Josh

Scalzi's usual writing style, at last through two books of this series, has always been simple but effective, which works well for the kind of military science fiction said series is. Here though, he takes a much more literary approach and unfortunately it just did not work for me. The prose often felt overly self conscious, at times using awkward phrasing, and overall it felt like it was trying to hard to be profound.

This is made more noticeable because the narrator is Jane Sagan. The voice we get here feels disconnected from the character we've seen through the series, making the diary feel less like an extension of Jane and more like an experiment with a different writing style.

Turns out even a Special Forces soldier can lose a battle against a thesaurus. 1.5 unnecessary words out of 5.

The previous books balanced cozy fantasy with a dash of adventure, whereas this one feels more like a low stakes adventure with a little cozy sprinkled in. That shift isn't necessarily a bad idea, but I didn't find the characters, Fern's mid life crisis, or the adventure compelling enough to carry it. It never captures the warmth or charm that made the earlier books enjoyable.

2.25 poor Potroasts out of 5

For the most part it has the same strengths as the first book with the exception of a reduction in humour. I also though Dirac's personal journey was fairly compelling and it expands the setting in a way I'm interested in seeing unfold.

It also maintains the criticisms I had with the first book though with the thin supporting cast and lack of emotional weight. That coupled with the reduction in humour means while I enjoyed it, I didn't enjoy it as much as the first book.

3.75 Ghosts out of 5.

As someone who loves military sci-fi this hit a lot of things I look for in the genre. The story gets moving quickly with good pacing and Scalzi does a great job making the world and technology easy to follow without drowning the reader in dense hard sci-fi expositions. I ended up reading the entire thing in about 24 hours because it just kept me turning the pages and I didn't want to put it down.

The biggest strength is easily the humour. The style is right in my wheelhouse with sarcastic banter, witty dialogue, and even some excellent deadpan humour throughout the entire story. Even in the middle of a war story (and part love story really) the characters feel fun to spend time with. I also appreciated that it never felt like it was trying to preach a particular viewpoint as military sci-fi often can. I greatly enjoyed the premise as well which I thought added some nice flair.

It's not a 5 star book for me though unfortunately. I didn't find the emotional weight often landed. Characters die, sometimes in significant ways, but the story rarely slows down to really explore the impact those losses have. Speaking of characters, while they aren't one dimensional, outside of John and Jane to some extent, I didn't find many of the supporting characters particularly deep or memorable outside their humour.

The other thing that held it back for me is purely a matter of personal preference. My favourite military sci-fi tends to balance light and dark. The humour alongside the overwhelming scale, danger, and horror of war. This book absolutely delivers on the humour, but I wanted more moments where the characters and myself as the reader really felt the enormity and terror of what they were facing before the humour cut through.

That said while it may not have had the atmosphere or emotional depth I personally look for, it was funny, fast paced and a genuinely enjoyable read.

4.5 Old Farts out of 5

It took me a long time to settle into this book and for much of the first half I wasn't sure it was going to click with me. A large part of that comes from its structure. Chapters are only a few pages long and constantly rotate between a dozen characters give or take, so it took time to become invested in anyone's story. The narration also didn't work well for me. While the novel is set in a rural Wisconsin farming community, the characters' inner thoughts are conveyed in a literary voice that felt at odds with the setting.

I also found many of the major conflicts resolved with surprising ease. Individually they were believable enough, but together they gave off an almost idyllic sense that life's biggest problems simply work themselves out.

Where the novel excels though is in its people. Nuanced, believable characters whose strengths and flaws feel authentically human. The portrayal of life in a small agricultural community is equally as compelling and feels lived in rather than romanticised.

Overall, I'm glad I read it. Its structure and tidy resolutions kept me from fully connecting with it, but it's characters and portrayal of ordinary rural life made it a worthwhile read.

3.5 peonies out of 5

This was my first audiobook (at least completed one) and I enjoyed it. I've always though Obama was a good orator and that plays well into narration with a clear, study voice and a natural cadence that is easy to listen to. Easy, but also very very long. 29 hours in fact, because he has a lot to say, often isn't concise in saying it, and can be prone to side tangents. I can relate with all that given that I'm much the same, but even with that there were definitely some instances where I was thinking "my man, get to the point".

