2025 on the inkwell

"Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde [+ Others]" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As I’m sure it is with most, I bought this book for the titular story. There’s a lot of interesting discussion to be had over “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde,” the facet that most interests me being that the twist is so solidly stapled into pop-culture that it would be strange for someone not to know it. The original novella plays it as a mystery; I felt a strong focus on “who is this Mr. Hyde sullying the good Dr. Jeckel’s reputation through association” rather than them being the same individual being played for dramatic irony. It’s a late reveal, with Jeckel’s final confession being obtained shortly after he (as Hyde) kills himself to escape the consequences of his actions.

"Mortal Engines" by Philip Reeve

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There were a lot of things in this book that bothered or didn’t work for me, the most grating of which was the way the prose is written. The way in which things are described and told was deeply frustrating and it’s a bit difficult for me to pin down why. To call the narration unsubtle would be to do it a disservice; I’d almost go as far as to say there’s absolutely nothing to infer. I think the book would have benefited from being longer, giving more space for the narration and more pages for the story to unfold. As it stands chapters are too short, which when combined with the constant changing of point-of-view character on chapter or scene changes left the entire book feeling stilted. The changes between present and past tense narration — past tense for Tom, present for the characters who are still in London — is a narrative decision that fell entirely flat. If the goal was to distinctly separate the characters in London and Tom, it works, but it’s at the cost of being annoying and jarring.

"The Time of Contempt" by Andrzej Sapkowski

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I understand that the whole point is that they’re entering the “Time of Contempt” (insert title screen) but it was a little heavy handed having more than one character go “we are truly entering a time of contempt” twice a chapter. That said I didn’t actually track how many times it was said so my brain may have caught on to it as being more present than it actually was. Nitpicks on mild amounts of cheesiness aside, I really enjoyed this book. It delves deeply into the theme of agency — particularly in the lack thereof — primarily for Ciri but also for Geralt. It’s not that these characters don’t have individuality or desire, but that it’s being stripped away from them. Control and agency are central themes and this is very directly spelled out; despite her (novice) abilities and training in sorcery and witchery, Ciri’s prophesied destiny is focused on the potential of her unconceived son, rather than her own actions or potential. In a similar fashion Geralt is often subject to the whims of those around him, with Codringher even commenting that he’s a dog on Yennefer’s leash. This scene is positioned immediately after he has spent his time being exhibited by Yennefer at the sorcerer’s gathering. While I don’t think there’s anything malicious about her behavior, nor did Geralt hold it against her, it’s still fresh in the reader’s mind while Ciri overhears Codringer and Fenn’s conversation. And on her part, Ciri is often dragged around by everyone around her. Sometimes quite literally. Ciri battles a never-ending fight for agency over her own person and body, pushing against both present adversaries and her own trauma that remains from the sacking of Cintra. The narration also takes the opportunity to disparage Geralt’s claims and attempts at neutrality, both through the narrated observations itself and through Vilgefortz and Dijkstra’s observations that he will not be able to maintain his neutrality without forsaking the people he cares about. As the narration notes, “Had it not been for the foolish scruples of the Witcher, and his impractical principles…the history of the world would have unfolded in an alternative way. But the history of the world unfolded as it unfolded, the sole cause of which was that the Witcher had scruples.” (p.160) Though Geralt claims to not choose sides, he has been doing so for the entire series due to his adherence to his own moral code. Much of the book is spent slowly building up to the promise of an incoming conflict, with everything suddenly crashing down — a time of contempt where men and elves hate and slaughter elves and men — as Nilfgaard invades. It’s certainly slow at the start and it’s been long enough since I read “Blood of Elves” that I’m a bit hazy on some of the details of characters’ relationships, so it took me a bit to get back into the swing of things. As stated I really enjoyed it, and I thought this book in particular was thematically really direct and interesting in a way that the previous three were not. It doesn’t beat “Sword of Destiny” in my personal rankings, but it’s a solid second. It doesn’t really fit here at the conclusion but I’d be remiss not to mention how much I loved reading Yennefer call Ciri her daughter given Yennefer’s painful relationship with her own inability to conceive.

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I’m not really sure what I was supposed to get out of this book. There are certainly a plethora of bits and pieces that stood out: Gatsby’s ongoing loneliness and status as an outsider despite his wealth and parties, nearly every character being terrible people in some way, or the narrator’s conclusion that some deficiency doomed their time in the East from the start. It’s a very human story, I suppose, to have these people languishing in unimaginable wealth and hedonism while simultaneously failing to process their own emotions and desires.

