Patricia

Too much political bias here. I don't mind politics in my books but this was blatant and kind of sloppy for a seasoned author. If you have to include politics in your fiction be nuanced and smart about it, don't force feed your own political ideology to your readers. Don't turn your characters evil or good according to their political views because that is dehumanizing and it makes for a crappy story.

There was so much of it, it became the story. It was tiresome to read (or listen, in this case).

I might expand on this in the future but to be honest I was disappointed. I really loved Holly in the Outsider. This was just one loooong rant about the culture wars in the US (sure, relevant not denying it) but from only one perpective which strikes me as lazy writing at best, and preaching to your readers as if they can only believe what you believe if they want to be “good people” (if you read the book you'll get what I mean).

Disappointing. Be brave and do nuanced political. Show both sides. Show why people choose to believe certain things. Don't go with simplistic things like “Holly's mother died of stupidity”. That's just bad writing. Why?

RATING: 4 stars

Now THAT is how you do a character study based plot. Needed more Alice, the character I thought was a little underdeveloped and needed more fleshing out, but can't complain about the rest. The mystery parts were predictable from early on, but then again the mystery is there so we can piece the whole story of the characters together.

RATING: 1.5 stars

Was the mystery in the room with us? Yeah, no. Not sure what the author intended exactly but don't go into this expecting a psychological thriller because this is not it.

I think this is supposed to be a character study. Except it didn't work because it's disjointed and makes no sense. The prose is whimsical with metaphors that don't exactly do the trick or feel off. The whole book feels off as if it's a family portrait on acid. The people don't look quite human, the setting doesn't seem quite real. Kind of sad for a character study.

The glamorizing of mental illness wasn't great either. (Trigger warning: cutting, smoking and drugs) Everyone was mentally ill in some fashion but it was a "chic" mental illness. The protagonist is a cutter but she doesn't just cut, no. She does it fashionably by engraving her skin with a dictionary worth of pretentious words that she recalls at the most inappropriate moments, by "feeling" the words in the places where the scars are. It was very romanticized and at the same time brushed aside, if it makes sense. The kids in this book were OBVIOUSLY not alright but the protagonist just goes with it smoking joints and doing ecstasy with 13 year olds. Sure why not. It's not weird at all that 13 year olds are doing drugs and drinking beer in daylight. And it's perfectly normal to comment calmly about how the same 13 year olds got another kid drunk and "offered her to the boys". I could feel the teacher shrugging indolently (see Gillian this here is appropriate use of a figure of speech if I can say so myself) while telling all this to Camille, the main character.

I mean this book is just bad. It's a pretentious attempt at a somewhat literary character study with some psychological mystery thrown in for color. The story, setting, characters and prose don't land. It's unpolished to the point of feeling clownish. So if the author was going for dark, disturbing and edgy, no. I spent the whole time annoyed by the torrent of words, the trite dialogue and the setting felt more like 1970s instead of early 2000s. It felt like the author just jotted down ideas that Might Shock People(TM) and then threw them at the paper (or word document).

Go for Gone Girl instead.

RATING: 2 stars

I think I finally understand what makes me uneasy (if that is the right word) about T. Kingfisher's books. It starts pretty well, with an interest premise, but then it kind of develops to something more and more convoluted as the book goes by. The world building stays behind as a result. I think the author has too many ideas to cram into one book. In this case, being a retelling of Snow White, she had to include poisons, mirrors, evil queens and apples. And Snow White, that is kind of a very secondary character in this book.

The plot gets really weird when she starts explaining the mirrors. This took a sizable chunk of the book and was pretty convoluted, sometimes boring and it... didn't fit. It's like she has all these good ideas, but each needs development because they won't work well without it, but she doesn't pay the same attention to any of them.

The world itself is largely not explained. Medicine has blood letting, but they know about bacteria and how the body works too much to think blood letting is a good treatment. The medical knowledge seems to be early 1900s level, but the treatments are medieval. And... what about the rest of it? Was there magic, wasn't there magic? I think there were unicorns but I'm not sure? We never got a definitive answer about the magic

So the worldbuilding never really does it for me. Too many concepts crammed into one book. Her books actually need to be longer so she can develop coherent and well explained societies, magic systems and all the other things fantasy books need.

That said, Kingfisher does have awesome ideas and writes well, so maybe I won't give up on her quite yet. :)

RATING: 3.5 stars

I overall liked it, but it is pure romantasy. The world building is incipient and there to support the character's relationship nothing more, which annoys me to no end when I see glimpses of potential in the world or magic system. And I must say I wasn't fond of the ending it felt forced just to push out a sequel.

Some of this rating is because of the gargoyle, who waa, without a doubt my favorite character.

Anyway romantasy is all well and good but where IS good fantasy nowadays? With solid worldbuilding, I mean. Heck I'd prefer no romance at all...

This entire novel was covered in the anime so there was no new content but I really liked the author's writing!

So there was this whole thing about sentient books, but we decided to go with the sorcerer bad boy and lame spells instead and not develop the cool books that are sentient and magical things? Really? Who thought that was a good idea? The books were right there, ready to be developed into a badass magic system. The way they were used in the story however... Yea, I was disappointed. Not a fan.

“This 1000 year old loli has like almost no clothes, but I promise it's not lewd, not an impure thought crossed our minds. Or we weren't trying to appeal to a certain demographic at all - paraphrasing the author EYE ROLL

RATING: 1.5 stars

What a mess. The concept is ok-ish but the writing is just not good and the characters are uninteresting. The plot rambles along, losing itself from its main focus time and again. Properly edited this book would be much smaller.

