When I received this novella -- shorter, less customised, and with no content beyond the core story -- I found myself somewhat disappointed. Especially as it was announced alongside the very recently published The Secrets of Blackthorn Hall, I quite simply expected a bit more grandeur. Yet, I approached the story with optimism. After all, Matthew is among my very favourite of Cassie's characters, and I've been waiting to see him again. Unfortunately, however, my first impression of disappointment was reaffirmed.

Altogether, there simply isn't much to this novella and -- I cannot believe I am saying this about one of Cassie's books, who are notorious for being almost ridiculously long -- I believe it needed to be longer. As is, we're getting a half-baked, entirely unengaging mystery, a semi-developed love interest alongside a painfully underdeveloped romance, and an underused setting. We're on an ocean liner, and despite the inital atmospheric descriptions, Cassie makes no use of the setting whatsoever; the story could literally have taken place in any other somewhat remote setting and it would not have made a difference.

Hoewever, the worst of it, I would argue, is Matthew himself. We are meeting Matthew post-recovery from his alcoholism, which is touched upon only superficially, though not post-mourning Christopher. The novella accompanies him as he searches for some undefined purpose which he, by the end of A Sea Change has not found. He's made peace with Kit's death -- the novella's primary focus, if there is one -- and met a potential lover, but there is no fundamental development, which I personally view as a major missed opportunity. Why write a novella about a beloved character only to do absolutely nothing with him?

Yet, I cannot deny that despite its abundance of flaws, I got a fair bit of enjoyment out of reading A Sea Change. I love Matthew (and Oscar, of course) and enjoy spending time with him. Yet, I see this novella as a patchwork piece of missed opportunities that I wish Cassie had approached differently and, perhaps, more thoroughly. Ultimately, I am glad enough I read it, but I would recommend thrifting or borrowing it rather than paying full price.

An avid crime and thriller reader who's spent some two years in a fantasy-only-phase, I was beyond elated when V.E. Schwab, one of my favourite fantasy authors, announced her first (co-written) thriller. The concept sounded fantastic: A remote island setting, a mystery more multi-facetted than the protagonists initially think, and a commentary on the issues within the publishing industry all at once? Yes, please.

Well, the result is a somewhat slow-paced, intensely character-driven novel with a great deal of mystery and a side of crime. The Ending Writes Itself starts off reasonably enough. It sets some page time aside to introduce the characters properly, and it is almost immediately clear who is and isn't likeable and, consequently, who the reader is and isn't rooting for. The majority of the novel is spent exploring characters, character development, and character dynamics, with the novel's setting -- both the house in particular and the island in general -- serving as a secondary focal point. While I imagine that some less patient crime readers might end up bored, I feel that most lovers of the genre appreciate the fact that a remote setting has to be extensively explored to be effective, and a large cast of characters had better be properly developed to evoke emotions upon their demise. At the same time, I do understand that within this genre, it might not be ideal not to have the plot take precedence -- without an at least somewhat fast-paced plot, there is little thrill in a thriller. In this case, the pace picks up eventually, and our authors begin dying like flies. At first, someone unexpected, then someone expected, until, eventually, only one remains.

It took me quite a while to deduce who the killer is, not because their identity was ultimately unexpected but because barely anyone would have been unexpected. There is such a great deal of ambiguity in all of our authors -- characters -- despite the detailed insights we get into them, almost, though not quite, in a Roger Ackroyd type of way, and I think it takes quite a bit of talent to write a set of characters like this.

So, as I've argued quite passionately, I am very happy to forgive the slow pacing. What I am less likely to forgive, however, is the rushed ending. The way the culprit is revealed is fine, as is their motive and their approach, the way they justify their actions, and the way they committed their crimes. The way they are done in, however, is more reminiscent of a comic-book villain's ending, and the way the remaining questions are answered in the epilogue rather than the main story seems a bit lazy (a word I have never before and will hopefully never again use for anything written by V.E. Schwab). The same applies to the ending awarded to the characters who survive the island: They seem like afterthoughts more than a part of the story proper.

As a rule, I adore almost everything V.E. Schwab puts out. Her settings are beautifully atmospheric and her characters as vivid as it gets, her plots are usually engaging, and her messages heartfelt. The same applies to The Ending Writes Itself -- and how rude of me to only mention Victoria; I am sure Cat contributed just as much. It's just that I am unfamiliar with her work, which makes her influence somewhat hard for me to discern. Either way, I was entirely on board with their approach up until that uncomfortably rushed ending, which I unfortunately disliked enough to lower my rating by an entire star. Yet, I had a great time with the novel as a whole and am looking forward to potential future installments -- The End (... or is it?)

Purchased and read at the recommendation of a dear friend who adores it, The Wild Robot was more of an attempt to gain a deeper insight into her heart than an easy leisure read.

