Ash
This book was equal parts frustrating and heart-warming. The back and forth dialogue made me anxious so I had to take many Criminal Minds breaks to calm down, (because who isn't soothed by serial killers when Shemar Moore is catching them...) even though the frustration was hilarious. The way every character had their storyline packaged up at the end was beautiful. I love that this book's overall message is that at the end of the day, as long as you have made it through, you've done alright. I also love that it touches on suicide, but does it carefully and offers support at the end. Zara and Estelle were my favorite.
I've realized my brain categorizes the romance genre into two distinct onomatopoeia categories. There's the “Ugh” category and the “Squee” category. This book was a squee. It was adorable and sweet from start to finish. It's definitely hallmark movie-esque, but reading it versus watching it, let me cast the characters. I loved how fast-paced and wholesome the entire story was. All the characters were all good without it being annoying. The perfect holiday romance. Loved it.
My only notes while reading this book were, “I hate them,” and “angry/sad.” None of the characters had any redeeming qualities, which was intentional, I'm sure, but it also made me not enjoy reading this. There were a lot of plot decoys thrown in to make you think that the italicized baddie was doing more than she was. I didn't really understand why they were written in though if there wasn't a twist at the end. It was just unrelated extra crap. I understand it was a husband and wife team writing this book, but it felt like they just tried to fit in too many ideas or they couldn't find a clever enough way to incorporate them together cohesively. I also felt that the ending was slapdash. They were going for cliffhanger or something, but it didn't work for me.
Sci-fi/Fantasy on the subject of quantum physics might be my all time favorite book genre. This book was the British version of a Blake Crouch novel. Granted it had decidedly worse punctuation and the romance aspect was muted, but it was similar enough. Seeing as how my rating curve is practically set by Crouch, I obviously still very much enjoyed this book. It definitely should come with a trigger warning for suicide and mental illness in general. There were a lot of aspects in this book that I loved. The fact that each “slider” had their own library of sorts, the gradual change in mindset of Nora, her pauses (and judgement) after hearing the nicknames she's given in each book, her appreciation for the people in her life with smaller roles in her life at the end, the name of her job being string theory, the sass from her own mind's librarian, and the ties to philosophy throughout. Ultimately this book is about mental health and not letting regret dictate your future choices in life.
Every complaint I've ever had with the YA genre has been lifted through this book. I loved the mythology, I loved the play sister dynamics, I loved the activism and real situations involving racism (mysogynoir specifically) that demands activism, I loved that I wasn't annoyed by any of the characters for falling into shallow or cliched tropes, and I cannot wait for the next book. I felt like I was reading from an actual teen's perspective. There was an appropriate amount of angst and teenage insecurity without being contrived or whiny. When I was a teenager, I hated that the YA characters I was supposed to feel connected to were all selfish poor decision making bitches. Fantasy is one of my favorite genres so I appreciate that the mythical creatures in this story are lesser known and from a wide variety of cultures. Gorgons and sirens from Greece, gargoyles from France, elokos from Mongo, and sprites from all around Europe. My favorite scene was when Tavia and Effie are just lying on Gargy's back in the reserve and having a normal sister conversation. Effie and Gargy are the real otp.
Blame the genre if you want, but this was another Reese pick that was just “Meh” for me. This book can be broken down into three parts. In the first part, the two main characters had a distinct voice, but the older sister was depicted as selfish and horrible. The second part, the two main characters had a voice swap where the younger sister was the annoyingly bad one. And then for the last bit the two voices were indiscernible between the sisters. In the week of filming, they apparently morphed into the same loving and caring being... I do like the discussion it brings towards hoarding and being messy as a result of mental distress as opposed to simple laziness. This book maybe would have grated less if one of the main characters were gay, instead of the token best friend, but that's just a personal gripe.
I wish there was more nuance to the contemporary genre. It's always a toss up for me whether the book is going to be boring and/or vapid, or thought provoking and/or beautiful. This book was definitely on the latter side. The struggle of faith versus science and finding life after pain, addiction, loss, and mental distress whether it be your own or someone close to you was written in a way that made it relatable, but also forced the reader to look at it through a different lens. Even growing up in a conservative immigrant family while dealing with Alabamian racism was written so viscerally, that I could hear and see it as I read through. This book lived up to it's hype for me. Great read.