"The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If I were more intelligent, I believe I would have a lot to take away from this book. As it stands I’m left simply grasping at vague concepts which I struggle to find the words to express or the thoughts to properly explore. Conceptually: I found the premise of the book fantastic. Clarke’s city, Diaspar, brilliantly blurs the line between a utopia and a dystopia by painting a picture of stagnancy erring on the precipice of rot. In practice, I did not find it easy to get into the flow of reading — hard science fiction, especially of this age, requires my full attention and more to read — but after reaching around the halfway point by going one or two chapters at a time, I was able to sit down and finish the rest. There are a lot of intriguing ideas that merit deeper exploration and consideration that I may or may not find the time to do. The parallels which Clarke draws between Diaspar, his city at the end of the universe, and the polyp hive mind lurking at the edges of Lys open the door to analysis I do not feel quite qualified to attempt. In a way Diaspar feels both alive and dead; an everlasting city designed to make no real progress for all of eternity.

"Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Murder On the Orient Express” was an incredibly unique experience because I cannot recall whether I’ve read it before or not. Regardless of how I was familiar with the story, the fact is that I knew how the story ended before this read-through. I’m left with a question that I find really interesting: is this story better or worse if experienced for the first time while knowing how it ends? It’s not something that I’ve come up with a solid answer to, despite taking quite a while to think it over. It is also unfortunately not realistic to test; I cannot exactly forget everything and read it again. If I were to hazard a guess, I had not read the book before, but experienced either an adaptation or ‘themed recreation’ of the story in an audio drama when I was younger.

"House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I found this book to be pretty disappointing, which is impressive because I didn’t go into the book with any expectations. I could see myself having really liked this book if I had read it a decade prior, but as it stands I ended up having so many little issues that it was difficult for me to enjoy and impossible for me to recommend. My complaints are very directly tied into the characters and plot, so it’s impossible for me to really discuss anything without delving into spoiler territory. The broad gist is: I felt like the book underused its pretense and did not adequately or meaningfully explore the implications of Matt being a clone. The characters were flat and uninteresting across the board, and the plot fell into a disjointed mess somewhere around the last third to quarter of the book.

"The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“The War of the Worlds” is a book that I was slightly hesitant to rate because I am so far outside of its initial target audience. To say that the book was written for a different time is an understatement; the book was published in a world before telephones, before cars, before planes, before the atom bomb — in a world where England was the central world power. It is incredibly important to preface my thoughts on the book with: I am a hundred and twenty-five years late.

"Sword of Destiny" by Andrzej Sapkowski

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is easily my favorite of the Witcher books that I’ve read so far (the only others at time of writing being “Blood of Elves” and “The Last Wish”). It doesn’t follow the same format as “The Last Wish”—which is a bit of a shame, as I did really like the way that book was structured—instead being exactly what it is advertised as: a collection of disconnected short stories.

The world that Sapkowski is putting together really shines in this collection, enhanced by the longer average length of the stories compared to “The Last Wish.” The only thing that irks me is how much seems to have happened before the previous short story The Last Wish and the start of The Bounds of Reason. A lot is implied (or stated) to have happened between Geralt and Yennefer, and while we get the gist of what happened pretty quickly, the opening stories are rather spare on details. That’s not to say that it should have been worked into the existing narratives in some way—the additions being made probably would have been jarring and made the surrounding story worse—but rather to say that I would have liked a short story better explaining what had happened instead of jumping and staying so far ahead of where the final story in “The Last Wish” left off.

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I came into the book with high expectations; I found the concept of the book incredibly interesting, and I thought “The Martian” movie and novel were excellent. There are a ton of things that I thought were excellent that I don’t really want to discuss in a review because the reveals and pacing made the story such a satisfying experience.

I’m not qualified to give any kind of critique on the science, so any complaints I have about it may inherently be off base from my own lack of understanding. That being said there was one thing that really stood out to me as strange, that being how quickly Grace was able to breed the Taumoebas to have nitrogen resistance. That seems to me like something that should take an exceptionally long time—it certainly took some time although I don’t remember how long exactly—in the scope of years, not weeks. That was the only thing that stood out to me during the read, and I wouldn’t really say it impacted my enjoyment at all.

"Tress of the Emerald Sea" by Brandon Sanderson

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re familiar with some of Sanderson’s other works, this book is stylistically a large departure from what you are used to. I have read (and thoroughly enjoyed) both Mistborn and much of the Stormlight Archive, and so I was expecting something within that same lane in terms of tone and narrative style.

