Category Archives: 5 Star Book Reviews

Review of Babel: An Archane History by R.F.Kuang

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R. F. Kuang, Babel: An Archane History

For me a five-star book is something that either I want to read again or something that is so profound it makes an immediate impact. There are lots of ways that books can be compelling: a unique idea, an interesting set of characters, a complex plot, an artistic use of the English language and more. Reading is also a subjective experience, so what appeals to me as a reader may be very different for you. I read a lot for both pleasure and work but these short reviews are a way for me to show my appreciation for the work and the craft of the author of the reviewed work.

Babel is a book that is going to evoke a strong reaction from its reader. I love languages and have done a lot of work in translating and so a magical system which is built upon the distortion in meaning between languages when they are engraved on a silver bar was a fascinating concept. The attention to translation and understanding languages as systems of value and meaning may be boring to some readers, but for me this discussion resonated strongly. It is a story which can celebrate both the magic of the university but also the dark side of academia when it becomes tangled with the goals of the empire. The book deals with the difficult reality of colonialism and the difficult choice that the non-white students at Babel must make as they discover the ways in which their work is being used to exploit the countries of their birth. This is a smart, well written story set in a nineteenth century world modified by the advantages of enchanted silver working.

Robin Swift loses his family to sickness in China and is given a chance to come to England to be prepared for Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation at Oxford University. Robin Swift and his classmates Ramy, Victoire, and Letty become incredibly close as students at Babel, and as either non-white students or women they must navigate the wealthy, white, and male world of Oxford. They live a privileged life as Babel students who receive a full scholarship and a generous stipend, but they are also asked to commit themselves wholeheartedly to their studies. All of them are gifted students who have been trained for much of their life for this course of study. When Robin meets a person who looks like an older version of himself, he finds himself entangled with a secret society called Hermes. The Hermes society opposes the work Babel does to further the colonialism of the British Empire. Robin later sees the impact of the Royal Institute of Translation on his motherland of China and how it is allied with the trading companies who want to export opium to his home. This experience initiates a chain of events that sets Robin and some of his friends in opposition to the work of not only Babel but the empire itself.

R. F. Kuang does an excellent job of helping the reader see the world through the eyes of Robin, and to a lesser extent Victoire and Letty. It portrays the world of a brilliant young man who is often viewed as both important to the work of the Institute and by extension the empire, but who also is never fully accepted as a person who belongs at Oxford or in England. The characters are caught in the tension between the magic of the place and the devilish manipulation of the world using language. It is a sharp book both in its intelligence and its cutting and sometimes painful perspective on the abuse of both knowledge and people.

Review of Uprooted by Naomi Novik

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Naomi Novik, Uprooted

For me a five-star book is something that either I want to read again or something that is so profound it makes an immediate impact. There are lots of ways that books can be compelling: a unique idea, an interesting set of characters, a complex plot, an artistic use of the English language and more. Reading is also a subjective experience, so what appeals to me as a reader may be very different for you. I read a lot for both pleasure and work but these short reviews are a way for me to show my appreciation for the work and the craft of the author of the reviewed work.

I read Uprooted when it came out in 2015 and loved it, and a part of my reading habit is including books that I enjoyed previously and rereading them. I’ve read most of what Naomi Novik has written and this is my favorite of her books. Uprooted is set within a fantasy kingdom where a corrupted and malicious forest yearns to destroy the people who find themselves planted near its boundaries. The region is protected by a wizard named Sarkan, but who is commonly known as the Dragon. Every ten years the dragon selects a seventeen-year-old woman to come to his tower for the next ten years. Agnieszka is the protagonist of the story who is the surprise choice of this immortal wizard to spend the next ten years of her life in the Dragon’s tower. Agnieszka soon proves to be a difficult student but a gifted witch with her own relationship to magic which is more intuitive than Sarkan’s more precise and rigid approach. Despite their different gifts and approaches to magic their gifts weave together to allow them to do magic neither would be able to do alone.

The malicious wood plants devious seeds to attempt to entrap Sarkan and Agnieszka and to provoke confusion and conflict in the surrounding kingdoms. The wood makes an intriguing antagonist with its inhuman and corrupted drive to consume, and its ability to corrupt animals, humans, and objects. The story maintains an air of continual tension where the stakes are the destruction of the two kingdoms surrounding the wood. The wood’s manipulation of the vain Prince Marek springs a devilish trap which threatens to destroy Sarkan and Agnieszka as well as the kingdom. Naomi Novik does an impressive job of articulating a beautiful vision of magic within her world that can move between the elitist and rigid abilities of Sarkan and the folkish and musical abilities of Agnieszka.

Uprooted is both a fantasy story but also a coming-of-age story. Agnieszka as a young woman discovers her talents as a magic wielder and her voice within the political struggles of the kingdom but she is also a young woman discovering attraction. The intertwining of Sarkan’s and Agnieszka’s magical abilities unlocks feelings for both but there is also a vast gap between them to be overcome. It is a dangerous but beautiful world with well written characters, a constant threat of destruction by the environment which seeks revenge on all humanity, and a compelling vision of magic. The book invites you to walk barefoot into these dark woods and stay rooted in the magic of the place.

