" 5 stars. Thank you, Ben. x
Thank you so much for watching! Speaking of coffee, I need to get some myself... ☕️
I’ve read 27 of those books. A coupled DNFd. Might have different star ratings.
There are 14 on my TBR
I read 112 last year but that included lots of short books. When I’m ill or feeling down I tend to read romances with happy endings to cheer myself up. In November I read 20 because I had a nasty chest infection.
Ahh, a chest infection is never good, but I'm glad books were there to cheer you up. Fingers crossed for a year of good reading and good health 🤞
Another brilliant yearly wrap-up Ben! that's 5 stars
Thank you so much Lorraine!!
I'm glad you liked Frankenstein! Mr. Loverman is high on my list - hopefully get to it soon. I love these full-year wrap-up videos.
It gave me so much to think about! And I was very pleased to have enjoyed it given how much I usually struggle with classics 😅
What a great way of summarizing your yearly reading!
It's a fun little time capsule! Thanks for watching 🙏
I can’t believe this is the third video of these I get to see! Love it, as always, and here’s to a year of great reading in 2025
Honestly I think I'm probably the most surprised person that this channel is still going 😂 Thank you for still watching in year 3!!!
I love your book review ideas! You always come with something new that no one has done it before 😊👍
Thank you so much! I suppose quite a lot of people do the one-sentence thing now, but I decided to make it harder for myself 😂 It's always weirdly hard to explain how it works in a concise way though haha.
A number of books you've read I've enjoyed. Always grateful for you recommendations. Still need to get to Severance, Headshot and
Creation Lake.
I know they don't always work out for you, but I'm glad that you give plenty of them a go and enjoy quite a few. Thanks for watching!
Thank you Ben! Such a great way to approach a wrap up
It's always one of my most fun videos to put together! Thanks very much 🙏
Love your content, catching up on all your past vids! Can you do a video on how you read so much and how you read in a week? 🎉
Loved this, eloquent concise reviews = 5 stars. 😊
PS. Half stars could be a creative facial expression and/or hand gesture. 🤪🤨👍👎🤙🖖🤟🖕🤌🤔🤗
Love the reviews by star rating. That's a brilliant way to keep the video under control. Perfect!
It's a really fun little time capsule to sum up the year!
Loved this video! The book in up to 5 words based on star ratings is a great idea. I really need to give Orbital another go. Thanks for sharing your reading year time capsule. ❤️📚
It’s always such a fun way to sum up the year… although having to dig out all the books from the shelves is a right pain 😂
Thank you for watching!
This was fun!
This was so much fun and must have been a lot of work for you. I tried to distill my 5-star reads down to five words and it was really hard! I’d say we agreed more than we disagreed, which was nice to see. I would revise your Enlightenment review to “strong start and strong finish” (5-stars) but many of your 5-stars were also 5 for me. Terrific job!
Thank you! The biggest pain in was getting all the books from my shelves, remembering what was where 😅
Glad you loved Enlightenment - I was really enchanted by it at the start, but it just lost me a bit as it went on.
Thoroughly enjoyable video as always, and I'm certainly here for a graph of two. I'm digging out The Offing to see if I can match it with one of your 2025 reading prompts.
Would definitely fit September! Thanks so much for watching.
'drink the milk' 😂😱
Jungle House has been on my library tbr for ages, hope to get to it soon.
If I had liked it a smidge more, I might have stretched to 'DON'T drink the milk' 🥛😂
I enjoyed your video Ben. 5 words=5 stars😅. Great work, awesome analytics. Thank you
So glad you enjoyed it! Thank you ⭐
The speed of that gave me an anxiety spike Ben, lol.
A couple I liked a lot more than you did, like 'And Then She Fell' (Alicia Elliot).
Added a couple of titles to my tbr, thanks. Looking forward to a new year of your videos ❤
Oops, sorry 🫣 But it really is a whistlestop tour!
Can definitely see why people like And Then She Fell, I just couldn't connect with the writing at all. But we're all different readers, so it's all good!
Thanks for watching 🙌
I enjoyed this so much and your reviews have encouraged me to add so many books to my tbr, so much so that I forgive you for hating two of my favourites 😂
Haha I'm sorry for hating on your faves! I'm sure there are some that I love that everyone else absolutely hates too 😅 Hopefully not any of the ones you added to your TBR though!
This was brilliant Ben, I think your summary of Held was my favourite😂
I really wish I could have liked it more! 😅 Thanks for watching.
I'm a stats nerd, so I thorougly enjoyed seeing your graphs 😁 Thanks for sharing!
If you adopt half stars, you could round up or down depending on what you would have previously had put on Goodreads, and pick the amount of words accordingly. (I'm using both Goodreads and Storygraph currently, and that's what I do, round up or down.)
You inspired me to try this with the books I've read in 2024 and it was a lot of fun! I usually take my notes in French, but I ended up reverting to English because French is way too wordy and I couldn't make 2 or 3 words mean anything - LOL!
