Hooray! Two Books I Enjoyed

 and one I really didn't. 

The ones in the photo are the Waterstones Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books of the month for April and May. You honestly couldn't get two books from the same genre that were further apart but I liked them both. 

Fourth Wing is apparently very divisive amongst the Sci-F-/Fantasy community although I had no idea of this when I started reading it on the long drive back to Orkney after our aborted holiday. Luckily it was very immersive and I read almost the whole thing in a day. When I first started it I thought I was not going to like it - because let's face it I wasn't in a good to be pleased, and quite  a lot of the early elements of the plot were going over old ground; pushy parents, sibling rivalry, elite military squadrons, dragons, fatal training, etc etc. But the characters were largely quite engaging, some of the nicer ones did actually die, along with some if not all of the nasty ones, and, given that it's the first of a series, there was a nice plot arc developing by the end. I'm not quite sure what the controversy is all about. I've only seen it reported second or third hand in a few knitting groups, and I can't be bothered to enquire further. It seems to be mainly hard sci-fi readers moaning about how it's not hard sci-fi. Possibly they were led astray by the title and thought they were going to be reading some sort of Top Gun on a made up planet type thing. Given that it becomes obvious very early on that that is not what you're getting with this book I don't know why they don't just stop reading once they realise that. Anyway as I once said at Saturday Slaughters criticising a book for not being the sort of book you like to read isn't really valid criticism at all. (I don't think that was a sentiment that went down well but you know, it is true. I don't like psychological thrillers but I never dissed one in the group by saying well I didn't like this because it was a psychological thriller set on a sun kissed island  and I wanted to read a police procedural set in rain drenched  Manchester. I dissed them by saying the characters were cardboard, or the plot had holes in it you could drive  a tank through.) Anyway that was Fourth Wing; an enjoyable and entertaining, if shallow, read.

The Ferryman was something quite other. It was very readable, but it addressed some deep ideas in a challenging and sometimes disorienting way. There were a lot of twists and turns in it, and every time my reaction was, ' there's no way I could have seen that coming but now that it has come, yes of course it had to be that way'. And there isn't just one major twist but two and several smaller ancillary but important ones as well. It's clever, it's unsettling, its full of surprises, it's like nothing I have ever read before. If I have a teensy weensy criticism I would say it's maybe about 50 pages too long but that's nitpicking. Wholeheartedly recommended. 

I note in passing that this brings me almost up to date with the Waterstone's Books of the Month. So that's pleasing. I have yet to tackle February but I may get to that this month (no hard promise though)  and of course I won't be able to pick up June's until I pass through Glasgow next month. 

The one I didn't like was an Audible buy called The Charity Shop Detective Agency. A subpar Richard Osman rip off, also the first of a series. I shan't be getting any more, and indeed rather resent the fact that I was suckered into wasting an Audible credit on this one.