Though a departure from expectations, I thoroughly enjoyed “Tress of the Emerald Sea.” It’s an excellent standalone that doesn’t hinge on any previous knowledge of the Cosmere, and presents a interesting world and explores a unique and detailed magic system as Sanderson is known to do. I didn’t love Hoid as a narrator; while I greatly enjoyed the story being told and the characters in it, the narration style leaned into “grating” a lot more often than I think it intended to. It’s very clear that Sanderson took inspiration from the way that Prachett writes—checking afterward he directly states as much in the Afterword—and while it’s a unique style for him, it took a lot of getting used to. It’s tantalizingly close to nailing the style that Sanderson wanted, but it’s just barely not quite there. (This is the least objective opinion ever held so your mileage may vary.) Hoid’s interjections did grow on me over the course of the story, but I’d be lying if I said my final sentiment was anything better than neutral.

"Circe" by Madeline Miller

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I read anything derived from Greek mythology—my last experience being the Percy Jackson series a decade ago—so I went in with no expectations and a hazy-at-best memory of what events would occur. I used to be very into mythology and had read a lot of various Greek and Roman myths, but I’ve forgotten large amounts of it over the years. Things slowly came back to me as I read “Circe”, and I think that rekindled knowledge made me enjoy Miller’s retelling even more than I would have otherwise.

"Guards! Guards!" by Terry Prachett

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m really not sure if I liked this book or not. This was my first foray into the Discworld (and my introduction to Terry Prachett as an author) and I’m sad to say that I was disappointed by it. It’s frustrating because I found myself really enjoying Prachett’s writing style—his sense of humor certainly worked for me—but I could not get invested in the characters or story being told. My gripe with “Guards, Guards!” was that for so much of it, I just didn’t care. It’s a difficult criticism to levy because I don’t know what the solution to it would actually be. Over the course of the book, Vimes becomes more compelling, but still not to an extent that I really felt invested in him or his comrades.

"Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I stumbled into this book by chance: I spotted it at a book store and was drawn in by the newfound knowledge that The Silence of the Lambs is a part of a larger series. I have not seen the aforementioned movie nor read the book it was adapted from, so I entered with no expectations past an understanding that the next entry in the series is widely considered good.

"The Last Wish" by Andrzej Sapkowski

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Despite being a collection of short stories, the interludes in between each story provide a gentle connection that makes this feel more like a cohesive whole than any other short story collection I’ve read. It’s manages to piece together a world that feels rich even though we really don’t get to see that much of it, only bits and pieces are fed to the reader over the course of the book.

"The Liminal Zone" and "The Liminal Zone 2" by Junji Ito

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately, The Liminal Zone falls victim to a very standard short-story collection issue: parts of it are really good, and parts or it are mediocre. Of the four stories in the collection, the only one that really stuck with me in the way that I’ve come to expect from a Junji Ito story was Slumber. The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara was a decent second place to it, but the other two stories just didn’t quite work for me.

"Scythe" by Neil Shusterman

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’d consider myself a casual fan of the dystopia genre, having read and enjoyed books like The Giver, The Hunger Games, and The Roar. When I came across the book at the book store its premise— as well as a nagging notion that I’d heard of the series before— immediately piqued my interest.

Despite the genre it does not really remind me of any of the aforementioned books or series. That is not to say it is some daring escape from the tropes of its genre, but that the narration and world evoked a very different feeling. A lot of banal comparisons can be made to the Giver: natural death has been (all but) eradicated, humanity has lost something vital in its pursuit of perfection, but these similarities are surface level as the ideas are taken in a wildly different direction.

"Remina" by Junji Ito

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a twisted sense of humor in a lot of Junji Ito’s work that really shines in Remina. It’s an equally excellent and absurd exploration of cosmic horror. Perhaps the human mind’s only defense against the unknowable, unbeatable, grotesque calamity is insanity. As unnerving and ominous as the artwork is, there’s something inherently morbidly funny about a cloud of people flying around a rapidly spinning earth. The beautifully, horrifically illustrated full page spreads that Junji Ito uses to punctuate his work are on full display in their awful grandeur.

"Piranesi" by Suzanna Clarke

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Personally I have a bit of difficulty getting in to books written in the first person. I’ve never nailed down exactly what it is about it that I find abrasive, but has always caused me to hesitate.

Some books work best— perhaps would only work— as a first person retelling. All Quiet on the Western Front is a recently-read example that immediately comes to mind, but Piranesi might be the definitive example of why a book should be written in first person.