From your list, I did read Mr. Loverman in 2024 as well. My rating was slightly different from yours, though... Two stars for me. I couldn't stand how mean the husband and wife were to each other and I wished there would have been better character growth over the course of the story. This one just felt grating to me. (But it has good rating, so I guess this book was lost on me.)
That would be a sensible approach - I guess it comes naturally if I keep up Goodreads, because I'll still have to do the full stars there.
Glad you had fun doing some of these yourself, and a shame you didn't get on with Mr Loverman. I think for me a lot of that relationship felt very real, and reminded me in small ways of how my grandparents are after 60 years of marriage (without, I hope, the same sort of secret lurking!)
Great video! I read a fair amount of the books you did and mostly agreed with you... I DNFed "Creation Lake" and still trying to decide if I'll retry or not..
If you didn’t like how it started, to be honest I’m not sure you’d get much out of the rest of it. Very much the same vibe throughout!
Loved this Ben!
Thank you friend!!! 🥹
I liked this video a lot 👍🏻 thank you
Really appreciate the kind feedback - thank you!
I love this Ben!! I especially liked your words for The Safekeep ..so true❤
It really did feel like reading a classic!
My favorite review: "Beyond me".
5-star video: Fun to watch and listen
Thank you!!! 🙌
Hi Ben! Great list, I took many recommendations:)
I was wondering about my Storygraph mood statistics as well. Very low, just January was super high - the only month I read a thriller 😂
Maybe we're just in a deep well of despair and we don't even know it 😂
I give you five stars for use of the word ‘fewer’ and being so bloody clever with these flash reviews! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Haha in this household we try to uphold the less/fewer separation 😂
@ 👏
Am half-way through What I know about You by Eric Chacour and it is sheer perfection. Am reading it in French and haven't found any particular French Canadianisms yet. Your video was extremely amusing, thanks!
It’s so good isn’t it!
Good to know on the French Canadianisms (or lack of). I had assumed it was written in a specifically Canadian / Quebecois flavour as it was translated by Pablo Strauss, who has translated other French Canadian authors!
@benreadsgood Watched an interview with Chacour in La Grande Librairie and he speaks French like a Parisian, even though he is Canadian. It's not a long interview on youtube....
Fun review idea haha!
Are you on Fable? Yet another book app, but I love the community on Fable! No data like StoryGraph, sadly. But another non-billionaire owned app which is always good!
It's always so fun to put together!
Brilliant!
Thank you 🙏
Love this format! I just finished There There today and will start on Martyr next. I loved I Have Some Questions For You - it is a suspenseful murder story but I found it to be so much more. My review: “Your past through Me-Too’s lens” (yes me too isn’t hyphenated but it kind of is one word. Or I’ll just give it 6 stars 😊)
To be fair #metoo became very recognisable as a hashtag, so you can definitely spin it as one word!
Well done, great fun twist (five stars)
Thanks very much for watching 🙌
Totally agree with you on So Late In The Day.
I shudder to think at other authors catching on and publishing their short story collections as individual volumes 🥲
Book-diary's borrowing your inspirational idea.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Happy to share!!! Thanks for watching 🙏
I do whole stars too. I think a numeric system is always going to be limiting anyway, so might as well keep it simple! It does mean that some books feel clumped together (eg 2,5-3,5) but… that’s what the videos are for, to give the nuance 😊
I’m glad to have some of these on my tbr!
And I also feel it’s important to tell you I read Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid for Ann-uary ☺️ Honest insightful coming-of-age, three stars.
Yeah the star rating thing is so arbitrary and reductive, but sometimes I look back at my ratings and I'm like... did I really enjoy THAT 4-star thing more than this other 3-star thing?! But I just have to accept that I am inconsistent, and not necessarily comparing books to one another, but rating based on what I think the book is trying to achieve, how I reacted to it at the time, etc.
Thanks for the Ann-uary update - Annie John wasn't my own pick, but it is on my TBR!
@ Haha so true! 😂 Yes the book is competing with itself, not necessarily with the other books 😄
I read Milkman for this year anna-uary. It has a potential to be the very best of the year. It's kind of serious and kind of mad and dark funny. It was the first book I read this year, and following reads just can't compete with it.
It's such an interesting book! I think it felt very, very long in the end, and at times I was appreciating it more than enjoying it, but definitely a very accomplished novel that is unlike anything I've read.
Such a fun way to go through all the books! 😊
I've read there there last year and although I liked it, I found it kind of hard to follow all the different POVs. Are there as many POVs in wandering stars?
Glad to hear you found it fun!
Wandering Stars is structured a bit differently. The first section is almost like short stories, taking place in the generations leading up to the events of There There. Then the second section takes place after, and has a few points of view but not as many as There There.
@@benreadsgood thanks for answering! That sounds good, I hope I'll get around to reading wandering stars this year :)
AWESOME!
Thanks so much 🙏
Such a fun concept! Sounds like you read some bangers, will need to rewatch to note names. Somewhat silly suggestion but maybe the .5 stars you make a noise so it doesn't mess with the words? Hope this reading year is even better for you than last :)
Hahaha I shudder to think what noises I might come out with, but it's an interesting idea 😂
Hope your reading year is off to a good start!