Wth did I just read? A pretty normal response to psychological thrillers, to be fair. I started this book hating the main character, then I pitied her, then I kind of liked her acceptance of her own insanity. I don't know this story was wild. Is it polygamy or a psychotic break? A question I've never had to ask myself before. And the last paragraph, phew.
This book is classic 90's feel good romcom. I honestly loved it. I didn't hate any of the characters. The main character Minnie was an honest portrayal of someone who is self-conscious instead of being a caricature with a bunch of annoying needy/desperate traits. I really liked the flashbacks where Minnie and Quinn had already met and hadn't realized it. This would have made a great movie. The mandatory millennial 90's nostalgia may have influenced my opinions.
There were some good parts in this book, but also some really annoying parts. I could have eliminated Emilia and Lucy and only read Poppy's story and I would have really liked it. Poppy was effervescent and strong-willed, and Emilia was the opposite. I hate when dual perspective books do this. Emilia was the archetypal naïve main character that is trying to find herself throughout the story. She's described as frumpy, but gets a new pair of glasses and suddenly all the men are attracted to her and she then falls in love with them. Of course they all end up not being right for her, but that's all because she has an abusive family who perpetuates a lie about this “curse” that she has. And I'm not even going to get into the token “snarky at first but then sweet and gay” cousin that was written in as some cross between a shoulder angel plot device and an attempt at inclusion for the sake of clout. No thanks. I'm not going to lie, I read the synopsis and thought this would be a fantasy and I think that's why I ended up so disappointed.
This book read like a modern CW show and I would have been obsessed with it when I was in high school. I liked that a lot of the struggle that Neveah had throughout the book comes from the authentic feelings and experiences of the author. This book touches on some rough topics. Dealing with one parent who is struggling mentally to the point of not being able to function, reconciling that your other parent isn't a good person and that your relationship with them will be forever changed after that realization, growing up biracial while bouncing between two very segregated neighborhoods, cyber bullying/revenge porn, and the fear and uncertainty that the black community lives through. My least favorite character was Stevie. I understand petulance is a prerequisite during puberty, but his double-standards and abandonment was just glossed over. I also hated that the main antagonist was the Regina George carbon copy. Why are female antagonists always portrayed as either slutty or stupid? It's time to retire these tropes. I also feel like a sequel is necessary because certain plot lines were unfinished. I feel like we were let into Neveah's mom's mind so it didn't make sense that her and Neveah never had a deep moment. She went from completely despondent to unhelpful productivity literally after a therapy session or two. Did Jenae save up enough for her camera after all those gigs? Did Jordan do her college thing? What happened with the lawsuit against the school? And the divorce? Other than that, this book had several important messages imbedded into the story. I just think it had too many side plots.
Christie Tate's metaphoric storytelling reads better than 90% of the fiction I've read this year. That being said, this book is weird af. I was into it for the first 100ish pages, but the fervid intensity of her self involvement and creepy questionable “prescriptions” given by her therapist left me wanting in the end. It didn't help that I googled her halfway through the book and discovered her lack of respect for her child's boundaries.
I read this book with a 14 year old's enthusiasm. It reminded me of the series books I fell in love with 15 years ago. I loved Karina and Malik and their relationship to their families and to each other. The magic and the Griot and Commander Hamidou. Even Idir was likable in his own classically misunderstood villainy way. Yes, this book follows almost all of the quintessential YA Fantasy themes, but there's a reason those themes are reused. They work. I'm hooked. This book took me a really long time to read though. The primary reason being that every time the perspective changed between Karina and Malik, there was a slight lull caused by the world building necessary to connect to the previous chapter.
Overall, I really liked this book and I can't wait for the sequel to come out.
Uncomfortable. This book made me uncomfortable. A 13 year age difference isn't a huge deal between consenting adults, but she was 8 when he met her at 21. This book romanticizes pedophilia and sexualizes children and is written in a way to make you sympathetic to the situation. The male character even goes on about how her body is still childlike when she's finally at an adult age. I bought this book because it was very highly rated on goodreads and BOTM, and seriously wtf? Yes, the writing is compelling even if it switched between 1st person and 3rd person arbitrarily, and the romance would have been sweet if he wasn't a raging pedophile and she wasn't a mentally abused child that needed intensive therapy. If you weren't hoping that Butch or Nurse Patty reported it before anything happened between them, then what is wrong with you? This isn't some Renesme bs where the werewolf stays the same age until the girl grows up (which was also gross), this is highly probable friends of the family grooming vulnerable abused children into romantic relationships. This is real and it's not okay. And I don't care that it was the 70's-80's and back in the day this was normalized. You should know better not to publish this crap in 2016. Not okay. And the only character that was trying to point out that this situation was wrong and was actively trying to step in was vilified for it.
