Ash

This is about what you'd expect. It's humorous, bit that's not enough to carry an absurd plotline that doesn't seem to go anywhere. I couldn't.

It was just fun. Cute sci-fi. Nothing like what I expected.

Honestly I didn't get past the first chapter. It's a writing style I'm not a fan of: everything's in passive voice and there's no rhyme or humour to it. Stylistically very Boomer Writing An All Staff Email, I don't dig it.

Interesting premise, but the story felt flat. There was no buildup, no tension, no real consequence. It felt a bit like a comedy of errors without the comedy. Kinda bleak.

The premise is basically what if the universe is a computer with speculative execution bugs. If you understand that sentence, it's probably going to be irritatingly slow and repetitive for you.

I liked the idea but I felt it was poorly written. They were sentences that literally did not make sense. A bunch of exposition I ended up just skimmimg over. A narrative that didn't really gel with me, and a bunch of points where I was just confused what was happening.

It's a fun idea, the concepts are interesting, the relationships could have been something, but it just didn't go anywhere because everything was so black and white. The stakes didn't feel like stakes because the protagonists are too competent and everything solved by magic. And none of the plot points seemed to amount for anything? The car bombs? The conjuring of food? The magic system? It was all just a sidebar to the actual plot, which didn't go anywhere. I dunno, I wanted to like it but I think the reviews were about right.

All the space opera and world building and dramatic reveals the first one utterly lacked.

This was fine enough, but very long and the council library only let me have it for a week at a time so I had to cram it in. The end was satisfying if a little straightforward, but overall it did tend to drag. I think I'm just not into a period piece.

Cosy and delightful, books and baked goods. If you've read the first you know what you're getting yourself into. Just what I need right now.

This one was hard. The start was dry and frustrating and just tragic. But the back half was kind of beautiful. More sentimental, more human. I'm glad to have read it.

This was good. Darkly funny, quite stupid, a comedy of errors and a medium amount of drama. Just what I needed.

I forget where I found this. Thought it might be my cup of tea, but it was the kind of questionably written nothingburger that had me, at one point, asking if it was written by a human at all. I ended up speed reading it because I was curious; deliberately terrible writing, a tedious m/m relationship that strains credibility, the vaguest insinuation of a horror element in the back quarter, and an illogical plot that feels like I've stumbled into a nanowrimo. I see some people rated it, but there wasn't much here for me at all.

TLDR we were threatened with a weird time in space and instead we got MSN talk and a “boy falls in love with a vampire” narrative. I think two stars is generous.

I had high expectations given the blurb, but I just didn't find it that funny. There's a humour, but also a bunch of unlikable characters so it felt a bit mean sometimes. Breaking the fourth wall was more annoying than anything. Still, I enjoyed it as a perfectly competent story in a fun setting.

Reilly describes the book as "the nicest detective in the world […] uncovers the most heinous conspiracy imaginable" which sounds about right. For pulp this is great; fast-paced and real spooky. But there's flaws for sures, and in the end it really is just a white saviour trope. I can understand this won't be for everyone, but I thought it was pretty good for what it is.

I had heard The DaVinci code was an imperfect, but proficient work for what it sets out to do. Not fine art, but gives the masses what they want. So being first in the series I picked this up, not expecting much, but figuring I'd give it a go.

I don't really understand what happened here, but the writing is not great. The heteronormative age-gap sexual tension is cringey from the get go, there is so much damn exposition, and I reckon you could edit a third of this out and have a much tighter story. I think it aged badly, and kinda turned into a hate-read for me. I found myself offering expletives to my Kobo multiple times, and, especially towards the end, skimming over reams of self-righteous faff.

Overall, I suppose it's a fun story just told poorly.

A high tech thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat, and a mystery I didn't see coming. A few of the beats felt a bit stretched, but overall a great story. I would visit Voodoo Lily Garden Centre and touch the cactuses.

Cute, funny, does the trick.

Cute, funny, very easy. I do love the Thursday Murder Club.

This was harrowing. Quite a dark tale, but told with humour and care. One part murder mystery, one part ghost story, quite a few parts the legacy of colonialism, racism, power and corruption, with a sprinkle of this newfangled invention the "mobile telephone". It's set in the '90s after all.

It was beautifully written, and easily the most annotations I've taken while reading (all of which disappeared when I returned it to the library). I just think this is a very cool book.

Yeah alright. A couple of interesting essays.

I didn't not enjoy this, but it's very much a product of its time in a number of ways.

What a train wreck in the best way. I enjoyed seeing the dual timelines, almost like diary entries from Eve and Nell's lives, slowly converging to the devastating and inevitable conclusion, foreshadowed throughout. This is an emotional book, a bit of a rollercoaster, but I think it works well if you're into the lesbian coming-of-age relationship/coparenting tragedy genre.

This one was a dichotomy for me. It was good sci fi. It kept me going, very well done. But the story itself left me feeling ick; there's only so long you can spend in a hopeless place. It's the first in a trilogy, and I'll pick up the rest because I suspect the groundwork has been laid now.

I feel like these are getting better as the series progresses. Maybe that's partly because of the emotional attachment, but the writing has definitely improved. This one was a super compelling action-packed narrative that I couldn't put down (as evidenced by my 3am bedtime on a school night). Politics, relationship dynamics, and a minor apocalypse, what more could you want? The cliffhanger was somewhat of a flatline, but I don't especially mind. Just means we've got some unresolved drama that I can't wait to dive into in the next book.

Interesting that this one came out of the pandemic, a time when simply going to the coffee shop was considered high fantasy. It was pretty cute, I liked it.

This was fine. Good read. I'd rate four stars because I enjoyed it, though the humour did get tiring in places. But I added an extra star to negate the homophobic Karen with the algorithmically promoted Goodreads review I had the immense displeasure of reading just now. Cheers, love.