Misha

What a travesty the Aurora Cycle has been.

Rising - 2/5
Burning - 1/5
End - 2/5

I guess I can say the book matched the first one? That's positive in the least.

I don't know what the authors were thinking making this one a “time-travel” story. The tag line of “it's about time” is fantastic and made me interested but... mothercustard this one was also just not good and the one star extra is for Finian x Cat being adorable.

My reviews never contained spoilers but this one... oh yes, this one does because this book has made me genuinely angry with how wasted the potential was. It reminds me of a lot of M. Night movies that have an amazing premise but fail at everything else.

The Aurora Cycle and it's End is just that. It has some fun characters (Fininan, Magellan) and the story can be interesting at times... or I guess it could have but the way Kristoff and Kaufman took this is just stupid.

Aurora is terrible and good 80% (or even more) of her lines are either:
a) “Kal? Where is my SPACE ELF boyfriend? I miss Kal
b) I am the SAVIOR. I am the CHOSEN ONE.
c) Forgetful.
Did I say 80%? I meant 100%. They made the TITULAR character Bella from Twilight. Our elf Kal even had imprinted on her just like Jacob did to the monster CGI baby in whichever Twilight movie that travesty happened.

Kal is easily the worst character and has been since book 1 when I give it proper thought. His lines are all about Ben'shmai or ‘The Enemy Within' which sounds wince-worthy even when I try to imagine I'm thirteen. His fight scenes are lame.
Really, Kal should have died in Burning (book 2) to show the consequences of what can happen if Aurora fails her mission of defeating the plant-based villains.

Tyler, the Gary Stu of the group aka Goldenboy, is... OK. Except he starts a thing with a MASS MURDERER. Do we just forgive Saedii's self-admitted crimes? No: “I love you but you like... helped to kill billions of people. Sorry babe.” Jesus...

Finian and Scar are great this time around but I'm still salty that Finian, like ever character worth talking about, got a cishet relationship. Nope. You don't get a poly rep, an enby rep, nope. All you get is Mary Sue Zila being a lesbian with a character we've never heard of before. That's now how you do rep, you muffins.

The story is a mess. There are three points in time. Out of them one (the future) is entirely irrelevant and if you were to tear those pages out of the book (which I had wanted to do the 54th time Kal whined about his Ben'shmai being the bestest and strongest of women) nothing would change. The story would work anyway. Then the best one (the past) is fantastic but also easily skippable if you just don't care.
The one that does matter is the present with Gary Stu Tyler but that one is damn boring until the end.

Ah and the ending.

“The ending is paramount,” I always say.

And I do mean it. Even a mediocre series could be easily turned into a fantastic one by a good ending. Weirdly enough the start of Aurora's End was amazing and I had fun with it wanting to rate it 4/5 but everything else just dragged it down to a 1 or 2 out of 5.
The Ending was boring and predictable. Out of the main cast nobody felt any consequences for their utter stupidity. The ending even has them get money deposited in the past so they can be rich.

Did a rattlesnake write this?

Terrible series and a terrible end to it brought to a 2/5 by the virtue of it being readable (unlike Book 2).

Initially I clicked this as 2/5 naively thinking I could find something good.

Nope.

The blandest characters return in yet another installment of this travesty of a trilogy. Let's go over the characters, as the books does, knowing very well that it's near impossible to remember these blank slates (except Fin).

We have Tyler, a prominent member of the Sue-Stu family but not a ‘Gary Stu' just yet. He is the Alpha, the leader, the best at everything except when the story wants him to be stupid.

Scarlet, Tyler's twin sister, who is as obnoxious as in Aurora Rising. A passage about one of her dozens of ex boyfriends being “too much tongue” made me want to tear that page out of the book. YUCK!

Zila, the genius who would study college-level material at 6 years old returns and is as forgettable as her cursive-writter, flashback of a backstory.

Kal, now here we have a fantastic ‘Gary Stu' specimen. He is perfect, he is gorgeous, he is so powerful whole armies would fall to his wrath. One word: YAWN.

