Adrienne

Non traditional werewolves and vampires

A little bit of a thriller, a little bit of political intrigue, a little bit of arranged marriage, a little bit of sciencefictiony werewolves and vampires.

This is a little bit of a lot of things I like, without being a particularly great version of any of them. Our view point character is trapped in a house without Internet access and ignorant of both vampire and werewolf culture for the majority of the book. The hero is great, it's obvious why she loves him. But his attraction to her seems 99% biological and 1% she's nice to a relative.

I didn't like the heroine all that much because she seemed depressed and (rightfully) bitter and had only one interest in life.

Relax. Just do it.

This is a permission slip to be creative, to make that creativity your whole personality, but avoid making it your whole life.

Elizabeth Gilbert's spiritual but not religious conceptualization of idea spirits and anthropomorphic relationship with writing leaves me cold, as an atheist, but her message that you should be serious about creativity as a practice, but not let it make you miserable, not depend on it as a career until after it's made you a lot of money, and without getting overly attached to any specific creative outcome or object are really healthy messages I think we can use more of.

Intriguing book about self determination

In a lot of ways, this book feels like an extended exercise on getting the whole team on the same page. All of our characters face intense dissatisfaction with their roles in life, and have reached the breaking point where they're going to do something about it.

I enjoyed discovering the world, but it felt like the discovery of the Problem and the ¿villains? antagonists took too long.

I'll definitely keep an eye out for the sequel, but the ending didn't quite land for me

Read this book because the author's TikTok started coming up in my feed.

Very hard read, child sexual assault, rape, a near miss on domestic violence, institutional abuse.

Felt a little bit like three books jammed together: a very good memoir about bring in and escaping the Children of God, a mediocre memoir about her time in the army (this one feels like it suffers from both how much she can't tell us about her deployment, which are the periods of grossest institutional failure, and perhaps not being as fully digested as her time in CoG), and a book about how the Army is structured similarly to a cult, and that one feels the least cooked through. There is a clear discussion of indoctrination during training, but as she moves to her employment, the frame of cult seems less relevant than misogyny and bureaucracy.

I listened to the audiobook and I have very mixed feelings. This was read by the author, and she's not a great audiobook narrator. The narration felt stiff and she didn't do much with dialogue at all. However, hearing her recount the story of her own assaults and thoughts of suicide did give me the sense that I more deeply understood the emotional arc of those experiences than I might have with a professional audiobook reader.

A good afternoon on a rainy day

Queer young witches (and their ghost friend) solve murders while struggling with their relationships. Mallory's fibromyalgia is quite painful but doesn't actually stop her from investigating at any point, which seems unrealistic. Theodore (the ghost friend) is a sassy gay best friend in a way which seems a bit odd compared to his original introduction.

I'll probably look out for the sequel but I can't imagine rereading this book

I liked that the problem was predictable but I didn't particularly foresee the solution.

I liked the characters, and I liked the authors choice that even though the council is theoretically a group of twelve, she focused on four of them for us. That felt much more manageable.

I'm a Unitarian Universalist, so I'm open to the wisdom of other religious traditions.

The wisdom I saw in this book was a focus on community, history, joy, and repetition, to build up a life. I'll be sitting on and thinking about this one for a while.

It felt like every sex scene had story work to do, which I appreciated. I also appreciated the Caleb and Mars stories that the book closed on, because I love people talking about their relationship and working out what they need and want from one another

Okay, but probably not a reread

Too many sex scenes and the villainous ex took up too much time. I wish there had been more about turtles.

Serves as a good introduction to high control groups and a decent set of answers for at least some of why people are invested in an obvious crook.

Too sexy for me

Fun little catch ups, proportion of sex scenes to other kinds of scenes felt a little off balance, with too many sex scenes. I still liked it overall.

Great romance

I loved that each of the three guys was distinctly drawn and that you could tell very clearly why each man was drawn to Rachel and what she saw in them. The Caleb/Jacob relation felt more like something already in place than something developing, so it was ok with me that there was a little less clarity about what they love about each other. At this point, it's shared history. (The Toronto game was really great for that.)

The way they choose to handle coming out as a polycule is great and I loved to see it.

Too much of the plot depends on people flat out refusing to give October vital information, which makes the story feel needlessly frustrating.

However, the relationship work between October and everyone who makes it to the antepenultimate chapter is top notch. Don't think I'll ever reread, but I'm happy to have read.

