Jessica
“Sometimes that's all you can do. Just keep getting through until you don't have to do it anymore, however much time that takes, however difficult it is.”
Although this wasn't my favorite of the Wayward Children books, it still had beautiful writing and engaging characters. I think that nonsense world perhaps just aren't for me. I'm excited to continue the series with the next book!
Read to 50% and then skimmed to the end. I was very interested in this book because I work in an industry where I am around a lot of death, but I found it to be a very surface level discussion of death and dying. Clover was easily the most frustrating part of the book - she just lies and runs away when someone tries to befriend her, and I could not understand why all these interesting people kept trying to get to know her. I understand she had a difficult life, but she didn't show a lot of real character depth.
In the end, the message of the book is basically “live your life so you won't have regrets at the end,” which felt like a pretty Hallmark message. There's definitely a nuanced discussion to have around end of life issues, but this book didn't get there. 2 stars because the writing was decent, but I felt it was dull overall.
“The only monsters here are the ones we make.”
Alix E. Harrow has written a beautiful and atmospheric tale that defies characterization. Is it a fantasy? Well, there are fantastical elements. Is it horror? it does have a definite Eldritch vibe at times. Is it a Beauty and the Beast retelling? Well no, but it's definitely inspired by that tale.
Opal is our main character, and I loved her. She's tough, but when she needs to bend she knows how. She begins the story as a shoplifting twenty-something, orphaned and taking care of her little brother . They live in an old motel room, and Opal is working a dead end job at the local Tractor Supply.
She's always felt drawn to the old house called “Starling House,” and one day she finds the gate open to her...
I was born and raised in Kentucky, and I didn't need to read the blurb to know that the author was as well. It's hard for me to explain, but it's just accurate. The sense of atmosphere and place is excellent (and I much appreciated the multiple John Prine references.)
Harrow's writing is beautiful without being overly flowery. I gave three stars to her first book, The Ten Thousand Doors of January because the writing was too much for me, and I found it distracting. You can really see her progress as a writer in Starling House.
I don't want to spoil the story, but if you are interested in: dark fairy tales, unconventional love stories, or gothic stories you should pick up this book. I was so surprised by how much I loved it all the way through!
A solid 3 star. I was intrigued by the idea of the multiple Londons, and I thought that bit was well done. Kell was fine, if not really a memorable character. Lila... Goodness, I have not been so annoyed by a character in some time. So many things that go wrong in the book were caused by her recklessness, and she learned zero lessons.
In the end I just didn't find it very compelling, and I had to force myself to read. I probably won't continue the series.
As a side note, did this feel like YA to anyone else? I know it's marketed as adult fantasy, but it did not feel that way to me at all.
3.5 stars. For the first 40 percent of this book I was expecting it to be 5 stars, but unfortunately it didn't sustain that pace to the end.
Isolde and Warren are absolutely couple goals, and I adored them both immediately. I appreciated the fact that they were a mature couple as well. They never got on my nerves.
The book is full of humor and delightful discoveries. I loved many of the side characters and the entire world/magic system. Where it lost me was in the action sequences - I simply could not seem to picture them, and I found myself losing interest.
The central mystery was twisty and fun. I was a bit reminded of the recent book “The Spare Man,” which was described as “the Thin Man in space.” Well, this was very much “the Thin Man with magic” and that part was lovely.
I will definitely read the second book in the series when it comes, and I do recommend this book if you like a more urban fantasy system or if you prefer humor mixed with your fantasy.
I think the best thing about “End of Watch” is that Stephen King gave up and just made the story supernatural. I enjoyed the first book, but I didn't think the second book needed to exist. This book redeemed the series for me, even if I do think it should be a duology.
Brady is one of the scariest bad guys ever. You hate him, but you can't look away from the chapters you spend inside his head. King's character writing remains strong, and Holly in particular has grown to be one of my favorite of his characters (and possibly the best female character he's written.)
Note: I am not a romance reader, but this was so charming! Charlie and Dev were the sweetest. I loved the representation of mental health issues. I loved that the women in the book were treated as fully realized people and not just obstacles to the romance. The spice level is fairly low, but there is some. Recommended!
To be clear, I can see why this novel won so many awards. I can appreciate all the work that clearly went into the creation of the alien cultures. But ultimately it left me a bit cold, so I can't award more than three stars.
I'd say the first 50% of the book was plotted in an extremely deliberate way, and it just moved far too slowly for my taste. There's also some amount of using difficult words when a simpler one would do. For instance: the space station is shaped like a toroid, not a ring. I don't object to beautiful language, but in this case it took me out of the story and felt showy.
