Paradise Lost is something that I’ve wanted to read for years, but I felt that I should probably read all of the Bible first. Since I finally finished it last year, the runway was open for me to finally take on John Milton’s epic poem. It’s probably the toughest text I’ve ever gotten through, but I found it quite a rewarding experience and am glad I read it.

Although I am not a Christian, I find the characters and stories of Christianity very interesting. What Paradise Lost does is retell the story of Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden, but in a way that makes the whole of the Bible feel like much more of an epic, inter-connected tale. When you read the Bible, it’s clear that you’re reading a collection of texts that have been written by different people at different times – what Milton has done is help to make it all feel unified, and that is really cool. I’m sure many would consider this a disrespectful comparison, but it feels like reading a really good piece of fanfiction where the author is deeply familiar with the source material – and that is meant as a genuine compliment.

My favourite thing about Paradise Lost is the way that it portrays Satan a.k.a. Lucifer. In the Bible, his history and motivations aren’t very well fleshed out. The Old Testament has him just kind of there causing trouble, but then the New Testament suddenly explains that he is the embodiment of all things evil. In Paradise Lost, meanwhile, he’s a genuinely sympathetic character – he explains that he wants Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, because without knowledge of good and evil, they’ll be doomed to an eternity of mindlessly worshipping God and, well, he has a point. He was easily my favourite thing about this epic poem, and probably the best portrayal of Satan I have ever encountered.

On the other hand, while Satan feels much more compelling than he ever did in the Bible, Eve comes across much worse. The problem is misogyny. She was always responsible for the downfall of humanity after being tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, and that itself has often been used to justify negative views on women from within certain religious communities, but in the Book of Genesis, the misogyny didn’t feel too on the nose. Here, you’ve got loads of lines about Eve’s inferior nature and it makes for gruelling reading. You’ve got some colonial attitudes in there as well, which also spoil it.

That’s a curious thing about Paradise Lost, there are lots of references to things that were contemporary to Milton, or to history which would have happened long after the creation of the events of its story. I suppose that comes from a modern perspective of expecting the narrator of a story to be within the perspective of its characters (even if in third-person), but it still feels odd to have references to Portugal during scenes which are supposed to take place before the Earth has even been made.

I much preferred reading Paradise Lost to reading the Bible – it has an almost awe-inspiring feel to it. At the same time, I found it a lot harder to read than the Bible. Sometimes, I genuinely didn’t know what it was saying, but even when I didn’t quite understand, I still thought it was a beautiful piece of writing. If you’re a Christian, or just someone interested in the Bible or Christian religion, I definitely recommend reading it – but only if you have already exercised your muscle for reading classic texts, as it’s not an easy read.

Rating: 8/10

Vilette was the final novel by Charlotte Brontë and it tells the story of a woman named Lucy Snowe who travels to the town of Vilette (in the fictional French-speaking country of Labassecour). It’s an interesting story, because I never had any idea of where the storyline was going to go next as it jumped around semi-eratically, and among its moderately-sized cast of characters, Lucy herself (who is also the narrator) was one of the least likeable.

At the very start, Lucy goes to stay with family members in the English town of Bretton. Here you get a feel for the home she stays in and all of the characters in her life – I quite quickly became endeared to a little girl called Polly who lives among them and is strong-willed and opinionated. It’s a fairly cosy set-up and the writing style had me deeply invested in everything… and then Lucy leaves them all. It’s quite jarring, and left me with a feeling of, “Gosh, well, what was the point of all that then?” (Though the point did later become clear.)

Before you know it, you’re onto the next segment of the story – Lucy out making her way in the world. One scene in particular stuck with me: Lucy’s first visit to London. It’s quite a beautiful scene, really, and she is awed by the majesty of the city and I thought it was wonderfully timeless, because I very much remember having a similar experience when I visited that place for the first time.

I won’t spoil too much of what happens, but as I have already alluded to, she eventually moves to Villette and, once there, she becomes an English teacher. Although it takes a while to get there, this is where I’d say the bulk of the action takes place. There are characters like Lucy’s boss, Madame Beck, a shifty but entertaining woman who loves to meddle and spy. There’s also her colleague, M. Paul who just comes across as quite a horrible man who thinks he is superior to Lucy (and is probably one the only people I thought was worse), and her young friend, Ginerva, who Lucy thinks she is superior to and spends a lot of time reminding her of that fact.

