jstilts's reviews
116 reviews

Hate to give this a 1 star rating, but for what it is trying to achieve (according to the afterword: depict the holocaust and reflect current events where millions of children are displaced by war to diminishing numbers of countries willing to give refuge), it's simply not very good. 

The plot is an incoherent mess, the art style is variable (even between characters in the same panel), and there's that crushing sense that a very worthy subject has been squandered. It tries to be reverential - ironically while critiquing such reverence - it's almost offensive in it's failure.

Additionally, I can't imagine who this book is aimed at. Perhaps it hopes to encourage those who have never read Anne Frank to do so, but I think they'll be baffled. For those who have read Anne Frank, I think they'll find this much as I did - an unworthy addition full of random nonsense, with a germ of an idea that went nowhere interesting.

Short enough to read in one sitting, which is probably ideal as the chapters swap between Nick and Charlie's perspective (while remaining entirely linear); each chapter informs what was REALLY going on with the other person in the previous chapter, and maintaining this is vital to the flow of the narrative.

For fans of the series, this one has some shocks - but by the end you'll realise it's still good wholesome stuff that would be good to put in the hands of someone facing similar emotional experiences. It's almost a fictional handbook in illustrating how not everything is always the way it appears - especially when you are catastrophising!

This isn't a graphic novel like most of the Heartstopper series to date (although there are a few sweet panels), and at first it seems like it doesn't translate well to prose: Nick and Charlie's voice seems off, and Charlie sounds way too mature - until I realise, this is their inner monologue and not the way they present themselves to the outside world. Sure enough, when they talk or text - same old Nick and Charlie. While in no way a criticism of the excellent graphic novels, this book definitely enriches their characters in a way the graphic novels were never going to - and that's more down to the creative decision to have almost every thought in the graphic novel presented in a  conversational way.

Very different to the previous books: Ophelia has gone from hiding in shadows to making her mark, and after the last cliffhanger (and a few years basically sulking) is now imbued with drive and purpose to solve eons-long mysteries that threaten her world, her missing husband, and herself.

Set almost entirely in Babel following a single quest, this book greater focus on the rich detailed world building of Babel society allows the overall plot to become fluffier and more mysterious, frankly treading water a little to spoon-feed us the fantasy set-up for the final volume. This isn't criticism as such, it's a very deft bit of furniture moving that's so pleasant an experience I can hardly complain.

It's not however quite as compelling as the second volume, as really you feel Ophelia could just shrug her shoulders and walk away from her troubles for the first three quarters of the book - driven mainly by her desire to reunite with Thorn, which is hard to fathom as while we saw Thorn fall in love with Ophelia in the last book - believable only because I'll accept any insight I to the inscrutable oaf - Ophelia has hardly had reason to do likewise, especially as we're privy to her thought and feelings that she STILL finds hard to quantify (after years!) that her love is a bit hard to believe. I can only put it down to the desperate need to connect during and after disaster, which they experienced together at the end of book two.

Looking forward to the final volume nevertheless - this one was strangely simultaneously better and worse than the previous books, so in a way an interesting diversion on the journey, a side quest and a breather before the finale.

Titan Books "New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" series (apparently so named, although not on their distinctively foggy covers) sucked me in with Mark Latham's excellent book "The Red Tower", and I"ve been reading the series with little success. "The Devil's Dust" is by James Lovegrove, and it's better than most of this series - although with some extreme reservations.

The problem for me is the books in this series are mostly well written to a point about three quarters the way through where they become trite - this turning point being when they fully engage with whatever highly un-Sherlockian conceit the plot has been saddled with: Frankenstein, for instance. "The Devil's Dust" has a similar structure, but it is saved by the conceit being more grounded in Holmes' world than usual: Sherlock and Watson meet, spar and sleuth alongside H Rider Haggard's character Alan Quartermain of "King Solomon's Mines" fame.