For the content itself, it's interesting to get a glimpse behind the curtain and see the realities of governing. Seeing how decisions are made, the competing pressure involved, and the day to day responsibilities of the office. It is very much though an interpretation of his presidency by himself. That's not a criticism so much as the nature of an autobiography, but worth keeping in mind. It's not a neutral history, but an explanation and defense of decisions that were made, some of which are much less compelling than others or glossed over almost entirely.

It is also very, let's call it statesmanlike. You don't always get Obama's raw thoughts or personal reactions to events, but rather the measured perspective of a president looking back and explaining how things unfolded. While I can understand why he'd go that route, I did find it a little disappointing. All in all though I'd recommend it to anyone interested in modern American politics. 3.75 tangents out of 5

This was a fascinating read and the execution I thought was impressive. A story within a story certainly isn't unique, but I thought it was used really well. Following Kvothe as he recounts the events of his own life creates an interesting tension between the myth and the flawed young man we actually meet. It also adds in a layer of unreliable narrator, how much can we really believe Kvothe's words.

Worldbuilding is great and the magic system has enough internal logic to it that it can feel more like Science then simply casting spells. It's still mysterious enough though to feel like magic with naming and things of that nature. I thought the characters were all rather well done to. Nuanced, believable, flawed, and rarely fit into simple archetypes.

I wouldn't say I admired the characters and I'm not even sure I like Kvothe or Denna as people really, but I can understand them. They make questionable decisions, hold onto unhealthy habits, and repeatedly get in their own way. It's those flaws though that make them compelling and feel authentic.

The only complaint I suppose I have is that the latter part of the book did feel a bit on the slow side, but overall I found myself consistently engaged, enjoying the time in the world and with the characters. 5 talents out of 5.

Maniac Magee was the first chapter book I can remember reading in third grade, so there's definitely some nostalgia there as this and later in that same year Ender's game built the foundation for not only loving to read, but it becoming a life long hobby. As a kid I found the tall tale elements amusing, found some of the relationships touching, and agreed with the notion that division by colour of your skin frankly just made no sense.

Rereading this 30 years later as an adult though, well I find a disconnect between its childhood clarity and the ethical weight of what it tries to depict. It's handled in a very simplified, almost mythic way, where racism functions less as a structural reality and more as a kind of social misunderstanding that can be undone through individual insight and symbolic encounters. That framing gives the story its emotional immediacy, but it also flatten the reality it's trying to address.

The flattening becomes more uncomfortable in how characters are constructed. Mars Bars often reads through a "tough, threatening black kid" lens, while the McNab's are exaggerated into a caricature of white fear and ignorance, complete with their imagined expectation of racial violence and the absurd pillbox preparation.

The scene in their house is where this becomes genuinely difficult to reconcile for me. Maniac brings Mars Bar into a household actively preparing for racial conflict, by baiting him through his "bad man" mentality, and the situation escalated toward near violence, because of course it does. The narrative then effectively reframes it as impulsive innocence. Maniac "doesn't know what he was thinking" which sits uneasily given the actual stakes of what has just been orchestrated. A child has been placed into an environment of explicit racial paranoia and potential physical danger (both parties want to fight after all) in order to stage a moral revelation...that never comes. It's moral theatre.

That framing is what felt most problematic on reread, not just the use of stereotype, but the way the story sidesteps responsibility for the consequences of its own moral setup. That's probably what stuck out to me the most, that it often reads less as a story about overcoming division through sustained human relationships and more as a series of moral set pieces. Middle grade fiction naturally has to simplify, kids do benefit from moral clarity in stories, and early exposure to 'racism is wrong' arguably maters more than the theoretical accuracy at the age this is aimed at. But this is an influential moral framing of race that I think is incomplete in ways that matter, even for its intended audience.

2.25 butterscotch krimpets out of 5.

This book had a couple things working against it from the start for me. I really enjoy historical fiction, but there are some time periods and settings that don't pique my interest very much. The early 1800s American frontier falls into both categories. The other hurdle was that I typically don't resonate with revenge stories across most genres.