Auri... I've liked Aurora in the first book but here she is horrible as the writers wrote this horrible romance for her and Kal that just screams “wish-fullfilment”. They have no chemistry what-so-ever.

also they yet again omitted any sort of a m/m or f/f romance for the sake of more hetero romance, good job, clowns

Lastly, we get to Finian who is the best character in this whole damn book. He fall into the hetero fall of despair by having a crush of Scarlet, who given her extensive dating record which she seems to be weirdly proud of (it's not really that normal to have dated 30+ people by the time you're 18 or so) is not a good choice what so ever. At least Fin is the one very openly bi. Yay. Small victories.

Now, the story.

HA! There is a disjointed mess of bullshoot and even more bullshoot in the second half. The villains are caricatures so bad that Voldemort is more of a complex villain than them. Jesus... or should I say ‘mothercustard'?

The plot happens and then it's over with a stupid, boring, terrible cliffhanger at the end.

I'm getting mad just thinking about this travesty. 0/5!

First book of 2022 that's not 5/5 for me. I'm giving Lost in the Never Woods a 4/5 as it was just a fun and easy read but I do have things to complain about. Let me introduce you to a duo of problems. One is Eugene, who will not hurt, and the other is Dwayne whose gaze alone breaks my bones.

Eugene is this constant expository narration. So many times the book keeps retelling events from the past which are not exactly necessary. So many descriptions to a point of being annoying. I was so tempted to skimp.

Now Dwayne is the wasted potential of the book. Peter Pan is a weirdo and the world (and the characters) rightfully think him to be suspicious. Of course our protagonist Wendy does come around to trust him quite quickly but I wished for Peter to not be the fun, nice, happy guy. I wanted this story to go just a few steps further and make Peter Pan into a complex character. There is a part that humanizes him a little but it's extremely predictable and, well, it's not exactly resolved. It's revealed very close to the book's end.

It's sad how long the book is and how much of it is wasted. :(

Still 4/5!

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.

What is going on?! First three books in 2022 have so far all been 5/5s. I can't believe it.

And this is a graphic novel too; I don't like graphic novels that much and still Bloom was just sweet and nice and I loved it.

I don't read graphic novels/manga/comic books (at all, pretty much) so I can't really review as I normally would but Bloom's story was just a warm blanket to get through before bed. I want more!

Also, another cutie soft gay boy named Aristotle? YES

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

I'm not going to lie. I went into this expecting the peaks of Cerulean Sea and got some middling lows.

This one drags as a whole but character development for the protagonist are super fast. The ending is also pretty obvious and a crappy deus ex machina. There's tension but it lasts all of 3ish chapters.

Mei is the best character. Nelson is close second. Wallace and Hugo make me want to roll my eyes in utter disbelief.

This is not the happy tearjerker it seemed to be in the first few chapters. Easily this could have been 50 - 100 pages less.

It's a shame but I just did not connect with the book in the way the characters of Cerulean Sea endeared themselves to me.

I use GoodReads reviews as a public reading diary and usually I keep my reviews quite focus on the things that matter to me.

Not here.

I've come here to write about how average this book is and how the format of letters hurts it. I'm gonna get to that, of course, but first I must laugh at the popular negative reviews written by quite clearly Americans.

It might come as a surprise to the culture that thinks teenagers are mature enough to go and die invading foreign countries but not old enough to drink but teenagers date each other! Holy hell, the “age gap” debate is so stupid. It's a gap of three years. Jo is 15 and Kurl is 18. They're both in high school. Do you think teenagers are celibate until they mature? No! Teenagers are undergoing puberty. Most of them want to explore that.

Further, I see a lot of women commenting on the fact that this book has been written by a woman about a same-sex couple (not always that means both are gay, you should know that). It is beyond ironic how anyone can criticize a woman for writing about gay teenagers when they themselves are not male, gay, teenagers. As a member of the male species who has been in same-sex relationships, please be quiet.

