Asta
Never read/listened to anything by Hazelwood before, and based on this I won't in the future either. The MC is so childish I want to cringe every five minutes and the scenes are way too prolonged with side notes.
Went from 4 stars to 2 then back up to 3.
Unfortunately the time between 4 and 3 stars was very long and boring, making me almost DNF the whole thing. I feel like the author made the plot more complicated than it needed to be, added way too many moving parts and topped it all off with unbelievable “luck” that prevented the MC from being either caught or killed.
It's a shame cause I did really like the beginning.
I'm amazed by how Hobb manages to keep me so in thrall while very little actually happens. Her description of the cultures, lore and nature of a new region is fascinating and the characters in it as fascinating as ever. They're all fully formed humans, even the dragons. I can't wait to read what happens next.
Vau, tää oli upea! Teksti ja kuvitus kulkivat käsi kädessä, toisiaan tukien. Välillä teksti kertoi jotain, mitä kuvitus ei, välillä toisin päin.
Stälenhag onnistui luomaan kiehtovan maailman novellin verran tekstiä sisältävässä tarinassa, ja huomasin uppotuneeni täysin sen salaisuuksiin.
A super lovely cozy read, perfect for autumn! I enjoyed reading about the buildup of a new enterprise and how Baldree built the background of a coffee shop in a fantasy setting, it felt plausible, and who else in a fantasy world would come up with an espresso machine than the dwarves?!
This would've been a five star read if it hadn't been for the romance that felt quite forced. I'd enjoyed the story more if everything had been the same, just with friends being friends. There's no need to insert romantic elements into a thing that works just fine without it!
Best crime book I've listened to for a long while! The suspense was built well and the story kept me wondering about the guilt of all the offered suspects until it was made clear what was going on. I liked the characters and felt their stories to be believable. Only downside was that the ending was dragged a bit too much and the only reason I didn't give five stars that I wasn't quite pulled in so I had no difficulty having days between listening.
Listened about half, couldn't get over how everything was in Elio's head and nothing much actually happened. Which is good cause the age difference is bordering on pedophilia.
Boring. Maybe partly because I accidentally read a spoiler in a review when I was checking to see if this was worth a listen, I hope the person who did that always feels uncomfortably warm when they try to sleep.
Definitely recognizable as an Alexis Hall -story, just less polished than their current work! That being said I didn't really enjoy this one, the pairing didn't feel genuine and felt like they were just too different to be realistically a couple for the long run.
Also, the choice of narrator was very off-putting. He sounded like he was a lot older that the characters are meant to be, and his female voices were killing me.
Bonus:
I spent the whole book thinking Niall's name was Nile, made a mental connection to Miles in the London Calling universe and kept wondering if there's a Biles that once broke Hall's heart. I'm a bit sad that I now have to let go of that short-lived mental image.
Read aloud with my partner. You never truly realise how complicated words an author uses until you have to say them out loud! Even my British native partner had a hard time with some of the ones used in this.
Huh, I remembered not liking this one as much as the others. Turns out either past me was wrong or my memory was.
Flat characters, massive plot holes and contradictions. And for some reason the only death described is that of a dog?
I believe there would've been potential for better, as the idea is really interesting, but it feels like the author focused more on building a timeline than giving the characters any depth or creating consistency.
The movie, in this case, works better and takes less time off your life!
If you, like me, are thinking of reading this because you expect the story to be more thriller than horror, then know that I was looking over my shoulder and scared until I was about into 60% the book. I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to ghost stories!
There were a lot of twists and turns at the last 40%, so much so that it felt a little too much to be plausible even though I enjoyed the reading experience.
That said, I think I'll rather take my crime stories without the added supernatural elements thankyouverymuch.
PS. The name has nothing to do with anything. That's annoying.
Was a steady 3- stars throughout, but the ending dropped it to 2. There's a good way to have an open ending, and then there's this.
The mystery was the best part, with many suspects and a not too obvious but still logical solution. Some of the characters were used to further the plot and then never seen again, which felt clumsy. I think this could make a good tv-series, but there probably already is one with the same or at least a very similar plot.
I picked up the book to listen to because of the interesting premise, but I did not like the way the author mixed storytelling with facts and how she regurgitated the detective's opinions about women and other things that were usual for his time but did not need to be repeated as fact in the 20th century.