BulbasaurusThe7th

You know things are not going well when a book makes you feel like you had a stroke. This one... did that to me and I wasn't happy.
Not sure what I really expected, I mean it's a typical teenage girl YA, which is something I dislike from the get go, but I tried. Actually, I tried until about 80% of the book and I still dislike it, so I think it's safe to just give up and say how I feel.

In Scion London, in the future people with supernatural abilities are not treated well. If the government catches you, you are lost, nobody comes back from that. Paige Mahoney is one of these supernatural people, which is bad, but she has a perk; she got picked up by a criminal gang of outsiders like herself. Sure, it is crime, their boss is cruel, but among her kind, she has is great.
Up until one day she gets snatched from her home and it turns out the disappeared are taken to a secret colony, lead by not quite human creatures.

This is one of the most graceless things I've ever read. Miss Shannon has absolutely no idea when a world is adequately built, she just keeps tacking on more glitter, more weird crap, more bits and pieces. Sure, an intricate world is good, A Song of Ice and Fire is awesome with its million families and cultures and everything. This, though... is just messy and impossible to follow.
We have a million different kinds of abilities, a lot of them coming even with slang name, but we do not get explained what they do. Paige has... of course a special one, even among all the specials. So it makes even less sense.
All in all, we get pushed in without anything. The book contains an outrageous amount of in-world slang. You have a little dictionary in the back and some supposed helping material with the different abilities drawn up on handy diagram (that still doesn't explain what individual one DOES), but again, it feels like the writing itself lacks any subtle ways of easing us in. Which, in my mind, is a bad sign for the book's quality. I don't want to read up on a million things just to be able to get some ridiculous YA book.

Can we also talk about the way I am annoyed by yet another teen girl fantasy where the characters are dumb as hell? Paige is supposedly some criminal underground cool girl, yet she seems to absolutely NO perspective and she doesn't understand why starving, sickly, unequipped people enslaved under superhuman probably aliens in a place that is basically one massive prison just... don't feel like rebelling in pathetic, school girl ways.
Buuuuut of course she is just so special and unique and AMAZING that she gets picked as the heir of her crime lord, then she is chosen by one of the alien guys, who is special even among his kind to be his apprentice, but of course they form a magical soul bond and OMG, they are so going to be in love, because he's the hottest guy around and she is the protagonist.
I swear this couldn't even be more typical. She is protesting so far, though, which means it's even more romantic and totally not just some token resistance.

Another thing. According to Goodreads, this thing is going to be 7 books long. 7. I have absolutely NO idea what they can stretch out to fill 7 full size novels with this vapid little girl daydream. Let me guess, 10 more people will realise they just NEED Paige for whatever reason, because nobody can measure up to her greatness.

I didn't need this book at all. It wasn't good, it wasn't fun and it definitely didn't make me want to read any more of this series. The review probably turned a bit bitchy, but I completely lost my patience with this specific book and its ilk at this point.

Oh, by the way, the fact that the author is young is treated like some great thing. I find that counterproductive. Being young and writing a book is not some glory, literature is not a race. Maybe we should just allow every author to mature, to pick up enough experience in life, to work on their technique. God knows this book would have profited from someone with a more subtle technique that doesn't try to hit you in the head with a brick.

Have a nice day and let me leave on vacation during this season instead!

I'm going to be really nice with my rating. This is an indie book and a pretty sweet one at that, so even though I will list some issues with it, I think it has value and Mr. Patrick deserves to be encouraged.

Monsters come at night to small villages in the forest, when people hide in the cellars. Because of a misunderstood incident, Lonan is treated like a horrible person, making everyone hate him, up until he starts having dreams about the mysterious Magpie King, who is the person supposedly defending the people from even more harm being done by the monsters. In the end Lonan needs to work with what he got to know through his dreams to save everyone, from the people of the Magpie King and his own loved ones, including the girl who refused even to be decent towards him until now because of that old incident in their childhood.

The thing I liked about this the most was the atmosphere. It actually felt like something you could see in a twisted fairy tale cartoon, with some interesting visuals. Maybe puppets or some sort, with dark colours. It just had that weird style, like some story that could be the written version of creepy stories told to scare kids. I don't know, it just really worked well. Sometimes it had odd choices of words (don't mention adrenaline in creepy fairy tales, it sticks out in an awkward way). All in all, this part of the story worked well.
I especially liked the little chapters of in-universe folk stories sprinkled in. I generally like it when the novels are broken up with things like that, so I guess not everyone will care so much, but I did. They felt like authentic stuff that could potentially exist.

The story itself had enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. Sure, it is a short one, but I felt like it had enough meat to make it worth your time. Not gonna lie, I am all for the action. This one performed well enough in that, so no complaints from me. Some new ideas thrown in were a tiny bit... abrupt for my taste, which I guess is not surprising in a book so short. Not much time to spend on world building and nothing else to set things up. Again, I approve.

Now we need to talk about two things that I am not wild about at all. I'm apologising already.

Mr. Patrick, please, get someone who checks your writing for teeny tiny inconsistencies. Once a character supposedly lost her mother, then she says father one time, then back to mother. Someone loses two fingers, then a chapter or two later he feels his finger, singular, he lost is hurting him. One character gets his face mauled and loses and eye, but later he has certain looks in his eyeS and all.
All these minors flaws can be solved with someone just reading the whole thing and paying attention. Honestly, the book could be much, much better with some careful eyes going through it. I'm nitpicky with those things and always notice them (god knows I have spent nights way back in time picking apart movies like LOTR for mistakes with my sister's ex-bf, annoying her to death). So yeah. There is that.

The other was the romance. Sure, I know usually folk storied and fairy tales don't really have the most nuanced and subtle love stories, but here I could have appreciated something. The main romance is Lonan and Branwen and I can't stand her. She is moody and colourless. Sure, there are explanations, but I saw absolutely nothing in her that would have made me buy Lonan's obsessive love for her. I saw no lovable thing at all. They were “meant to be”, but I wasn't sold on it. So yeah, that could have handled a bit more work, fleshing her out to seem something other than the most miserable person ever.

The final verdict is that this is a nice book that promises some pretty great stuff from the author in the future. I am planning on keeping an eye open for his new thing as they come out. Promising start. Not perfect at all, Mr. Patrick needs to polish his technique a bit here and there, but I think the talent is there and he seems like someone who has a possibly pretty great future ahead of him if he does that.

Good night and lock your doors carefully!

The shitstorm continues in this book. It's not enough that the sadistic and perfectly insane Trin decided to be queen, Falcio is dying of the poison he barely survived in the previous book, sainthood is starting to make Kest go insane, Brasti breaks down, Aline is in constant danger, but someone decided to start murdering the dukes and their whole families and the signs point to the old Greatcoats. Seems like nobody can catch a break in this damn country, eh?

This was something. When I say something, I mean REALLY dark, more than the first, with hilarious moments, and action galore. Thing got much more complicated as well, which is interesting, I am really looking forward to how the author is going to solve this, because at the moment it seems everyone just decided to burn the country to the ground and restart from there. Seriously, if you want to see clear cut good and bad, don't even bother with this.
Personally I enjoy that. Characters with potential for good seem to come up with the worst possible things to do. Everything leads to things turning worse and worse. To be honest, that is one of my favourite elements in the series; that even the best intentions can and will often lead to the absolute worst.

In this one all three of our guys are having their own issues. They all get tested in their ways, have to face their issues, really think about what they are doing with their lives. The same goes for the accompanying girls. A lot of that happens towards the end of the book, so we won't see too much of the results, which.... yeah, that part makes this book feel a bit like setting things up for the next. I'm not saying it is a bad book, but a lot of their achievements will come to their results later.

