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littlerhymesDiscipline - Randa Abdel-Fattah
The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brian
The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Green
Hooked - Asako Yuzuki, Polly Barton (transl.)
A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe
The Long Game - Rachel Reid
The Happy Return - C. S. Forester
Discipline - Randa Abdel-Fattah (2020s, Australia, contemporary, lit)
Set in Sydney, this follows Ashraf, a Muslim academic who's hit a dead end in his career, and Hannah, a Palestinian journalist whose husband Jamal is mentored by Ashraf. Their storylines overlap as both try to decide what they can do about the attacks on Gaza by Israel, and about the controversy over a Muslim student accused of promoting terrorism.
The book comes from a passionate and personal place, and the situations both Ashraf and Hannah find themselves in feel very real - their idealism is compromised and hobbled by academia and the media and just the general Australian-ness of it all. Sometimes no choices seem good, or right; though the book does end on a hopeful note. Despite the sense that this is a passion project, and how topical this book is for what is happening right now, I didn't always find it compelling as a novel. Although the characters and their dilemmas seem realistic, albeit streamlined, their conversations can seem like dialogue made for op eds or thinkpieces. Interesting, but not fully realised as a novel imo.
But perhaps the book got further towards what Abdel-Fattah was hoping to talk about, in a very real way. Abdel-Fattah was at the centre of a major controversy - her invitation to Adelaide Writer's Festival (a major arts event in Australia) was rescinded on the basis of remarks she made about the conflict, and subsequently so many other festival invitees pulled out that the entire festival was cancelled and the board resigned. In many ways this real life story was more compelling than the book, while also demonstrating exactly what Abdel-Fattah was talking about. Ironically her removal from the festival probably stoked a lot of interest in the book - I had to wait a few months for my hold to come in at the library.
There is a great deal of Australian media coverage about this - this round up is quite good:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jan/16/call-this-social-cohesion-the-six-day-war-of-words-that-laid-waste-to-the-2026-adelaide-writers-festival-ntwnfb
I also note that the book was published by UQP which is now, again, also at the centre of a related crisis:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/03/shaken-staff-and-an-author-exodus-how-a-picture-book-plunged-an-acclaimed-australian-publisher-into-a-crisis-over-antisemitism
*
The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brian (1970s, UK, historical, re-read)
Jack is settled down with Sophia and two babies, plus a mother in law and a niece, but he finds the cottage life is not as blissful as he had hoped. It is a relief to all when he is summonsed back to sea on a mission to take Mauritius from the French.
Poor Jack, blundering around on his hobby farm, barely noticing all the bees are dead, pleased to present Stephen with one (1) fresh egg. I was reminded of Hercules Poirot and his marrows, though at least Poirot could actually grow them.
He's much more at home on the high seas and the expedition at first goes quite well, with Jack promoted to Commodore. But managing a bunch of different captains with clashing personalities and some with very poor strategic skills quickly goes pearshaped. In many ways this is a book about the challenges of middle management, having to balance a range of personalities and egos, after being temporarily placed in a position of first among peers.
There is a fascinating subplot with the character of Captain Clonfert, who seems charming but hollow, genuinely liked by his crew but unable to win the respect of his peers, who deliberately surrounds himself with sycophants and exaggerates tales of his own glory. Clonfert once did Jack dirty, and now in the present day he is desperate to shine brighter than Jack again. It's a kind of psychosexual obsession that ends in ruin.
https://osprey-archer.dreamwidth.org/1104098.html
*
The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Green (2020s, USA, non-fiction)
A collection of personal essays about pop culture, natural phenomena, scientific developments, etc, as seen through Green's eyes. It's closer to memoir than non-fiction at times and it's very located in that 2020 era with Green reflecting on the impact of Covid. I thought this was perfectly fine and readable but not that memorable.
*
Hooked - Asako Yuzuki, transl. Polly Barton (2010s, Japan, contemporary)
Eriko has a good job, a supportive family, and is attractive, but she has no female friends. One of her indulgences is reading the blog of Hallie B, a kind of anti-mommy blogger who writes casually about her lazy low-effort life. When Eriko realises Hallie B (real name Shoko) lives close to her neighbourhood, she decides they absolutely must become friends. The two share a brief but sincere connection when they meet - but then Eriko pushes too hard, wanting the friendship to be more than it is.
Both Eriko and Shoko are overinvested in the idea of finally getting that one female best friend, but Eriko takes it to the next level. Analysing Shoko's blog to deduct which restaurant she is likely to go to, and then lying in wait for her? Yikes girl you have to chill out. Eriko is obsessed and stalkerish, and her strand of the novel feels like a lowkey horror story, with workplace bullying and bad sex and a lowly coworker who turns into a vicious enemy, at times slipping into surreal fantasy.
