Ethan Poole

A fun, enjoyable read. It has the contours of “The Snow Queen”. I have the Kickstarter edition, which is an absolutely beautiful volume.

Decent end to the trilogy.

Too much happening for a novella, and serious middle-book syndrome. Still, I like the world-building and the protagonist.

Fun, funny, and satirical.

Three books linked thematically (companionship, identity, family, happiness) plus some shared motifs (mostly character and place names), but otherwise quite different in genre and structure. I really enjoyed the third book, a dystopian novel set in NY after a series of devastating pandemics. I like Yanagihara's prose; something about it holds my attention very well.

Beautiful, lyrical prose. Fascinating structure: story-within-story-within story (which comes together in the end), use of all persons (i.e. first, second, third), and stage-like asides for minor and major characters alike. Very interesting world (e.g. psychic turtles!). Compelling characters. The atmosphere is part epic folk tale, part dream. Somehow also a love story.

I listened to the audiobook. The narrator was great and gave the story so much life, but I found myself having to rewind periodically, especially in the beginning while I acclimated to the POV switching. In hindsight, I would have preferred reading it.

This book very nicely concludes the Earthsea story, and for that, I appreciated it. Overall, Earthsea is a timeless story.

Fun read, though it was very slow in the beginning.

Kinda boring. Nothing at all like the previous three books in the series (which I recommend!).

Its themes and setting remind me of Lilith's Brood (surviving, control and freedom, prejudice, humans and aliens interbreeding, what it means to be human). The latter is much better, both in terms of writing and plot, so I can see why Butler didn't want this book reprinted. (On that note, it was rather hard to obtain a copy of Survivor; I ended up checking it out from a university library, lol.) I don't think the book stands well on its own, but anyone who enjoyed the other Patternist books and Butler's work more generally will find Survivor interesting and worth reading.

Definitely a slow-burn.

The plot picked up in the second book.

Very fun heist story with great characters! I have mixed feelings about the world building, but overall it's good.

A great short story collection, especially for Vonnegut fans. My favorites: “Welcome to the monkey house”, “More stately mansions”, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect”, “The euphio question”, “The manned missiles”, and “Epicac”.

A great trilogy!

It took me about 30% for the plot to pick up, but I enjoyed it after that. I was somewhat annoyed that the author uses lots of Spanish words for plants and animals to set the atmosphere, but then has people “speak Mayan”, instead of naming actual Mayan languages...

Cute read. The illustrations are worth getting a physical copy.

The “mystery” aspect really kept me engaged. Interesting themes around mental illness. The colony and their way of life was interesting. I didn't care for the ending.

3.5 rounded up to 4. Much better than the first book both in terms of plot and writing style (i.e. it was easier to follow along). I liked the character of Duiker in particular. The book could have been much shorter though; the plot did not justify 800+ pages. The prose is (still) turgid.

Entertaining enough.

Fun, funny, and very meta.

Entertaining, though it took awhile for me to get into the story at all.

Cute and fun story.

A really great start to the trilogy! McClellan has cleared honed his writing craft as well.

I saw this all over BookTok, but I picked it up because of Sword & Laser. It is super trope-heavy (e.g. magical school, nerdy protagonist, love triangle, bonded dragons), but I was instantly sucked into the plot and had trouble putting it down. It's not a literary masterpiece, but it's very entertaining.