So now for the soapbox time. Skip if you are so inclined. I warned you.
Nowadays everyone blabbers about female characters and how we absolutely NEED more, while they are inventing ridiculous guidelines. Female characters always need to be flattering to our whole gender or someone will cry sexism.
My opinion? To hell with that. Females have the capacity for the full range of good AND bad characteristics and that is not an insult, but a great thing. When we are good, it's not because of the lack of other possibility and us just being born good, but because we decided to do it and kept that goodness.
Here we finally have some females with the whole scale. Kind, caring, patient, but also sadistic, full of revenge, too hot headed. All.
Now I just hope Sebastien De Castell is as brave as some of his characters and will keep them that way and not dance back and claim women's bad decisions and flaws are always the men's faults.

All in all, this was good. I hope the next one will finally not have torture scenes (they... get a bit old, not gonna lie), but other than that I am looking forward to it. The end of the book makes it obvious that our characters have some huge work ahead of them. The world got developed in this one more (the Dashini assassins, oh my gooood), now they need to start fixing all the issues with the already existing stuff. Maybe finally they will actually have the power to make some progress and not just stumble from one life or death situation to the next.

There is one element I am not wild about, though. Ethalia, Falcio's love interest. I personally don't really love romance, it just doesn't interest me and this one feels a bit nonsensical as well. Sure, she helps him and she's a kind lady, but this gigantic love after actually spending maybe a day together was a bit... annoying, I guess. Oh, well. I can live with that.

Have a nice day and avoid all the conspiracies!

25% and DNF.

This is a short little thing, I shouldn't just quit it like that, but I can't do this. Everything about this book makes me not want to read it at all. Sorry about that. I'm not writing the review to diss or to try to hate on this, but I do not want to forget my reasons why I got absolutely annoyed by it.

Martha Macnamara's daughter is in trouble, so she does what most of us would; calls her mother, so said mother leaves New York to meet her in San Francisco. In her posh hotel she meets a weird Asian man, named Mayland Long, who seems impossibly old for someone looking middle-aged. Once Martha's daughter, Elisabeth doesn't show up, they decide to find her.

Sounds suspenseful, hm? A mother trying to find her daughter, desperately seeking the help of a mysterious man. HAHA. Yeeeeah, no. We will have no Liam Neeson style a'la Taken. No. Martha Macnamara is an absolute airhead. Her daughter is impossible to access and she has no idea what happened to her, maybe her body is rotting in a ditch, maybe some Saw thing is happening to her. Martha... marvels on chandeliers, plays with toy cars, listens to stories about random shit told by Long. They hang out. She laughs when Long is trying to ask questions to her daughter's old acquaintance and doesn't even pay attention to the things being said.
In short, she feels like a kid with attention issues in the body of a middle-aged woman. So annoying.

But hey, the prose is actually just like the protagonist; it drifts around and makes me skim, which is not something I enjoy. But is all just feels so inconsequential, like a song that was meant to be background for something and when you pay attention, it just feels like it was written by a squirrel of average intelligence. Maybe it was a thing in the 80's that I should know about to not be some uncultured swine, I don't even know, I just feel I am not enjoying myself and that's that.
To me it's all just uncomfortable and... dare I say, pretentious?

Another thing. Miss MacAvoy obviously has her interests, like Irish mythology and Taoism and all, which is nice, but her characters keep talking about things that you will not get if you are not actually knowledgeable about the exact things she is. It makes me feel totally out of the loop. Don't get me wrong, I like looking up a few things that I hear about in books, that can be interesting, but this level of artsy prose with things I have no knowledge about mix together into a jumbled mess of nonsense to me.

As I finished the book fast, I can't say much more about the story and resolution and the overall pacing, but god, this wasn't one for me. At this point I don't feel I should keep reading when nothing at all works for me.
Not going to lie, I am a bit disappointed. I wanted to read this book for a long time and all.

So long and don't drag on! (Hurr hurr, get it? Dragon. Shoot me now, after that pun not even my mother would look for me if I disappeared. Sorry.)

You know what is similar to this book (and The Rook)? When in Men in Black Will Smith is taken to the HQ by Tommy Lee Jones and you see all the aliens in the background being all kinds of crazy. We will never ever get to see them properly, but they are there in the background to make the world feel richer and quirkier and more interesting.
This whole series is that. We get mentions of old stories, little snippets of characters with interesting abilities, all that. Aaaand they barely ever do ANYTHING. It really feels like Mr. O'Malley had these moments of “yeaaah, imagine a person who can solidify light, that would be kinda badass” at 3am after 4 hours of watching random Youtube stuff, but then not really utilising the ideas.

What did we have instead? After centuries of fear of each other, the Checquy and the Grafters decide to form an alliance, even though the former is a bunch of random people born supernatural, while the latter is the product of super scientists augmenting everything about themselves. But you can't have those big things without some people being against it, so a terrorist group is trying to smash everything.
The two protagonists are a Grafter woman and a Checquy pawn serving as her bodyguard, both young chicks with a kinda sassy attitude. They get tangled in the crazy, of course.

Aaaand that is my issue. Odette (Grafter) and Felicity (Checquy) are just... not that interesting. They are kind of giddy and awkward, which makes me doubt that organisations with such huge history, engaged in history changing negotiations would screw around with absolutely inexperienced little baby fetuses.
They also wouldn't send important diplomats in for super unpredictable, dangerous situations just for the lulz, which they actually did MULTIPLE TIMES. Ridiculous!

Mr. O'Malley's humour comes off weird as well. Don't get me wrong, I did laugh, but he can only do one kind of jokes. Said my old men, young women, Belgians, English, ANYONE. I'm sorry, but that is just not how humour works. It's especially frustrating when we have two protagonists with approximately the same age and virtually indistinguishable inner workings. Maybe it was to show how the two organisations are fundamentally really similar, but switching between the point of views provided no contrast at all. Not pleased with it.

One moment was powerful, though. Once we can read the story of how kids at the Checquy school the older kids keep telling the younger ones a story, one about the time when the Grafters attacked them centuries ago, forcing even the kids to fight back. How supernatural kids need to be prepared to do fighting an unknown, horrible threat at any moment and that is just what they have to live with. That part was pretty damn lovely.

I can't help feeling that this series could have been better. For some reason why keep being stuck with not too interesting characters who are just... adequate, instead of being fabulous, which pisses me off because WE DO have great, interesting, vibrant ones there. Right there. In... the background. If anything, in this book we see even less of the mind splitting twin entity, awesome vampire guy, dream walking boss lady. So I'm not satisfied.

If another book comes out, I will most likely pick it up. Probably not shrieking in ecstasy, going crazy about it and breaking limbs to fight myself through a horde of rabid beasts to get it, but it's fine for some entertainment.

There is one thing that can really make me indifferent towards fantasy books; a lack of humour and vibrancy. Some authors seem to believe that if you place your characters in a hard living situation, maybe in a middle ages type one, maybe not, then characters will just act as stiff, humourless, dead serious people. Which... yeah, it is bullshit. It really kills those stories to me, because it just makes the novel feel like an empty imitation of how people actually work in real life.
This one, though, god, it had so much life! Don't get me wrong, rough things happened and it wasn't a rainbow coloured cotton candy dreamland, but there was just so much bickering and friends making fun of each other. The protagonist also had a tendency of making fun of his own situation, which... yeah, it is something I do, so I'm biased as hell.

After the murder of King Paelis his super awesome justice squad, the Greatcloaks disbanded. They were the kind of travelling judges, wearing these amazing coats with protection and a bit of Inspector Gadget vibes going on. Our hero, Falcio was actually the boss of them all and even now, two of his friends from the group, Kest and Brasti are with him, trying to survive somehow. It works well enough, up until they get framed for the murder of an influential man they were supposed to protect, by a naked lady in a mask. They need to get away and do it fast, so they join a caravan of people going to Rijou, the most inhuman city of the whole kingdom, delivering a mysterious young woman. Shit is going to get even worse once they get there.

