Harisa

Counting this as my Albania Book around the world.

This is my first Kadare novel, although it won't be my last. I didn't love this one, and although the end made it much better and I did like the metaphor of the girl's exile in comparison to the country's exile (that was very clever and powerful) the rest of the book was just a bit....cringeee. I don't know if it was a the translation but the way the narrator talked about women just came off a bit creepy and it made me disinterested in the book.

This was so perfectly creepy. I was listening to the audiobook at work and literally JUMPED when someone came up to me to ask me a question. This was hard to read at times but very well done and I'm excited to dive into Stephen King a bit more.

Counting this as my Russia book around the world.

This was looooong, and it sure felt long. I really enjoyed it in the end, and found Katya, her sister, and Lenin to be my most preferred characters. The POV changes so often I found it hard to stay interested, but overall I can appreciate the book for what it is and I cared about some of the characters.

What really made me like this book was all the political discussions about class and gender and the frequency in those discussions happened. Also..the scene with Katya and Lenin's brother? So good. Such a good beautiful scene in which Katya showed her strength in such a touching way.

I really enjoyed this book! It was a very good combination of light-hearted but touching and it was really well executed.

So I read this almost back to back I think and Ariel was by far the most annoying of the bunch. Her back story didn't make her much better, and neither did the climax/end where she basically committed assault. I don't find Ariel's kind of “strength” to be empowering to women at all and she was always in the background annoying me with the other books and I could barely make it through a book where she is the main character. She's just...mean. And says really cliche one liners that are not witty, just annoying and obnoxious.

The love story was....fine. The dialogue was superrr cheesy and the conversations between Belle and her father were SOOO cringeworthy that it really detracted from the book at times. But again, fun for what it is.

This was my favorite in the series and mostly light hearted fun take on the fairy tales but the little annoying parts about this book got to be even more annoying in the other ones.

This got better as it went on. It was a bit jarring to go back and forth from such different perspectives but this is a strong novel that i would definitely recommend.

Counting this as my Afghanistan book around the world.

Really well written and well executed novel. Extremely powerful tale of female friendship, solidarity, and selflessness.

Powerful, quick read.

This one wasn't great. It just didn't work for me. It considerably picked up by the end, I liked the inside look and reality of asylum seekers, and it had many of the parts of her books that I love. Unfortunately, by the time it picked up I just wasn't as invested in the characters. I'm definitely going to go back and read some of her older books I haven't explored yet and I still look forward to it.

Forgetting what I'm pretty sure is wrong immigration law (it's fine, it's complicated). I just...didn't really like the characters. I don't know if I just can't get into the creative types or what...but I cannot.

I did not like this. A lot of these were based on rumors, were super short, and gave the surface levels o what actually happened.

I did not love this, I feel like the gore was unnecessary and I am upset to say I did not like it:(

This was SO CUTE!

I liked Eden's story. Jesse's was just frustrating and so was the end.

I happen to agree with most of the other disappointed reviewers on here. This is dragging on, and while I get her new powers brought on the plot point in this book the “big bad” to use Buffy speak was such a let down. The end scene too? Wow was that boring.

I will say the cliffhanger did leave me wanting to read the next one though ahhah.

Just not as good as the first one.

I can't decide if this was good or bad haha. The book eventually frustrated me and it felt slow-paced and seemed to drag, yet I could not put it down...so it was definitely keeping me reading.

Counting this as my Singapore book.

I was happy to hang out with the Young family again and was even happier that Astrid was more prevalent in this book.

I remember when I was in highschool and thinking I was hot shit because I was taking honors and A.P. history classes. I told my dad about what I learned about Karl Marx and the benefits of communism and how hey, the ideals actually sound pretty cool. He looked at me with utter disgust and told me I would never be able to have an opinion on this unless I experienced it. Luckily for me, I was quickly disillusioned as I heard stories about his childhood and sat down and listened.

Unfortunately for Joy, she chose to be angry at her parents for being boaters (ouch) and went back to China to experience communism herself.

This book was hard to read, it was unpleasant. Still, it was very well written and it's important.

Not gonna lie, the prologue was the best part and then it all went downhill from there.

There are already enough annoying characters without adding in Tammy.

But I appreciated the growth between Justina and Bones. That was sweet. And funny.

There were cringe-worthy things, things I found ~problematic~ but ultimately I do think it's cool to follow a couple through happily ever after and see them working out big problems. I appreciated how that was handled.

I didn't appreciate them physically fighting when they got angry but it's okay because its a “spar.” I think that was a bit iffy and cringy and to top it all off they did it in front of someone else. That's just rude.

I didn't absolutely love the storyline with Gregor, either. But overall, a fun ride.

GAHHHH. I had a theory of who was pulling the strings from the very first book and I was WRONG. Disappointing.

This book felt like it flewwwww by. 3.5 stars, maybe. Not a lot of romance building (although there was romance) and a lot of familial relationship building. Also, can I get an update on Darla??

This seemed to end kind of quickly too.