That’s Lucy’s problem – she spends the whole novel looking at everyone from a detached perspective, convinced of her moral superiority over them, judging everything everyone else says or does, never really having any fun or bonding with people – and even when she does bond, it’s bonding mixed with judging. Sometimes I thought to myself, “Gosh, Charlotte Brontë just wanted to create a fictional mouthpiece to complain about everything she hates in the world” but ultimately, without spoiling anything, Lucy is quite a tragic character, because most of the people in her life are quite happy and fulfilled, and she just observes them from the detached perspective of someone looking down on them.

There’s a lot of anti-Catholicism sentiment in this book, which just feels a bit hateful at times and, to be honest, there are long stretches when not a lot happens. It’s a bit of a mixed bag of a book, but it is wonderfully written, even during slower chapters. One line that particularly resonated with me was Lucy saying, in response to being told to cultivate happiness, that “happiness is not a potato” which I thought was delightful. Looking back, it’s quite significant, because happiness can be cultivated in life, but it’s not any easy thing to know how to do, so the instruction alone is quite worthless (and her flippant retort appropriate). If she had known, she’d have been much better off.

It’s not my favourite Brontë novel by any means (I think it probably only beats out The Professor for me), so I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who hasn’t tried any of the sisters’ other novels. But if you’ve liked other ones, you’ll probably like this one too – it’s just a little drier than some of the more popular ones.

Rating: 7.5/10

Anyone with an interest in feminism and its history should read A Vindication of the Rights of Women at some point. The extent to which Mary Wollstonecraft was ahead of her time is amazing, and she makes a compelling argument about how women are not in any way mentally inferior to men, or even largely that different, but are lead to develop in certain ways due to the education that they receive or by how they are influenced by others in their life.

Of course, despite the growing misogyny of our times, this stance is still something which is taken as a given by experts these days – but for someone writing at the end of the 18th century, this is impressive stuff, and you can see that Wollstonecraft was one of the giants upon whose shoulders many of the most influential feminists of the last couple of centuries have stood. This was before “feminism” even really existed. She even challenges a lot of prominent thinkers of her time, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had made unhelpful arguments about the status of women in the past. I particularly enjoyed her criticisms of John Milton’s description of Eve, which I just so happened to read just before this text.

You can also see her progressive values in her anti-monarchy perspectives. She rightly identifies that some of the poor treatment of women in the world occurs as a consequence of thought processes which are inherited by those who put monarchs onto a pedestal. She also identifies that people’s religious beliefs might feed into this too – although she is very notably writing from a religious perspective and regularly ties her beliefs about women into her perception of God, which may seem unusual to some modern readers. For me, I just felt that it gave it a unique sort of flavour when compared to more recent texts.

There is, however, some stuff that really didn’t age that well and seems to be born out of a misplaced sense of propriety that people had back when she was writing. Part of it, for example, has her talking about how she has known women who would wash or get changed in front of each other, and she sees this as a lack of modesty which women have because they have been treated as lesser all their lives. From my modern perspective, I think, nobody should feel uncomfortable about doing these things around other people if everyone’s fine with it. Meanwhile, at one point, she talks about a woman talking about indigestion, and says that this similarly shows a lack of self-respect caused by the treatment of women. This sort of attitude is genuinely harmful, because people need to feel comfortable talking about any and all health problems so that they don’t feel ashamed about seeking treatment – especially with women disproportionately not receiving proper care.

Nonetheless, I do not expect perfection from somebody who wrote so long ago. It’s important to identify the problematic elements that she inherited from her time, but generally speaking, there are a lot of reasons to be impressed by Mary Wollstonecraft and this remains a fascinating historic text. It can be very dry in the latter half, but it’s not long overall, so I definitely recommend it.

Rating: 8.3/10

Read it here.

After finding Sourcery to be pretty much just okay, I was pleased that the next Discworld novel returned to Granny Weatherwax from Equal Rites, which had been one of my favourites so far. Sure enough, I had a good time with Wyrd Sisters – although there were two clearly defined halves to the story, and the first half appealed to much more than the second.

The novel starts with the King of Lancre being murdered by the his cousin, the Duke. His son and his crown end up under the care of a group of witches (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and another woman called Magrat) who end up hiding them from Duke Felmet. As the Duke’s reign of tyranny begins, the witches become and endless thorn in his side. I loved it all, because the witches are not mystical or otherworldly in any way – they’re a group of very ordinary, salt-of-the-earth women who have no patience for Felmet’s nonsense, and their clashes, and his attempts to intimidate them, are all absolutely hilarious. Who wouldn’t enjoy reading about witches nonchalantly challenging the power of a corrupt government?

