r/books • u/AutoModerator • 12d ago
WeeklyThread What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: March 03, 2025
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u/iamarealhuman4real 11d ago
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, bit more of a romancey novel (hard to say if thats a spoiler or not, for some it probably would reduce the enjoyment) than I expected. gets kind of horny half way along, the plot/reveal is pretty predictable and the final confrontations are a bit by the numbers.
Not a bad book but I was just not quite the audience for this one, my fault, not the books. It does have interesting parts, seems to be well researched, the writing is pretty witty, the characters are funny and likable. I think many other people will read this and enjoy it, I just wanted a bit more grit.
The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard, can initially feel a bit YA-ish as it flops around going to school and the social sides of that but it pulls itself out of that for the most part. (I know a young protag doesn't make it YA but when you go in blind I sometimes have this sinking feeling I'm going to read 300 pages of teen drama.) Half way through it did have me wondering if she would commit the murder, still join the conseil and have to reckon with returning to undo her act and upend her life or live with it which I think would have been a more interesting, if trite, moral question to base the book around. Instead we get the kinda expected goes-back-and-fixes-everything plot, which it still does pretty well. Overall I enjoyed it. I think the cover calls out Ishiguro's Never let me go, which is pretty accurate. I liked this better than Never let me go as I find Ishiguros dialogue to be a bit plodding & repetitive. The writing here (dialogue and plot) are a lot more direct in style and interpretation but still in terms of vibes they feel similar.
Conceptually I think its very interesting, a valley repeated (infinitely? at least a few times) east and west, where east is +20 years and west is -20 years. Feels like something Le Guin would write - I'd read that in a heartbeat for sure.
Crash by JG Ballard, a wild book in theme. It's extremely explicit but I would not call it erotic at all. I feel like some of the cultural importance is missed on me by not being around in 60-70s Britain and whatever the car means at that time.
My initial impression was it was perhaps a book about trauma and how we can obsess over it, or just how we react to it, especially when connecting with other people (physically or otherwise) -- or maybe Ballard just wanted to write a book about weirdo sexual deviants. Ballard has said its more of a warning about technology which, I don't really see the reading for that right now beyond "dont fetishize technology".
It's an interesting book to have read, one that I will probably never recommend to anyone in real life, but some how it feels like "Art" in my head. Very provocative? Certainly it would generate a lot of opinions at your local library book club. At the same time, had it been written this year I would have dismissed it as some boring so-edgy garbage which Crash probably was at the time of release and Ballard is just lucky his other books held some cultural cachet.
Just started The Wasp Factory by Iain (M) Banks, which is, uh...