Our main character, Mahit, remains a bit of a cypher to us. She loves the culture that she has been sent to as an ambassador, but sadly that's all we learn. The same with the other main characters, who seem to have no back story and simply exist to move the plot along. The most interesting character, the previous ambassador, doesn't make a real appearance until the 60% mark.
The culture was very interesting. I loved the idea of a culture that uses verse to express their important ideas and hide messages. I would have loved even more poetry in the book, because there is surprisingly little. The naming conventions were fun, and I did like the sidekick characters (Twelve Azalea was my favorite). The political plotline seemed to rely very hard on Mahit not knowing anything. If she's such a huge fan of the culture she should have known much more about the main players and the history of the empire than she seemed to. I also found it puzzling that she seemed to have no reports at all from the previous ambassador to rely on, not to mention anyone else from her station to accompany her on this most important mission.
I would recommend this book for fans of political dramas, as that's primarily what this is. It feels more like fantasy than science fiction - just a political fantasy set in space.
My Kindle edition ended around the 90% mark. The rest is a glossary and preview of the second book, just FYI if you use that to gauge reading time!
Oof, this is a tough one. I was absolutely entranced with this book in the beginning. The writing is beautiful. It's lyrical, descriptive, and really does a great job giving cozy vibes. I want to live in a tiny town and run a flower farm (not really, but I had a moment of consideration in the first 25% of this book.)
Once the mystery is revealed and we meet the love interest this book pretty much ground to a halt. I did not think the characters had any chemistry, and I could not bring myself to care about the entire plotline. Spoilers ahead:
I think the problem was that June was supposed to already have an established relationship with the family she left behind, and there was no building to the romance whatsoever because of that.
Also, I will be honest, I did not understand why she chose to stay in 1951. No thank you, that does not sound like a fun time to be a lady. Also: Poor Mason. I thought we were setting up for a love triangle, but instead we just get a few flashbacks in her head of a love affair that didn't even happen to this version of June? Ugh, no.
Three stars for the beginning and for the writing, which was truly beautiful. I would try again with this author.
3.75 stars. Foundryside was a great start to a fantasy trilogy. It starts out as a heist story and then turns into much more! The magic system in this book was really interesting - scrivers can uses special characters to essentially talk to objects. They might tell a door that it desires more than anything to stay closed unless someone says a passcode. Weapons can be spelled to think they are falling down, leading them to flying much further than they would otherwise.
Our main character is Sancia, a thief with some special abilities that set her apart. She's a great character with an interesting backstory. She joins forces eventually with other characters and takes on one of the powerful houses of the world.
In spite of the interesting premise, I felt like it took me about half the book to really get into it. There is a lot of world building and information on the magic system to get through. In the end though I found characters that I really cared about. I'm definitely planning to read the next book.
I'm picky about fantasy - I need to care about the characters, and the worldbuilding can't take up the entire first book or I get bored. This is a good one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the author does now that the world has been set.
I've seen some reviews that complain about how pretentious the characters in this book were. Speaking as someone who went to a conservatory (though not for drama) I can tell you... we were exactly this pretentious. Being in a program where your goal is the study Art with a capital A... we absolutely partied too much, had petty feuds and rivalries (and romances) with each other, and most definitely used in-jokes from the art itself to pepper our conversations.
There was a lot less murder though.
This is all to say that I loved this book. I related to the characters, though none of them are especially sympathetic. I loved every bit of over the top dialogue and all their student drama. My only critique is that I didn't care for the framing of the story (one character is confessing the truth of what happened to a detective years after the fact.) I also didn't particularly care for the ending. But the story itself? One of my favorites of the year!
2.5 stars. Maybe it's as case of lowered expectations, but this was better than I thought it was going to be.
The author's writing was fine - not lyrical and poetic, but serviceable. The plot was pretty standard for a fantasy romance, but nothing bad. I would say that overall, my reaction is that I just didn't care enough. I wasn't attached to any of the characters other than the dragons. The characters come across as quite a bit younger than they are supposed to be - apparently Violet is in her early 20s, but she felt about 15.
The best part of the book was the first quarter, before we got any romance. At that point I was invested in seeing how Violet would succeed. I simply cannot with yet another brooding bad boy hero. They had zero chemistry, although the book constantly tells us they do.
There were also numerous instances of her cracking some kind of sexual joke at a super inappropriate time. For instance, this one in the first chapter as she's waiting to possibly go to her death on the parapet:
“I happen to know a rider whose powers can make big things very small.” A devious smile plays across her lips. “And smaller things...much, much bigger.” I roll my eyes. Mira's always been more vocal about her men than I have been...about all two of them. “I mean, how much bigger?”
Not the time, girl. Read the room. She is thirsty basically all the time, and it takes me right out of the story.