My enthusiasm dwindled in the second half, however. This portion of the novel details the theatrical career of Tomjon, the son of the king that the witches helped smuggle away. He and the troupe of actors he lives with start their own theatre, The Dysc, which of course is obviously an homage to The Globe theatre in real life, where Shakespeare’s plays were performed. As a Shakespeare fan, I enjoyed this part of the novel, as there were lots of fun little references and nods to common Shakespeare tropes and it was generally kind of funny. However, the energy just wasn’t quite the same as in the first half, and I didn’t feel anywhere near engaged as I did when reading about the witches opposing the duke.

Of course, it all ties together in the end and the witches come back for a generally satisfying ending, but I wish it could have kept the momentum of the earlier parts of the novel. The only other thing I can really criticise is the running joke about Magrat having small boobs which felt very much like dumb teenage boy humour, rather than something I’d expect in Discworld, so that was a bit eye-roll inducing whenever it came up. Because of these things, I don’t think I liked it quite as much as Equal Rites, but it was a fun read nonetheless.

Rating: 7.6/10

Buy it here.

This was the third novel by Agatha Christie, and the second to feature her iconic character, Hercule Poirot. I did actually prefer the Tommy and Tuppence duo from The Secret Adversary, but Poirot himself was easily one of my favourite things about The Strange Affair at Styles and so I was keen to find out more about his adventures.

The story starts with an interesting encounter between Poirot’s companion, Hastings, and a mysterious woman who goes by “Cinderella” on a train. It’s intriguing and gets things off to a good start. Later, he and Poirot head to France on the request of a new client – unfortunately, once they arrive, they find that that client has been murdered, and so the investigations begin. Poirot ends up arrogantly butting heads with local law enforcement in a comical way, and the two begin to study clues and consider motives.

I’ll admit that for a while, I kind of started to think “This just feels like a by-the-numbers murder mystery.” It was fine, but I didn’t really feel that invested in it – certainly not as much as I’d felt invested in The Secret Adversary. I certainly smiled at the odd quip, but it wasn’t that much of an exciting read.

Until the final act. By golly. Since Agatha Christie follows a fairly similar formula to Arthur Conan Doyle with the Sherlock Holmes stories (which I’ve read all of), I started to wonder if it just seemed formulaic because I had consumed so much similar stuff – but then near the end, you have something that would have never happened between Holmes and Watson, and that really elevated my opinion of the whole novel (the solution to the mystery was alright too.)

So while I do think it sags quite a lot in the middle, this is a novel that comes together well enough in the end that I think it’s well worth reading – especially if you love the usual antics of Poirot and Hastings, or Holmes and Watson. It does something interesting with the dynamic that I would never have guessed.

Rating: 6.4/10

Buy it here.

The History of Sir Richard Calmady is something that I got for free in the Reclaim Her Name collection a few years ago. The idea of this collection was to cast the spotlight onto slightly more obscure pieces of historic literature written by women which originally had to be published under a man’s name. This would be their first publication under their actual name, and while some people see this decision as mildly problematic, I appreciated it for introducing me to lots of new pieces of writing that I would otherwise have missed. The History of Sir Richard Calmady is something I would probably never have heard of without Reclaim Her Name, so I am glad to have discovered it.

Let me warn you though: this novel is long. Over a thousand pages. Published in 1901, it tells the story of the life of its eponymous character – but it goes into such detail setting the scene, that he hasn’t even been born until you’re about a hundred pages in. Considering the era, I’m sure a lot of people can imagine what it’s like, but I think it is a novel that is very much worth sticking to.

While I’ve read quite a lot of novels about affluent people living in large mansions in the countryside and getting into all sorts of dramas, this one stood out for one major reason: its main character lives with a disability. A birth defect leaves him with stunted little legs and stops him from being able to walk properly. I can’t think of any other novels from this time (especially none that I’ve read) which feature a character like that, and it’s very refreshing.

There’s not much overall plot, to be honest, it just follows the very realistic trajectory of Richard Calmady’s life – but I love that. The whole novel felt very believable (and I guess you need something very long for this level of realism) and my absolute favourite thing about it was the depth and the nuance of the relationships between the different characters. Katherine Calmady, Richard’s mother, is probably my favourite character of the bunch – not only is her complex relationship with her often bitter and resentful son very compelling, but I found her friendship with a family friend named Julius to be especially intriguing too. From processing pain and grief of her own, to finding comfort from the company of others, and doing what she can to support those in her life, she felt like a very three-dimensional character and I’d say she is one of my favourite female fictional characters of the era. In some ways, she even feels like more of a main character than Richard.

