Lou

“The first book is bad, but the second book is SO GOOD,” they said. They lied.

While some of the technical issues of the first have improved, it's still not well written. Also I found myself actually saying, “Gross!” out loud at a lot of the romantic and sexual moments because the descriptions were so unappealing.

And I know it's to differentiate fairies from humans, but the use of “male” and “female” as nouns made me feel like I was being told a story by a Ferengi incel.

This book was... fine? I came away feeling underwhelmed but not as though I had wasted my time. But as many other reviewers have said, I don't know if I'd have finished this if I hadn't already seen C1 and loved the characters.

It was really a mixed bag. I like stories that delve into the grey areas between right and wrong, but this wasn't a particularly notable example of that. The characterization of the twins was spot-on, but a lot of the other characters felt flat. The writing was unclear, especially during action scenes, and the threats (Syngorn, the Clasp, the ash walkers, etc.) all felt toothless. But I appreciated the queer and disability representation.

I was excited to read a horror novella steeped in Japanese folklore, but that's not what this is. The folklore is merely set dressing (literally!) for the petty squabbles of a group of characters you can't even love to hate.

At first, I expected the haunting to play off of the characters' animosity towards each other to escalate the horror, but they come into the story at each other's throats already. There's not much room for build up.

And that's where this book really fails: horror is all about the build up. But the haunting alternately jumps around in intensity and simmers on the back burner to make room for the sorts of interpersonal issues that would be forgotten in such life-or-death circumstances. And I couldn't help but laugh along with the ghost at that.

Galaxy Quest is my favorite movie, so of course I had to have this book. I (unjustly) assumed that the book would mostly rehash the stories the Never Surrender documentary had already told, and I was delighted to be wrong. The interviews, photos, and concept art in Galaxy Quest the Inside Story provide new insight into the best Star Trek movie of all time. And it's just plain gorgeous to look at.

Delightful! Somehow not at all what I was expecting and exactly what I was expecting. It's short. Just read it. You'll see.

I'd love to read the book this was advertised as. While Bolin's stories about her life—dotted occasionally with stray observations about media, race, and gender—were just interesting enough to keep me reading, the actual meat of this book could really only fill a long essay.

Part 1: The Dead Girl Show almost lives up to the hype. The first 50 pages would have gotten 4 stars from me. Parts 2 and 3 stray away from what was advertised and become a memoir of Bolin's life in LA and her adolescence, which would have merited 3 stars. Part 4: A Sentimental Education was unfortunately difficult to get through, and ending on that disappointment soured the rest of the book for me. Hence 2 stars.

I adore Sebastian Nothwell's writing style and ability to tell a story, but his characters are always what leave the strongest lasting impression. Our MCs, Evelyn and Morgan, are beautifully realized with histories that inform their actions. Other reviewers have mentioned the lack of open communication between them for a majority of the book, but I think Morgan's unwillingness to be honest about his past makes total sense given the trauma he's suffered and the shame he feels about it. He's never had anyone he could safely unpack his complicated feelings with, and years of emotional isolation aren't easily undone (especially when he's heard Evelyn speak fondly of his abuser!)

Nothwell's secondary characters are always a joy as well. I found the Devereaux siblings delightful in completely different ways, and the character of Aunt Cecily takes the archetypal forbidding aunt and gives background and reason to her stern, judgmental, and proper manner. The cook was also a particular favorite.

The Night Circus is a sluggish story about a circus... that happens to contain two magicians who, for much of the book, have no idea that they're competing or why. There is no “fierce competition” or “duel” and describing their feelings for each other as “deep, magical love” is only accurate in that magic is the only explanation for why either of them would be attracted to the other.

This book had a lot of problems, but the one that bothered me the most was the choice of the 3rd person omniscient narrator. The author tries to build tension by having Celia question Marco's motives, but the attempt falls flat when you remember that you've been privy to both their innermost thoughts throughout the whole book.

If you really like romantic-to-the-point-of-absurdity depictions of circuses, tension-less romance, and clocks, this one might be for you.

Mr Warren's Profession is a compelling, beautifully written, and heartfelt romance which features all of your favorite Victorian tropes (romance complicated by class! complex social rituals! repressed emotions!)

Sebastian Nothwell has a way of describing things that immediately conjure vivid images in your mind and a knack for creating complex and complete characters that you can't help but adore.

Listen, I'm not someone who thinks authors should only write about people who share their experiences or identity, but in this case, Grady Hendrix should have stopped to ask himself whether he was the right author for this kind of story. It's disappointing because I really liked some of his female characters in other books. Unfortunately, while he is good at writing a female character in isolation, I'm realizing that he really fails to understand how women relate to each other and the world around them. In some cases, it just vaguely feels like there's something missing from how he writes female friendships, but with Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, there was nothing about any of his female characters, their interactions, or how they perceive their world that felt true. And that's a huge deal when the entire story is about a bunch of teenage girls, their relationships with each other, and how they're treated by the world. At that point, it's not just an identity thing, it's a quality of writing thing.

The narrator of the audiobook definitely didn't help. It felt like she was hamming it up the whole time and made every. single. sentence. sound like it was the worst. thing. in. the. world. Even benign descriptions are given this tone of “Isn't this the most world-shatteringly terrible thing you've ever heard?” but the text is just like, describing the view out a window. Also her voice whenever a character was yelling or crying was painfully shrill. I got to the hospital scene towards the end of the book and gave up partly because Hendrix's writing was exhausting and partly because I couldn't stand listening to the narrator shrieking.

Sorry for the extremely subjective review, but the experience of reading this book really pissed me off. Hendrix was a must-buy author for me, and I'm feeling disillusioned.

Strong start but got less and less relatable until I had to put it down. I'm ostensibly the target audience for this book–white, queer, over-educated, high-masking, leftist–but even I felt like Price became out of touch once he started trying to explain what unmasking could look like.

The first 2 chapters were validating, and I even sent entire paragraphs to my mom because they explained experiences I haven't been able to articulate. Chapter 3 “The Anatomy of the Mask” started to lose me, and by Chapter 4 “The Cost of Masking” I was annoyed by Price's generalizations and inability to conceive of Autistic people who didn't validate the point he wanted to make. Fully gave up in Chapter 6 “Building an Autistic Life” because all of the anecdotes used as examples of successful unmasking were from people who started in economic and social circumstances that are unattainable by most. I skimmed the rest, and it looks like Price quickly glosses over some actual societal changes as a palate-cleanser to make up for it?

Overall, the book lacks a strong thesis and suffers from it. Is it a memoir of a specific Autistic experience? A self-help guide for high-masking Autistic people? A resource for allistic friends and family members? It doesn't seem to know.