There are exceptions to this, but they usually need either a great story or great characters. This story doesn't quite hit either of those marks. Still, it was interesting to watch Glass try to survive such a dire situation and see the lengths he was willing to go to. That strong will to live was compelling enough to keep me reading, even if the novel didn't strike any other particularly strong notes for me.

That being said, a lot of my issues with the book come down to personal preference. If you're a fan of frontier era historical fiction and revenge stories, this one may land much better for you than it did for me. 2.5 Bears out of 5.

It's a good conclusion to the trilogy, albeit not completely satisfying. I really enjoyed the twists and in hindsight, it made a lot of things make sense that I was unsure of before. I think there are a few small things that don't add up with said twists and some pacing issues especially in the first half, but overall I enjoyed how it played out.

I say not completely satisfying, not to indicate anything negative per se, but because I really wanted to see one character in particular get what I felt should have been coming to them, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

I had a pretty good time with this book. I enjoyed the characters, the worldbuilding, and the magic system. El's sarcastic narration was especially enjoyable, as I've always been a sucker for witty banter and sarcasm.

I thought the premise was interesting, and the author did a good job explaining why anyone would willingly attend such a dangerous school. Combined with a magic system that has clear rules and enough depth to make the setting feel believable, which helped maintain tension throughout the story as the constant dangers of the Scholomance never felt far away.

While I wouldn't say the writing is particularly flashy, it does its job well and lets the characters and setting shine. All in all, it was an engaging read that consistently held my interest and that I moved through fairly quickly. It's an easy 4 reluctant doom mages out of 5 for me.

So why not 5? The biggest weakness to me in the book, is the diversity. It just feels more stated than realised. The cast is drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and we're frequently told where characters are from, but those different cultural backgrounds rarely seem to meaningfully influence how the characters think, act, or interact with one another. In most cases it just doesn't seem like something that genuinely shaped them. The only thing that did seem to hit that note, was whether they were from an enclave or not, but everything else felt somewhat cosmetic.

This isn't a book I'd say I enjoyed, because the subject matter makes that impossible for me. It's a book you definitely want to know the trigger warnings for, before picking it up. At any rate, reading it was at times disturbing, uncomfortable, frustrating, and disgusting. That discomfort though is also what gives the book impact. It immerses you in the perspective of someone being groomed, showing how deeply that experience shapes her understanding of herself well into adulthood.

Watching Vanessa wrestle with the realisation that what she thought was agency was actually manipulation and watching her struggle to stop blaming herself was unsettling, but also compelling. I think overall it offers an interesting perspective on the psychological aftermath of grooming. I do think it would have worked much better as a novella as during the College years it starts to feel a bit bogged down and repetitive.

One of my pet peeves in publishing is when a book is slotted into an age demographic where it doesn’t quite belong. Each category whether it be middle grade, YA, or adult, comes with its own expectations for tone, themes, and complexity. Mismatching them can really skew a first impression. Going into this book, I initially felt a bit let down for that reason. To me, it sits solidly in the Middle Grade space. It was only later, after reading the acknowledgements, that I discovered Ursula Vernon felt the same way, but the publishers disagreed, considering it “too dark” for MG.

The book does have a genuine all ages appeal, but it shines when treated as the Middle Grade story I believe it to be. It's witty, warm, and filled with charming ideas around the magic system and such. The cast isn't huge, but there's enough variety to keep things lively and the themes are simple, clear, and engaging.

Overall, it's an easy, enjoyable read with a lot of charm. 3.5 gingerbread men with attitude out of 5.

Long mystery and thriller series are hard for me to stay invested in. At some point, it starts to feel like the same material is being recycled. The characters have already grown as much as they are going to, the plot becomes familiar, and the overall story starts to feel stale. For me, this book was the point where the series lost all of its momentum.