This does however lead me to the homophobia of the sigh ‘butcherboys'. It served no point and was boring. Same as, really, most of the book it was just about nothing that important. The fate of Jo's mother and his familial troubles were great and I wish they were explored more but Kurl's side was done stupidly.

Honestly, the letter format needed to go and shift to a present tense of two POVs instead. Nobody writes letters with dialogue they had with the recipient of said letter. Like, what? That was dumb.

Jo was adorable. Kurl was okay.

I liked it because it's gay and I'm gay for all the gay things. Cheers

I didn't like it. Not because it was bad or anything. It's the complete disregard for how cool the “Who is Blue?” reveal could have been that ruins the book. The person it turns out to be is just so boring. They're cute and all but it could have been this cool twist but nah. The two just meet up and the books end after some completely pointless sweet nonsense.

I love teenage LGBT romances. This is by far the worst one I've read so far.

Bonus: Renaming a book to the film's title just left me speechless.

This is the type of a book I love coming into with exactly no expectations what so ever and Spellslinger delivered! I've loved the story from start to almost-finish. The cast of characters is great and fun. Kellen as a protagonist is perfect and his journey is also just fun to read.

The one thing I've not enjoyed was the final few pages before the epilogue. While the epilogue was fantastic, the prior chapter was a bit meh. Besides that however, I'm in love with this series.

I wish I had read this about fifteen years ago. Today this is an example of the American sense of superiority. It takes the mythos of the Greek pantheon and makes it all American. The seat of Olympus is in New York City of course! I never felt like the book had much respect for the mythos. All of it is just a ‘Greek gods but in America'. Dionysius is Mr. D. because he's hip with the kids.

I also disliked Hades being portrayed as evil. He is, according to the mythos, a keeper of the dead. The god of death is Thanatos! Hades is the Christian Devil here and that annoys me.

Percy's quest is also nonsense and filled with so much luck it's hard to like.

I loved the characters though. Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are fantastic.

I've listened to this on Audible. This was my very first audiobook and Scarlett Johansson's narration was amazing!

What to say about this timeless story? It's fantastic albeit there is something lost not knowing the time when it was written. Still a classic to be remembered for centuries to come.

There is nothing original I can say about Animal Farm. It is one of the classics and most haunting tales that still pertain to the world today alongside Orwell's 1984. It's a beautiful story.

One thing that I must mention is my utter disbelief at people who think this is a critique of socialism. This is a clear critique of the USSR and Stalin's regime that corrupted the idea of Karl Marx.

Amazing.

Wow.

There is a strange sub-genre of books that makes me feel the weirdest things I have trouble putting into words. L.I.F.E. fits into this category. I've never had what these character have. No American high school, friends galore, lockers, gym coaches, and all that jazz. I never fit in and not just because I'm queer. Funnily enough, I never even had anyone to come out too during my high school years. So to me books like L.I.F.E. are quite personal because they are something I very much regret never having. L.I.F.E. encapsulates perfectly those things in an absolutely amazing way.

But that's not the only reason why L.I.F.E. left me a crying mess. A few books reach that 5/5 rating for me because there is something I miss in them. And that something is present in abundance here. It's something I am unable to quite put into words for it tends to me little more than a feeling born deep within me when I'm reading. If it's there, I know I truly and genuinely love the book I'm reading. Took a few chapters and I was enamored filled with this fuzzy warm feeling until I finished the last chapter.

In the end, I can't rate L.I.F.E. anything but 5/5! How could I? I finished it in a day and almost in a single sitting if not for a delicious BBQ by the pool (thanks for asking).

I know this is Felyx Lawson's debut. If I hadn't known I'd think he has been writing for years. I cannot wait for L.I.F.E. Too. (No... I'm serious. I cannot wait; give sequel now!) I'm certain that either Felyx will be a NYT Best Selling Author in a few years or the world isn't fair. (Those are just straight gay facts!)