Review of the Melody of Trees: 10 Tales from the Forest by Helen Whistberry

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Helen Whistberry, The Melody of Trees: 10 Tales from the Forest

For me a five-star book is something that either I want to read again or something that is so profound it makes an immediate impact. There are lots of ways that books can be compelling: a unique idea, an interesting set of characters, a complex plot, an artistic use of the English language and more. Reading is also a subjective experience, so what appeals to me as a reader may be very different for you. I read a lot for both pleasure and work but these short reviews are a way for me to show my appreciation for the work and the craft of the author of the reviewed work.

The Melody of Trees is a collection of diverse short stories where trees or forests play some role in the story. Each story is short enough to be read in one setting but unique and complex enough to be intriguing. The stories span from mythological to science fiction, some are delightful fairy tales while others are dark stories of ash, death, and darkness. ‘Forest’ is told from the perspective of Forest as an ancient god observing the life and death occurring within its boundaries. ‘Girl of Glass’ is the story of a witch’s daughter who makes a desperate magical bargain to escape her unloving home that requires a heavy sacrifice. ‘Revenant of High Lonesome’ is an interesting combining of fantasy and western themes as a gun for hire determines that a promise made is worth taking on the authorities of a faithless town. ‘The Melody of Trees’ is a story of two people who find themselves in an odd sort of futuristic prison where they must use their skills as an artist and programmer to find an escape. It is a story of the beginning of relationships and learning to trust, but also creativity and intuition. ‘An Invitation of Shadows’ is the story of a young boy who escapes a murderous father leaving behind his loving mother, but learns he has a special power and a difficult choice to make: to heed his mother’s last wish and flee or to return to attempt to save her and his siblings. ‘The Watcher’ follows a cranky elderly man who is living in a retirement home and finds his only solace in watching the field and the forest near the home, but when his environment begins to change in nightmarish ways, he finds that he is also being watched. ‘Written in Ashes’ is a story of doors that should not be opened, of warnings unheeded, and of a darkly magical curse that lies just beyond the normal world for those whose curiosity gets the better of them. ‘Flora and Milo’ is another magical story of a missing mother, an absent father, and two children who follow the animals into the forest learning who is friend and who is foe and the magic the daughter possess. ‘Bad Day on the Job’ is a delightfully absurd story of two hit men in a supernatural world of werewolves, monsters under the bed, summoned demons, ghosts, and a mob boss who crossed the wrong woman. ‘A Gnashing of Teeth’ is another story in a science fiction world where humanity is at risk of being consumed by an invading race of strange beings that resemble the ancient pictures of Seraphim, and a ‘wise one’ who provides hope for a group of survivors.

I found each of the tales engaging and the overall book a delight. I intentionally attempted not to give away too many secrets in my brief summaries of each tale so new readers can discover the strange twists that the stories include. The stories are just long enough to introduce you to a new world and an interesting set of characters, but each story still manages to be complete.

Review of Sunyi Dean The Book Eaters

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Sunyi Dean. The Book Eaters

For me a five star book is something that either I want to read again or something that is so profound it makes an immediate impact. There are lots of ways that books can be compelling: a unique idea, an interesting set of characters, a complex plot, an artistic use of the English language and more. Reading is also a subjective experience, so what appeals to me as a reader may be very different for you. I read a lot for both pleasure and work but these short reviews are a way for me to show my appreciation for the work and the craft of the author of the reviewed work.

The Book Eaters is a work of dark fantasy set in contemporary England. The first time I saw the title and read the synopsis I was intrigued by the idea of a people who ate books instead of food and I was curious to see how this idea played out in the story. The story alternates between the present-day struggle of Devon and her son Cai and the traumatic story that places this mother and son on the run from the families of book eaters. Devon grows up in a world where she is isolated from the rest of the world by her family and grows up on fairy tales of princesses. These carefully curated stories are fed to her (literally since she is a book eater) and form her world and imagination, but she is also curious for the other stories that she is not supposed to read or eat. She begins to see signs that life is not the fairy tales she has been fed as a child, but as an adult she discovers that her role in the families is to be essentially breeding stock and she will be unable to raise the children she bears. Devon is permanently scared when the connection with her daughter is severed suddenly and she is sent to another marriage to bear her second child.

Devon’s second child, Cai, is a mind eater. Among the book eaters there are children born who consume human minds instead of paper and although there is a drug that allows them to consume books instead of minds they are always looked upon as a danger. Most of these children will become ‘dragons’ who are kept by the ‘knights’ in the story but as the time near for Cai to be taken by the knights and Devon to be removed from his life the family who produces the drug to treat the mind eaters disappears. In the present day the story follows Devon and Cai as they attempt to find the Ravenscar family who manufactures this drug which will allow five-year-old Cai to no longer eat human minds. In the meantime Devon must find a human for her son to feed on every two weeks as she attempts to avoid the families and the knights who want her and her son dead.

What makes The Book Eaters a compelling read is the realistic character development of both Devon and Cai who are looked upon as monsters but are bound together by the love of a mother and son. It is a book full of betrayals and broken people, of fairy tales that hide the darker side of reality, of the difficult choices love can cause us to make, and princesses who find a way to save themselves. The isolation of the families reminded me a little of the Ravenwood/Duchennes family in the Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl series Beautiful Creatures although that is set in a Southern U.S. gothic world rather than an English one. A compelling plot which realistically develops a group of characters who are shaped by the curated narratives they have been fed and the trauma inflicted upon them as they attempt to survive in a world that views them as monsters.