And all the people who want to go off about how this book was controversial on purpose, no. You do not write multiple sex scenes involving 13 year olds where you describe their underdeveloped body in detail. No. Arguing that it wasn't pedophilia because it was a one time thing and he was also attracted to adults. You are the problem. Trying to argue semantics when an abused child is being sexualized by a formerly abused adult is pathetic. Nothing about this situation should have been romanticized.
All 4 of the stars I'm giving this one are for the squee moments. I blew through this one. The writing didn't blow my mind, nor did the characters, but this was a quintessential, yet great romance book.
My hang up with the romance genre is that I tend to hate one or both of the main characters. But I liked both in this one. I mean, who wouldn't want a pirate after adding devout loyalty to the rodomontade?
I also already purchased the next one in the series.~
Cute read.
If The Magician's Nephew and Flowers for Algernon had a baby, it would be this book. Flowers for the Magician's Piranesi. I loved that we were reading through Piranesi/Matthew's journal and could see the stark difference between his two consciousnesses. I wish there was more insight into the birth of Piranesi. Other than the changing of the way he labeled his journals, there wasn't any showing of the transitioning. I also want to know if Ketterley would show up frequently in the beginning and also how was it that a man of 30 was unable to overtake a man in his late 50's? He certainly seemed angry enough to try from the excerpts Piranesi found.
I really liked how the author brought about the awareness of the real names of the characters and situations that led them to be in the House. I also liked that in the end he didn't align himself with Matthew or Piranesi completely and stayed in the middle with his moderate amount of madness. I'm sure this correlates to him continuing to visit the House after he got out.
My favorite part of this book is how throughout the story, Piranesi refers to James Ritter as being poor when mentioning him. He had pity for him from the story he heard from the Prophet. Not because of his madness, but because he was lost from the House. I also really loved that he became attached to specific statues and there wasn't any rhyme or reason why they resonated with him.
I am biased towards the historical fantasy genre. So it will come to the surprise of no one that I loved this book. It reads like a series in the best way and the writing itself is so beautiful. I forced everyone I saw while this book was on my person to read the paragraph about March on page 20. I've never liked the month of March before, but now I feel like I understand why and I will probably like it just a bit more from now on.
Okay, I don't know how to continue this review without gushing so I'm just going to do it anyway.
I loved Addie. I loved Henry and Luc. I loved Bea and Book and Sam! I loved the historical aspects and the ties to famous people who have sold their souls. I loved the bittersweet ending. I loved the relationships between the characters. I loved how different Addie was from Henry and Luc, but they complimented each other in different ways. I loved the different forms of art Addie placed herself in. I loved how the musical one was somehow more intense than the physical art. I love the specific millennial culture references. I loved that both Addie and Henry were interested in people regardless of their gender. I loved Addie's constellation of freckles and how they were the hidden key to recognizing her throughout the ages. I loved so many things about this book, I didn't even mind seeing the word “palimpsest” 20 times.
Questions: Why was Addie able to play the piano if she wasn't able to draw or write? How was Addie able to replant the sapling over Estelle's grave with her inability to disrupt her surroundings? Why did no one use the restroom while on a date with Addie? All I could think of was how no one with IBS could ever have gone out with her...
I wish that the cover of the book was in cursive like the book describes Henry's version to be. I fully recommend this book to anyone who loves the historical fiction or fantasy genre.
Every other book this author has written has been added to my tbr list.
It's crazy the amount of character growth that happens during the two year setting of this book. Afi in the beginning is naïve and petulant, in the middle she's defiant and seen as ungrateful, but at the end she's strong in her convictions and is ready to take control of her life and stop expecting anything from her husband. My favorite part of this book was her friendship with her neighbor who also happened to be her husband's brother's side piece. It helped Afi gain perspective on her situation and her husband's “lover's” perspective. I loved that the other woman was actually the first and was beautiful and strong-willed. I'm also glad that Eli was called out for being selfish and having double standards. I just wish that Tɔgã Pious got his in the end. He was the actual villain in this story. Aunty was nothing compared to him. I also liked that Afi's mother also went through some growth as she realized that Aunty was only kind and generous when she was beneficial. I am curious as to what the point of Abraham's character was. To show Afi had options? Or that she was desirable? Or was he just there to reinforce Yaya's penchant for the pretentious? Not sure.