Obviously written for children (yet perfectly enjoyable for adults), The Wild Robot teaches community, empathy, and growth. The story follows Roz, a robot who is theoretically knowledgeable due to her extensive programming but practically a newborn due to her lack of lived experience, as she explores the island on which she is stranded after her ship sinks in a thunderstorm. As Roz discovers herself, the island, and its inhabitants, she learns not only her own competence, resilience, and, above all, humanity but also the value of care, affection, and community. Observing Roz, whose treatment of emotions is quite childlike at first, as she understands the essence of what makes a creature, for lack of a better term, human, is as endearing as it is fascinating, and while I imagine that it teaches children important lessons by providing insights not only into emotions themselves but also into the processes which spark them, adults might, at times, be moved to tears. I know I had to swallow quite a few lumps in my throat.

Altogether, this one is a lovely tale exploring themes of home, family, and identity. It's a great read for young and old and one that I could see myself coming back to. Certainly, I will be recommending it to friends with children of the right age.

Evaluating a memoir, especially one as uniquely vulnerable as this one, is quite an impossible task. How do you comment on someone's decade-long eating disorder? How do you give a star-rating to the absolutely horrific abuse they suffered at the hands of their parent? How do you judge whether their description of a famously toxic industry is good enough? Well, you don't. Or, at least, I won't. Instead, I'll look at the writing and structure, at what I thought enhanced McCurdy's story and what I felt was missing.

The first curiosity that stands out is the first person present tense used throughout the book. It's an odd choice for a memoir, but it sets out to accomplish two things: First, it situates the reader closer to, almost within, the narrative, eradicating, at the same time, the distance between the adult McCurdy who tells the story and her childhood self who experiences the beginnings of it. Second, it allows McCurdy to embellish her writing with explicitly child-like qualities; every chapter reads as if it is written by the McCurdy who experiences its contents. As the readers moves through the book, the writing becomes more mature, very slowly at first, as the narrator's upbringing barely allows her to grow up at all, but eventually, as she gains some independence, faster.

I did say I was not going to judge, and I do stand by this, but I will say that the way McCurdy describes the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother is absolutely harrowing. The codependency into which she was coerced when she was just a toddler and which intensified until it ebbed when she was well into her young adulthood is terrifying in its perceived innocence. Plainly, McCurdy loved her mother dearly, (believed that she) was loved in turn, and did not recognise what was happening as abuse. How would she, when it was entirely normalised within her home? Yes, she often felt uncomfortable, yes, she wanted many things to chance, but she did not realise just how wrongly she was being treated. Reading about the events and routines she describes is sickening, and the reader cannot help but root for her.

At the same time, McCurdy's narration is very selective. Oftentimes, she will describe a specific period of her life in great detail, so that the reader will be able to imagine it quite vividly. Retroactively, not seldomly several chapters later, she will add a detail that changes the reader's whole perception of what was previously described. For instance, during her first few years on iCarly, McCurdy describes herself as very isolated, almost without any social interactions, and her mother as the one entirely in control of her. Later on, she mentions that her co-star Miranda had become an extremely close friend with whom she was in touch all day every day, on set, in her free time, and via a messenger. What results are two vastly different depictions of the time period in question.

Similarly, there are a few larger issues that McCurdy keeps mentioning but refuses to discuss in any detail. For instance, she has OCD -- a fact that her grandfather pointed out very early on and she herself mentions time and again, but she never addresses it properly, devotes more than a few offhand sentences to it, or brings it up in therapy. In a novel, this would be evaluated as a very off loose end.

Finally, the aspect whose omission bothers me the most: At no point does the author discuss that she is glad her mom died. Of course, the entirety of the book's 304 pages leaves the reader glad that her mon died, and it is clear that the author McCurdy shares that sentiment. The narrator McCurdy, however? The narrator loves her mother, loves her desperately, hates her at times, of course, but loves her still. She refuses to acknowledge any abuse may have happened to the point where she drops out of therapy because her therapist dares to criticise her mother. When we leave the topic of Deb McCurdy in order to devote more attention to Jennette McCurdy's eating disorder, Jennette loves her mother still, and while she is mentioned now and then throughout those chapters that do not focus on her, she really only becomes the center of attention again in the very final chapter, in which Jennette visits her grave for what seems to be the last time, with little love for her left within her heart. The reasons for her eventual lack of love for her mother are as valid as they are plentiful, but the development she must have gone through to reach that point is omitted almost in its entirety. From a book titled I'm Glad My Mom Died, I would expect an outline of the process McCurdy went through to come to the conclusion that she is glad her mom died.

Yet, altogether, I'm Glad My Mom Died is a very insightful read that offers a glimpse behind the curtains veiling Hollywood, an idea of what especially child stars have to endure, and the abuse that can happen even and perhaps especially to those who move within the limelight we associate fortune and fame. It must've taken an incredible amount of courage to write and especially publish this book, and I applaud McCurdy for that. Do I think that an editor might have caught those omissions and encouraged a more complete picture? Yes. But do I think the book is impressive regardless and am I glad to have read it? Absolutely, yes.

