Ribbon
This is a pleasant enough cotton candy adventure romance. Alex and her friends are all rich, clever, and lovely, with attitudes and interests more suitable to a contemporary setting which sometimes get them into trouble. Their only other problem in life is an excess of suitors and a disinterest in marriage. The murder and intrigue adds a little spice to the formula, except it's all very predictable.
The Season hits most of the Regency romance cliches, but the only one that I found particularly annoying is the “characters love reading Jane Austen books in a Regency romance.” Even most of the men have read the novels and Alex has read P&P at least three times.
The ending sets up for an ongoing series but there is no sequel. Sad, I wanted more cotton candy.
Philosophizing is turned up to eleven. Subtlety is MIA. Tepid romance is apparently contagious.
The timeline in this book is really wacky. The narrative switches between characters as usual but one starts where the previous book left off, another a few months later, and another three full years later. The timelines synchronize eventually but effort of keeping it straight breaks immersion for the first half of the book at least.
Earlier books may have hinted about religious extremism and fascism but it's all over the place in this book. The actual characters often take a backseat to the philosophizing. There's even a border wall line, in case you didn't get that current events have gotten into the author's head.
I've complained about the Citra and Rowan pairing every book so it's no surprise it continues. However every other surviving character is implied to pair off with whoever they're standing near in the last chapter. Only one couple has the slightest hint of chemistry and it's still not great.
Not the worst YA series I've gotten through but I don't expect to revisit it ever.
Almost forgot: Citra and Rowan shouldn't remember the events of Scythe Island because the Thunderhead doesn't have access to make backups!!
Fictionalized history, especially with military intrigue, can be fun. But this book has an awful lot of rape. Discussed or just “off camera” but a lot. Gang rape by conquering armies too. The good guys don't rape, they whore. Except the extra good main character who is totally faithful to his hot older wife (a former whore.) It's accurate to the time but still. Yikes. Several mentions of pedophilia as well.
The sci fi aspects of the series don't get fleshed out in this book. There's a magic sentient rock that tells the future.
The author goes off on so many tangents. Often we hear all about a character's life long-term, then go back to the present when none of that has happened. I guess it's the precognisent rock effect but it gets tedious.
My husband really likes this series, it's just not my cup of tea.
I didn't approach this as a game system, but rather worldbuilding ideas. There are a lot of great concepts that make sense if applied to various magical girl anime and manga. Toward the end of several sections, ideas are given for how things might change depending on the maturity level the players want. From the straightforward and simple Pretty Cure types, to the moral and ethical dilemmas of Madoka Magica subversions. This is a great resource for magical girl enthusiasts.
Some of the major plot twists are really goofy and undermine the tension that should be building. Citra and Rowan continue to have no romantic leanings, but it's stated they exchanged “I love yous” between books. I strongly believe Neal Shusterman's agent or publisher said he had to include a romantic pairing or it wouldn't sell. So he added a few sentences and called it a day.
Instead of Scythe journal entries, the Thunderhead itself waxes philosophical between every chapter. I enjoyed the AI perspective for the most part. A few new characters are introduced, one of which is totally dedicated to the Thunderhead, so we get a new perspective on the all powerful system that the characters couldn't interact with in the first book.
I'm less familiar with Dagon than Cthulhu, but this book felt weaker than the first. The art is less clear about what is going on and most of the text is black on a dark blue background. It switches to white text towards the end but the dramatic shift is not worth the early eye strain.
Still looking forward to the next adaptation.
The premise of Earth turning into a harsh game system world is really neat and new to me, at least. I didn't have high hopes for the main character at his introduction: a former professional basketball player and current tabletop and computer gamer. Also his name is Rocky. I grew to like him and his knowledge from both backgrounds is relevant to this new Earth.
The RPG system of this book is very focused on combat skills and classes. There's a lot of fight scenes, mostly very similar, and I found myself skimming over most of them. Noncombat skills exist but few have much relevance. Presumably skinning level 20 is faster than level 1, but it doesn't effect the story any. A kingdom building sort of system is touched upon but will probably be detailed more in future books.
Environmentalism: High
Horniness: Moderate
Power Trip: High, Physical
Testosterone: Occasionally obnoxious
This book could have used another round of edits but is otherwise good.
