Misha

Oh, If We Were Villains, thou hadst such boundless promise, yet alas, hast faltered, and now I cannot deem thee more than a tome bound in the chains of mediocrity's curse.

While I've always been quite critical of The Secret History regardless of how much I adore it, the genre it spawned is very much something I enjoy. I've known about If We Were Villains for a long time but held off until now. The reason being a class on Shakespeare that I've decided to undertake this semester. I thought it'd be fun to read this while weekly dissecting Shakespeare's plays. I was wrong.

If We Were Villains lacks character beyond the utter preposterousness of the principal characters. Shakespeare indeed is very cool but you don't need to quote him on every page during normal conversation.

The issue that I fear absolutely ruined the book for me was the lack of character for the Dellecher Shakespeare conservatory. It never felt like a real place with real people. The Secret History pushed my suspension of disbelief far with a class of students who study Greek and nothing else but to dedicate an entire course to Shakespeare and by the fourth year you're still on Julius Caesar is hilarious. Where are the lesser known plays? Do they really never do anything but study their lines and act? Why are all the plays portrayed as the most boring productions possible with nothing original? Less than a week ago I went to see a beautiful production of The Merchant of Venice that portrayed Antonio and many of the Christian characters as members of the Italian mob. That's what I'd expect them to be doing in their fourth year.

As many others pointed out the twist is predictable and taken right out of The Secret History but stripped of any semblance of making sense. The ending was poor.

First book of 2022 and with Dark Rise, this is a damn good start to this year's book journey.
I've been eyeing All Systems Red for a while but it's always been a little too expensive and I do hate not buying entire series of books especially when it's a novella.
My gut feeling that I'll like Murderbot were damn right! The book has heart and just the kind of humor I enjoy. The ending was fantastic too which I was a bit worried about.
I do think the novella format hurts the book just a tiny bit. It could be at least some 40 pages longer as the conclusion of the main story is pretty short.

I can't wait to read more of Murderbot:D

My first DNF.

What an utter disappointment this book's been. I cannot for the love of me understand how could anyone compare this to Lord of the Rings. The Priory of the Orange Tree just vomits names and characters and POVs at the you and expects you to remember everything. There is no main character, there are dozen and a half plot-lines without any distinction as what is important and what's secondary.

Labeling chapters as a cardinal direction was the stupidest choice I've ever seen. The approach of “Chapter 1” or named chapters is fine. A Song of Ice and Fire's approach of naming chapters after the POV character would be fantastic here as the sheer amount of characters you go through is staggering at times.

I've had easier time reading DUNE, the Silmarillion, or any literary classic. Joyce's Ulysses would probably keep me entertained better than this. Not that I hate it but it's presented terribly. The writing is weird, the characters are not memorable what so ever besides a few of them but by virtue of the multiple scattered POVs it's impossible to root for any of them (Except Sulyard who is killed "off-screen" WHAT THE HELL?

I've gone through some 400 pages of this and I can't stomach another 400. Nope! I'm sorry but not only this is nowhere near Lord of the Rings, this is plain sub-par run of the mill fantasy.

Confession time: I do not read blurbs or whatever they put on the back cover. So Spindle Splintered surprised me as I had absolutely no freaking idea that the main character would be transported into the fairytale!

Honestly, this was just a fun short read. It never overstayed its welcome, whatever would annoy me was always quickly resolved, Joanne was semi-called out for her bigotry, and the princess was just the best. The only strange thing was the weird hatred to Pfizer which rubbed me the wrong way given our reliance on their vaccine. That might be because I am not American and the most I've paid for healthcare has been $10 for parking. Still, it was pretty strange.

Ending was great too! Can't wait for Mirror Mended and just MORE Fractured Fables.

Gild was quite a ride and I was stranded, left without a saddle. While the description on Amazon does include a trigger warning for the monstrous things that are present in this story, the book (Kindle Edition) does not. I was unfortunate enough to not have seen the trigger warning when buying the book as it's hidden at the very end of the blur. Whoops!

For what it's worth Gild treats the subject matter well. It is not glamorizing sexual assault, it's very clearly written from a perspective of someone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The descriptors use could be less vulgar but that's more of a personal preference.

The problem of Gild is that it is an amazing story that has been butchered, cut apart, and strung up to look like erotica. All the fantasy aspects are for all intents and purposes useless. Removing all of the ‘spicy' elements would change nothing.

“The myth of King Midas reimagined.”

everything

Gild