Situated somewhere between the American East Coast and Germany's Black Forest, Who Follow the Gleam creates a whimsical, magical world full of mundane yet sublime observations of humanity, nature, and culture.

When I picked up this volume, I was expecting something slightly easier to digest. Wessels chooses a variety of traditional as well as, frankly, weird themes and motives between which he switches as he pleases. It's lovely to see German and American culture blended together, a mix of English and Deutsch, of Glühwein and Waltmart, of fairy tales and Bugs Bunny -- the true transcultural experience. Yet, his verses are not easy to interpret. Some, sure, especially those that seem to tell a simple yet profound story rather than serve as a metaphor. Most, however, demand that you sit down with them in a way that most poems written nowadays (mind you, I adore a great deal of contemporary poetry) do not. As a result, it took me a lot longer to make my way through this collection than I would have expected. Plainly, I found myself in a bit of an academic endeavour rather than a light morning commute read.

Similarly, due to its specificity and relative difficulty, the collection did not resonate with me the way I had hoped it would. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, especially when the reason for it is an unexpected but pleasant complexity, but naturally, poetry that does not resonate tends to be somewhat less enjoyable for its reader.

This is why I will refrain from evaluating this collection in any way that would mark my opinion of it as good or bad, including foregoing a star rating: I would not like give it a lesser rating than it deserves, yet I would not give it a rating that doesn't reflect my personal reading experience. Either way, I will keep en eye out for any of Wessels' future collections.

On The Hill We Climb (English): Surprisingly, I'd never read or heard the full version of this poem before, so when I saw this hard copy at the thrift store, I grabbed it almost without thinking. It's hard to put into words just how many (largely positive) emotions The Hill We Climb evokes, even in this post-democratic era the US is facing right now; there is very little left that would make one hope for a better future, and yet, Amanda Gorman's words manage to lift the spirit and encourage faith in community and humanity. It's a beautiful poem full of life, love, and resilience that I believe everyone should read, and it encourages confidence that even the current days will one day lie behind us, with only the dawning sun on the horizon ahead.

On the translation/Zur Übersetzung (German): Lyrikübersetzungen zählen meiner Ansicht nach zu den beeindruckendsten Übersetzungen überhaupt. Zwischen Vokabular, Reim, Metrum und Syntax ist es alles andere als einfach, ein Gedicht in eine andere Sprache zu übertragen. Deshalb lese ich Lyrikübersetzungen üblicherweise mit sehr viel Toleranz für Eigenheiten. In diesem Fall muss ich aber leider sagen, dass ich mich trotzdem nicht mit den Entscheidungen der Übersetzerinnen (drei an der Zahl, von denen allerdings nur eine Übersetzerin und zwei Autorinnen/Politikwissenschafterlinnen sind) anfreunden konnte. Naheliegende direkte Übersetzungen werden häufig für vermeintlich kreativere oder idiomatischere Formulierungen übergangen; gleichermaßen oft wird Vokabular verwendet, das den Sinn des Originals (leicht) abwandelt. Es hat nicht lange gedauert bis ich aufgehört habe, Original und Übersetzung simulatan zu lesen und mich stattdessen vollständig auf das Original zu fokussieren.

Tatsächlich hilfreich waren jedoch die Annotationen. Zwar bin ich einigermaßen bewandert in amerikanischer Geschichte und Literatur, sicherlich aber nicht so sehr, dass ich jede Referenz verstanden hätte. Besonders die Rückbesinnungen auf vorherige Inagurationsgedichte und politische Reden sind mir entgangen, gerade weil oft keine direkten Formulierungen kopiert, sondern eher Anspielungen verbaut wurden. Zu schade ist es, dass sich die Annotationen, die zwar chronologisch sortiert sind und sich auch durchaus auf ganz spezifische Textstellen beziehen, gesammelt am Ende des Bandes befinden -- und das auch noch ohne Seitenzahlen, damit man fix nachschlagen könnte. Viel sinnvoller wäre es gewesen, sie direkt auf den ohnehin meist mehr als halb leeren Seiten zu platzieren, um den hilfreichen Kontext direkt beim Lesen der entsprechenden Verse zu erhalten.

Insgesamt geht mir nicht auf, was man sich bei dieser zweisprachigen Ausgabe gedacht hat. Für eine halbherzige Übersetzung eines einzigen Gedichts in einem strukturell fragwürdigen Format auch noch ganze 10 Euro zu verlangen, würde ich durchaus gewagt nennen.

Generally, I do not tend to go for translations of poetry when I speak the original language, but in this case, this edition is what was available, and I am glad I picked it up. Even though I did not enjoy the translation, I did enjoy the original poem, and I found the annotations to be useful. I'll look into Amanda's