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juushikaTitle: All You Need is Kill
Author: Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Translator: Alexander O. Smith
Published: VIZMedia, 2016 (2009)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 509,110
Text Number: 1835
Read Because: fan of the film adaptation, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This is the inspiration for the film Edge of Tomorrow: A Japanese grunt soldier in a war against extraterrestrials finds himself trapped in a time loop until he can figure out how to, literally, win the day. It's a light novel, which means: short length, abrupt voice, and exaggerated, tropey characterization, particularly in the female characters. It's very readable - light novels often are - are more than a little cringey.
But I'm a sucker for time loops, and this sure is one. The sci-fi justification for it gets messy, but the protagonist's relationship with his loop is joylessly pragmatic, intruded upon by crucial, unwelcome, distinctly non-pragmatic social elements. The film adaptation is particularly invested in the asymmetrical social experience of a time loop; the book, too, but its questions and answers are different, which makes the two "versions" of this narrative both worth checking out. I liked this! The loop is well-paced, willing to skip ahead and take shortcuts, and the book really hits its stride when Rita is brought into the (haha, pun intended:) loop.
Title: Starve Acre
Author: Andrew Michael Hurley
Published: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023 (2019)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 509,880
Text Number: 1838
Read Because: reviewed bytamaranth, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After the death of their young son, the family home of Starve Acre is a bleak, haunted place. Haunted in what way, dead for what reason, is revealed piecemeal, taking an increasingly speculative bent. I like the atmosphere here, folk horror set within the bleakness and threatening fecundity of late winter turning to spring. But there's something about horror novels about the destruction of typical family units that always misses me. I swear I'm not trying to be contrarian, I get why it's such a fertile topic for horror, but it doesn't scare me and I'm much more team nursing a demon-hare baby. So: fine, but not memorable.
Title: Amadeus
Author: Peter Shaffer
Published: Perennial (HarperCollins), 2001 (1980)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 125
Total Page Count: 510,005
Text Number: 1839
Read Because: rewatched the film, scans borrowed from Open Library
Review: I adore the suggested staging, and the fluidity with which Salieri moves across the stage, through time, between action and audience address. It's been a while since I read a play, and this was a gratifying way to break that fast; it's kinetic and apprehensible.
I chased this down right after rewatching the film, and I can't help making comparisons. The film is better, the central dynamic more mutually informing, and it's a dynamic I adore (I spent the last hour repeating "you can hate and love someone at the same time!" - can't beat that intensity). The play is messier, thornier, everyone comes off worse and I like that; this Mozart is such a mess that Salieri's hatred is uncomfortably persuasive. But it's less magnetic, and as such it's less memorable.
Author: Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Translator: Alexander O. Smith
Published: VIZMedia, 2016 (2009)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 509,110
Text Number: 1835
Read Because: fan of the film adaptation, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This is the inspiration for the film Edge of Tomorrow: A Japanese grunt soldier in a war against extraterrestrials finds himself trapped in a time loop until he can figure out how to, literally, win the day. It's a light novel, which means: short length, abrupt voice, and exaggerated, tropey characterization, particularly in the female characters. It's very readable - light novels often are - are more than a little cringey.
But I'm a sucker for time loops, and this sure is one. The sci-fi justification for it gets messy, but the protagonist's relationship with his loop is joylessly pragmatic, intruded upon by crucial, unwelcome, distinctly non-pragmatic social elements. The film adaptation is particularly invested in the asymmetrical social experience of a time loop; the book, too, but its questions and answers are different, which makes the two "versions" of this narrative both worth checking out. I liked this! The loop is well-paced, willing to skip ahead and take shortcuts, and the book really hits its stride when Rita is brought into the (haha, pun intended:) loop.
Title: Starve Acre
Author: Andrew Michael Hurley
Published: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023 (2019)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 509,880
Text Number: 1838
Read Because: reviewed by
tamaranth, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: After the death of their young son, the family home of Starve Acre is a bleak, haunted place. Haunted in what way, dead for what reason, is revealed piecemeal, taking an increasingly speculative bent. I like the atmosphere here, folk horror set within the bleakness and threatening fecundity of late winter turning to spring. But there's something about horror novels about the destruction of typical family units that always misses me. I swear I'm not trying to be contrarian, I get why it's such a fertile topic for horror, but it doesn't scare me and I'm much more team nursing a demon-hare baby. So: fine, but not memorable.
Title: Amadeus
Author: Peter Shaffer
Published: Perennial (HarperCollins), 2001 (1980)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 125
Total Page Count: 510,005
Text Number: 1839
Read Because: rewatched the film, scans borrowed from Open Library
Review: I adore the suggested staging, and the fluidity with which Salieri moves across the stage, through time, between action and audience address. It's been a while since I read a play, and this was a gratifying way to break that fast; it's kinetic and apprehensible.
I chased this down right after rewatching the film, and I can't help making comparisons. The film is better, the central dynamic more mutually informing, and it's a dynamic I adore (I spent the last hour repeating "you can hate and love someone at the same time!" - can't beat that intensity). The play is messier, thornier, everyone comes off worse and I like that; this Mozart is such a mess that Salieri's hatred is uncomfortably persuasive. But it's less magnetic, and as such it's less memorable.