Shoko is from a different genre, her problems more mundane - flirting with a waiter, being tired of picking up after her ungrateful father, toying with whether to accept a book deal - and her arc is similarly more down to earth than Eriko's.
I think this is quite deliberate, it's a parallel to Eriko's thoughts about fish species (she is working on a big fish deal, it's a whole thing) - Shoko and Eriko are like incompatible species introduced into the same environment. I've seen some reviews wishing it had all gone the horror path but to me that would have been thematically unsatisfying, it puts Eriko squarely into the position of being the one who is 'most wrong', the introduced predatory species - the narrative as it is stands is much more ambiguous, even if Eriko is clearly more extreme.
Both women have a very distorted view of friendship, and though at times I nodded along with both, at others I felt that I strongly disagreed - but I feel that is kind of the point, both of them are chasing an illusion and neither of them ever has a clear idea of what a good and healthy friendship can be like - I don't think we are meant to agree with either of them.
In terms of parasocialism, I found Eriko's behaviour is in some ways very accurate to fandom extremism. The projection, the concern trolling, the obsession, the stalking, the blackmail! Being convinced that she knows better than Shoko about what she really wants; and being bitterly disappointed when Shoko doesn't live up to her imagination. Eriko really checked it all off! Kpop saesangs and deranged solo stans can relate!
Like Butter, this too posits both the main characters as straight, but there's an undercurrent of sapphic desire. It's not as successful in its ambitious as Butter, or as hopeful, but they are good companion reads.
https://osprey-archer.dreamwidth.org/1099827.html
*
A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe (1700s, UK, historical)
A fictionalised account of London in 1665, when the city is devastated by the bubonic plague. Likely based on Defoe's uncle's experiences, this combines anecdotes about individuals with general accounts of how people behaved and what the city dwellers did in this year, scattered throughout with tables of mortality rates and other statistics.
After getting through Robinson Crusoe in one sitting, I embarked on this with equal optimism, but in fact this took me almost a month to finish. I actually found sections of it very good and very enlightening about how much human nature has not changed over all this time, and the ways in which society tries to protect against disease have strong similarities in many ways. But it doesn't have a ton of forward momentum as a book, because there is no central thread aside from time passing, so I did find it very easy to put down and then forget about it for a bit.
So many things were resonant with the experience of Covid - the way laws try to govern human behaviour to limited success; the burden of having to go out and get food, and make food, versus the need to stay isolated; how the poor are harder impacted, and how people in essential industries such as food production are harder impacted because they have to keep working; how people grow hardened/complacent to the idea of infection and so become careless, which in turn causes more infection.
To compare with Robinson Crusoe, this too is a book very much concerned with logistics, and the day to day burden of doing things, and how people live under difficult conditions.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/376
*
The Long Game - Rachel Reid (2020s, Canada, m/m, romance)
Sequel to Heated Rivalry. Ilya and Shane have been together for 10 years but they're both still in the closet and their relationship is secret from all but a few friends and family members. Ilya is increasingly unhappy about it but doesn't know how to bring it up with Shane, while Shane remains focused on being the perfect hockey player.
I thought this was one of the best books in the series. It doesn't need to jump through the romance set up of a typical romance book, and instead working from an established relationship it gets to have a different more dramatic plot shape and more of an ensemble feel, with characters from past books re-appearing. Structurally interesting for this series, I liked seeing previous scenes from Troy's book rewritten from Ilya's point of view. It was a good continuation and satisfyingly different from the previous books, and the build of tension and then reconciliation between Ilya and Shane worked well.
Some things could have been improved. The sex scenes are hot, she's really good at them, but I thought a few could have been cut lol. The device of Ilya going to therapy, which is in itself fine, meant that a lot of the emotional themes were explained by simply saying them aloud, which isn't my preferred way of exposition. And I think the ending was quite wish fulfilment but as it's a romance ok fine I'll allow it.
My impressions from online discourse seemed to be about a different book than the one I read. People being angry at Shane, speculating that Shane has an eating disorder, being pissed off at the wedding arrangements - NONE of those things bothered me at all, they felt like nothings/all fanon.
Reid on attempting to write a Luca book but ultimately deciding against it for what sound like good reasons:
https://www.rachelreidwrites.com/news/2025/2/16
*
The Happy Return - C. S. Forester (1930s, UK, historical)
Also known as Beat to Quarters. Hornblower, captain of The Lydia, is sent to South America to give aid to the Spanish rebels headed by a man who calls himself El Supremo, and to defeat the frigate the Natividad. But El Supremo is a madman, the Spanish switch sides (meaning Hornblower, having defeated her and given her to El Supremo, then has to DEFEAT HER AGAIN good lord), and there is also a WOMAN (Lady Barbara) on board his ship for the first time!
