Books

The Miniaturist is a historical novel disguised as a mystery one: its real aim is not to explore the enigma that the title character represents, but to investigate and criticize the Dutch society of the early 17th century. The protagonist is Petronella Oortman, or Nella, a young woman who marries a successful merchant she doesn’t know, Johannes Brandt, and goes …

“I’m sure I can tell this story. I’m also sure no one will believe it. That’s fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem – and I’m sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me – is deciding where to start,” the narrator states in the first paragraph of Fairy Tale, a novel that actually starts …

Sword of Destiny is the second volume of The Witcher saga, which began with The Last Wish. Here, Andrzej Sapkowski maintains the structure and style of the previous book, presenting episodic tales packed with irony and social criticism while developing the protagonist around the story’s main theme. This theme, as the title suggests, is the fight against everything that is …

The review will leave you as spoiled as a rich, white, aristocratic kid. The second book in the Mistborn trilogy, The Well of Ascension, is much more flawed than its predecessor. Still repetitive and occasionally inconsistent, the novel is now also rife with problematic characterization and badly used genre tropes, with even the titular MacGuffin not being used… well, feeling …

Written by Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem is a hard science fiction novel that shines when it’s subverting the genre and developing its main themes. It can both fascinate us with its creative world and disappoint us with its underdeveloped characters and anticlimactic ending. The protagonist is the Chinese scientist Wang Miao, whose research in nanotechnology is put in check …

The Wrong Stars is a fast-paced space opera structured around the dangerous allure of mysteries. The main characters are perfectly aware that some things are better left alone, untouched, but they can’t help it. Human beings are drawn to the unknown like moths to light, so our characters must uncover the many secrets the universe holds, even if that means facing …

The Pillars of the Earth has the foundation of its narrative solidly set: the characters’ greatest conflicts are outlined at the beginning, serving as solid columns for the structure that will organize the most important events of the story, with actions always generating consequences, making the scale of the events gradually increase until the climatic end. The novel’s various plots …

Mistborn: The Final Empire is a competent fantasy novel that offers a fascinating cast of characters and a compelling plot, which is ultimately dragged down by repetition and a deeply problematic magic system. The setting is the great city of Luthadel, the center of a feudal empire built over the constant exploitation of the poor, the peasant class called Skaa. …

The Great Hunt finally allows The Wheel of Time to become its own thing, breaking free from most of Tolkien’s structure that so hindered The Eye of the World. It’s a competent fantasy novel that focuses on fleshing out its world while introducing and developing elements that allow the series to stand on its own feet. As the title implies, …

This review contains spoilers. Falling is a shallow thriller that heavily relies on overused tropes and stereotypes to tell a by-the-books story of a plane being hijacked by terrorists: full of one-note characters and predictable twists, the novel is also marred by a strong reluctance to delve into its own themes. The book opens with a shocking scene full of …