Giu

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

The Book of Blood
3.5 ⭐

The Midnight Meat Train
3.5 ⭐

The Yattering and Jack
4 ⭐

Pig Blood Blues
2.5 ⭐

Sex, Death and Starshine
2.5 ⭐

In the Hills, the Cities
4 ⭐

Precise rating: 2.5 ⭐

I'm so disappointed! The writing was beautiful as expected, but the story – though an exciting premise – felt really flat and shallow. I couldn't connect to the characters and the pacing felt weird. Thematically, I was reminded of Call Me by Your Name a few times, but without the same impact that book had had on me.

Precise rating: 2.5 ⭐

I liked it until the protagonist left the house. The rest was a slog to get through with a few moments where I thought it gets interesting again – only to end with an absolutely underwhelming final.

Precise rating: 2.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 4.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 4.5⭐

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

I think this one would've deserved 4 stars as a short story. It's not bad, but not great either.

I am less interested in this topic than I thought

Precise rating: 2.5 ⭐

Great, but omg I can't deal with all those songs and poems

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 2.5 ⭐

A mediocre ending to a mediocre series

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

During the second half I asked myself constantly how there could still be so many pages left. But it was never boring. Oh, and Freud would have had a lot of fun analysing the countless sex scenes. I thought some of them were unnecessary (and unnecessarily disgusting).

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 4.5 ⭐️

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 2.5 ⭐

Precise rating: 4.5 ⭐

Rowling could write thousands of pages about the characters from the Harry Potter books and I would buy that book without hesitation.

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

As an audiobook it was very entertaining. I can imagine it to be a bit slow at times had I read it myself. The ending was very King-esque: kinda random and anticlimactic.

I felt like the story lost a lot of weight due to the fact that people were basically in a trance when doing the pranks for Gaunt. It wasn't really about how far people would go to fulfil their hearts' desire. Though the ending felt like exactly that was what King intended the story to be. And it just wasn't.

So instead of a deep story criticising consumerism or whatever – which it could've been – it was just a pulpy, entertaning novel. That's fine, I like that, but let's drop the pretence, I'd say. ^^

Rita Skeeter (especially in the audiobook) was undisputably the highlight and pushed this book up to four stars!