This book is about Hornblower in his 40s but was the first published in the series, in 1937, and this is a much harder and more rigid Hornblower than the nervous midshipman in the chronologically earlier books. I'm rather glad I didn't read this one first - this Hornblower is a fascinatingly twisted and atypical hero, tortured by an impossible and unhealthy ideal of masculinity that he constantly holds himself up against - but he is not necessarily a likable one. Toxic masculinity hurts all genders, I shout to Hornblower, who does not hear me over the sound of loathing himself for being weak. It is quite funny when he gets mad at himself for being HUNGRY.
Other people find him far more likable, i.e. Bush and Lady Barbara. Bush is one of those elements that doesn't quite marry up to the later-written but earlier-set books, the seams between Bush as written here and Bush in the previous books are visible, but nevertheless he remains deeply in love with Hornblower. He sees right through Hornblower's bluster and rightfully, lovingly clocks him as shy, nervous, needing tender care - Hornblower would hate to be perceived like this - for which he turns to Lady Barbara for aid.
Lady Barbara - who asosprey_archer points out, must be the sister of the Duke of Wellington omg - is at first a thorn in Hornblower's side. But she proves herself to be competent, calm, perceptive, and brave.... Hornblower with a FEELING for a woman? Good god.
The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brian
The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Green
Hooked - Asako Yuzuki, Polly Barton (transl.)
A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe
The Long Game - Rachel Reid
The Happy Return - C. S. Forester
Discipline - Randa Abdel-Fattah (2020s, Australia, contemporary, lit)
Set in Sydney, this follows Ashraf, a Muslim academic who's hit a dead end in his career, and Hannah, a Palestinian journalist whose husband Jamal is mentored by Ashraf. Their storylines overlap as both try to decide what they can do about the attacks on Gaza by Israel, and about the controversy over a Muslim student accused of promoting terrorism.
The book comes from a passionate and personal place, and the situations both Ashraf and Hannah find themselves in feel very real - their idealism is compromised and hobbled by academia and the media and just the general Australian-ness of it all. Sometimes no choices seem good, or right; though the book does end on a hopeful note. Despite the sense that this is a passion project, and how topical this book is for what is happening right now, I didn't always find it compelling as a novel. Although the characters and their dilemmas seem realistic, albeit streamlined, their conversations can seem like dialogue made for op eds or thinkpieces. Interesting, but not fully realised as a novel imo.
But perhaps the book got further towards what Abdel-Fattah was hoping to talk about, in a very real way. Abdel-Fattah was at the centre of a major controversy - her invitation to Adelaide Writer's Festival (a major arts event in Australia) was rescinded on the basis of remarks she made about the conflict, and subsequently so many other festival invitees pulled out that the entire festival was cancelled and the board resigned. In many ways this real life story was more compelling than the book, while also demonstrating exactly what Abdel-Fattah was talking about. Ironically her removal from the festival probably stoked a lot of interest in the book - I had to wait a few months for my hold to come in at the library.
There is a great deal of Australian media coverage about this - this round up is quite good:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jan/16/call-this-social-cohesion-the-six-day-war-of-words-that-laid-waste-to-the-2026-adelaide-writers-festival-ntwnfb
I also note that the book was published by UQP which is now, again, also at the centre of a related crisis:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/03/shaken-staff-and-an-author-exodus-how-a-picture-book-plunged-an-acclaimed-australian-publisher-into-a-crisis-over-antisemitism
*
The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brian (1970s, UK, historical, re-read)
Jack is settled down with Sophia and two babies, plus a mother in law and a niece, but he finds the cottage life is not as blissful as he had hoped. It is a relief to all when he is summonsed back to sea on a mission to take Mauritius from the French.
Poor Jack, blundering around on his hobby farm, barely noticing all the bees are dead, pleased to present Stephen with one (1) fresh egg. I was reminded of Hercules Poirot and his marrows, though at least Poirot could actually grow them.
He's much more at home on the high seas and the expedition at first goes quite well, with Jack promoted to Commodore. But managing a bunch of different captains with clashing personalities and some with very poor strategic skills quickly goes pearshaped. In many ways this is a book about the challenges of middle management, having to balance a range of personalities and egos, after being temporarily placed in a position of first among peers.