It's not a terrible pairing, and the forays into magic, visions and alternative philosophies are held nicely to account by Holmes while still being an entirely plausible alternative to his scientific perspective - it's quite well handled without sacrificing Holmes and Watson's characters nor belittling Quatermain's world.

However Quartermain still derails what could have been a neat mystery - brought to them by Mrs Hudson no less, so promisingly novel a start! Worse than this, situations are resolved with gunfire rather than brains - except when Holmes weaponises both racism and body shaming to defeat a foe. 

Unfortunately bringing Quartermain into the mix brings weighty issues of racism, colonialism and cultural appropriation, and the literary shortfalls of the White Saviour amongst Noble Savages - and instead of avoiding these the author tries to make clever use of them. To be fair James Lovegrove mostly succeeds at this, but it's no less of a mistake for being successful - it's often pretty distasteful.

In the end this feels like another potentially great Holmes plot with quality writing wasted for a central conceit that just doesn't work with the character.

The fifth volume of Hearstopper is another sweet tale that deftly balances the dramatic potential of teenage romance with delivering a wholesome insightful plot that would be a valuable read to anyone facing through similar experiences.

This is again a continuation that manages to stand on it's own (is it all the odd-numbered volumes?) as Charlie and Nick consider taking their relationship to a more intimate level while also facing the prospect of Nick leaving town for University a year before Charlie.

The themes also explore the idea of couples being too dependant on each other, the need to have your own space to develop - and the need to grow up from beneath your parents control while also (somewhat) acknowledging that parents have been through similar experiences and might have valuable insight.

Not quite as good as the best Hearstoppers, but a very worthy addition - and I'm keen for the final volume to be published!

To start with the good stuff: the art in this graphic novel is great if you like a more realistic style, which suits the Victorian Era nicely with puffy thugs bruised and brawny, and people down on their luck visibly suffering from their unfortunate lifestyle. I do have issue with the speech bubbles and lettering though, it implies everyone is raspy - but a minor niggle 

The story however does let the art down. We start promisingly enough with a younger pre-Watson Holmes investigating the disappearance of his current roommate (a nice deviation from the norm). However - and my personal bias shows here - I am exceptionally tired of modern Holmes tales that pin their mysterys on either a) nefarious steampunk science that is outside Holmes' ken, rendering his methods useless b) the supernatural, which has the same effect but doubly so, and c) his nemesis Moriarty to whom which Holmes' methods are also somewhat negated. Why write Holmes if you can't write a coherent mystery worthy of challenging him without sidestepping him?

Unfortunately, this graphic novel decides to do *all three* with mind-swapping devices, vampires and Moriarty. Two Moriartys in fact, and on top of that this also yet another "how Holmes first met Moriarty" tale. In a book as overstuffed as this with villainy there was little time for Holmes to acually do much deducting, and it was unfortunately unable to reach a satisfying conclusion for every aspect. As a result it looks like this is a series - but one I definitely won't be following.

Considering this is the second book in a series and absolutely does not stand on it's own, I'm surprised to find myself enjoying it even more than the first, which isn't like me at all!

Whereas the first book struck me as a Jane Austen novel gone deliciously wrong with a streak of somewhat unnecessary fantasy trappings to give it pizzazz, this continuation of the story leans much more heavily on the fantasy in that you would be very hard pressed to tell the story without it - and it's a very compelling tale that justifies the slow setup.

Briefly, Ophelia now finds herself very much out of the shadows as she thrusts herself fully into court life, grabbing the impossible-to-hold attention of this societies ruler-come-deity, a prospect as useful as it is dangerous. While we explore this new world and Opehlia's ever-changing status within it, mysteries sneak up unexpectedly (rather neatly done) as the book unfolds.

This sequel has a more satisfying, less rushed ending than the first book - although this time it's one more of plot than emotional journey, although my goodness Ophelia develops massively over this volume.

Bring on the next one!

Another essential volume of Heart stopper, it's nevertheless not quite as good as the first and third volumes which stood on their own really well. We further explore Nick coming out to his family, Charlie's mental health journey and milestones in their relationship both large and small.

