sofia

started this thinking it would be a fun romp that i would fly through quickly, only to be severely disappointed. the premise had potential and the looming three-way relationship was alluring, so i forgave the clunky worldbuilding and the supbar writing; but the dull action sequences, the flat unremarkable characters with no growth whatsoever and the uninteresting dynamics between them ran my patience dry by the time it was too late for me to not finish. i get the feeling the author had a bunch of good ideas and failed to incorporate them neatly and make them compelling. just a whole lot of telling and not nearly enough showing. also! eyeroll-worthy disney-caliber villains, how wonderful.

my will to believe and stubbornness had me painfully trudging in the last third of the book and i just wish i had given up because it was all so pointless! i'm being mean yet i don't care!! i'm upset that i wasted my time.

 good to start the year with a 5 star!

n. k. jemisin is a genius, actually. the sheer amount of effort and craftsmanship is something to behold, but the emotionally gripping and meaningful story she was able to weave in this, oof.

even if it was challenging to understand everything in initially, sometimes all i wanted was to binge it but i'm kinda glad it took me some time to finish, as it allowed me to savour it more. and, well, i did plenty! i feel like i could go on about what happens in each chapter; there's no filler, no fluff, everything seems to have a purpose.
this book had my mind stirring and the brain juice flowing, i don't remember having so many theories on a single piece of media, i really really loved it. 
one of the theories i had when i was about a third or a quarter of the way into the book was that they were the same person and i was right about that! i'm proud of myself for getting the hint from the author!! one of the things i also love about this is that the twist, whether is shocking or not to some readers, makes the journey and also jemisin's writing abilities so much more admirable. These “3” characters were so distinguishable from one another and they're not even different people! masterful

brutal, blunt, and so dark, and i will need a short break with lighter reads, but STILL (lmao) so amazing.
already ordered the rest of the trilogy, because i need more of this world 

my first “pure” 5-stars in a while. What a great story. I mean yeah it's re-imagining Greek mythology but when you do it this movingly, deliciously and respectfully i don't even think about the original ones. Circe, as a book and also as the character, will stay with me. I was afraid it would not live up to The Song of Achilles (which i read like 8 years ago) but at this point in my life I believe Circe means more to me. So that's another home-run from Madeline Miller. The writing is as beautiful as i remember and for the first time in my life i wanted to tab a book! AND MAYBE I WILL!!! The power of Circe!

Let's start with the good things: the characters were pretty well developed and had believable goals and aspirations, PERSONALITIES! The main character Poppy was charming (although a bit annoying at times) and the love interest was endearing. They also had justified fears and anxieties, which helped with the fleshing out. The chemistry is there right from the start imo, i really liked how the author wrote their first scenes together upon meeting, and the dialogue was actually funny? The banter? Groundbreaking! 
The writing is better than I anticipated! i feel bad for saying that because this was my first time reading Emily Henry and she deserved higher expectations. It all flowed really well and it was actually engaging and fun; easy to read and to follow.

I also liked that there was an underlying angst since the beginning, it added that sweet sweet tension that i usually like in romance stories, but it was a double-edged sword as i will explain next


it's a risk when you're building tension for hundreds of pages and you're suggesting there's gonna be a climax, because there's a need to have a great payoff. I won't say it was anti-climatic in this book, but i was expecting a little more. Besides that, i had to resist skim reading a few times because the pacing got a bit odd with all the back and forth in the story. This was my biggest gripe.
Other than that, i guess the usual stuff in romcom that i feel dismissive about: rushed 3rd act, one too many mentions of the size of the characters and whatnot, miscommunication that feels easy to avoid and... as much as i liked the characters.. they were still basic and  I'm tired of the too popular dynamic of the lively and bubbly woman with the serious and grounded man

Overall i really enjoyed it and i will be reading more Emily Henry in the future

So necessary and so important. Couldn't go through this quickly because it was so hard and painful to read about these atrocities, and i'm just reading about them! Imagine the people who went through it. It's truly astounding how the Zionist narrative we see on most of the news has been carefully thought out and manipulated for decades and decades.
The amount of information gathered here sourced accordingly, the carefulness and thoughtfulness and courage of the author, the impartiality of the writing whilst at the same time having such a consideration and empathy for the Palestinian people, it all leads to me feeling in such limitless admiration.

The part about the olive trees still being able to grow even after destruction and splitting the planted pine trees' branches was so powerful, I keep thinking about that.