Nic
Wasn't sure what to expect coming into this and I was pretty surprised.
The writing itself was a bit lacklustre in terms of description and some of the relationships moved a bit too fast. But it was amazing to have more of the Avatar world - from a different POV, a different time and a completely different tone to the shows. The plot was exciting and fast and shocked me at times.
It doesn't at all suffer from the prequel problem - even though I know what Kyoshi becomes, I was still invested in her character and the surrounding characters and in the backstory of how she becomes.
I will be reading the next one.
Leigh Bardugo is so good at historical, I hope she writes more! She is starting to write the same sort of characters though, often her side characters are much more interesting. This is the case for The Familiar - there's so many historical references, interesting views on history and characters that I wish we could have explored a lot more than the romance.
Not a lot I can say without spoiling everything.
I was delighted by the mystery though troubled by the darkness of the world and some of the terrible characters. I'm still so excited by the way Turton can surprise me.
His plotting is so so good and his prose is improving with each book he writes, can't wait to see what's next.
I liked the characters, but the way the world worked was a bit arbitrary at times, making the plot much less engaging.
As someone not from NY, Jemisin did a great job of showing what the city is like and portraying authentic experiences - She said she did a ton of research in the acknowledgements and I totally believe it.
This gave me a similar feeling to The Seven Deaths - a crunchy, complex mystery where you're wondering 'what is going on?' as often as 'whodunnit'
There were some fun ideas and interesting questions to ponder, I loved the point of view and there were some greatly intense as well as some nice and sweet moments.
It didn't quite measure up to Seven Deaths for me, just because of the loss of tension and questions for the middle chunk, and perhaps the characters being much more simplistic. Maybe not simple, but a lot more of an open book - most of the characters didn't felt like a mystery to me.
I loved it, I'm keen to read all of Turton's books!
I thought this was delightful!
Certainly not a perfect book (main thing is probably the extremely thin romances), but I had lots of fun exploring the language. I normally find epistolary novels kind of boring, but I was engaged the whole time and read it pretty quick, so props to Mark. The characters were fun and quirky and there was a combination of really sweet moments and higher stakes than I expected.
Fun book from my childhood!
I don't think it's the best in the series, but lots of fun with plenty of wonderful characters. It gets surprisingly intense at some points, but also a little easy for the protagonists sometimes.
Pretty writing as always and lovely descriptions.
Somehow this book is about, like...working environments? The villains get into trouble because they create environments in which their employees are fighting for dominance and trying to get the promotion from each other. The protagonists do well because they work together and let people collaborate and cooperate. Definitely not what this book is about, but also it definitely is.
I picked up this book expecting just a fun ya adventure to relax during lots of assignments, but I was delightfully surprised. The world was intriguing and dangled in front of me quite excitingly, with little exposition. I was also quite surprised by Albert - he was quite odd in an endearing way that I didn't expect.
The adventures and action scenes were fun, and there was a particular one near the end that was so intense and creepy that I realised afterwards how much I had tensed up reading it. That doesn't happen very often for me.
Some of the descriptions were lovely and creative, but I found a couple of settings quite difficult to picture (mostly the ones near the end, though they were very unique).
There were a few moments of dialogue that felt weird, and a bit of unnecessary and stilting monologues near the end, but overall, a wonderful read if you want something fun.
It felt great on its own, but if I come across the sequel, I'll definitely give it a read.
I loved book 1 (City of Last Chances) so much - this one was sometimes better sometimes worse, but I overall liked City better.
I've heard this book described as fantasy M*A*S*H, and I have to agree - funny quirky characters, but doesn't shy away from the reality of war. The first half was so good - intense, exciting, more amazing world building.
The second half felt a bit too episodic - some events just ended too quickly for me to take them seriously, even if they were still fun.
I love this world and how authentic the characters are. I'm not sure if there will be more in this world, but I'd read it if there was.
I really liked this one - engaging mystery, humour, and some delightfully frustrating characters. It didn't quite have the emotional impact of the first book, but I guess that makes sense in the context. Though I did have fun exploring Ernest's relationship and seeing just how how much of an idiot he is - very enjoyable.
Unfortunately, like the first one, I found there to be way too much info dumped on me right at the end. Too much for me to ever guess it all, even if I can guess whodunnit based off vibes. Which is kind of annoying, because Stevenson is good at drip feeding clues - I just wish we got more of those big revelations throughout the book, so it wasn't such a leap to the solve at the end.
I hope he writes another one.
super vulnerable and broad in it's topics, from sickness to love to art to queerness. Andrea is great at placing emotions where they need to go, being serious and sad, but also revelling in the joy of life and adding a few laughs. At the end, I felt content and proud. Even though this is the only Andrea Gibson book I've read, I felt like I had seen so much that they had gone through, but also the person they have become.
I'm inexperienced when it comes to comics, but I think this was a good one to get into. Its got pace, originality, nice art and a great mix between well-placed humour and seriousness. I always know a book is good when I audibly gasp at the end of a chapter.
I haven't read many comics to compare it to, but really enjoyed it, would recommend