I enjoyed this one, Reese.
This one. If you're going to read a murder mystery ghost story, this is the one. It's just so good! Every hour I wasn't working or sleeping in the last 30ish hours were spent reading this book. I loved it.
I loved the ghost aspect, the mystery aspect, the fact that because there were two characters and timelines, there were also two major climax scenes. I couldn't make my eyes move through the words fast enough. I called Callum as soon as he entered the book, but it was all just so well laid out. I want a sequel telling of the 35 years Viv was hiding in plain sight. The amount of genres that were packed into this book is insane. Even an adorable romance.
I already want to read it again to catch the clues I missed in the earlier chapters the first time through.
I have a question though, who pushed Viv in the amenities room? Betty or Henry? I guess I do have to reread it. Oh darn~
I really wanted to like this book, but all I could think of while I was reading it was how much I wanted it to end already. The chapters are unnecessarily long and the author tried to shove too many scenes into each one. It felt like rambling. And while the writing wasn't bad, I had some problems with the over usage of specific words (like eldritch) and the inconsistency in context. The point of the book was, well pointy. The themes were dumbed down to the point where I felt like the author thought that her readers were too stupid to understand that every situation was an allusion to the evils of large corporations, gentrification, and racism. Subtlety was not invited to the party.
I liked that the descriptions of evil were purposely made to go against the institutionalized and prejudiced belief that bad things are dark and good things are light, except when we were in the thoughts of the racist character. I also liked how New York was described through the different avatars chosen to represent each borough.
On the other hand, there were times where there seemed to be awkward moments of inside jokes placed in the story, whether having to do with New Yorkisms or Lovecraftisms. It just felt forced in places. Also, the timelines didn't make a whole lot of sense as the perspectives shifted in the earlier chapters. The final fight scene left a lot to be desired. It was a whole page and a half long. Bronca was in a bathroom for like 20 pages...
I didn't hate this book, I just wish it could have been edited better and that it's description wasn't more interesting than the book itself.
Definitely should come with a few trigger warnings. There are several instances of attempted rape. Also, you'll never want to eat mushrooms again...
This book is severely creepy. I found myself avoiding reading it. Between the oozing black pustules and the incest, it was a lot. If you can get past the repugnance, this book is actually not bad. I didn't enjoy it as much as Gods of Jade and Shadow though. I liked Noemí's spunk and how Francis was described as unremarkable throughout the book. I knew early on that she was going to burn the place down, but it didn't make it any less satisfying when she did. It was never explained why Francis was studying mushrooms so thoroughly. Was he trying to understand the immortal mushroom to get rid of it, or because he worshiped it? It was unclear.
Great spooky book to read during Halloween season.
TJR is definitely in one of the top spots on my list of favorite authors. I see her characters in my head even when I begrudgingly set her books down. I dream about them. I became so immersed in this particular story, that before I was even halfway through the book I was already starting to mourn the characters and the inevitable ending. Not to mention having to mourn the characters individually as they passed along the way. The devastation of the twist at the end broke me and I couldn't even be upset by it. This book was excellent. I want to reread it already.
I loved Monique's realization that she was emulating Evelyn with regards to getting what she wanted from her career and in her relationship. I loved how that parallel helped us as readers understand Monique's conflicting feelings for Evelyn. Harry was hands down my favorite character. I loved how much he loved Evelyn and Connor and his emotional responses to losing the love of his life twice. The second one inadvertently causing the loss of his own life. I love Monique's father's dedication to his family. I love how brazen Evelyn was through every one of her life decisions.
The only aspect I wasn't a fan of was Celia's character portrayal. Or lack thereof. She didn't have as strong of a personality description as several of the husbands did. I knew she loved Evelyn and was jealous for her, but she lacked deeper character traits. At least it didn't come through in her dialogue for me like it did for Harry, Don, and even Mick. I felt that I read more about her hair being draped over a pillow than about what made Evelyn love her so much. Also, what happened to Luisa? Did she retire or die? Did I miss that explanation?
Regardless, this is one of my favorite books I've ever read.