I was ridiculously excited about this book, as I keep hearing people going insane about it, which doesn't always mean I will also like it, but you can't blame me for the hype getting to me. This time, though, it actually worked. I love the damn thing. Somehow it manages to perfectly balance funny moments, action and dark stuff. I have no idea how educated the author is when it comes to writing, especially writing enjoyable books that fire up your passion for reading, but THIS is how you do it.

I actually read Sebastien De Castell's (cool name btw) little bio here on the website, but even without that, you just know the man has actual knowledge about fighting. His fight scenes are really crisp like that, he can actually sell you on Falcio being good at this, because he himself is good at it. Now... I don't know shit about swords and all, so yeah. Got schooled there. I also appreciate that even though it's really obvious he enjoys this, he is not stuffing the book full to show off his expertise. Something I really appreciate, as a bunch of authors get carried away when it comes to their passion.

So lets just talk about the characters for now. Our three guys, Falcio, Brasti and Kest, the Powerpuff Boys as I like to call them are a balanced little group of awesome. We have angst, passion, wit, womanizing, honour aaaand amazing skills with weaponry. This is personal preference, but I would take friendship or sibling stories above romance in every book, 100%. Here we had that stuff. There is just something lovely about a group of people balancing each other so perfectly.

Personally I do not require huge twists to enjoy a book. Some people do, but if other things are given (characters I am invested in, a cool world, pleasant prose), then I can live without it. In this book I definitely didn't expect any big twist, but there were a couple. One was not particularly imaginative (sorry) in connection with King Paelis, the other with multiple people... yeah, that was good. Not going to spoil, but seriously, I enjoyed one twist much more than the other.

Another tiny tiny little “issue” I had was how conveniently people from Falcio's past just all happened to show up. This is a huge kingdom, at one point Falcio even thinks about the fact that somehow he managed to not run into other old Greatcoats from him past, but at the same time all the people who influenced him one way or another when he was younger just happened to be in Rijou during the time shit was going down. Maybe it is some kind of a magic we don't know about yet, I don't know. It was just way too convenient.

There were some ridiculously fun moments that made me genuinely giddy and excited. Like at one point Falcio makes a speech in front of the oppressed, afraid people of Rijou, effectively starting a rebellion against their rulers. It was such a cool, vivid moment I couldn't help wishing for a movie or show adaptation, because you could just see it in front of your eyes. That was pretty sweet.

Somehow the book managed to avoid overwhelming me with all the information and characters and concepts, which again, a really good thing for a fantasy novel. It is new to me, as it is the first book in the series, but it still feels extremely approachable and human. The language of it works, the characters actually feel like people instead of plot devices or idealised human beings from a world that is based on real history. You just genuinely feel them close to you.

All in all, this was absolutely fabulous. I am definitely reading the rest of the series (already lined up on my Kindle before even starting the first one, because pffft, go big or go home) sooner than later. If Sebastien De Castell manages to keep this up, I am pretty sure he just managed to gain a new fan who will be eagerly waiting for any new book he releases.

Have a nice day and don't go out without a jacket!

I didn't write a review of the first book, but I decided to do with this one, because why the fuck not. Holy shit, these books are cool. Seriously, I absolutely love them and that's all. The supernatural life in Moscow is insane, which is understandable for a city with such a history. We have the Light Others and the Dark Others, trying to maintain a very delicate equilibrium of power over the normal humans. They police each other through the Night Watch (Lights out at night keeping an eye on the Darks) an Day Watch (vice versa), especially during a time when the balance is really close to being completely ruined. Here, as in the first book, we have three little stories that intertwine through the endless, often decades long machinations of the two sides and their bosses. No spoilers, so I can't really say more, especially without talking too much about the first novel. Urban fantasy to me is fun. I just love it, in all kinds of different interpretations. Some just take fantasy creatures and stories and place them in our modern world, some really try to make magic urban through tying it to specific urban locations really hard. This one... is a bit of both, I guess. It's not exactly like the ridiculously overwritten [b:A Madness of Angels 6186355 A Madness of Angels (Matthew Swift, #1) Kate Griffin https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1305861910s/6186355.jpg 6366640], where all the specifically city (or even London) places have some creature connected to them. No. Here we simply just have people so damn Russian. You read the book and you just can't imagine the same characters being anywhere else, the prose, the dignified, melancholic air... It's artful. Seriously. Mr. Lukyanenko is not cheating you out of your fantasy elements either. Somehow he managed to make vampires and witches and sorcerers feel fresh and perfectly integrated in life with the technology and lifestyle of Russia in 1999. Which... is exactly the thing some people will not get or appreciate at all. I mean I'm Eastern European, let me tell you, some things will feel pretty damn alien about this book for some people from for example the US. Oh well, it's a very nice change of pace, I guess. I adored the fact that in this book we could see stories about the Dark Others, basically the enemy of the protagonists of the first book and... you could actually have empathy for them. It's truly a story where we observe the moral questions of good and bad, without the limitations of being told the obvious answer. Also, the sides here do misunderstand each other and not always able to see the bigger picture, which gives a further little flavour of them being actual, multifaceted people. Now there was this thing that kind of annoyed me, though. Goddamn song lyrics. Somehow I personally can not appreciate poetry of any kind in novels. It just breaks up the prose, it feels awkward, usually it plain sucks. Here they are translated from Russian to English, which makes it even more awkward to read them. They tie in with the stories, but I still can't appreciate that. Sorry. I'm probably just some uncultured swine, but hey. At this point I have no idea where the story will go next, as we have some overarching storylines, but I am definitely interested. I have no idea why I waited so long with reading this second book, but damn, is this series a ton of fun. I'm definitely picking up the next book. So long and don't come to the dark side. Or light side. Keep it neutral.

Okay, this book was ridiculously fun. My ratings are really just that, marking how much I enjoyed stuff, so yeah. No, this book was not absolutely brilliantly written, I just picked it up at the right time, I guess. Also, funny enough, I seem to really like funny books in connection with Biblical stuff. I'm a filthy unbeliever, but shit, I do appreciate when people have lighthearted humour in connection with stuff like religion. I don't think it means disrespect, but the world has humour. That is just how I feel about it, so yeah, if you are sensitive about religious themes, this is probably not a book for you. You've been warned. Qapsiel, an angel with a ridiculous name got sent to Earth to take this little box that can nuke humanity to shit. Ya know, we probably deserved it. This angel is a bit of a moron, though, which celestial beings have the right to be, so he manages to lose the box that can eradicate human life. Not the best move. Fast forward to now, the protagonist, Coop, a magic resistant robber needs to steal this box. Then shit hits the fan even worse. We have some Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels type action with undead people, supernatural FBI, TWO separate satanic cults and basically everyone trying to get this box. The thing that sold the book to me was the humour, really. Everyone is an idiot, cults sabotage each other's bake sale, everyone has funny little lines about stuff. It's really easy to read and fun like that. Popcorn stuff. The story itself if... not particularly special or inventive or anything, but I could enjoy the book equivalent of comfort food. Not sure if it's just me being used to absurdly long fantasy series, but at this point I have a hard time getting attached to characters in stand alone novels. This wasn't even a very long one. So yeah, I wasn't too worried about the characters, the tone doesn't really sell you on there being any actual big danger, so there is that. It just felt pleasant to relax with some fun stuff after the suspenseful disgusting monster journey of [b:The Monstrumologist 7171771 The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist, #1) Rick Yancey https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320124102s/7171771.jpg 6647553]. (I wrote a review on that one, cross promo.) Not really sure what I should say about this. I would definitely recommend it for reading in your bath or on vacation on the beach. Good giggles there, not too hard to follow the story, not even if you get distracted by bikinis and beach balls every five minutes. Richard Kadrey has surprising amounts of books on my to-read list. I don't know why his stuff intrigues me that much, but hey. This one was a pleasant enough experience to prompt me to pick up his other stuff. I guess that is a win for him. Or me. I mean I am having fun. See you at the cult bake sale, bring brownies with double hate!