This is, easily, one of the best books I've ever read. It's warm, it's (mostly) happy, and I loved every bit of it. I can't really put so much of my thoughts into words here. It made me feel so much and I cried my eyes out at the end. I loved the rep (gay protagonist) but also the message and the ending. The protagonist, Linus, really is perfect. He's older than your typical protagonists, he's overweight, he's got a ‘meh' job, is openly gay, and possess a lot of dad energy. I love him dearly.

If I had to point something out that I disliked it'd be perhaps how quick a certain section in the story's final act was. I'd give it one more chapter... Honestly I'd read ten more books about the house in the cerulean sea.

I have never ever had such a visceral “what the hell was this?” reaction. Never. This wasn't bad. It was nothing. The chapters are short, descriptions are just not enough, dialogue is... it's there, I guess.
I don't get the praise for this. It's just bland. The idea, on paper, is fantastic but this is not what I'd call a good execution.

This would have been 5/5 if not for ‘They Both Die at the End' existing. It's great, it's awesome, the twist is fantastic albeit a bit predictable but it just doesn't reach the awesomeness that is Adam Silvera's second book.

I don't have anything bad to say about More Happy Than Not but I also don't have anything to say to the contrary. It was good, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't the type of good I'd like it to be.

The Leteo stuff is interesting and a fun sci-fi element. It was fun to read something that so greatly encapsulated the feelings I myself had: “I'd rather not be queer. Can you fix me, please?”

In the ‘Deluxe' edition there is a NEW ENDING which makes it difficult to review. They are very, very different. The original ending might have made this a 3/5 for me as I just found it... too much. On the other hands the new ending almost made it a 5/5! But your mileage may wary. I still would recommend getting the edition that does have this new ending even if you might not like it.

Read in one sitting! That's how freaking good this conclusion was.In my view, the ending is paramount. So many stories sour due to a bad ending. It is the worst thing that can happen to a good story besides it having no ending at all (looking at you George Martin). I was afraid to go into Ruin and Rising. The first book of the trilogy - [b:Shadow and Bone 10194157 Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1) Leigh Bardugo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1339533695l/10194157.SX50.jpg 15093325] - was a very safe 3/5 for me, the very definition of a fine/alright YA fantasy. [b:Siege and Storm 14061955 Siege and Storm (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #2) Leigh Bardugo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1362166252l/14061955.SX50.jpg 19699752] was an optimistic 3.5/5 rounded up to 4/5 because of Nikolai being amazing. Both had some serious issues that were seemingly predicting a weak ending.I was so pleasantly surprised that the ending surpassed all of my expectations. While I was able to predict some of the twists, it had so many surprises in store that left me sad to leave the story of Alina Starkov behind.Altogether this trilogy is fantastic and a must-read for all fantasy fans. Goodbye, Aleksander.

Contrary to what I'm seeing I enjoyed this much more than [b:Shadow and Bone 10194157 Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1) Leigh Bardugo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1339533695l/10194157.SX50.jpg 15093325]! It still falls into the nice box of a very nice albeit super typical YA fantasy except just a tad bit better all thanks to Nikolai! He is the best, he is fantastic. There were some things I didn't fully expect at the start and it was fantastic revisiting some of the locals of Shadow and Bone.The worst part is Mal which is about as an unpopular statement as love for bacon. The other problems are the “YA” part of the series. Alina is great but she's also such a typical “not like the other girls” protagonist that it hurts to read. The jealousy both Mal and her showcase is pretty childish. I was alright with it in Shadow and Bone as that was their introduction but here Alina is THE SUN SUMMONER and should know a bit better. Final problem is the lack of worldbuilding. The Grisha powers are still unexplained beyond a simple “lights, oh also there are mirrors” but it's fine, I don't really mind that.I really liked Siege and Storm! It's not quite 3 stars but not 4 either (half-stars please GR!) but thanks to Nikolai being awesome I'm giving it 4!

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I cannot express just how I was excited to receive an early version of this book. While I hated Bonds of Brass' ending and the twist there, I was excited and hopeful that Oaths of Legacy would take steps to remedy that.