Aside from that, Richard has major relationships with two other women in his life Helen de Vallorbes and Honoria St. Quentin. Although Helen is very much positioned as being bad for him (and is), I found her to be a fascinating character who feels so different from other female characters at the time. She’s very forward romantically and is someone who essentially does whatever she wants – this doesn’t make her a good person at all, but in the era she’s coming from, it makes her seem very cool. Honoria is written in a much more traditional way, but she still manages to be very interesting just because of the depth that the author gives everyone.

There are a few problematic moments throughout (mostly connected to them being rich white people during an era which was pretty awful to everyone else), but luckily, they were few and far between. All things considered, I am very glad I read this book – the author is very talented indeed and it tells the kind of story you don’t often come across. Just be warned, if you decide to read it, you’re in for a big commitment.

Rating: 8.1/10

I read this book recently after having it strongly recommended to me by one of my very best friends. In fact, she even read me a few excerpt and that pretty much guaranteed that I was going to give it a read. She described it as “a book that every woman should read” and I agree with that sentiment – though I’d take it further. It’s a book that everybody in general should read.

At its heart, it’s essentially an analysis of our current concept of romantic love – one tied closely to many of the author’s personal experiences. It looks at how marriage was once much more of a transactional thing which occasionally included “love” and a positive by-product, but which, over time, we’ve replaced with the current concept of having a romantic partner who is essentially a person’s “everything” person who will fulfil their every emotional need. While the shift was originally a radical and feminist thing, Tamara Tenenbaum argues that there’s potentially just as much misogyny baked into this as there was in the transactional era.

A lot of us have been enamoured by the idea of giving up everything in the name of somebody we love, but very often the reality of this is that women end up sacrificing everything for a man, and ending up with a relationship dynamic that serves him much more than it serves her. So, for instance, she might have less time for her friends because the romantic relationship is supposed to be more important and “enough” on its own. It also explores the feelings of frustration and discontentment that people feel when they try to make their partner the person they turn to for every possible problem they have. It collects a lot of thoughts I’d often had about these things and wraps them together in a very coherent and compelling way, backing them up with research where possible.

The author also explores a lot of related issues, such as expectations and pressures placed on women and the different sets of struggles that people face in individualist cultures, versus those where community is put before all other things. It’s not a clear-cut thing of one being good and the other being bad. There’s also a particularly depressing section on dating apps and how they ultimately feed into the de-humanisation of women by men who can’t handle getting rejected. Of course, how could she not talk about the ridiculous beauty standards women are expected to follow too?

One section that I particularly enjoyed spoke about how being single is often treated as a transitionary period and so prompts people to feel like something is missing if they’re not in a romantic relationship. It’s something you find strongly reinforced in so much media and it’s not something I think I’ve ever seen properly called out before – but it’s no wonder people quickly couple up with people (often people who may not be right for them) when they’re encouraged to feel incomplete when they don’t do this.

I, and the author, certainly don’t want to suggest that monogamous romantic relationships are a bad thing for anyone to want, but I think Tamara Tenenbaum does an excellent job of encouraging people to think critically about these things and to think about what they need vs what they’ve been socialised to think that they need to be happy. She doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but she does encourage us to ask questions and I think it’s important that everybody do that.

Rating: 9.6/10

Buy it here.

After the incredible experience of reading Volume 16, Volume 18, like Volume 17 before it, felt more like filler. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s certainly not the heart-wrenching peak that the series reached when it recounted Koro-sensei’s backstory. This feels like slightly more of an “ordinary” volume.

The most interesting thing, I suppose, is that it details Nagisa and Karma’s trip to the International Space Station in their attempts to find a cure for their teacher. It stands out for being so different to anything else that has happened before now… but at the same time, it doesn’t feel quite as profound as it should. I’m not quite sure why, but I didn’t really feel like it was written as though it was this really amazing thing, but more just like any of the challenges the class had faced before, even though it was really different.

Once that’s over, the volume focuses on romance because Valentine’s Day comes along. Karasuma and Jelavitch get a lot of attention and there’s a whole subplot about the pair of them going out for dinner together. I’m sure there are some fans for whom this will be a very positive development, but I was kind of indifferent to it. I’ve never really been invested in the bond between these two characters and while their interactions here are still interesting, it felt more like an attempt to start giving different characters an “ending” rather than actually moving the main story along.

Besides this, you also have a lot of stuff about the characters coming to terms with the fact that their time in the “Assassination Classroom” is slowly coming to an end. It’s all good to read, but again, it doesn’t feel like it brings us much closer to the end. Slightly naval-gazy in a way. I don’t think anyone will dislike it, and the visit to space is kind of cool, but it’s the second volume in a row that doesn’t feel like it does much, unfortunately – though I did enjoy it more than Volume 17.

Rating: 8.2/10

Buy it here.