I know the characters are deep and nuanced from the earlier books, but that doesn’t come through here. They feel mostly one-dimensional. The journalism angle that added so much to the earlier novels is almost entirely absent. Lisbeth feels flat. Blomkvist’s personality barely comes through. There are also elements from Larsson’s original trilogy that seem to have been intentionally downplayed or ignored. One example is Berger’s relationship with Blomkvist. Her role had already been reduced in the previous book, but here it is virtually nonexistent until the final pages. Even then, her brief appearance seems to exist only to create conflict around her relationship with Blomkvist, potentially so it ends. That could have been fine if it were given proper attention, but instead, it is rushed and doesn’t quite fit with what we know about these characters.

In the earlier books, the first two-thirds were usually solid, but it was the final third where everything came to a head that really pulled me in. That section always made me want to keep turning pages, no matter the time or whatever else I needed to be doing. Unfortunately, that did not happen with this one. I found the story predictable, at times unbelievable, and ultimately not very engaging. Even the climax failed to hold my interest, missing the 'thrill' in thriller. Suffice to say I think this is the point I'll be stopping with this series

Trigger Warning: If animal cruelty/abuse makes you squeamish then I highly recommend finding a summary of chapter 16 that just hits the key points if you decide to read it. Even as someone who is not a highly visual reader I found this chapter grotesque.

I immensely enjoyed this novel, but having said that there are parts of it that I loathed. I loved the magical realism and how seamlessly it was woven into the story. There's something about the writing and how surreal things are that sucked me in and kept me turning page after page. I enjoyed the abstraction of reality and surprisingly enjoyed that the puzzle is left up to one's own interpretation for the most part.

But on the other end of the spectrum there are parts of this novel where I rolled my eyes, visibly cringed and wondered if I was even reading the same author. There are scene's that go into an absurd level of detail, often very awkward or crude, detail. Some of the characters feel more like vessels to spit out philosophy than they do actual people or are simply tools for the plot and feel paper thin. The biggest thing though is definitely the way sexuality and the commentary around it is written. The writing of this book is damn near lyrical, until it comes to sexuality and women and the jarring crudeness of that contrast sticks out like a sore thumb.

I hate the notion of "Its great if you just ignore x, y, and z", but that's legitimately how I felt about this. It is what it is. 4 Nakata's out of 5.

There are a couple things that put me off this book a bit in comparison to the original trilogy. One of those is just the nature of some mystery thriller's. Each book tends to escalate the mystery that needs solved and it reaches a point where it becomes so large I can no longer suspend my disbelief.

The other one is that this is a new author. Putting aside what I personally think about the Larsson estate issue, any time you have a new author trying to fill very large shoes you're going to have some growing pains. I do feel Lagercrantz by the end had gotten a handle on the characters, so that while not quite the same, still captured that familiar voice.

There is an odd disconnect between the third book and this one though. Millenium is having familiar issue's, but it not only doesn't feel convincing but serves no real purpose to the narrative imo. Blomkvist has a relationship by the end of the third book, but that's mysteriously missing, not mentioned in any way, so it's back to the status quo 'ladys man' which I was never a huge fan of.

It's not all bad though, the payoff still delivers and one benefit of Lagercrantz writing is that he's not nearly as prone to writing about the minutia of the characters lives. There's no grocery list included or a detailed breakdown of what's for breakfast and I certainly can appreciate the lack of that as it was one of my main complaints with the trilogy.

I'm still not certain this series needed to go beyond the trilogy which was a nice wrapping up point. None the less 3 big brothers out of 5.

I have two major pet peeves in storytelling: instant love and telling instead of showing. Unfortunately, this book contains both, though the latter in a different form than I’m used to. To avoid spoilers, I'll use an analogy.

Imagine I tell you a story about a child who trains for years to become a master swordsman. I assure you that his training is complete, that he’s now skilled enough to compete with warriors who have spent a lifetime honing their craft. But when the moment comes to prove himself, his skill is never truly shown. He fumbles, he falters, yet I still insist he is a master. Despite never demonstrating his abilities, he somehow goes on to defeat the greatest swordsman of his time.

That’s what reading this book often feels like. The prose is strong, the plot itself is engaging, and I loved the ending, but the overall execution leaves much to be desired.