And it did... partially.

I'd love to say the story grabbed that twist and twisted it further and created something amazing but it didn't. It did almost exactly what I predicted last year after finishing Bonds of Brass. But hey! That's fine. I don't mind predictable.

There are two things about Oaths of Legacy that I disliked. The first is feeble and weak while the other is a major gripe that made me stop reading for almost a month.

Nothing happens. The story just continue but from start to finish, very little happens. There's so much talking amongst seasoned military command making the stupidest choices imaginable. Gal is the prisoner and POV here yet he's just allowed to wander around. I get why narratively and if I try very hard my suspension of disbelief can pretend everybody drank Amnesia Water (TM) and forgot their years of training. Also the attempts at intrigue and “politics” fall flat. I much prefer the spectacularly written space battles. This has been the weaker negative.

What I truly hated about Oaths of Legacy was Wen. I liked Wen in Bonds of Brass. She was a fine, fun character. A strong woman with streetsmarts. You know how I mentioned this book is from Gal's POV? It should have been from Wen's! She goes through a wince-worthy character change to become THE FLAME KNIGHT completely ‘off-screen'. Everybody is just so impressed with her and she survives the most ludicrous situations. Even when the narrative is begging for her to make some sort of sacrifice for her utter stupidity, there are no consequences. This lead me to think of her as Wen Sue. If she were the POV for Oaths of Legacy, I think it'd get 4 stars from me. Wen is a fantastic character ruined by the focus being Gal's story where very little happens (see the previous paragraph).

The ending was actually quite good. It was unexpected and while it was not at all foreshadowed, it was cool. It could have been longer. The whole book should have been to be honest. 29 chapters (+ Epilogue) as opposed to Bonds of Brass' 31. For a second book in a trilogy I'd expect at least a couple of chapters more.

I'd love to give it 4 stars but I can't. There's just too much that I disliked to warrant that. I hope Book 3 will give this trilogy a proper conclusion at which point I might change my rating for the first two books.

I forgot to review this one.
I liked it, obviously, but it did not leave as much of a mark on me as when I read it in High School.

When I was in High School, during the worst years of my life, I began to form a terrible distaste for reading. My teacher was awful as an educator and as a person. I refused to read the books we were discussing in class because I knew I would resent them and dislike them regardless of their quality.

Flowers of Algernon was one of the books that was in our list of recommended books to read in our final year. I read the blurb and knew just how much I would love it. Even when all of my love for reading was almost entirely extinguished, I knew this would be a book that I will enjoy. So I didn't read it.

I read it today on the 12th of April, 2021. Since the day I first refused to read Flowers for Algernon, I grew and changed; I am not the same person anymore. Yet, past me was correct in every way. I loved every second of this book. I only wish I had the chance to read it those many years ago.

So yeah, this one was not for me but I wouldn't think twice about recommending it to the 13yo version of myself! It's fantastic in ways that don't do much for me and it sucks that's the case because I do think it's a fantastic story.

One thing I did not like is how rushed it felt at some points.

Truth be told I don't think me giving this book a rating is fair because I just don't know what to say about it. The second half of it was so full of pain that I'd rather not talk about.

There are some books, some very special unique beautiful books that are like a key to the reader's soul. For me that book is Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe now joined by Picture Us in the Light.

To me these books are some of most beautiful things I've read. It's this longing to be able to return to my teenage days and be the person I've always been, not the mask I've hidden behind.

I will never ever be able to relive those days, to return and fix my own mistakes. Life doesn't really give out second chances like that. So I am eternally grateful to authors like Kelly Loy Gilbert for giving me the opportunity to, for at least those few hours that I spent with Picture Us in the Light, stand in shoes of those who found light so much sooner than I.

Thank you

Thank you so very much

PS.: I hate Daniel's parents. Poor Danny was lied all of his life, had them forbid him the stupidest of things, only for them to disappear at the end.