This was absolutely brutal and I am in love. You know, graphic violence is an interesting thing and I'm pretty picky about it. If the author picks some sort of a violent situation or world for the book, it needs to happen. I dislike when they shy away from it and nicely knock the protagonist out or send them to a different room while shit happens. You know, if you have no inclination to show the thing, then leave it out. I also don't really like the kind of mindless violence that doesn't feel integral and meaningful, just happens with you hearing the author's chuckles in the background, because hehe, you got shocked. In this... it was perfection. I mean basically the story is about a little boy, Will Henry, whose father used to work for a kooky doctor, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop as an assistant. Then one day they family's house burnt down, the parents died and the boy was taken in by the doctor. No, he is no fixer of broken legs and checker of blood pressure. No. Dr. Warthrop is a monstrumologist. That means... monster scientist. So when monsters are found in graves and people get ripped apart alive, who you gonna call? Yeah, Warthrop and Will Henry. Another thing that Rick Yancey (bless his name) did extremely well was sell you on the 1800's. The writing was fitting, as far as I know. Sure, I am no expert, but to me it honestly felt like Mr. Yancey knew what he was doing, didn't just pick this time period for the lulz. Of course the treatment of Will Henry (he basically has a full time, super demanding job at age twelve and nobody babies him) was not according to today's standards. Again, fitting. If it bothers you, this book is not for yourself. The relationship between the Doctor and Will Henry adds to this. The man was raised by an emotionally distant father and he honestly does not do feelings too much. His work, which is extremely strenuous is his top priority. I mean the future of the human race depends on people like him, so there is no time to play around and talk about out feelings. For once an author (and a YA one) actually dares to do this well! So many want to add distant characters who supposedly don't get human interactions, but go soft and just make them a bit quirky, but totally the illegitimate child of Oprah and a Care Bear. Of course Warthrop has his kind little moments, but they are few and far between, which is something I enjoyed, it made those moments much more precious and meaningful. It's really damn hard to not compare this to my previous read, William Ritter's [b:Beastly Bones 24001095 Beastly Bones (Jackaby, #2) William Ritter https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1425592816s/24001095.jpg 43601150]. The premise is the same. The protagonist tells about his/her time as the assistant of a person who works with monsters and creatures, even in the same era. The difference, other than my enjoyment, was the fact that even though Mr. Yancey's monsters are scientific creatures with actual doctors doing scientific experiments (autopsies, hello), the book felt damn magical and fantastic. Mr. Ritter supposedly has magical things, but couldn't make it feel like magic. Funny enough, I've heard about Mr. Yancey before in connection with [b:The 5th Wave 16101128 The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave, #1) Rick Yancey https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359853842s/16101128.jpg 19187812] and that sounds exactly like the kind of book I would hate. I am not big on books about teen girls kicking major soldier ass and being super cute, while hot dudes fight for her attention. Just... not my jam. But this was absolutely AMAZING. It pulled me in right away. One funny thing was my imagination, though. For some reason at first I imagined Warthrop as this old guy, kind of sickly looking and creepy. Then some time in the book he talks about the fact that he came back to New Jerusalem five years ago, when his father died, from his travels after his studies, which makes him pretty young. Also, he gets called handsome at one point. He can't be over thirty. Whoops? Sleep well and do not look under your bed!

Yeah, I didn't like the first book in the series, but I decided to give this a chance, mostly just to see if it was a dud of a first book or I should never ever read any more of Mr. Ritter's works. Aaaand at this point I feel I will never ever read any more of his works. Yay?

In this one they found some fossils in the countryside, but the lady whose family owns the land also dies. Of course it all sounds super creepy and Abigail Rook also loves them dino bones, so they just need to go there. That is... pretty much it.

I had three huuuge issues with this that made me be unable to enjoy the ride.

1, The characters. Jesus Christ, everyone is so ridiculous, but Abigail, who tells us all in first person is the absolute winner in the category of Why Are You Alive? and it's not even funny. She is supposedly the super smart, super useful assistant of Mr. Jackaby, the one and only magic Sherlock Holmes! (Of course the Bendidick Cucumberpatch one, because he's hawwwt.) At the same time she can't be trusted with any fragile object because she is so clumsy it's a miracle she is even alive. For some reason everyone is amazed by her astonishing intellect and she is still just being carried around during the whole thing and she acts like a child.
Jackaby is quirky and that's all, Abilgail's dude is super dreamy and cute, one of the dino diggers is comically mean to the women, etc. Every character is extremely two dimensional. No depth. Never. Not even a bit.

2, We still get the little mentions of how women are not supposed to be this or that, how at this era women just need to be housewives and how Abigail is extremely special for not being a lady.
But... nothing happens to her. Nothing. She routinely spends the night with unmarried young men as an unmarried young woman without anyone around and nobody cares. Hell, she LIVES alone with Jackaby full time. She travelled to America alone. She does whatever she wants. Then where is the big deal???

3, The pacing was bad. This is a book you can read in an afternoon, 300 pages of easy stuff. New characters are still being introduced at about 60%, we are going nowhere with the story. Setting things up can take long, but not in books this damn short, that have such a simple plot and that are the second in a series, when we already know about the world. Sorry, but this is not how any of this works.

(Probably won't) see you, Mr. Ritter!

DNF very freaking fast, after 15%.

Miss Schwab, you writing a female character who can go around murdering and even getting praised and rewarded for it doesn't make her a “strong female character”, it makes her a sociopath. Constantly almost being raped and murdering the guy in return is still a cheap thing and bad writing, but when SHE is stealing from someone, he runs after her, she murders him and she gets taken up on a ship as the new perfect little best friendo of the captain who was the employer of the guy, I just can't help calling this a piece of shit, dumb book. You can write imperfect heroes. Hell, even bad ones. But you can't make them evil, then expect everyone to think they are awesome total little babes who you should love.
We should let Lila run around, stab random guys in the kidney, we will find some excuse why she did a great thing, because special snowflakes can do no bad ever.

Screw this idiotic book.

You can call me an angsty, pretentious fuck and I won't even argue with you, but I did love this series. It surprised even me that I did, but something about certain situations in life, certain ways the characters related to the world really worked with me. It was probably partly the fact that I managed to read it at the right time, I don't know. It's just what I needed and I am not ashamed to say that.

In this last book the characters need to save Fillory yet again, while their group comes together once more at the end to do whatever it takes. I wouldn't want to say too much, as you need to read the previous book to make it make sense and that would be spoiling. Basically everyone finds their footing, in one way or another and they manage to reach their best self they could be at this point.

In my review of the second book I mentioned two things in connection with liking the characters. First of all, I said I liked the characters better, either because they developed or because having something to do made them less angsty. By now I realized it's both; the things to do and their trials and tribulations simply made them develop.
Another thing was not having Janet around too much, and how I liked that because she was such a horrible person without any real redeeming qualities. In this one... even Janet grows on you with her new passion for being a real queen who actually defends Fillory. In one chapter she tells the story of the 1,5 years she spent alone as the leader of the place when Quentin and Julia disappeared, so Eliot went to look for them. That chapter was absolutely magical. The writing did something exquisite there and I actually started to like her. Truly amazing.

Now there was this thing I wasn't 100% sold on. Alice. I mean her return from her niffin form was definitely interesting, but I had let her go. I was over her, so the whole thing with Quentin and Plum spending chapters on bringing her back home and all wasn't particularly interesting to me. I preferred her back in book one, probably because back then almost all the others were just absolute dicks and she felt like one of the few okay people.

