Tag: bingo2024

Dream a little Dream

Es the Book HoarderLeave a comment

In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconcious, theres a department store that sells dreams…

What a wonderful idea! The concept caught my interest straight away and I would have given this book a go even if it didn’t fit my book bingo 2024 list, but it happens to do that quite well in the category of Author of Colour, and it fits for hard mode, which is another bonus. Interestingly, the book was published as a debut in 2020 and funded entirely through a crowd-funding service in Korea – and became a bestseller! How awesome is that! It’s also my local Waterstones pick of the month for August 2024, and there’s a book club meet about it at the store in September, so I’ll be going to that!

This endearing and whimsical tale follows Penny as she becomes the newest employee in Dallergut’s, supplying dreams to customers with various requirements. It’s reminiscent of Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium in parts but is most definitely something that is unique: and I wanted so desperately to love it, to get swept away in the deliciousness of the concept, but it really didn’t hit home for me.

It’s not the concept – that’s fabulous. It’s not the characters, although I felt they could have been more fleshed out. The translation wasn’t even much of an issue, although I do feel that it simplified the narration somewhat and it may have been more effective as a whole if read in the original language. DDDS (Dallergut Dream Department Store) is a very good book: it’s a feel-good, cosy, slice-of-life tale but it could have achieved so much more. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the Tale of the Three Disciples is just one example that could have been expanded to become something even more wonderful. I know it’s part of a duology, and that in the next book, there is the possibility that it could become something amazing. I also know that it might not be the author’s intent for it to become something other than what it is, which is cosy, slice-of-life as I’ve said, but there is so much potential in the concept that wasn’t executed and it’s such a shame.

I liked DDDS, the characters were quirky, and the idea of dream-making and selling was intriguing and compelling. I loved the messages that were in the book – the themes of friendship, love, grief, loss, loneliness, stress, perseverance, acceptance, identity and more were all covered in this little novelette and were covered well. It is a magical, lovely little tale.

I was just expecting something else, and I can see so much more that could come from it. I’ll still be picking up the sequel so I can find out what happens to Penny, Weather, Dallergut, Maxim, Assam, Babynap Rockabye, Animora Bancho and even Vigo!!

If you enjoy slice-of-life, cosy fantasy, you’ll love DDDS, and even if cosy fantasy isn’t normally your go-to, try this one. You might find you enjoy it more than you think you will.

Hauntingly Evocative

Es the Book HoarderLeave a comment

Welcome to Area X. An Edenic wilderness, an environmental disaster zone, a mystery for thirty years.

The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.

Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown…

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Southern Reach #1
Published 2014
Book Bingo: Eldritch Creatures (Hard Mode)

This is a ridiculously difficult book to review.

I picked this book up as part of the Bingo 2024 challenge for the Eldritch Creatures category. I’m a little ashamed to say, especially given that I read a lot of horror, that I didn’t realise these odd entities/creatures had a categeory of their own. Anyway, Emily, another lovely member of staff at my local Waterstones, assured me that I would love this book and that it definitely fitted what I was looking for.

Told from the point of view of “the biologist” although the tale includes others, including her own husband’s experiences, her perspective leads us beautifully through this unique, eerie tale of an exploration team (the 12th expedition according to the text) in a place called “Area X.”

The imagery in this deceptively small-looking novel is just beautiful, although not technically traditional. It lulls and lures the reader into a lyrical dance that undulates in the bizarre, and it stays with you. It’s incredibly immersive, and so odd that it’s difficult to define just how effective it is, because I can see how devisive it could be – the interpretation is completely up to the reader, and the content reflects this in the interpretation given by “the biologist” – there are no correct answers, just mystery.

There are plenty of secrets in this book and as the answers are slowly revealed, the story draws you in to its surreal and distorted and disconcerting sense of reality. You are left stranded in the in-between, a kind of limbo, yet there is a feeling of fulfillment. Still there is a sense of needing to dig deeper, to eke out the mystery, to find the reasoning. You know there is more, just not where to find it.

Atmospheric is an almost perfect descriptor, ominous is another.

Personally, I like hauntingly evocative.

“It was as if I travelled through the landscape with the sound of an expressive and intense aria playing in my ears. Everything was imbued with emotion, awash with it, and I was no longer a biologist but somehow the crest of a wave building and building but never crashing to the shore.”

4/5 stars