THATwas an interesting way to summarise your very solid reading year 😊 I use star ratings but when it’s a 3 I often use the .5 . Not quite a four but more than the average 3. It’s all a wonderful game🤭 I could not enjoy Glorious Exploits. Very very disappointed because when in London in July it was the only book I bought and its a signed copy (luggage space). I thought the humour cruel and DNFed. Maybe I should try again…..
Thanks for watching! Shame that you didn't like Glorious Exploits - I felt it was a book with a heck of a lot of heart and empathy for its characters. But not every book is for every reader! If you did give it a go again, might be worth trying the audio.
As someone whose mood line was really high I think storygraph is not good at detecting mood of books. As I read a lot of fantasy and manga and even though a lot of them were dark they all seem to register as light.
That’s interesting - wonder if it just goes on genre then 🤔
Although I know there’s like a user-decided mood rating when you ‘review’ a book on there. So maybe litfic people are just a self-reported miserable bunch 😭
very happy you liked frankenstein ♥
I still need to post a full review. So much to say I'm debating whether it should get its own video!
Enjoyed this. I too had a record year in # of books and plan on pulling back and focusing on picks from NYT’s top 100 of the 21st century combined with new picks from 2025 and of course Booker and NBA lists.
Uncompromising, unsubtle, drug-fueled, riveting, family drama. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Long Island Compromise
Beautiful, dysfunctional, gut-wrenching, grief-eating tale ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for Blue Sisters
I've also got a bunch from that NYT list I want to read as well! Lots on there that I already had in my sights, and the list just helped bump up the priority some more 😅
Thanks for sharing your reviews - Long Island Compromise has been sitting by my bed for *months* and I really must get to it.
Bravo!
Thank you! 🙏
Great video. Just read Clean by Alia Zeran translated from Chilean. most interesting structure --3 stars
Heard really interesting things about Clean - wondering if it might get a look-in for the International Booker 👀
I have filed Rachel Cusk with Ian McEwan in my don't go there ever again pile lol.
Haha, tempting. I think I am going to give her another go, as I enjoyed one of the four parts of Parade, and I have heard Outline is more like that. So I might like that one!
As someone who likes to read myself, how do you stay on top of the new, interesting releases and the translated fictions as well? Thanks.
I suppose the main things for me are:
1. I follow a lot of publishers on Instagram (and you can check their catalogues of upcoming releases online if you’re really dedicated).
2. Following book prizes - the International Booker is great for knowing about recent translated fiction.
3. Lots of people make content about releases they’re looking forward to! I’m actually about to bring back a series of videos called ‘This month in books’ where I cover the most interesting new releases for the upcoming month.
Thanks for watching 🙏
You could do half stars and just treat a 4.5 like a 4 and 2.5 like 2 etc for this video
Yeah you're right - I could just round to the nearest star!
Star issues - half stars are ridiculous! If they are needed it means the scale is too blunt - mark out of ten stars instead 😂
Haha yeah. The Storygraph actually lets you rate in 0.25 increments, so you're basically scoring out of 20 if you want!
One of my favorite reads of 2024:
Und alle so still by Mareike Fallwickl (Austrian author):
Women lying down in solidarity ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I hope it will be translated!
Oooh one to keep an eye out for if and when it does get translated. Thanks for sharing!
Half stars- add an emoji instead of a word?
Haha that’s good thinking. Although then I need to figure out how to say an emoji out loud 😅
Sorry Ben, I really did not like Glorious Exploits. 2 out of 5 for me. Too many F's for me in a story like this(and I really struggle to explain what I mean by this). I stopped reading it at the first C word. I thougt it was juvenile writing. Question though: did you make a video about Night Watch? I can't find it. It gets high praise from critics but all the YT reviewers seem to hate it. My favourite read of 2024 was In Memoriam by Alice Winn and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh - one of the funniest and most unapologetic books I have ever read.
That's ok - not every book is for every reader, but it became an all-time favourite for me.
I haven't reviewed Night Watch in full yet, but I have to say I'm very surprised at it's Pulitzer win now having read it.
Trying to work out what I would say for James. The closest I can come is “but did I like it?”
The word count gives it away: you did!!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
@ I still can’t say that I really liked it. It wasn’t in my top books of the year and I didn’t enjoy the reading experience. The Trees was an absolute blast. James mostly made me mad with how black people were treated (obviously no surprise to me). The ending was redemptive for me. I think the five star rating was more what I thought I should give it and if I rated it for how much enjoyment I got from it, it would be more like three stars.
Ohh, 3 books by NZ authors , with an average of 4.33 - nice 😊
Been very pleased with the Kiwi stuff I read last year! And definitely planning to read more this year: Chidgey's The Axeman's Carnival and her new one, The Book of Guilt; The Bone People by Keri Hulme; and I'd really like to read Auē by Becky Manawatu but I don't have a copy and should really prioritise the books I do have 😅
📖 🪱 💚
Thanks for watching! 🙌