Disappointing.

Best first contact novel I have read since Rendevous with Rama. I hope there is a sequel but this is fully fleshed out with a defined ending so it stands as a... standalone I guess.

RATING: 2 stars

This book is fun and entertaining, but it is lacking a few important, key factors that would make it really good.

- There is almost no story progression: two books in, the story went from the good guys fleeing the “destruction of the universe” (I kid you not) to an entire book of trying to find supplies for the survivors.

- The overarching story isn't... the overarching story. We have this super interesting story about the actual destruction of the entire universe but the author chose to go with an evil human cloning people. Which is ok, if the first book didn't open with the first premise.

- The main female character is weak. Not, weak, weak, just weakly put together. Well, I guess she's weak as well. She is supposed to be the charismatic leader of a ship but her officers are always disobeying her and doing what they want, they defy her orders, yell at her, make her feel guilty and inept.

- The drama: too much, very stale and waaay too much of it.

As fun as the book is, I'll not be continuing to the 3rd book, because I don't care for the direction the story is going. If you like non-epic space opera, I'd say go for it though

RATING: 3.5 stars

Interesting, but it seemed like the pacing was a bit uneven and lagged at the end.

I need to know more, though

RATING: 2.5 stars

Was loving this until about 80%, the last 3-ish hours dragged and were suddenly overly descriptive. There was a fight going on and the author told, did not show.

Not listening to the sequel right now, but may come back, because the author also made some stuff confusing and I want to know how it ends.

RATING: 1 star

No. I mean, the abysmal epilogue was just one of the reasons. I guess even after my spiel about how we shouldn't judge people from another era with our modern standards, I felt a bit grossed out. And it came out of nowhere I mean what was the point?

The rest of the book wasn't great either. It seemed aimless, like a transition book with very little plot. Our characters go places and there is an attempt at describing intricate and sneaky international politics (which failed) but I felt like Maomao was just coming along this time because she is the main character.

I'm going to take a looong break from these books.

Rating 2.5 stars

A Light novel that is not a light read by any means. Think about that one with the prince that has to save the kingdom's economy but with a duke's daughter. This really isn't a villainess STORY per se. It's playing age of empires in a otome game setting. It IS good just not the type of light reading one expects a Villainess story to be which was refreshing. I may continue when I want a bit more substance in my light novels. I'm all set with strong female characters with Maomao.

AKA playing the Pokemon card game in another world. No.

RATING: 3 stars.

Another fun book by Kelley Armstrong. I was a bit weary because the last book involving time travel I've read by this author was ... not very good, but I liked this one well enough.

Rating 2. STARs

Convoluted and with way too many characters. There was little of the usual Carl / Donut interaction and to be honest Kate is a super boring character.

Rating: 2.5 stars

I wasn't feeling this one. If the whole throwing dynamite at every dungeon monster for insta kill was a good gimmick in the first book, I thought it was overused here. I mean, will we have book after book of Carl throwing explosives everywhere? Feels like a cop out, he doesn't really have to evolve or fight, just make everyone explode...

RATING: 3.5 stars

A surprising, often hilarious “isekai like” book. Our protagonist finds himself in an RPG like dungeon with a cat, no shoes and no pants.

I was fascinated not only by the monsters in the dungeons because they are nothing like their Japanese counterparts and I was entertained by Carl's fighting style... while our Japanese protagonists prefer to master spells or weapons (generally swords), Carl is an explosives expert and a brawler, so instead of technique honing, you have him wiping scrubs and mobs with bombs and his fists. It's cool to see the west x east differences in rpg like books.

I really liked it and the audiobook is 5 stars, it was amazing. I recommend it 100%.

I've read some scattered comics by this author so I was excited to read this compilation. But I thought it would be... funnier somehow. It didn't feel as much humorous as just a bunch of situations that are relatable. So this was relatable. But it wasn't funny or even fun. It was... dry I guess? It just wasn't my type of humor I suppose. It's a “it's not you, it's me” situation. I also unfairly kept comparing it to Calvin and Hobbes.

I mean, it's a personal account of the author's autism journey with bits about self-love thrown in. I think it's a cool book to make you feel better about your diagnostic but it doesn't really address autism as a disability, which it IS, by societal standards.

But I liked reading it nonetheless. Maybe as an introduction to some of the symptoms and quirks and way of thinking of neurodivergent people, mainly autists, to neurotypicals (not that, in my experience neurotypicals care; they just want you to eternally mask so they don't have to deal with you)

Super mid, too long for very little payback.

So mid.

This has got to be the of the most disjointed books I've ever read.

There is basically no worldbuilding, no lore, nothing. The characters are one note and the heroine is... well, she is dumb. Sorry, I said it.

There is none of the magic and enchantment you should read about in a tale that the author wanted to read like a twisted fairy tale. But she doesn't have the chops to pull it off, sorry author. I know liking a book is subjective, but there was no magic, no wonder, no nothing in this story. I mean there is virtually no worldbuilding.

I swear I don't get goodreads ratings. Are people really reading the same book as me? Welp, maybe reading really is a 100% subjective experience. But to me this was pretty bad. I suppose I am not trendy enough to embrace the whole “romantasy” thing.

Sorry if I sound pedantic. I'm pissed I bought this and listened to the whole thing. Wasted money and time make me annoyed. Oh well. Let's carry on...