Category Archives: Book I’ll Forget I Read

January 18, 2026 · 5:32 pm

Book of Dust Book One – La Belle Sauvage

I enjoyed Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage (book one of the Book of Dust triology) – at least the first third when Malcolm is getting hooked in to the mysterious elements of dust, of factions vying for control, of trying to sort out how a baby, Lyra, might fit into it all.

Once the flood comes (spoiler, there’s a flood) the story turns into a quest narrative of trying to get through the various and sundry challenges between them and safety (think Odysseus trying to get home). I found everything from this point on less satisfying – like it felt like it was just trying to draw out a whole book? that everything that needed to be conveyed could have just been explained without them having to wander to different worlds or face various challenges/monsters – maybe because the characters (Malcolm and Alice) didn’t develop much through these challenges (except for a budding romance, which again, could have been conveyed without ‘and now! a giant to exchange riddles with!’). Not that I’m against quest narratives – give me The Hobbit any day – just that this one felt like an exercise in wasting time rather than doing anything substantive for character, plot or theme.

Was I annoyed enough not to read book two? Yes. Might a 12 year old have a difference experience of reading this one? Absolutely. So if you were into the Golden Compass series (this one is a prequel) or you have a different tolerance for Adventure For The Sake of Adventure then by all means: go in.

(also realizing nearly 20 years in (!) that I don’t have a category for ‘fantasy’. oops).

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November 8, 2025 · 3:25 pm

Dream State: Strong start and then

I made a mistake in telling a few friends to read Eric Puchner’s Dream State when I was only a third of the way in. It’s such a strong start – evocative writing, a pulling theme (how does one major decision or one major event shape the rest of your life?), interesting characters. Set amid the present and near future of climate catastrophe to make the aging of the characters over the course of the novel vivid against what can feel in our incremental experience of time unnoticed in the sharp changes for the reader between decades for a glacier or a lake or an endangered species.

And it’s not like the writing changed – the scene on the mountain with Elias is haunting and beautiful – it’s more I lost conviction that I knew why any of the characters were making any of their decisions. I suspect it’s a form thing – with the big jumps in time (with the exception of one incredible passage where the two children age together over summers over the course of the passage and the reader feels the slipperiness of time in the verb tenses and the dialogue) happen between chapters the reader is given snapshot moments to make sense of Big character decisions, and honestly, so much happens ‘off stage’ that it’s hard to believe the impact of those decisions on the characters and how they behave next. We have to take it on the faith of third person narration that yes, indeed, Garret and Cece still love on another because that’s what a long marriage means? I guess?

So sorry to M. and K. for forcefully recommending this one before reaching the end. If you haven’t yet started it, I’d say it would be a fine beach read, but not something I’d interrupt a year of comic book reading to go out and get.

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July 16, 2025 · 6:02 pm

V for Vendetta: Perhaps I am too old to learn to like it

M. and I are going to start a book club, or maybe we already have, it’s hard to know when a book club officially starts if you’ve been talking about books with a friend for years already. But V for Vendetta was the first book I read on purpose to talk about with him and so maybe that’s the official start.

Who cares, I know, I know, no one. But let me say I wouldn’t have read it were it not for the book club urging, and I certainly wouldn’t have finished it because the pictures were Very Confusing and I couldn’t keep any of the characters except for V straight in my mind. Actually, reading the last post about how confusing I found Ministry of Time and this one together – maybe the problem is me. To be fair, this is probably peak distracted time in my life – so I’ll give myself a break. And tell you that for sure, for sure V for Vendetta has a great little premise about political action and some neat scenes of Big Eyes and Terror. And maybe a harsh book to read in this moment of such Doom.

But I was less sure about the women in the book – mostly there to be dead, or to prop up a big speech by V. Or prostitutes. Or victims. Very cheerful.

So yeah, not one I’d have read otherwise and not one I’m a huge fan of (sorry, M.) but glad, still, to have tried something new.

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July 16, 2025 · 5:50 pm

The Ministry of Time: Such a great premise and yet

Kaliane Bradley’s Ministry of Time promises to be such a great read from the plot description. It’s the near future and things are Not Good politically or environmentally, but Britain has discovered time travel. The appointed Ministry of Time is responsible for bringing back a sampling of historical figures as an experiment to see how they handle the journey through time (like does it destroy their bodies or minds?). Each figure is assigned a ‘bridge’ – a contemporary person who will be their translator for the present and who will live with them for the year helping them understand all the intervening years and discoveries since their historical time (as well as their own sense of self and identity displaced by centuries). Our protagonist is one such bridge, paired with a British naval officer from the lost Franklin expedition. Their romance is at once inevitable and a slow burn.

There are attempts to make the book political – with nods to contemporary crises of refugees, climate wars and deteriorating democracy. But most of this gets lost in the weave of trying to literally understand what is happening in the plot of the novel where the story gets muddled with explanation of time travel (or failed explanations), too much cloak and dagger spy missions where the reader is (I guess) meant to understand in the limited narration way of our protagonist but is – at least I was – just confused about what is going on and why. It culminates in a climax where I remain entirely unsure what happened in terms of basic plot points, nevermind if it was a satisfying ending for the affective threads that had been – at least at first – so carefully stitched.

So sure – if you happen to be very focused and willing to take notes and maybe to just give up on the idea that there’s understandable world building to be had then maybe it’s enjoyable? At the very least it’s an enjoyable first 70 pages as you’re absorbed in the novelty of the plot. And then it’s just… not.

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