Sections
Gideon the Ninth is a mordant fantasy novel about a group of young necromancers taking part in a dangerous competition. Its strength lies in its snarky protagonist, whose voice can be felt throughout the whole narrative: her tone infects the narrator’s voice, interfering with the descriptions and the overall sense of humor. The novel’s plot and magic system can get a bit too nonsensical, but the characters are strong enough to make up for it.
The protagonist is Gideon, a young girl who lives in the Ninth House of necromancers, under the rule of another young girl, called Harrow Nonagesimus. They hate each other very, very much and are not subtle about it, frequently [...]
Written by Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines is a fantasy novel that builds a preposterous but intriguing world, telling a story with a lot of ups and downs, but that ultimately delivers with its good set of characters and a great amount of creativity.
In the world of Mortal Engines, cities exist on wheels. They are moving entities that are always looking for prey: here, one city can eat another with its metal contraptions just to take its resources and people. Aboard London, Tom Natsworthy is a young apprentice who, one day, finds himself in the position to save the man he considers a hero, Thaddeus Valentine, from the assault of a mysterious girl. The young man, however, learns [...]
Bird Box, written by Josh Malerman, is a post-apocalyptic horror novel about a world where people, haunted by unfathomable creatures, cannot open their eyes when they go out on the streets, lest they go mad and commit suicide. The book, however, is not able to take advantage of the potential of this premise, failing to present captivating characters and to construct scenes packed with tension.
The protagonist is called Malorie, a woman who finds herself pregnant precisely on the day in which humanity is attacked by mysterious monsters on the streets.: every person who looks at them goes mad and kills themselves. With her eyes closed, Malorie leaves desperately for a house that [...]
Daemon is a book that seeks to illustrate the mastery of technology over humanity. While many stories focus on technological dependence and create apocalyptic scenarios based on the horrible scenario where people suddenly no longer have it available – total absence of electrical energy is a recurring device – Daniel Suarez’s work demonstrates another purpose: to show how exposed and defenseless we can become with the advancement of technology.
Suarez paints our society as a fragile thing, depicting the indispensable elements for our daily life – internet, television, videogames, and the media – as tools of control and manipulation, in order to critique a civilization [...]
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, Genevieve Valentine’s first novel, is a different and ambitious book, with a narrative that stands out for being peculiar and strange.
The Circus Tresaulti is known for its extraordinary members: people who have had various parts of their body – such as their legs, eyes, or even their heart – replaced by gears, scrap metal, and utensils of iron and steel. These pieces are set inside their bodies by the director of the circus – to whom everyone refers simply as “Boss” – to make them more resistant than their original selves, helping their work in the circus. The process is absurdly painful and, in the end, it is not [...]
At the very beginning of The Fault in Our Stars, the protagonist, Hazel Grace, makes a metalinguistic comment about her favorite novel: “it’s not a cancer book, because cancer books suck”. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars indeed is not a book on cancer. It is a romance populated by characters who must face the prospect of death every day. The difference between genres is simple: instead of being dominated by melancholy, the story is primarily touching.
Hazel Grace is a girl with thyroid cancer who during one of her support group meetings encounters a boy who doesn’t hesitate to invite her to watch a movie at his home on the very same day. His name is Augustus [...]