There is a fascinating subplot with the character of Captain Clonfert, who seems charming but hollow, genuinely liked by his crew but unable to win the respect of his peers, who deliberately surrounds himself with sycophants and exaggerates tales of his own glory. Clonfert once did Jack dirty, and now in the present day he is desperate to shine brighter than Jack again. It's a kind of psychosexual obsession that ends in ruin.
https://osprey-archer.dreamwidth.org/1104098.html
*
The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Green (2020s, USA, non-fiction)
A collection of personal essays about pop culture, natural phenomena, scientific developments, etc, as seen through Green's eyes. It's closer to memoir than non-fiction at times and it's very located in that 2020 era with Green reflecting on the impact of Covid. I thought this was perfectly fine and readable but not that memorable.
*
Hooked - Asako Yuzuki, transl. Polly Barton (2010s, Japan, contemporary)
Eriko has a good job, a supportive family, and is attractive, but she has no female friends. One of her indulgences is reading the blog of Hallie B, a kind of anti-mommy blogger who writes casually about her lazy low-effort life. When Eriko realises Hallie B (real name Shoko) lives close to her neighbourhood, she decides they absolutely must become friends. The two share a brief but sincere connection when they meet - but then Eriko pushes too hard, wanting the friendship to be more than it is.
Both Eriko and Shoko are overinvested in the idea of finally getting that one female best friend, but Eriko takes it to the next level. Analysing Shoko's blog to deduct which restaurant she is likely to go to, and then lying in wait for her? Yikes girl you have to chill out. Eriko is obsessed and stalkerish, and her strand of the novel feels like a lowkey horror story, with workplace bullying and bad sex and a lowly coworker who turns into a vicious enemy, at times slipping into surreal fantasy.
Shoko is from a different genre, her problems more mundane - flirting with a waiter, being tired of picking up after her ungrateful father, toying with whether to accept a book deal - and her arc is similarly more down to earth than Eriko's.
I think this is quite deliberate, it's a parallel to Eriko's thoughts about fish species (she is working on a big fish deal, it's a whole thing) - Shoko and Eriko are like incompatible species introduced into the same environment. I've seen some reviews wishing it had all gone the horror path but to me that would have been thematically unsatisfying, it puts Eriko squarely into the position of being the one who is 'most wrong', the introduced predatory species - the narrative as it is stands is much more ambiguous, even if Eriko is clearly more extreme.
Both women have a very distorted view of friendship, and though at times I nodded along with both, at others I felt that I strongly disagreed - but I feel that is kind of the point, both of them are chasing an illusion and neither of them ever has a clear idea of what a good and healthy friendship can be like - I don't think we are meant to agree with either of them.
In terms of parasocialism, I found Eriko's behaviour is in some ways very accurate to fandom extremism. The projection, the concern trolling, the obsession, the stalking, the blackmail! Being convinced that she knows better than Shoko about what she really wants; and being bitterly disappointed when Shoko doesn't live up to her imagination. Eriko really checked it all off! Kpop saesangs and deranged solo stans can relate!
Like Butter, this too posits both the main characters as straight, but there's an undercurrent of sapphic desire. It's not as successful in its ambitious as Butter, or as hopeful, but they are good companion reads.
https://osprey-archer.dreamwidth.org/1099827.html
*
A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe (1700s, UK, historical)
A fictionalised account of London in 1665, when the city is devastated by the bubonic plague. Likely based on Defoe's uncle's experiences, this combines anecdotes about individuals with general accounts of how people behaved and what the city dwellers did in this year, scattered throughout with tables of mortality rates and other statistics.
After getting through Robinson Crusoe in one sitting, I embarked on this with equal optimism, but in fact this took me almost a month to finish. I actually found sections of it very good and very enlightening about how much human nature has not changed over all this time, and the ways in which society tries to protect against disease have strong similarities in many ways. But it doesn't have a ton of forward momentum as a book, because there is no central thread aside from time passing, so I did find it very easy to put down and then forget about it for a bit.
So many things were resonant with the experience of Covid - the way laws try to govern human behaviour to limited success; the burden of having to go out and get food, and make food, versus the need to stay isolated; how the poor are harder impacted, and how people in essential industries such as food production are harder impacted because they have to keep working; how people grow hardened/complacent to the idea of infection and so become careless, which in turn causes more infection.
To compare with Robinson Crusoe, this too is a book very much concerned with logistics, and the day to day burden of doing things, and how people live under difficult conditions.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/376
*
The Long Game - Rachel Reid (2020s, Canada, m/m, romance)
Sequel to Heated Rivalry. Ilya and Shane have been together for 10 years but they're both still in the closet and their relationship is secret from all but a few friends and family members. Ilya is increasingly unhappy about it but doesn't know how to bring it up with Shane, while Shane remains focused on being the perfect hockey player.