Charting Charlie's mental health is particularly well done - it strikes a fine balance between not sugar-coating the issues yet neither does it mine them for grim drama. It's a smacks a little of a "public information announcement" but frankly if you know someone who needs help but isn't seeking help, putting this sort of wholesome and fact-based examination of a journey towards recovery into their hands would be a good move.

Again this book ends well enough that it would be a satisfying ending to the series - and for once I don't really know what's likely to be covered in the already announced Volume 5. I plan to find out!

The first part in a series, this book nevertheless is just about satisfying for the emotional/confidence journey it takes the lead upon (albeit slightly rushed at the end but I carries through well enough in book 2). I won't recap the plot as that would remove the tension, but this book is basically about an arranged marriage between two countries - but our lead character has been kept in the dark about how much danger this marriage will expose her to, to the point where she has to spend half the book in disguise amongst those who wish her dead. It's an interesting mix of fantasy and what could have been a period drama (almost a Jane Austen romance but one gone deliciously wrong). It probably wouldn't have been enough to be one or the other, but both genres combined lift this into a compelling tale of intrigue as she tries to survive the world she has been thrust into, and rise above the limited role she is being forced to play.

A great piece of detective fiction with an extraordinary main character - and historically fascinating for it's unintended unique insight into racism against Aboriginal Australians at it's time of publication - 1931. Furthermore this book inspired a real-life copycat murder, most incredibly discovered after publication but determined to have occured *before* it's publication - which must have caused the author Arthur Upfield to first experience a peak in sales and then experience trouble with the police once it was ascertained he also knew the victims personally! 

But that's another story, back to this work of fiction. We'll talk racism in a moment (it's prevalent yet fascinating) but that aside: this book sees the very slow unraveling of a cold-case of a missing persons case that the main character alone - Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte - believes to be murder. He quits his job to go undercover, only to discover no trace of a corpse exists - making for a crime almost impossible to prosecute. We see through his eyes and others what life was like in the many roles needed to run a vast outback sheep station, the racism Bony is subjected to as a (to use the terms of the early twentieth century) half-caste Aboriginal, we experience the horrors of bushfire, and we watch him untangle numerous crimes and scandals as he hunts for the killers and potential accomplices without revealing his true intentions. I rate this book and others in Arthur Upfield's series of novels about Detective-Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte highly enough I'd describe him as the Australian Agatha Christie, and Bony is his Poirot.

Now, racism - and why this book is worth reading despite it. Be warned this book is very much a product of the 1930s and contains racist concepts and uses racist terms that are offensive and hard to read - and is guilty of both cultural appropriation and of speaking on behalf of Aboriginal people rather than allowing them their voice. What makes this book and others in the series fascinating is the author (a white Englishman) is absolutely not intending to cause offence: his lead character is an Aboriginal Australian who as a Detective-Inspector of the Queensland Police is the intellectual, moral and cultural superior of everyone in the book, his white colleagues are in awe of him because he is *so* impressive, he has never failed in a case - his only failing is his pride and vanity in knowing all this to be true. The author includes passages on how Aboriginal Australians are the superior culture to all others in the world, including this quote "the black fellow possessed culture when the white man ate raw flesh because he did not know how to make a fire" which is something white Australians struggle admitting to this day, let alone a hundred years ago in the 1920s and 1930s! There is no way the author is trying to be racist - but because this work still manages to be massively racist throughout is why I find it so fascinating: it reveals the type of and the extent of ingrained racist thoughts and concepts prevelant in Australia at the time, including the author, who doubtless thought himself as not only not racist but also a friend, an ally, a champion of Aboriginal Australians (which for a 1920s/1930s author hoping to sell books is frankly astonishing).

It is good to reflect on how we may perhaps consider ourselves as indviduals to be not racist, or perhaps to be allies of LGBTIQ+ and yet still be unknowingly failing to do our best now, and how we may cringe in the future when we look back upon our thoughts, words and actions - or how history may consider us.