As for the series as a whole, it's really hit or miss. I can't blame anyone for not liking it, but I couldn't help loving it. So far this is my favourite new (never tried before, don't know anything about it) read of the year. I'm not sure how it will hold up, though. I guess I have to make a note for myself to read it again in a couple of years and see how I can relate to it then. What was comforting and familiar melancholy now could very well feel like horrible, annoying artsy-fartsy shit in 5 years. That's funny, though, that even though I just finished it, I'm already looking forward to reading it again and I can only praise Mr. Grossman for doing that to me.

About him... Well. I do not want to go and read his earlier books. I want more of this, the author who managed to find his voice and his unique way. So I am waiting, Mr. Grossman. Write! Do something, I will be super excited about picking it up, even if just seeing if our love affair lasted only this one series or it is just the beginning of something crazy.

(I'm watching the show with my best friend now. I'm... not quite sure how I feel about it. Sure, it's interesting and some acting is amazing. Screw you, Hale Appleman, you are my Eliot and you can't act flamboyantly gay enough for me to not find you creepily attractive, duh. Such a good actor. Even Quentin is charming! But the changes they did to Penny are... Yeah, not really into it, I liked him not being self-conscious and having that innocent charm. All in all, I get they needed to make the show more action-filled and “cool”, but it kills some of the very thing I love about the books.)

So farewell, you wonderful, imperfect bastards.

DNF at 65%.
Yes, I actually rate things I did not finish. Deal with it, I don't care if it's fair, this is just how I feel about it. Part of it is probably the fact that I want to read the last Magicians book by Lev Grossman. Oh, well.

So I am the type that picks up books based on the covers sometimes, which is not so unusual for someone who is generally interested in visual art. Sometimes it turns out awesomely (like when I picked up the Johannes Cabal books by Jonathan L. Howard, man, those are such fun ones, definitely recommending them). Some other times... we get this. Seriously, I love the simple cover with the limited colour palette, right up my alley. It is an art to get the feel of the book and condense it into a cover that still doesn't look nonsensical and messy for people who know nothing about the story. In this case, while I loved the art, I found the literature inside really disappointing.

The situation is that by accident a little girl falls into a hole in the ground and finds a gigantic robot hand of unknown origin. Years pass. People find more pieces and start actually working on assembling this gigantic ass mecha woman, because that is what people do. It needs people to control it as well, which is kind of difficult when you realize it was optimized for a body shape that is humanoid, but not quite exact. Of course political machinations happen, I mean we're talking about this virtually indestructible war machine.

Most of the story is told through interviews with people taking part in the events. This is something that will inevitably be controversial with the readers and part of me wants to congratulate Mr. Neuvel for taking such a risk. At the same time... it slows down the storytelling in my opinion. I have no patience for time being blown on the characters (like Kara, one of the military pilots working on the control of the robot) being defiant with the interviewer. Again and again, they sass. Sure, I would probably talk back as well, but it doesn't make a good novel in my opinion. You know you will get to know things sooner or later, but you have to spend time with people bitching, basically.

Another thing is, based on the little blurb and probably my short description as well, you expect a ton of high tech robot badassery. I have bad news for you. The robot is basically a background prop. It feels like I was lied to, if I am honest. I'm not a particularly big sci-fi fan, more into fantasy, but when I want sci-fi, I want it. Not just people talking about it a bit, then doing other shit.

Reading the thing is fast, though. When we're reading the interviews, there is a pretty big gap on the left, so pages just fly by. I started reading it on my little vacation in a hotel bathtub and for that it was fine. When your head is full of other things, but you are a reader and just need to fit in a few pages to wind down. For full attention? Eh. Not for me for sure.

I can't really say much about the author, as I've never heard his name before. I don't think I'm going to actively look for more of his works for now, though. No hard feelings, I'm just not inclined. I wouldn't want to say anything bad about him or his talents, it wasn't so horrid, I just... felt do damn bored by the whole thing that I decided to quit.

Have a nice day and domo arigato, Miss Roboto.

4,5 stars, I guess.

I swear I need to push my best friend into reading this to be able to decide if I'm seriously broken and that's why I love this. It's weird, because I usually don't like too depressing books, but something about this was right up my alley.

So our little depressing quest continues with the kids (minus Josh) go back to Fillory to become kings and queens. But of course it's not that easy, someone actually fucked up big time and now gods are about to take magic away from humans. You can't let that happen, can you? Quentin needs to save the world this time, or at least the world he loves.

I have to be honest, not sure why I liked the characters more; because I developed some kind of a fondness for them, as you get used to your mean, old, horrible cat and start to love him? Or maybe they were a bit less dickish, because they actually needed to do things, instead of just sitting around, being witty and getting drunk. Not having Janet around all that much helped as well, as I think she's the least likeable of all the Brakebills. The others have redeeming qualities (Eliot dishes out the best lines), but she's just too spoilt and too... like someone I used to know. My bad?

We also go back and get some explanations about Julia, alternating with the chapters of Quentin being on adventure. I generally really like this kind of a thing, it just makes me more likely to keep reading, which doesn't help with sleeping, but at this point I'm okay with that. Julia is not my favourite, though, I don't really care about her, but this was neat, still.
Now I just want them to do the same with Penny. I love him so much and he's still alive!!!! Surprise, motherfucker. I love it. Yes, Quentin hates his guts, but suck it up man, Penny is awesome.

The end was a bit frustrating, not gonna lie. I understand why Quentin did what he did, he is actually developing into a person much more empathic and a real king worth the name, but at the same time it feels like we keep taking steps backs. But hey, we still have one more book and I'm sure Mr. Grossman filled it with something.

All in all, I was definitely impressed with this one and I'm picking up the last one soon enough. I still need something to read in between, especially because I'm going on a little mini holiday and this just doesn't feel like a holiday read. I want to savour it or something. I don'‘t have much else to say about it, honestly, so lets just leave it at that for now.

So long and long live the Kings. And the Queens. (Shit, so much royalty.)

I have no idea what Mr. Nix (that sounds like a magician) did, but this one really didn't measure up to the older stuff. It wasn't horrible, no gigantic heretic nightmare, but crap, this wasn't anything brilliant either.

We are hundreds of years before Sabriel's time and Clariel's family moves from some forest to the capital, because her mother is so great of a goldsmith she just needs to be part of the guild. Our heroine does what any spoilt teenager do and mopes about the fact she is not allowed to become a forest ranger type person. Then she finds out about shit going on in the city, conspiracies and gets involved in everything. Meh.

Not sure if it's much of a spoiler, but... Clariel's story joins into the main body of the series. Yeah. She is there somewhere, which is anifty thing, but I couldn't ignore the feeling that this book wasn't meant to be a novel. Now hear me out. It was a fun idea to develop a backstory for a little character from the original three, I could appreciate things like this, but there just wasn't enough meat for me to warrant a whole, full size novel. A short story, sure, maybe a novella. But this was not something essential for the main story and as such, felt a bit like an afterthought. There, I said it. Rhinestones hot glued on a chainsaw. (Man, I want to see that now.)

I've read Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen a couple of years ago, so I can't remember all the details. I would go as far as to say the storylines weren't the most complex I've ever seen, but this one felt a bit simpler. Not like that in itself is an issue, it just feels a bit weightless to read the story when you know the outcome, so you really needed to do something to still make it more interesting or pick a really beloved, mysterious character who is able to carry it all by themselves. Clariel wasn't that character.

I know most people are crazy about the female characters, but I will be honest, while I found Sabriel and Touchstone pretty evenly matches in likeability, I've always preferred Sameth over Lirael. Here we have this boy called Belatiel. He was such a sweet, sweet kid who really desn't have much going for him, but works hard and manages to achieve something great. People treat him badly, he is ridiculed and overlooked, but he perseveres. I can appreciate that.
Clariel, though. Oh, Clariel. We've all been young, realizing life is not as easy as you imagine. It's understandable to be angry and frustrated when you realize you can't get what you want. My issue is more with the fact that I found her writing being wear. I said it. I don't think she is a well-written character. Even as the readers, knowing her most, all we get to learn about her is that she likes being alone and wants to live in her beloved forest. She has no other interests, no hobbies, no other passion, no opinion on anything, she doesn't really care about anyone, she barely exists as a person. She has no characteristics other than loner and tree hugger. At this point I'm not sure if this is intentional or just poor character development, which is sad.