I thought this was one of the best books in the series. It doesn't need to jump through the romance set up of a typical romance book, and instead working from an established relationship it gets to have a different more dramatic plot shape and more of an ensemble feel, with characters from past books re-appearing. Structurally interesting for this series, I liked seeing previous scenes from Troy's book rewritten from Ilya's point of view. It was a good continuation and satisfyingly different from the previous books, and the build of tension and then reconciliation between Ilya and Shane worked well.
Some things could have been improved. The sex scenes are hot, she's really good at them, but I thought a few could have been cut lol. The device of Ilya going to therapy, which is in itself fine, meant that a lot of the emotional themes were explained by simply saying them aloud, which isn't my preferred way of exposition. And I think the ending was quite wish fulfilment but as it's a romance ok fine I'll allow it.
My impressions from online discourse seemed to be about a different book than the one I read. People being angry at Shane, speculating that Shane has an eating disorder, being pissed off at the wedding arrangements - NONE of those things bothered me at all, they felt like nothings/all fanon.
Reid on attempting to write a Luca book but ultimately deciding against it for what sound like good reasons:
https://www.rachelreidwrites.com/news/2025/2/16
*
The Happy Return - C. S. Forester (1930s, UK, historical)
Also known as Beat to Quarters. Hornblower, captain of The Lydia, is sent to South America to give aid to the Spanish rebels headed by a man who calls himself El Supremo, and to defeat the frigate the Natividad. But El Supremo is a madman, the Spanish switch sides (meaning Hornblower, having defeated her and given her to El Supremo, then has to DEFEAT HER AGAIN good lord), and there is also a WOMAN (Lady Barbara) on board his ship for the first time!
This book is about Hornblower in his 40s but was the first published in the series, in 1937, and this is a much harder and more rigid Hornblower than the nervous midshipman in the chronologically earlier books. I'm rather glad I didn't read this one first - this Hornblower is a fascinatingly twisted and atypical hero, tortured by an impossible and unhealthy ideal of masculinity that he constantly holds himself up against - but he is not necessarily a likable one. Toxic masculinity hurts all genders, I shout to Hornblower, who does not hear me over the sound of loathing himself for being weak. It is quite funny when he gets mad at himself for being HUNGRY.
Other people find him far more likable, i.e. Bush and Lady Barbara. Bush is one of those elements that doesn't quite marry up to the later-written but earlier-set books, the seams between Bush as written here and Bush in the previous books are visible, but nevertheless he remains deeply in love with Hornblower. He sees right through Hornblower's bluster and rightfully, lovingly clocks him as shy, nervous, needing tender care - Hornblower would hate to be perceived like this - for which he turns to Lady Barbara for aid.
Lady Barbara - who as
osprey_archer points out, must be the sister of the Duke of Wellington omg - is at first a thorn in Hornblower's side. But she proves herself to be competent, calm, perceptive, and brave.... Hornblower with a FEELING for a woman? Good god.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-03 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-06-03 02:08 pm (UTC)I would have liked Hooked to go in a more horror-novel direction - really dig into Eriko's creepy obsessiveness! However, I have been letting go of my vision of what the novel could have been, kind of like how Eriko and Shoko need to let go of their preconceived notions of what female friendship should be like?, and appreciating it on its own only-semi-obsessed-stalker terms.
I hadn't considered Eriko's behavior through the lens of fandom extremism, but I can see it. Eriko's blorbo (Shoko) is NOT living up to Eriko's expectations in canon (real life), and Eriko is going to rewrite the narrative in fic (by taking over Shoko's blog)!
The bit where Hornblower chastises himself for the WEAKNESS of being HUNGRY after he hasn't eaten for at least 24 hours... SIR. He is less likeable in this book, but he has very strong "I want to pin this man to a card and study him like a bug" energy. Would I still feel that way if we had not met him in his earlier, more likeable (but still tortured) phases? Who can say.
Hornblower would literally die if he realized that Bush viewed him as a beautiful wounded animal who needs tender loving care. Convinced that the reason he's always telling himself Bush is UNIMAGINATIVE and UNOBSERVANT is because otherwise he might have to admit that Bush has observed him very closely indeed and knows him far better than Hornblower wishes to be known, and has almost certainly imagined lengthy and detailed hurt/comfort scenarios about it.
Still thinks its so funny that Forester made a genderswapped Duke of Wellington for Hornblower to fall in love with. "I hate competent women," Hornblower thinks, falling in love with Lady Barbara for her competence. "Women should be tender clinging vines who do NOT understand whist, oh my god she understands whist we are soulmates."