chanda

this def scratched my classic fantasy itch, but most of the time moved very slowly. i disliked nynaeve and mat (especially mat, ugh - that whole dagger business warranted many an eye roll from me), and didn't really understand the negativity towards aes sedai. it's probably one of those things that will be fleshed out as the series goes on haha. i just found that there were too many instances where characters would go “there is absolutely NO WAY terrible x things could happen!” and then a few pages later, a terrible x thing would happen. got old pretty quickly lol.

i likely will continue reading because i've heard it gets better, with a needed a break between books.

i think this may have been my first audiobook ever - and what an experience! this audiobook was recommended as a must-listen for any fantasy fans, and steven pacey did an incredible job.

the characters are really interesting, and none of them are “good”, but they are all human and therefore nuanced. there are no two-dimensional characters here (at least among the main cast), and i loved it.

this book was trying very hard to be funny and it just...wasn't. the writing didn't flow very well for me, especially during battle. lots of characters are introduced constantly (even towards the end!) and i didn't particularly like anyone. the gods in were confusing and weren't really covered enough for me to care about them.

i like the idea of subverting a trope, but Aaslo might as well be the chosen one with the way he attracts strays. a big deal is made about how everyone loves Mathias but he is only ever insufferable and annoying, meanwhile people are just SO DRAWN to Aaslo and his being a forester. foresters might as well be a group of heroes with how they're treated in this world.

a bit slow at times, and written in a way that can be hard to connect with, but i still found myself getting attached to fitz and the world. i didn't really understand fitz's negative feelings towards Burrich as it seemed like Burrich was more of a father figure than Chade.

the galen days were pretty awful and i didn't understand how fitz could've just kept going lol, but i guess that was the point (galen was manipulating fitz without him realizing).

enjoyed it enough to actually immediately purchase 2 out of 3 of the collector's illustrated editions :)

nosy ❤️

can't wait to see where things go!

this trilogy was so good. i loved that each one focused on a particular character (stairs: shara, blades: mulaghesh, miracles: sigrud), and the ending had me teary eyed. poor taty, poor ivanya.

i borrowed this books from the library, but i enjoyed them enough to want to buy them for my personal shelf. this is a rarity.

roanhorse's writing was great in this! fast paced and easy to read, it was always exciting to see what was going to happen next.

maggie is a hard character to love; she's very abrasive and damaged due to tragedy. kai is her foil, and is easy to like.

i didn't understand coyote‘s motives in the end... he did all those horrible things so maggie could become a weapon. but why? just...for fun?

i also had a hard time following along with the hoops and the fire drill. i didn't really understand what they did until they were being used lol.

more development with neizghani and maggie would've been super appreciated, so that we could better understand her feelings towards him, and also neizghani as a character. the scenes where they're finally reunited and when neizghani is ultimately betrayed would feel more important if i cared more about both parties.

will def pick up the next book!

this was a sweet love story, and i really enjoyed watching hun-kamé change, however i have a hard time with moreno-garcia's writing. it feels too simple, in a way which makes me feel detached from the characters and their dialogue, and not as absorbed in the world. i had this issue with mexican gothic as well - it may just be that her writing does not agree with me.

pretty entertaining and easy to read, for a classic! i really wish we got to see more of those corrupt years, but oh well.

an enjoyable experience, but it felt kind of shallow. i wish bardugo delved more into the powers of the grisha, and what the heck alina's power could do (other than.......be light haha) and what it felt like. i quite liked alina (way more interesting than fayre lmao) but i would've loved to dig more into the world itself.

really curious to see where it goes! well....since i read the six of crows duology, i kinda know where it goes, but still haha.

this was okay! i didn't find the story super spooky, although a lot of the graphical horror was pretty cool. i wanted to be pulled in by the narrative, but found the breaks in between chapters really jarring, where the previous chapter might end with something really gruesome, but the following chapter didn't really......deal with the fall out of what happened, and i found that disappointing.

this reaaally wasn't for me.