"The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle

Sat, 03 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a profound melancholy that undercuts this story from start to finish; it was emotionally raw in a way I wasn’t ready for. It lacks immediate rigid world-building and clearly defined rules, and instead paints the silhouette of a world that is worse off for the fantastical elements which it has lost. The fantastic replaced with petty illusions, parlor tricks, or simply rendered unseeable by the eroding passage of time.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When writing a story about war, there is always the chance of accidentally glorifying some aspect of it. Even the grittiest war movies have cool explosions, after all. In this sense I think that a book is the perfect medium for a story like this. There is no chance of accidentally undermining the harrowing experiences that Paul goes through.

All Quiet on the Western Front is not subtle, and I sincerely appreciate that. Though the main message is effectively screamed at the reader by every main character, there’s still quite a lot within to think about and digest. Criticism and cynicism about nationalism, the glorification of war by the layman, the callous disregard for the individual soldier and their experiences, and an impassable disconnect between a country’s leader and the men made to die for him.

"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s hard to judge a book written so long ago fairly, because it may as well have been written in a different world. There are a lot of things that work against this book. The style of the narration made it difficult for me to be invested in the story and characters. The rapid-fire rate at which characters were introduced made it difficult to track who was who, ultimately boiling down to there only being about four characters that actually did anything which mattered. It made it difficult to feel any sense of investment in the boys and their fate, and left me feeling disconnected; I was a disinterested spectator watching from the sidelines. That is not inherently a bad thing, however this combined with the other factors listed prior hurt my enjoyment of the book.

"Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As a modern retelling of Norse mythos, I think the book does its job quite well. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the adaptation, but based on the Notes at the end of the book it appears to be well researched. Norse mythology has always existed in a bit of a blind spot for me; I grew up familiar with Greek and Roman mythos, however for a very long time my only exposure to Norse Mythology was through Marvel’s rendition of the characters.

"Blood of Elves" by Andrzej Sapkowski

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I really, really enjoyed this book— but it’s impossible to recommend on its own. I was incorrectly drawn in to this as a starting point for the Witcher series, having not done my research, and it was very quickly clear to me past the opening chapter that this was intended for people intimately familiar with the short story collection.

For me, that was not an issue— I had enough familiarity with the lore through the game series— and I opted to continue reading regardless of having skipped the previous two short story collections. But for anyone who is less familiar with the series, its characters, and world, this is a horrible starting point more likely to put you off of the series entirely than to entice you to seek out the prerequisite material. I only highlight this complaint so thoroughly because, both here on Goodreads and at the bookstore, it was labeled as the first Witcher novel. Which is correct! It is the first Witcher novel, but that is a misleading statement as it is built heavily upon the world and characters established in the short story collections.

"The Invisible Man" by H.G. Wells

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I really wanted to enjoy this book; it fought against me on every page. What’s most frustrating is that the majority of my complaints are structural: if this same story was presented in a different way, I have no doubt I would have loved it. This was painfully highlighted by the ending segment of the book, as it was much more engaging and enjoyable than the rest of the story.

"The Rest of the Robots" by Isaac Asimov

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It is important to start by noting that I read the paperback version which includes only the eight short stories. There were some short stories in this book which I thoroughly enjoyed, however I finished it feeling a bit betrayed by the blurb on the back. Or, put more succinctly, I felt promised— and hoped to see— more of Dr. Suzan Calvin than I did in the collection. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the latter half or so of the book that contained the short stories featuring her was my favorite portion.

"Tomie" by Junji Ito

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

One issue I’ve had with Junji Ito’s work is that none of the other longer-form collections have resonated with me in quite the same ways as Uzamaki did. Were I not to have read Uzamaki, I’d perhaps allot another star to this work, but as it stands its hard for me to not compare anything I read to it.

The artwork is excellent. Junji Ito’s style exists in a world of its own, and the way in which he can have a reader turn page to page with baited breath, waiting for the horrifying, inexplicable reveal is unlike anything I’ve read before. Unfortunately, perhaps because I couldn’t get invested into the story of this collection, said reveals were not as impactful as they should have been. At the end of the day, the collection is repetitive. Though it happens in different ways, the end result and motivation is always the same. This strengthens the inversion and rejection of the pattern at the end of the book, and makes the payoff of the final few stories by far the strongest segment of the book, but it comes at the cost of the first three-quarters dipping into the mundane.

"Greatest Hits" by Harlan Ellison

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If measured by the short stories I enjoyed the most, this is the best book I’ve ever read. If measured by the stories I barely managed to stumble through, then it would be one of my least favorite pieces of media. It’s with that in mind that I’d wholeheartedly recommend this book, because the stories that I enjoyed were good enough that I still appreciated the stories which I did not.