29th August 2026

Well this book did not get me through anything.

It's the story of a tech billionaire creep who has kidnapped a group of girls and young women and keeps them locked up for his own unsavoury devices. It's the story of one of those girls' father and his depression. It's the story of some professional but independent rescuers who feel they only exist on the pages of thrillers. It's the story of drug gangs and... well I gave up.

I got about halfway, and realised that my level of interest in the characters was really limited, and the horrible nature of some of their actions wasn't something I cared to read about.

It's interesting given that I've just read The Godfather, which is also full of reprehensible characters and terrible deeds, that a modern thriller wasn't able to stay readable in the same way. But this felt like the basic sort of modern thriller which focusses just on action after action, and too much on the baddies, without spending the effort to build interesting characters.

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29th August 2026

The Secret Seven gather again for a new school holidays, with the usual mystery in the offing, trouble with Susie and Binky, and a big dollop of coincidence to help things out.

I still can't help thinking as an adult reader that Susie is really the hero of these stories, and it will be interesting when I get onto the non-Blyton continuation novels whether that continues.

As a modern reader, I'm not sure this book always teaches the best lessons to children on how to behave around strangers, and there's a good amount of sneaking out at night. Unlike previous novels, the girls are allowed to take part more, but still there's a sense of sexism in how they react in some situations.

It's also got some quite serious peril for the characters that I didn't remember from the series. In fact I have very little memory of this one of the stories at all, and am wondering if perhaps I didn't read it as a child... though I thought I had read or listened to them all.

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29th August 2026

We join El Higgins in her third year of four at an oddly American-style school in Britain, which has no staff but still punishes students for not learning properly. It was a great choice to not start us off in the first year - it gives a totally different vibe to learn not as the character is learning, but from them, and I think sets us up for a more interesting adventure.

The first half of the novel presents El as moderately unlikeable, and this section was a bit of a challenge to push through before the second half flows more easily.

There's a lot to imagine here - strange dimensionality, creepy creatures, and a magic system - and I'm not sure that fitted perfectly with the way my brain fails to fully picture things when reading.

And yet, with retrospect, it was an enjoyable story - with a decent sprinkling of humour throughout. I wanted to find out more about the characters and the world, and how the plot would evolve. But I still feel a bit like more world-building would have kept me entertained more.

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15th August 2026

I've been meaning to read this classic novel for years, and finally bought a copy last summer, only now getting to actually read it. I was nervous, because it's a big book of many densely packed words, and felt likely to be dated. But I surprised myself by getting into it quite quickly.

The narration definitely feels older - similar in some respects to other books I've read from the 60s, but also unfamiliarly formal in some respects. Time passes in a non-linear fashion, where we're often told what's going to happen and then step back to watch it. Similarly with a lot of events happening in parallel, we get to rewind every now and then for a chapter elsewhere leading up to the same event.

The plot is interesting, although very meandering, and I'm still not entirely sure whether there's a main plot or if it is just a generational family story with social commentary mixed in.

The characters are I think what makes it such a classic. There's a rich cast, although almost entirely men (at best there's one scene where two women have a conversation that's only tangentially about a man), and learning about them and their personal journeys, motivation, ways of thinking, and the shades of grey that make them up was the most compelling part of the experience for me.

The book is from the 60s, and does contain the sort of racism and sexism, and a lot of violence, that I have learnt to expect from novels of that era. The author does well for the most part to present it as the characters being racist and sexist rather than the narration, but in a few places it does feel like the presentation is a bit too bought into reprehensible beliefs.

But I definitely enjoyed reading it more than I expected to, and will probably return to read more by Puzo in the future.

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15th August 2026

The third novel on the series serves as a sequel to both of the first two, bringing a character from the second book into the setting of the first, as she relocates her entire life looking for something that's missing in her life.

This is a D&D-style fantasy setting, but loses some of the cosiness of the previous two novels to take us out on the road adventuring more, with more combat, danger, and peril.

It's a fun little adventure but I do think it's lost some of the charm by becoming more adventurous and less about building something. While the character and her journey are definitely interesting to read, they intentionally inspire a different set of emotion in the reader, and I think I was expecting more of the same instead.

There's lots of humour though still, and mystery connected to it, as we try to work out what exactly this quest is all about.

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25th July 2026

It's the usual chaos at Linbury Court as Jennings and his somewhat unwilling accomplice Darbishire set of on an adventure inspired by a fishing rod.

If you've read any Jennings novels before then this is more of the same - things that seem entirely reasonable to schoolboys become perplexing to their teachers, and the reverse.

There was one moment which, reading again now I'm older, made me properly cringe - which isn't a reaction I think I've had to these books before.

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25th July 2026

Another great Fethering mystery, in which we rejoin Carole and Jude to attend a "private view" of unsuitable art at the local gallery.

The characters remain comically opposed in their approach to things, and are just a pleasant break between books that take themselves more seriously.

There is a lot going on though, and following all the different threads to conclusion takes a little mental effort - but it's the journey that's important.

Just what I was looking for.

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