fayre was pretty unlikable and i didn't understand how anybody wanted to be around her, never mind fall in love with her lol. same goes for her awful family. the story telling felt so lacking in passion coming from her first person perspective. everyone else who spoke was kind of interesting, but fayre had zero personality.

the romance felt pretty meh. in the end, tamlin's “love” for fayre has ulterior motives because...her love will break his court's curse?? i THOUGHT it was pretty nonsensical how they were treating the murderer of one of his friends lol. fayre is also horny as hell. for someone who hated faeries so much in the beginning, she really could NOT get over tamlin's perpetually rippling muscles. the girl practically orgasmed from tamlin kissing her hands.

i loved this collection comprised of short stories from places all over the cosmere. i started this 9 months ago and kept it on the side, waiting until i got to stormlight archive book #3, before i read it to completion. there are a couple of stories which would spoil the plot for other cosmere books, but they're clearly labeled beforehand.

my fav stories were definitely “the emperor's soul” and “shadows for silence in the forests of hell” - that second one, what a name! they were so different from existing cosmere books, and i hope we can see more of them someday.

i also really enjoyed getting behind the scene notes from brando sando himself giving context for having written a particular story, and any future plans for said stories.

this is truly a must have for any cosmere fan.

and so begins my foray into what many in the book community have referred to as... the ultimate epic fantasy masterpiece, unrivaled in scope.

this first book was...not very good lol. erikson doesn't trouble himself with trifling norms such “character development” or “world building”, at least not this early on in the series. some folks have referred to these basic writing features as “hand holding” but to me, it's simply good story telling, and it's very lacking here.

i didn't feel attached to any of the characters. the book insisted that some characters went through development that is completely absent from the text. for example, what the hell happened to Paran from the prologue and how does he become such a gritty lieutenant in the first chapter, despite having come from a noble family? this bugged me so much lol, i really didn't like how we were just expected to take at face value that he's this hardened military man now, who for some reason can handle seeing horrifying scenes of carnage without batting an eye, unlike his superiors. maybe we'll find out in later books? who knows

lesbian necromancers in spaa~ace!

i really wanted to love this book but had no idea what was happening much of the time. i think my experience was hampered by reading it in ebook form - i couldn't easily flip back to reference the cast list....so i such a hard time keeping track of character names and houses. the way characters would refer to each other fluctuated wildly between first names, last names, house names, nicknames - it was so confusing!

gideon was hilarious and there were a few moments were i guffawed aloud at the book. the writing had a tendency to go from super descriptive and dense to suddenly slangy and colloquial lol, in a way that sometimes gave me whiplash.

i'm glad i finished the book but given that i've heard the second book is even more confusing, i'm going to stop here. maybe i'll come back some day, when the trilogy has finished - and then i'll reread this book again to see if i can make better sense of it.

i read this for the @shelfspacebookclub january read - my first one of their book picks! it's hosted by @jessiemaebooks & @bookswithv, who i both sub to on booktube (you should too ❤️)! i had no idea what to expect, but i really enjoyed it. the beginning felt a bit difficult to get into, with so much being unknown and bennett not frontloading the history behind the continent, its divines, or saypur, but after eventually getting over those first few chapters, i found i quite liked the way he unravels their stories.

the characters were enjoyable - i loved sigrud and he and shara were an interesting dynamic. mulaghesh was hilarious (my favorite scene included her + sigrud) and vo was quite the intriguing tragic character.

the ending felt very satisfying, and i look forward to finishing the trilogy - not to mention checking out bennett's other books. i've also heard many good things about foundryside

exceeded my expectations! was better than WOK, which isn't surprising since the first book was pretty much laying down all the ground work.

there were a bunch of moments that were so unexpected and shocking that i needed to spend like a minute just fangirling before being able to continue on. shallan really comes into her own in this book - she easily becomes the most fascinating character.

oathbringer here i come!!!

the bar is pretty high with Brando Sando but i actually feel like this may be my favorite book in the Cosmere! it's a standalone so is a very nice neat package, devoid of the fluff that might justify turning what could just be 1 book into a series of two or three books.