The conflict was not something to write home about. The villains were cartoonish, Clariel's disinterest in anything and anyone stops us from getting to know the characters or the places. We were meant to concentrate on the heroine, how this normal kid turned bad and to see the exact point where she lost her footing, but her lack of well-rounded personality makes us stuck with... well, not much.

All in all, it was an easy read, something you can do on vacation or if you have a boring weekend, but I wouldn't say it is an essential fantasy experience that should make you throw away whatever you're reading at the moment.
Supposedly there is another book coming in the series with some other character, so I am hoping for this being a bit of an “easing back into the world” thing for Mr. Nix before the new one. I'm definitely picking that up, even if it's just for curiosity and nothing else.

So for now, good bye and get a hobby!

There is something slightly hilarious about the fact that I just read a book about manipulation because of a Reddit book club. Reddit. The site that is spiralling out of control when it comes to bullshit, agenda-driven, manipulative corporate fuckery. Ha. But hey, I just got tempted by the cool cover and... I need more books that are not part of a 34829374 books long series. Those are my excuses, I guess.
Also, Mr. Barry was genuinely really nice during his AMA thing. Seriously, he sounded extremely pleasant.

So I should actually talk about the book now, eh? In Lexicon we have an organization that is all about manipulation through words. They get to know who you are, then shout words at you, which make you easy to turn into a little slave to do their bidding. The magic word is NOT please. I don't care what your mother told you. One girl, Emily, gets taken to the magic word school and... she is one spectacular repulsive little fuckup. More of that later. The other story like is about Wil, who gets kidnapped from an airport by the word woodoo people, because they assume he is... someone. Storylines connect, hell breaks lose.

Rant begins here. Emily is such a gigantic selfish asshole I couldn't handle her. Now people who are specially picked because they are manipulators don't sound brilliant from the get go, but Emily is the worst. She had a hard life, being a runaway kid, but you know what? NOTHING makes it okay for you to run around murdering and raping, which is what our lovely protagonist does. She doesn't even act bothered by it, because... she gets away with everything. And the worst is... at the end she lives happily ever after with her very lovely, loyal and wonderful true love, without any punishment or consequences I will be honest, the reason why I didn't love this book was her. Maybe I am a dick, but I don't care.

Wil is... Wil. He's fine. He spends most of his time with another another dude, Eliot (word magic dude). They have some pleasant banter, good action scenes. They were a fine pair of individuals being forced to run together from awesome people trying to murder them. Later on he makes decisions that I found incredibly dumb. Again, annoyance, but it's complicated, so read it. Not spoiling it, ha.

The story was pretty original, which I could appreciate. To me it was getting a bit flat towards the end, so the last 20% took be about 2 days. I would even say it felt a bit rushed and I wasn't as affected by it as I expected to be. But I will give it to Mr. Barry, he really managed to suck me in at the beginning. That is how a lot of books go wrong for me; I can't get invested and it becomes a chore. This one? Made me want to read it in no time at all.

The topic was interesting. Some reviews talk about wanting to get into the actual theory of language and manipulation with some studying thrown in there. Personally I don't feel like doing anything like that now, but somehow the book managed to involve enough science for the science-y people and enough “magic” and action for me. Not sure how deliberate it was, but it did it so well. Technically it's probably a bit more sci-fi than fantasy, but from the side that could really work with fantasy people.

I will probably read more things from the author if I find anything catching my attention. Hopefully with less repulsive protagonists, haha.

Good night and think for yourself, kids.

3,5 stars

So the thing is, I'm generally not a horror fan. I guess I love starting my reviews with being honest about my not-so-nice characteristics, eh? But hey, that's life, I get things out of the way. I am not a horror fan. What I like is suspense and mystery, so I guess this book was more up my alley than for people who enjoy serial killer clown and cannibal incestuous hillbilly clans.

Nate Tucker is an (I assume) early thirties guy in LA, working some mind-numbing, dead end tech job, having no money and no girlfriend. Generally not a happy existence, eh? One day he gets recommended some place to rent in a huge, old, creepy-ass building for good money and as he has nothing going for him, he takes it. But as any person would have done, he gets suspicious when roaches are bright green, apartments are random size and shape, some doors are permanently locked and his building manager dude not only dodges questions, but gets pissed. In his defence, as the story progresses, he discovers that a lot of tenants have noticed things already. So they start investigating.

Man, there were some really cute little connections with real life! I enjoy that. I enjoy authors taking real life facts and incorporating them to make the story actually seem more real. To me running to the nearest device to go online and do some research on some name or place. Do it more often, I will buy your book forever. Like... if you ever write a book and you... care about the opinion of one random weirdo. Eh.

Another thing I personally love is a good cast of people who are all kinds of crazy. Yes, I want to see people who would NEVER hang out in real life fight doom together. It can possibly turn into a stupid quirk-fest, or it can go this way and be awesome fun. Retired super awesome cool guys, artists, tech people, carpenters. Without going down the rabbit hole, I love this kind of a “diversity”, the kind that means different point of views in skills, strengths and weaknesses, ways of dealing with issues to form a team I can root for. Skin deep stuff doesn't cut it to me, sorry. But whatever.

What made me deduct some stars was... the writing, though. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't some horrible, nonsensical prose that makes you want to claw your eyes out, but the thing about mystery and suspense is that it can be really supported and taken to a whole new level with some kickass writing. Here... I was missing that thing. Sometimes the descriptions felt really pragmatic and lacked that uneasy feeling that would have made this an at least a 4 star read.

Another slight issue was the end of the book. It was a bit rushed, a bit abrupt. Some things could have been explained a bit better, with more inventive tools. Again, not the worst thing I've ever seen, I just can't say I was 100% pleased with it.

I wouldn't want to call it disappointing, but some polishing here or there would have done good. Maybe I'll try to look for something similar. It was actually a pretty pleasant read. Still, I'll keep looking for something with a similar concept, but a bit more of a polished execution. I would definitely recommend it as a light read, something fun and a bit of a palate cleanser between long series.

So long and keep the monsters at bay!

2,5 stars

Okay, to be honest, I had a feeling this book wasn't going to be the love of my life from the beginning, but the cover looked kind of cool. I'm not a huge WW2 junkie. Also, not really into YA, especially not the kind with female protagonists. So yeah, while I wasn't so crazy about the premise, I decided to rol with it and do this.

Hitler took over the world, along with Emperor Hirohito (or Showa, if you prefer) and as everyone else, even the Nazis wanted to have some fun, so they decided to hold a motorbike race through the world from Berlin to Tokyo for the young guys. Last year a girl, Adele Wolfe pretending to be her own twin, Felix, won it and Hitler himself seemed to take a liking to her. This year... shit was going to be even wilder. Yael, a concentration camp escapee, who got shapeshifting abilities through Nazi experiments was going to pretend to be her, win again, kill Hitler and launch the rebellion of the resistance.
Sounds kinda cool, full of action, right?

Aaaand it was. I have to tell you, it was easy to just get into it and read like the wind. The topic, especially in the flashback scenes was pretty damn heavy, but the way it was written and the fact that it was based on some well known historical context made it fast to get into. I could appreciate it. A couple of times there were some weird figures of speech I found slightly awkward and artsy-fartsy, but the overall impression was good enough, with vivid pictures and real emotion, still not too superfluous to weaken the action. If not for some pretty tough training I went to, I could have read it in two nights.