Audiobook is done by Luke Daniels, so the female lead sounds way older than she probably should, but otherwise all the characters sound okay.
Pets are going missing and a circus is in town! I like how the kids do independent detective work but bring their findings to the police periodically. And the police already know some but not all of it, so they are shown to be competent but the kids are still useful. It's a good balance. The kids only do some stupid/dangerous thing over the course of the book.
The kids set out to solve a four hundred(ish) year old crime while on their inexplicably long Thanksgiving break. This is my first A to Z Mystery and I found it about as predictable as I expected from a kids mystery book. I identified the bad guy within a couple sentences of introduction, as well as the “sneaky twist.” Exploring historical locations with a replica Mayflower and reenactment actors all over the place was a little spooky.
The servants of the Bennet household have a pretty good idea what's going on upstairs, but they don't have time for that crap. They're busy laundering away menstrual blood, disposing of human and animal waste, picking at their blisters, and slogging through mud. Also having love triangles while trying not to get caught at fireable offenses.
Longbourn is quite enjoyable until two thirds of the way through, when it takes a flashback break. It could have conveyed the information by other means, but instead we get mood whiplash. Lots of childbirth (trigger warning!), war atrocities, torture, starvation, and injustice. I would have skipped past it but that's tricky with audiobooks.
As the title suggests, CRG heads to Mainland China so Rachel can “Oh wow so cool” all over a bunch of new locations. There's less Rachel and Nick in this book, which is still way too much. Astrid is still awesome and Kitty becomes the other cool character. Third best character is the footnotes.
This book is less racist than the first and doesn't have a bullying subplot, so I judge it better. Not great by any means, but a decent choice for “what audiobook does my library have that I haven't already listened to?”
It ain't Beauty and the Beast. Or The Selection. Or a harem anime. But there are certainly moments that made me think of each. I would have rated this higher if the tone were more consistent. Most of the time it fits the setting and characters perfectly but the occasionally “modern teen” lines rip me right out of the story. Based on the final chapters, I worry the next book will have a lot more of those lines.
I kind of assume all “# Females by Theme” books are going to be kid friendly girl power reads. This one... maybe wait a few extra years. Mythology is full of unpleasant things and even boiled down to a couple paragraphs per goddess, there's still some rape and castration scattered through the book.
The art is gorgeous and this book is a good starting point for an interest in mythology, but without enough on anyone to really be satisfying.
More violent than I usually like and a lot of F-bombs, but all the characters are interesting and the “game world” is different from other LitRPGs I've read. It's a real world with a point buy XP system that every intelligent creature is fully aware of and using. Ed is bodily transported to this world so there's no going back. Also permadeath. So higher stakes than most LitRPGs.
Severance switches between present and various times in Candice's past, so you get one part “immigrant family aclimates to life in United States”, one part “twenty-something out on her own in New York City”, and one part “not-quite zombie apocolypse”. I'm not a big fan of the “screw linearity” thing but fine, it's trendy.
But it draaaaags. I thought I was near the end and checked how much was left. I was only halfway through! The ending is really inconclusive and unsatisfying and the not-quite zombies never get explained.
In a dystopian near-future full of acronyms and thought police, Adrienne is a bright, studious girl with zero survival instinct. In Dungeons and Dragons terms, wisdom is her dump stat. Everyone tells her to keep her mouth shut and don't overachieve, so of course the thought police arrest her for asking a bunch of questions publicly. Her punishment? Living in the United States midwest in 1959.
I'm 90% sure this is a satire of YA dystopia novels, but it's painfully plausible. Generic White Girl, as she is now known, gets really into intro level philosophy, stalks a professor, and turns up her nose at everything the 50s natives enjoy - TV, movies, art, poetry, etc.
Then the third act really goes off the rails.
I get why this has such mixed reviews. It's solid YA tripe but the satire will probably make YA fans feel betrayed when they catch on. It's decent satire but you've got to slog through the YA melodramatic tone. A lot of research went into the philosophy and history but I kinda tuned out during some of the looooong philosophy tangents.
I loved the first three books, but Dungeon Desolation is a disappointment. The storytelling is sacrificed in favor of a new end goal: transitioning into the Ritualist series. Most disappointing of all is the treatment of the female characters, especially Dani who goes into full shrill housewife mode.