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Riverkeeper

Riverkeeper@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 month ago

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reviewed What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (Sworn Solider, #3)

T. Kingfisher: What Stalks the Deep (Hardcover, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

The next novella in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton …

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I have waited for this book to be delivered a day after it came out but couldn't wait and read the digital version of it while my physical copy was on the way.  
Anyway!!! Amazing, first and foremost the idea is great and completely unexpected, given the setting I was expecting something more rooted in local folklore but the actual plot was much better. And, it did use the setting, using the fact that the Appalachian mountains are old and their amazing geology. I have to say that it wasn't "scary" not like What feasts at night,but that one played at each and every fear hidden in my Balkan soul. 
What Stalks the Deep was tense, some parts made my skin crawl (seriously fuck spelunking and mines) but in the end it had a really satisfying ending.

Additionally: I hope we see John Ingold, Chemist, again and 
please, please tell …

Maja Lunde: Blå (Paperback, Swedish language, 2019, Natur & Kultur)

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It had a really strong beginning and it's nice how the two stories are connected. That being said, the main character, David is simply obnoxious. I simply couldn't get over the fact of how <spoiler>he was well aware that his wife is dead and how</spoiler>fast he wanted to fuck someone else and then simply decided to abandon her.  

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Vi for upp med mor

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Mother is dead, and Jana and Bror follow her body up north. To a village that seemed to have completely lost touch with present day Sweden. Here, God's word is law and it is spoken through the mouth of priests. And God's word is not questioned.
Men rule, women grow up, give birth until they die. Children learn to fill the places of their parents. Nobody leaves. Except for Mother.
Mother left, married Father and had two albino children that she never protected, never cared about, never loved..so it seems.
Jana wants to leave, Bror wants to stay caught up in the alluring idea of a world where his worth would be immediately increased by the virtue of being a man.


In comparison to the first book this one is slower and at times boring. It sets up a stage but in the end of it you're left frustrated and …

Karin Smirnoff: Jag for ner till bror (Hardcover, Bokförlaget Polaris)

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JanaKippo or trauma personified. This book is probably best read in Swedish but it takes some time to understand the way it is written but once you do it will have you hooked .
It's told by a woman called Jana who recall growing up with her brother on a farm in a village in the north of Sweden. Her father was a worker/farmer who comes home for the weekend and her mother is a housewife who spends time writing Bible verses on embroidery and hiding bruises behind shawls and sunglasses. 
Jana's life as much as her brother (who is named Brother, Bror in Swedish) are abused by their father is horrific ways until it culminated in an event that changed them forever. 

In the present, Jana comes back to the village after another failed relationship, her brother is ready to drink himself to death, a woman named Maria was …

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This book was recommended to me by a friend as one of those "I saw this and thought of you" books. 
I was very excited to read it and even ordered it after it wasn't available in the bookstore or the local library. 

Unfortunately, I was so disappointed that I'm struggling with reviewing it in the first place.
Maybe because I expected something in the lines of Nan Shepherd's "The living mountain" or maybe because the book opens with an essay about Virginia Woolf (whom I don't care for in the slightest, so I'm biased).
The river here could he replaced with anything really, any form of suicide.
Quite a few essays are like this, and I have to admit I skipped those midway through. 

There are a few good ones, that weave current issues about rivers, access to blue spaces and the need for conservation of our waterways with …

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Heartbreaking in the best way.

This is the best book I've read this year. Manod is a complicated protagonist, liveable but hard not to feel sorry for. The book portrays the life of Islanders and those of isolated communities with a tenderness. The writing is at brief moments confusing but it serves as a good insight into the protagonist's mind.
It has a lot of description of animal (fish) decay as well as gutting of fish and lobsters as the book is set in a fisherman's community. 


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A good story absolutely despicable protagonist. Maybe I was just not in the mood for it but I expected more then a woman who's longing to have someone spit in her face.

Daniel Mason: North Woods (Hardcover, 2023, Random House)

When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their …

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A treat!! This book is like a fever dream but in a good way. The main character is the yellow house that sees a host of characters come and go (some stay forever) while the world changes around them.
It's best to go into this book with an open mind because it mixes genres, and some stories (Lilian and her son's story) were gut wrenching. 

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This book started so good, a bit slower and with a lot of characters you need to follow. It had an excellent premise of a remote Scottish island where strange and unsettling behavior starts happening<spoiler> that a curse causes</spoiler>. The later parts of the book pick up and there are some genuinely scary moments. 
Unfortunately the ending is just so rushed and makes no sense, things seem to appear out of thin air or they have no connection to the plot before. 
The ending is really unsatisfying and opens more questions than answers.
Lastly, the author used a foreign language in the book but didn't really check if his sentences were correct and it kind of made me knock down the review a bit. It felt like a really sloppy thing to do given that the rest of the book has an imaginative and decently researched plot base.

Kristin Hannah, Laura Vidal Sanz: The Four Winds (Hardcover)

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the …

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I've finished this book but I'm struggling to rate it properly. 
The premise is interesting but I genuinely didn't care about the characters.
Elsa herself could have been such a better, more complex character but for me she just fell flat. Similarly with everyone else. They all just felt too stereotypical.
The handsome but unreliable husband. The supportive and loving nonna and nonno, the golden retriever son and the snarky, unbearable, teenage daughter. 
Seriously? I doubt children were free to treat their parents with such disrespect at the time. Even teenagers??

The plot is filled with bad things happening one after the other and it felt like the author remembered only later that her main character should perhaps also care for other people. She leaves her elderly mother and father in law behind and NEVER seems to grieve over them or worry if they will survive, nothing. At one point, …

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No matter how much I try, I simply cannot see the appeal of this book. It was just a lukewarm experience and I simply cannot be bothered to write a full review. 

Sarah Hall (duplicate): The Wolf Border (Paperback, 2016, Harper Perennial)

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The book took me almost two years to finish. I started it but it was so painfully slow and the main character was completely insufferable.
After a while it becomes more bearable, the characters become more if not loveable then at least understandable. 
All in all, an interesting read.