Frozen – DaneCobain.com

Bocquet and Rochette – Snowpiercer Volume III: Terminus | Review

Title: Snowpiercer Volume III: Terminus

Author: Bocquet and Rochette

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 232

Rating: 5/5

This graphic novel series has been a bit of a weird one for me because it’s just got better and better as it went on. That might be a side effect of the fact that they had different authors for each book in the series, though.

But that could also be doing the series a disservice. Actually, I think this one was my favourite because of the subject matter. Set in the post-apocalyptic future on board a train that speeds through the frozen wastelands, in this final instalment, the train arrives at a final destination. What follows is basically an exploration of what happens when power gets to people’s heads, with everything from nuclear reactors and mutant babies to a few final answers and a little bit of closure.

I’d known about these books for a while, but it took me a surprising amount of time to get to it. Once I did though, I polished off the series in the space of a couple of months, and I’m kind of glad that I did. I think that I took more from it by reading it in that way, although I’ll also say that I think it could hold up well to a re-read. Definitely worth picking up.

Click here to buy Snowpiercer Volume III: Terminus.

Dalia Grinkeviciute – Shadows on the Tundra | Review

Title: Shadows on the Tundra

Author: Dalia Grinkeviciute

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 208

Rating 4.5/5

This book almost didn’t exist, but I’m glad that it does. Grinkeviciute was 14-years-old when the Soviets deported her from her native Lithuania during the 1940s, and she found herself essentially in a work camp in Siberia with people dropping dead left and right around her. She escaped, was caught, and managed to escape again, eventually writing these memoirs and burying them in the back garden in case the Soviet state discovered them. They were eventually found several years after her death.

As you can imagine, that means that it’s a pretty dark read with its fair share of harrowing scenes, and for me it was a lot of the little details that really hit me hard. For example, because they were struggling to survive on the tundra, the ground was frozen solid with permafrost even in the middle of summer, which made it difficult for them to dig graves. One woman was found frozen solid five months after disappearing and when they rolled her over, fresh blood leaked out of her nose. The fact that she survived is nothing short of incredible.