I read a quote on Melodramatic Book Club that encapsulates how I feel about this book to such an extent, that I couldn't say it any better, so won't.

"It takes a concept and uses the most flowery, purple prose to describe events which is what obscures the whole point. If you're layering a story under so much weight of the language, a reader like me is going to be more frustrated than spellbound."

I get why people gravitate towards this book, but it's just not for me.

First of all, kudos to the translator. In my experience with Backman's books (at least the ones I've read so far), the translators have been top-notch at capturing his unique voice and the distinctive style of his writing.

When it comes to Backman, it's almost guaranteed that I'm going to enjoy the book. His ability to write complex characters, capture their duality, and explore the human condition resonates so strongly with me that I can't help but love his work.

That's true in this book as well. It is a book about a bank robbery, about a hostage situation, but above all it's a story about a group of idiots trying to make their way in the world. T the way he explores those idiots, is at times funny, frustrating, and deeply emotional.

A perfect score for a book about imperfect people.

It was good to be back in this universe again, and there are definitely things I liked about the book. I was personally curious about Yun Tianming's journey and the Trisolarans in general, so getting more on that front was satisfying. That said, I can't say I truly enjoyed it as an entry in the series, published fan fiction or not. The story blends fantastical, theological, and sci-fi elements in ways that are certainly mind-bending, but they never quite come together into anything that feels meaningful or grounded.

I also quite dislike how the third story in particular ends. The final moments of Death's End were powerful precisely because they left so much open to interpretation, both emotionally and philosophically. This follow up tries to offer more definitive answers, and in doing so, it diminishes some of what made the original trilogy’s ending resonate so well with me.

2 collapsing dimensions out of 5.

Miller's writing is beautiful as expected and while I said this in the Song of Achilles review it bears repeating. It takes a special type of talent to take a story we know and tell it in a way that captivates. She has that talent in spades.

She takes some liberties of course, but in doing so Circe is given agency and becomes a multi-faceted character who questions, rages, sinks into despair, and builds herself anew across her immortal life. I daresay I even enjoyed it a bit more than Song of Achilles, though I hold both in high regard for different reasons.

I have mixed feelings about this series as a whole. I still maintain that it's really the 'villains' (the humans not What Waits) that carry the story, especially for YA. They are the most interesting characters, but through the books the other characters did grow on me as well and I genuinely enjoyed some of their interactions such as Dom and Sorasa.

This book, like the one's before it though, has sections where everything is moving at a snail's pace and I was, to put it plainly, wondering if it was ever going to get to the point. I was even wondering if there was going to be a climax in this book or if there'd be another cliffhanger and a fourth book as I was approaching the end and all there had really been was 'reunions'. There is a conclusion though (mostly), one I found underwhelming and rushed, but there none the less.

I'd say worth reading if you enjoy the Tolkien formula. I'm still sitting around a 3 to 3.5 but I will say this much. I enjoyed it immensely more than Aveyard's other series Red Queen. Partly due to it being more Tolkienesque and partly because it does a better job imo of straddling the line between YA and Adult.

A compelling and thrilling read, which I enjoyed immensely. My only complaint with it would be that there were times when this book felt very slow as it includes a lot of mundane details that are quite dry to read. Sometimes this was purposeful, where as others it felt like it could have been left out with no real loss. None the less I look forward to continuing on with the characters as they solve their next mystery in book 2.

Definitely mind the trigger warning though if it's something you're considering reading. 

Enjoyed this immensely. I enjoy Weir's writing style, in particular his humour, but he has a knack for walking the line between not giving enough Scientific detail and giving too much. Everything feels believable (most of it is sound after all), but it doesn't feel so complex that it becomes convoluted and difficult to follow.

4.75 potato's out of 5.

King's talent for writing everyday life of a small town and populating it with interesting characters is on full display here. Granted there are times he goes into the small details that may not appeal to everyone, but for me as a non-visual reader he paints a picture that even I can see.

The atmosphere he builds while slowly increasing the tension is a great journey, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There were some elements I didn't think were particularly strong such as the romance Ben has and I thought there were a tad too many ‘random' characters. Overall though it's a great “modern” take on the vampire mythos.