I know lots of people loved this book, and if it's your thing I say good for you! It wasn't really for me, and I won't be continuing the series.
I didn't love the Martian nearly as much as everyone else did, primarily due to the main character and his relentless and terrible jokes. Unfortunately, the main character of this book seems to share a brain with the MC from the Martian, leading me to believe that he's basically an author stand-in.
I'm just not interested in books without interesting characters, so I DNF'd this book at 30%.
This was probably a three star read for me, but some of the events at the end took it down.
The prison segment, which was the best part of the book, seemed really, really inspired by the TV show Orange is the New Black.
After Geo was released from prison the book went downhill for me. The mystery, such as it was, wrapped up far too neatly. The twist was really too much, and pretty unbelievable as well. Don't get me started on that epilogue.
Also:
Spoiler It really didn't make sense to me that our MC was the one who suggested cutting up the body? Why? It went way beyond what we'd seen with her character (walking on eggshells around Calvin due to his abuse) since he wasn't asking for that. It felt really out of nowhere and seemed to be the only reason that she didn't just tell the police about what had happened. It felt very contrived to me.
There are much better thrillers out there, and I'm not going to be trying anything else from the author.
This book contains an excellent and sensitive portrayal of early dementia. Our main character, Edie, knows there is something more she knows about the disappearance of her high school friend Lucy, but she can't quite remember anymore. Through flashbacks as well as interviews in the present day, Edie tries to find her friend. This is all woven together with the story of her family coping with her increasingly problematic memory and behavior.
It was quite an emotional book at times. The end of the story was satisfying and contained a twist I did not guess. Highly recommended if you are looking for a mystery with an unreliable narrator.
4.5 stars. Yes, the cover is a choice, but don't let that deter you from this excellent book!
Read it for the Stars Hollow vibes - the town is perfect and I want to go there this autumn! The cast of characters are fun and not too over the top. The mystery hinges on a motive that I did not see coming, which is nice (I don't care if I can solve a mystery though, so YMMV .)
Our main character is suffering from grief due to the loss of her husband. The handling of grief and loss was so real. It was definitely much more emotional than I expected from a cozy mystery. I even shed a few tears!
Really it was perfect for this time of year. Read it if you want witchy vibes without the scary factor. Fans of practical magic will definitely like this one. I'm excited to pick up the next book in the series!
A book popular on Book tok that lives up to the hype? Yes! This book broke my heart. The romance was beautiful and utterly absent any irritating genre tropes. The writing was gorgeous and lyrical without being overly flowery. The scenes set on the front felt terrifying and realistic. I loved all the characters. The ending destroyed me, and I cannot wait to read the conclusion of Iris' story.
This book has a romance, but it is not only a romance if that makes sense. I'm incredibly picky about romance - I hate most of the popular romances and romantasies out there. Divine rivals is highly recommended. I don't think you will be disappointed!
There were a lot of things I found frustrating in this book - the sci Fi plot doesn't seem necessary and sometimes it was difficult to connect to the characters. In the end though I couldn't give it less than four stars. I'm a classical musician, and all the technical music talk was on point. The characters were lovely (Astrid was my favorite) and ultimately the book has a beautiful message. And the writing? Gorgeous at times. I'll end this review with my favorite quote:
“With no need for a beginning, nor any reason to end, the music continues. And so, no matter who you are, where you came from, what sins you have committed or hurt you have endured ... when you are alone and there is no universe left to remember you. You can always, always rewrite your song.”
I loved the Dead Romantics, so I think I'm more disappointed than I should be. This book has insta-love and all the marks of a Hallmark movie. My biggest beef (probably amplified by recently reading “Happy Place” by Emily Henry) is this though: (mild spoilers, beware)
SpoilerGirlfriend, you do not need to quit your career. Finding a man does not always mean realizing that everything in life up until now has been shallow and done for other people. Why oh why can't women be allowed to have kick-ass careers and also a healthy relationship? This is my #1 most hated trope. In the beginning of the book when it was talking about her career (which there was no sign at all that she didn't love) I was like “Oh no, don't go there book.” And then it did. This is why I struggle with romance.
I did like Clementine's friends. Her aunt was basically Auntie Mame, which isn't a bad thing in my book. I would have probably enjoyed reading her story a lot more.
3.75 stars. This book has atmosphere for days! I loved the creepy crumbling mansion setting. The setup was intriguing and I liked the main character. I guessed some of the twists (it wasn't my first gothic rodeo) but it got seriously crazy at the end. I have no complaints as it's what I expected and wanted. I find the author's books to be pretty consistent for me - solid 3-4 star reads that I cannot put down once I start.
