Hello.

This blog follows on from last year’s post. As a reminder on my ★ ratings:

• ★★★★★: This book is a masterpiece and I will recommend it to everyone
• ★★★★☆: This book was really good and I will most likely recommended it to you ask me about books.
• ★★★☆☆: This book was good, I don’t regret reading it but I will probably not recommend it.
• ★★☆☆☆: This book was not good, I most likely regret reading it and it was a struggle and a slog.
• ★☆☆☆☆: This book was dire, either I didn’t finish it or if I did I probably didn’t want to.

Furthermore; each rating is given in context to what the book is about. Two literature books with different ratings could be compared, whereas a non-fiction book with a higher or lower rating isn’t comparable. Finally, books are listed in the order I read them.

The Great Gatsby⌗

I started off this year with a lofty goal: to read every book Charlie reads in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This goal was not achieved. Quite frankly I’m not sure what planet I was on where I thought I could do a day of MSc studying and then come home and read classics in bed. I managed to get through three books of this self imposed challenge and this was the first. This book was technically finished on 30th December 2023 but I’m counting it as the first 2024 book.

It might come as a surprise to most that I’ve never read this book before. In the UK our English lessons covered very specific literature more intensely, so I can tell you everything there is to know about Of Mice and Men (as can anyone from a certain generation in the UK) but not a lot about anything else. In general I did enjoy this book, I think I liked Gatsby as a character and enjoyed his flaws but it has been such a long time that I can’t quite remember.

Rating: ★★★★☆

To Kill a Mockingbird⌗

I’m sure everything that could possibly be said about this book has already been said. It’s excellent and I really enjoyed reading it and you should too (although I’m sure you have already).

Rating: ★★★★★

The Catcher in the Rye⌗

As aforementioned this is the third and last book I read from the “Charlie Challenge”. I hated this book halfway through and was glad it was so thin, but by the end I actually had come around to the book. Holden is horribly angsty and can come across as rather cringe, but I think I felt a certain vulnerability in the character by the end. I ended up feeling like I could relate to him quite a lot, and based on other reviews I read online this (anecdotally) seems to be the significant factor in whether or not you enjoyed the book. We’re all angsty at some point, and I think if I interacted with myself at 15 I would also find myself annoying and cringe. Equally however, over the last few years I’ve found myself absolving my younger self of cringe, and trying not to feel a sorrow at the “lost years” of my youth spent raging and rebelling at the world. Instead I think that you cannot expect yourself to be some omnipotent god-like perfect character for your entire life, and to even blame that version of yourself for having angst is a disservice to their experience. If they could’ve been like you desired them to be, they would’ve been.

Rating: ★★★★★

The Three-Body Problem⌗

I saw this had been adapted by the cursed Game of Thrones writers as a Netflix series. I got about 20 minutes into the first episode before I stopped watching and went and bought the book instead. This book was really great, I enjoyed both the historical aspects and the science fiction aspects of the book. I have very poor knowledge regarding the history of China (in general), and I feel this book helped educate me on a very specific period of China and the effect the regime had on persons living there. The sci-fi elements very very juicy as well, in my opinion the balance of true science in science fiction was perfect in the sense that the parts where the science was wrong were more advanced than my A-level physics knowledge and so my suspension of disbelief held throughout. However, when I recommended this book to my Mum she found the science quite wordy and difficult to traverse. On reflection, this book definitely leans into the science more than the fiction and that may not be to everyone’s taste.

Rating: ★★★★★

The Beekeeper of Aleppo⌗

I read this book around the time of the UK general election, which is rather apt as a certain political party had a certain message around refugees which was not positive. Equally, this review comes out at a time when a certain UK TV channel aired a controversial reality TV show where contestants relive a refugee’s journey. This book was a well needed reminder of the struggles an individual refugee can face. I felt a certain guilt whilst reading this book that the reminder had to come in the form of fiction, as opposed to focusing on engaging with the real stories happening around me. I felt like I was avoiding the actual problem and transforming it into a more palettable medium that could be put down and ignored without guild. That being said, the book is very emotive and tries very hard to demonstrate the moral, emotional and physical struggles an individual refugee can face.

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Tattooist of Auschwitz⌗

This is a book that is saved by the story itself rather than the quality of the writing. Unlike The Beekeeper of Aleppo where I felt like the writing, story and narrative all blended together to improve the experience. The Tattooist of Auschwitz instead feels like a interesting story discovered by a mediocre writer.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Wool & Shift⌗

Hugh Howey’s Silo trilogy has been on my radar since the release of the first season of the Apple TV series, which I also really enjoyed. This book is a really good dystopian sci-fi mystery, it differs greatly from the TV show in theme. The TV show takes the setting and applies a 1984 “big brother” dystopian theme - which is a more muted theme on “truth seeking” in the books. Instead I think the themes I took from the books were survival, the intersectionality of politics and religion, and hope. Furthermore the central mystery in the TV show is revealed within the first chapter of the Wool book - completely changing the dynamic of the book (versus the TV show) entirely. The first Wool book was also written as a series of novellas, which I felt became more cohesive as the novellas went on. In general I found that the first half of Wool primary focus was exposition (via a detective-like crime storyline). The world is built over the first half of the book, allowing for the stark contrast in the second when SPOILER: Jules leaves the first Silo and escapes to the empty second Silo. Giving us a direct comparison between the two worlds.

Shift is the second book in the series, and in my opinion is weaker than the first. This book serves primarily as both a prequel series alongside a retelling of second half of Wool but from a different perspective. In general I found this book to be a bit weaker than the first, I can’t quite put my finger on why but I think the gist is that Hugh didn’t really hit the nail with the skipping between pre- and post-silo creation and it moreoften. However, there are some really great “story” moments in this book, some really good twists and the “big” twist in the book was (I thought) a really good reveal and not something I had considered up to that point.

I have now finished the series with Dust, although this will have to wait for my 2025 book review!

Ratings: ★★★★☆ & ★★★☆☆

The Buried Giant⌗

The final book I read in 2024 was Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. I love Kazuo Ishiguro’s books and writing in general, Never Let Me Go could be my #1 book at the moment, so I went into The Buried Giant with high expectations which were - unfortunately - generally not met. Not to say that the book is bad - only that I feel like his writing style did not transition to the setting very well. I found myself generally confused about the time period he was trying to emulate and the “level” of the fantasy throughout. Maybe this is due to a personal flaw regarding my lack of knowledge of post-Roman Britain - but as contrast to the Three Body Problem where I felt like I understood the period more as time went on I do think this is partially due to the style of writing. The message of the book is generally around guilt, memories and dedication; and I felt that this was generally well discussed and explored throughout the book.

Rating: ★★★☆☆