There were some annoying issues, though. So... a little PSA for authors; if you write characters who speak a language other than the one you use, please, please do not just insert a word or two in the middle of sentences in theirs. PLEASE. Yeah, I know the people in the book mostly speak German, I don't need them to say Sheisse every chapter. It's okay, I'll still remember.
Another thing is, if you write a very competitive, cutthroat situation with a fight to death and there are multiple teen girls... don't just make them instant best friends, with love and respect, just because they're girls. I want to see some real, passionate fight between girls, like in real life when they are rivals. Thank you.

The protagonist was fine, I was okay with her, not totally enamoured, but I found her acceptable. The love interest, Luka Löve was... again, okay. Devilishly handsome, arrogant, the cool guy on the block. Yay. Adele's bother (this year also joining the Nazi Paris-Dakar Rally) was lovely, though. I am a sucker for sibling stories and this Felix kid is a good brother. Part of me wanted him to be the love interest, but of course Yael is wearing his sister's face, so that would be a whole different genre...

It ended on a note that was a bit of a twist and also the master plan reaching another chapter, so I will be reading the sequel, even though I'm not insanely invested. It was an adequate novel, a fine enough way of spending my time, I am just not convinced I was the target audience of it.

Scheisse and keep rolling.

DNF at 43%. Yes, I know it's frowned upon, but I absolutely did not feel this book. At all and I just didn't feel patient enough to drag myself through it. Now you can call me lazy or horrible or “OMG, you can't have an opinion on a book without reading the whole freaking thing”, at this point I don't particularly care. Reading is my fun and this book... wasn't too fun to me.

The story is played out in some post-apocalyptic wasteland kind of world, where crazy jumbles of rails spread out between city states. People hunt for salvageable things or the crazy, gigantic animals, like moles from their trains. The protagonist, Sham SomethingSomething (names in this book are really random, more about that later) is training to be a moler train doctor, so he travels with a bunch of people. Then he finds photos from the dead couple on a crashed train and he feels obliged to find their kids and bring them the news of their parents' death.

My issue with this book is that it lacks any form of explanation or freaking foreplay to make you understand what is going on, there was no easing us in gently. Right away you get a ton of weird words, names, creatures and basically everything that I personally couldn't freaking remember, so I was skimming more than reading to actually get anywhere and hope for an explanation. Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect Mr. Miéville to play nanny and nicely lay out everything, especially not in a one off book with only about 400 pages, but shit. Sometimes it felt like he was messing with me when he introduced some new crew member with a name that sounded like a Polish person sneezing, who I wasn't going to remember. Sure, there are some interesting snippets of ideas, but to me they were way too deep under bullcrap I didn't get.

Another thing was the prose. To me it felt directionless, kind of like he was just drifting with whatever was coming. I didn't find it enjoyable and combined with my previous issue, it just didn't let me get really caught up in the story itself. What's with the & placed instead of writing ‘and' every single time? Later on it gets explained, but while it was intended as a quirky little thing about the world, it annoyed me to no end. I'm generally a pretty fast reader and this damn book didn't work with that, it distracted and confused me.
I think of this as that rule about clothes. If you show a lot of cleavage, then showing a lot of leg as well can be a bit much. It's probably better to just do one or the other. So yeah, either do kind of floaty prose OR drop us right into the middle of some crazy world without an explanation.

I don't want to give it one star, though. It wasn't really horrid, I don't think. More like something that you either really enjoy or feel completely unaffected by, the latter was the case for me. I knew Mr. Miéville was weird, that is his thing, but apparently we're weird in a completely different way, so this love affair ended really fast. I'm not saying I won't read anything else by him, it can happen I will, but right now I am not convinced by him being for me.
So long & have fun, Mr. Miéville.

This book is something I don't get. I don't have any idea how good it is objectively, but I personally can't really give more than two stars to it.

So basically here we have some mystical, ancient person (creature?) called Father. He can bring back the dead, live forever and ever, speak all languages, so basically a major overpowered freakshow. He has this amazing library with all his knowledge, where he raised apprentices, every single one responsible for learning one subject, ranging from healing, to war, to time travelling. But now Father is gone, the apprentices are kept away from the library by some weird force and they need to do something.

Mr. Hawkins throws you in right away, with the absolutely weird, freaky apprentices and it took me some time to adjust. Sure, it does add to the mysterious atmosphere, but I personally don't really like it when I don't know shit about what's going on. This thing stayed during the whole book is some sense, which meant that certain events get absolutely no explanation and they feel kind of disjointed, like they don't serve any purpose, just there to freak you out because you don't get it. (I'm referring for example to the sun child part in the library.) Same goes for the mentioned characters. We hear a ton about gods and Barry O'Shea, zombie townspeople, rabid guard dog entities and whatever. But we don't see much about them, it's like most of the world is hidden from us. Don't do this.

The characters we see are... not particularly likeable. The librarians are all fucked up to an extent that I couldn't really connect to them. The two humans in a more prominent role, Steve and Erwin are... well, they're fine. Honestly, none of them were completely badly written, that's not the issues, but I didn't connect with any of them enough to really care if they live or die. The protagonist, Carolyn was a bit frustrating with her disconnect from the normal world sometimes, especially at the end with her and Steve at the library.

The thing is, I don't really know what to say about it, because I don't understand the aim of the story. The prose was pleasant enough to read, in some places a bit too flowery and artsy to me, which I would have been fine with, if I understood the story itself. But the way it was just made me feel like when you're watching some weird comedy from a different country, when things happen and you are sure that the writer was doing something, but there was a huge disconnect between their intention and your perception. (So basically what happened when I showed the show The League of Gentlemen to my friends. I love it. They got nightmares. HA.)

So yeah, I wish good luck to Mr. Hawkins for the future. If he releases another novel, I will most likely read it, just to see if it was his style that didn't suit me or simply this one story. Then we see what comes after that, I guess.

This book would be the perfect argument to prove that elite education is useless. Just listen to me. We have a lady, who comes to her senses in a ring of dead bodies, with no memories and letters in her pocket from her pre-amnesia self. They explain to her that she was part of some super secret paranormal spy agency that handles all the spooky stuff in the UK. But someone attacked her, someone with a conspiracy in the organization that's called Checquy, by the way. Our heroine, Myfanwy (pronounced like Tiffany) simply goes to work the on Monday and... handles shit perfectly. Can we be honest for a second? This is BULLSHIT. The original Myfanwy got educated in a super secret, extremely thorough luxury Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, then became a person in a pretty damn high position. There is no way some random amnesiac could handle that. NONE. I mean why do they get kids from their parents as babies and educate the shit out of them if you can just drop them in as adults and everything is even better than before? Another book with AWESOME ideas and super fun side characters, but with an author who feels like he just had these cool little bits that he mashed together into a story that has some fundamental bullshit holes. We have quintuplets with the same mind, super cool vampires, evil Belgian alchemists. And we're stuck with a ridiculous hero. Ehh... Reading the background of the others through the secret letters left by pre-amnesia Myfanwy was sweet, though, we learnt some about many of them and it broke up the main story in a way that I found nice and pushing me to read more. The action sequences were good, I enjoyed them a lot. Hey, I found even the flashback letters explaining everything, which could have gone dead boring really easily. The thoughts and dialogue of Myfanwy, though... So much annoying sass thrown around. I'm sure Mr. O'Malley is a nice guy who is interesting to talk to, with wits galore, but I could like characters without them saying something snappy all the time, I promise! I had really high hopes for this, kind of like a less annoyingly verbose version of Kate Griffin's [b:A Madness of Angels 6186355 A Madness of Angels (Matthew Swift, #1) Kate Griffin https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1305861910s/6186355.jpg 6366640]. Sure, it was less verbose, but in exchange, we got some other issues that stop me from giving it a better rating. Supposedly the second book will come out this year, which I will read. If not for anything else, then just for the side characters. The book ends with a last bit that gives potential to produce a pretty interesting sequel, so that looks nice.