I struggled to read this very short book because I didn't feel like I had the necessary context to understand why the Empress or her servant were important. It started very much like a series of colorful vignettes, rather than something with a solid plot, and I'm not a big fan of vignettes.

This book is decent, it's just not really my vibe.

Like the first book, this was a balm to the soul. We are introduced to more people, and they are caring and curious, as well. To the extent there are problems, it is internal, psychological dissatisfaction with the current state, which is resolved by discussing the issue and doing something to change one's own circumstances.

Love it.

This is very much the first half of a novel, rather than a complete novel in itself. The structure does make for a decent stopping place, but I am quite disappointed that I will have a several week wait at the library for the next part.

This book is a fine example of my favorite storytelling trope, of a group of disparate individuals bound together in an enterprise that cannot be adequately shared with other people.

While I am generally unhappy with despairing/depressed characters (even some of the Saint of Steel paladins are pushing it, and they have a very good reason), I really feel like Caliban deserves a lot of slack, what with being possessed, murdering people, being exorcised, and being locked up, presumably forever.

There was enough humor to keep it from being miserable, and the Learned Edmund learns to stop being such a pill before I really want to strangle him.

Looking quite forward to the next book.

Shane's self-loathing, while it took place for a reason, seemed disproportionate for most of the book.

Also, journeying is not my favorite way to structure a book, and too many of the Temple of the White Rat books involve the traveling as part of the plot. Boo! Hiss! Stay in a city!

This is something of a lesser entry in a book series I enjoy overall. I would never miss it if I'm reading through the whole series, but I probably wouldn't read it on its own.

Wren was delightful and I can't wait to read her book, and I'm quite intrigued by Judith and her position at the end of the book.

Not sure I would read this one again

The immediately presenting villain is not very good or interesting, just a psychopath with a hobby. Galen and Piper are both charming enough, but the romantic dithering felt a bit forced.

I very much liked the parts about gnole-human interaction and I would love to read a book set entirely in a gnole warren.

Farcical in a good way

This is a story of two faintly ridiculous people who are trying their best and fall in love. I chuckled through a lot of it. There was a little more pining than I like. The magic and religious system was quite intriguing.

fun time

Our love interests are two people with a lot if damage that leaves them convinced they are unloveable. They run into each other due and realize the other protagonist is wonderful and that they aren't unworthy of love. Nice humor and cast of side characters, with an interesting religious system. I enjoyed it.

More of the same, but a little different

We once again have exploration, physical extreme conditions, and a little interaction with local culture. There is less chasing dragons and more observing of them in captivity. I would, actually, have enjoyed a little more discussion of the scientific process.

I enjoyed this book very much, and greatly look forward to the next one.

This is a fun story written on multiple levels, playing with romantasy tropes. The meta involvement of the author with her characters is quite fun, the romantasy characters deflecting the outline by being more mature than the author expected was very good. It both have those characters a chance to demonstrate specific personality and commented on tropes that so often get deployed when you'd think that the characters had more pressing concerns.

On the other hand, the author's real life narrative felt a bit thin; all of the characters on that level felt like NPCs, even the Hot Editor, and we got a couple of scenes from his POV.

I rated it 5 stars because I would happily reread, but it does feel like there's maybe another 30 pages of character development that mistakenly wound up edited out.

I'm not sure this book was informative. One sign of high control groups is highly specific vocabulary and thought terminating cliches. Some sorts of identity/affiliation groups use insider vocabulary to put people in vulnerable states of mind.

I found it a little frustrating to have the sections separated by types of group, rather than by language practice. And it didn't seem to give people very good tools to protect themselves from high control groups, except to try to have more than one group

This was a very satisfying ending to this trilogy. The scene setting at the beginning takes up about half the book, which seems a bit odd from a pacing perspective. The reintroduction of many characters and the reorientation to the state of Valdemar is not unpleasant, but there came a point where I wondered why this story was being told now.

Very much enjoyed the human origin of Sunsinger and Shadowdancer, as well as the idea that the plea for the Companions was much more a cri de cœur than a carefully considered spell near the end of Valdemar's life.

One thing I continue to enjoy in Lackey's writing is the flaws in her heroes. Kordas' anxiety was #relatable.

I'm definitely glad I read it, and may want to reread the whole trilogy on a year or two.

Same travelogue, scientific discovery, girl boss vibes, same good times. I'm enjoying our protagonist's increasing emotional intelligence, especially her ability to appreciate her son as a separate person with his own interests.

Disappointed Suhail was not husband #2.