i loved the characters - siri immediately, vivenna eventually, susebron, vasher, denth, lightsong, llarimar - all so interesting! i didn't see the twist coming (i never do with sando

i wanted to love this book due to the super intriguing premise, but could not find myself drawn into the world. i did not find juliette a likable character, i didn't like how rosalind faded into the background (but understand that this was already a chonky book so some things needed to be cut), how useless all the “adults” around juliette/roma were, how it seemed like this was one of those YA books that makes its hard ass edge lord young protags young in age only, when really they should probably at the very least be in their early 20s or something. you know. the kind of trope you normally find in content geared towards a younger crowd, because why would you want to read these books if these kids actually acted their age.

i had a hard time following what was going on with the factions in the city, and it really bugged me (lol) that there...wasn't really an explanation for how qi ren became the monster? like...how did that even happen?? for all of the political gang related shenanigans going on the city, this unexplained scifi element seemed kind of lazily shoehorned in, when i was hoping for some kind of explanation.

or maybe it's just me, and i finished the book late and am writing this review late, and the explanation went right over my head lol.

all that said, i'm probably going to pick up the sequel.

loved it!! enjoyed the new scenery, new (and old) characters, new connections. i was a bit bummed about how in the end marasi was like “nah this isn't me, i'm not cool, lemme give this power to wax” but ehh i guess it matches her character. and the dude was dead lol so probably the sooner the better.

super duper curious about what the “epic finale” is going to be!! funny how i much preferred mistborn era 2 to era 1. goes to show there's no real substitution for reading something yourself!

i was really looking forward to this book because i'd only recently finished Schwab's Shades of Magic trilogy, which i adored and found was...very different from Addie Larue. there was a lot of action and distinct characters and witty, oftentimes laugh out loud banter and there was...none of that in this one. very different tones. her writing is as beautiful as ever, but i can't help but feel like lengthy exposition and wistful internal monologuing can only engage a reader so much.

i finally got into the book around page 330 i think. it took far too long. and then it was over.

the first few chapters got me to decide to return to working full time. lol. it lost steam about halfway through for me though.

also, poor thomas lmao. closing your book with an image of this guy sobbing on the ground. imagine being that guy and reading this book? oh well, maybe he's not bothered by it since he's so successful now.

the new characters are delightful! still many laugh out loud moments, although the important bits with edward went right over my head haha. i was touched by the unlikely racial friendship as well - that was very sweet. the ending was wrapped up very nicely. carrot is still my fav! ❤️

THAT ENDING!!

how is Sanderson still surprising me?? lmao. in retrospect i should've had a hunch that Bleeder was Lessie!

there's less “screen time” with Wax, Wayne and Marasi this time around, but i still liked getting to know MeLaan (who was very funny), Marasi's colleagues, and also Steris. it's refreshing that Steris hasn't been cast aside in some kind of Wax-Marasi-Steris love triangle; instead, Wax and Marasi are actually being proper, responsible adults and staying out of anything romantic.

i liked the cameo from TenSoon as well! it felt rewarding to have read the entire first trilogy haha.

the ending was so bittersweet. i love the picture of Steris doing her best to comfort her betrothed. poor Wax. :(

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE NEXT (and final) BOOK?!

this trilogy has made me a HUGE fan of Schwab's for sure! i loved what felt like the first half of the book, but towards the end some character decisions didn't really make sense...? why did Maxim essentially sacrifice himself when he knew 3 Antari were working on it? and then WHY did Rhy deliver himself to Osaron lol???

i also wish more was done with Alucard as he became a quick favorite of mine after the second book. his name is still ridiculous but he is delightful.

Lila is as badass and whip-smart as ever and i love the reveal of her as Antari. i just went back and read my review of the first book in the series and i absolutely appreciate Lila's closure with the clothing merchant and Barron and saying goodbye to Alucard. it's a bit of a shame that she had the least happening to her in this book, but i guess it was time for other characters to be fleshed out

Fun! Call me crazy but I found myself actually liking this more than the first book in the original trilogy