3,75 stars, I guess.
So here we have a bit of an oddity. We all know our feel good, syrupy reads about Christmas with cute children, pets, some kind of typical tragedies, then touching resolutions. Brom (Mr. Brom? I'm just weird with this one name thing, you're not Voldemort or Prince) said fuck all that, you'll have blood for Christmas.

In this one we have a failed Southern musician, with a fallen apart family, who somehow ends up in the fight between Santa, who is a Nordic deity and Krampus, who wants us all to return to our old ways of Christmas. Oh, and murder. There is a bit of brutal, splatter-y murder with guts. Enjoy.

This is where my kind of ambivalent feelings come. Our human protagonist, Jesse is not a particularly successful guy, his wife and kid left him, his career doesn't exist, got into some trouble with the local, really corrupt law enforcement. He's a pleasant enough fellow, I guess we wouldn't have much hate for each other, but... sometimes I feel like it's Krampus I want to read about, not him. Then again, it's not a fair thing, because fuck, not many people can compete with a mysterious, ancient creature who freaks children out, then gives them money.

Now Krampus, that is a cool one. You just can't know him. At one point he's scary and all wrong, the next he's actually an almost sweet guy. It's all just a matter of perspective. I guess that is something I loved about this book; when you read Krampus or Santa, you can understand them, respectively. You won't be able to simply, 100% hate either or them. (Yeah, I kind of rooted for Krampus, but I love slightly dark ones, deal with it.) I can really appreciate that.

The only character who felt a bit too sickly sweet and oh so tragic was Isabel, one of the sidekicks of Krampus . Didn't care for her much. Sorry.

The whole book has this mysterious, slightly twisted feel, which works really well with the prose, so I don't think anyone will have a huge issue with that. My only slight annoyance was that at the beginning there was a bit too much “Santa man” and “devil men”. Another GIGANTIC thing (for me, heh) that added a ton to the atmosphere was the art. Holy shit, it's brilliant stuff. You know, our Mr. Brom is a visual artist as well as a writer, so he sprinkled in some artwork, which was really something I enjoyed.

All in all, it was really hard to rate this book and I'm still a bit annoyed that with the updates Goodreads still doesn't allow half stars. I enjoyed it, I put it on my my-jam shelf, but sometimes it felt like not enough of the magical creatures and a bit too much of the humans screwing around and doing their stuff. Loved the change of pace for Christmas, though, especially after the endless wave of typical family movies. Would recommend it to the lovers of weird.

3,5 stars

The premise was enough to make me interested in this one. Magic, supernatural, kooky detective and his assistant, in a historical setting. Murders. Monsters. Aaaand... disappointment.This book was pretty damn dreadful in my opinion. Not trying to be too hard on it, it's really just the first book of a new author, but somehow it managed to be everything I dislike. It was obviously specifically written for young girls, to be marketable and sell with the whole Sherlock-Doctor Who thing, the barely there romance (you can “ship”!!!), the cutely clumsy, but super smart, but oh so rebellious, still mild main character... One thing I have to give it; the prose was perfectly fine, it didn't feel too simple or too trendy, it was okay. The book didn't slip on that, which gives room for the author to not worry about that and start working on one of the big, big things he missed, which is the character development and the lack of consistent behaviour. They all felt like they had no logic behind their deeds, to the degree that sometimes it felt like a bunch of Gollums. The (horribly picked) protagonist, who also tells the story from a first person perspective (noooo), named Abigail Rook, is supposedly all in for adventures that are absolutely not fit for a woman. It gets mentioned about 9000 times and it's just bullshit. She runs away from school, steals her tuition money, joins some expedition, travels to America, becomes a detective's assistant, and moves in with the man, all of this ALONE. What happens? NOTHING. She gets comments from two people, one a gossipy hag, the other a policeman who says looking at dead bodies are not for women. (Seeing them does freak her out a bit, so... she proved him right.) She's also completely unable to take care of herself and sounds like an airhead, but manages to notice useless details, which are suddenly considered necessary, while Jackaby was fine before her. At the end she gets pats on the head, even though she was pretty useless. Yay.Jackaby was... nothing? We got to know nothing about the man, nothing about his background, his story. Oh, he can see supernatural stuff! Other than that, he's either adorably fascinated by people and really kind, or basically like a total alien who pisses off everyone. It changes randomly, with no rhyme or reason. He had some cute moments, but they all felt like some Tumblr gif set, rather than a fleshed out character that I care about. It wasn't just the whole character issue that I had. In a previous review of [b:The Blackthorn Key 23270216 The Blackthorn Key Kevin Sands https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1433428562s/23270216.jpg 42810383] I talked about how that book had no actual magic, but still had some magical quality about it because of the atmosphere Kevin Sands created (also a first time author), but this one fell short. It had supernatural creatures, trolls, banshees, all kinds of stuff and it felt like nothing. It al held no real danger or excitement, just some fun little facts sprinkled in. The story itself was really boring. While these creatures ran around, I never felt like anyone important was going to get hurt for real. Too watered down and PG. It was a really quick read, party because its length, partly because you didn't have to pay attention all that much. I'm not sure I would have read it if it was longer, but I powered through it with its 300 pages simply because it didn't need too much energy. Right now I'm thinking about picking up the sequel, mostly to see if this was just a clumsy first book or the author's style doesn't work with me at all. Wish me luck. PS. The cover is still extremely nice.

Rating this book is not easy as it's actually two novels in one.
The first one is about Hadrian and Royce being framed for a crime they didn't commit, while having to protect the new king. The other is basically the search for a great hero through a competition of kill-the-monster. I preferred the first one, though the second set up many interesting possible future plot lines that I want to see.

I've actually read this one a couple of years ago, even started the second one, but it was annoying, so I put the whole thing down. Now I couldn't just pick it up again without reading the first one all over again, as I... didn't remember that much. Whoops?

You know, I love bromance. A good story of friends going on an adventure, having to put up with each other, that is my jam. On the other hand, I dislike romance and annoying princesses. I guess we all get my problem with book 2.
Hey, I even really like Hadrian and Royce, because they shouldn't like each other, one is almost completely emotionless and more than willing to do some bad shit, while the other is super nice and just an all around friendly dude you can depend on. That's cool, though, I love their little dynamic and the parts that are about them, doing shit are A+. Do all the hero things, do some... stealing and shit. Have fun, have a good time.

Now the problem, which happens more in the second story is that Arista, the princess is a bitch. Don't get me wrong, her brother, the new king Alric is an annoying, spoilt little shithead, but we see that and everyone agree. Arista, though... she has the whining right for being a woman and we are supposed to just say “yeeeeees, you are a poor victim”. Her issue isn't that she has too little, but that there is someone who has a bit more and we can't accept THAT.
This is so ridiculously pronounced when one of the protagonists in the second story is this extremely poor girl, Thrace, who has nothing. The girl has a super sad life and she doesn't bitch 1% as much as Arista does. Even when Princess MeMeMe gets an important position... she bitches about how she has to DO THINGS NOW.

Now let me return to the fact that so much is being set up in this. I am not sure how much is going to come into fruition, as I've read a good 150 pages of book previously and it was the Arista Being Annoying Show.
There are elves, though. I don't love them in general, they are one of the races that have the biggest chance of becoming cheesy as shit. I don't want beautiful people staring into nothing, being super deep and wise. So I hope we won't have that. Still, it's obvious there is plenty of possible depth for them. Don't disappoint me, please.
We are also before a war of different groups trying to get the power and that can be cool as well. We've seen some of that, some workings and one piece of extremely obvious foreshadowing (we are looking for someone with a necklace, while someone is casually mentioned to have one, how weird). I'm not sure how all that will turn out.

We also have characters I hope are not going to get tossed side for bullshit love interests who are boring as fuck. I want Thrace, Myron, Esrahaddon.