(^^,)

Disclaimer: This is a review of an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC).

Which plebian with a death wish is throwing dead rats through my window?

This is such a strangely wholesome book, and I needed this.

I really liked the story! It starts off with wit, a dash of bones, some crudeness but nothing out of place as you read about the characters and why they are where they are. Nothing unfounded, either - it becomes abundantly clear real fast that everyone has skeletons in their closet (or on their headboard, but spoilers).

The writing was pleasing to me: casual use of wit, a light mist of romance, a peppering of humourous yet awkward situations, and an overall level of snarky banter shared among the main cast that fit my taste just right.

It was very easy to feel the settings, feel for the characters as they develop to the reader, their interactions and feelings with each other. As much as the book cover greatly influenced by idea of the main characters, the book did well in describing them enough that I saw them as a mishmash of a cuter Karlach from Baldurs Gate 3 and a less gaunt V from Devil May Cry 5 in the end anyway.

I will say the magic system was interesting - I did find it a little difficult to understand how the necromancy worked in terms of finger movement, but I appreciated the realism and risks that came with that. It's good to utilise the practicalities when having a magic system - even if the equivalents of a system's mana may be seemingly infinite, one's ability to use them may not be.

It's fine for a book to have tropes but I feel the pacing of some major plot points forced the tropes nearer the end. An unexpected but fast use of Chekhov's gun, and a somewhat reverse deus ex machina for example. It caught me by surprise, but I'm not seeing them as bad things necessarily: their places in the story make sense to me and they leave the book with a really nice ending and some closure while leaving the story open for the next adventure.

In a sea of moody male characters with shadow powers and an ocean of female characters with a point to prove, there's more flavours of people than spicy or salty. Sometimes you need something sweet and filling, and this book is it.

Disclaimer: This is a review of an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC).

I'm not angry. I'm sleeping.

I missed this universe.

It picks up right after the first book. There's no breather, no time skip, just immediate gas. As with most books, I did have to revisit a few pages, remember a few names - but once I got myself embedded in the world, I needed to know what was going to happen next.

One thing I liked about the book is acknowledging how meta it is. Like in my first review, the series has all the standard transmigration tropes, and this theme continues with the good ol' "I haven't read this far ahead" trope...ish. It gives authors another ex machina for diverging from a "pre-defined" fantasy story, but it can be a double-edged sword in that one can't go too bizarre. I mean, screw it, you could, but beware the reader's wrath. Again, I personally love the general genre of isekais (and yes, even the one about someone who woke up as a Japanese vending machine), so I'm honestly not complaining.

That being said, I did not expect some of the things in the book and boy, did I enjoy those too. I should have learned after the ending of the first book. The writing was on the wall, but then again, fool me twice AND shame on me? Fair enough.

It was good to get more perspectives from the rest of the cast compared to before. It's easy for readers and even the main characters (for books in first-person MC perspectives) to forget that the world they've been thrown in is a living, breathing world, and people aren't just third-party characters who are there to string a story along.

I felt the writing was a little more serious, more mature this time round. I don't know if it's because Sarah started with YA novels, but Long Live Evil felt like it was inbetween YA and... A. It meant it was easy to consume, while still being able to discuss darker and stronger topics and introducing deeper worlds (at least for me). All Hail Chaos continued that movement, and I felt that the way they wrote this book improved.

Throughout reading it started feeling like I was watching a movie in my head, if that makes sense. It felt like how Stephen Fry narrated parts of the film version of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - jokes sneakily inserted in the middle of pretty serious situations, delivered in a deadpan manner. I loved it.

Review and rambling aside, I really liked reading this book.

Oh, and Google Maps, how I missed you. You were worth waking up the neighbours with my laugh at a 3am on a Sunday.

Disclaimer: This is a review of an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC).

Onwards! To the moon!

I devoured this book.

I read quickly, much to to the chagrin of my partner and fellow book club members. Most of the time, when I read quickly, I'll glaze past some words or even whole sentences, as long as I could still understand the general setting and scenario.

Not this book, though. I ate every single word, curious about what would happen next in the story, what twists awaited, what challenges were incoming. I really like like I was on an adventure alongside them.

I felt for each character, truly. I think all of the main characters were well thought out and defined. Those who have read it will understand what I mean when I say both sides of the coin are dealt with properly. I think certain themes were handled with grace and fairness - there were heavy topics sprinkled throughout, and I'll admit, they shocked me but I think adding that unfortunate realism brought meaning.

Due to the setting there wasn't much required in the way of world building, but that's not a bad thing at all; The fact that the scenarios were carried out in different areas of the same "section" of the world meant it wasn't too difficult to place everything in my imagination. Just like you learn about the characters and watch their growth, you also watch the growth of the setting happen at a good pace.

As I write this review, parts of the story remind me a bit of The Uncanny Counter. I won't go too much into that, because spoilers and I'm digressing, but I absolutely adore that show, and adore this book all the same.

Thank you Frances, for writing this book. I apologise for reading the book so quickly despite you saying it took a while to write - but sorry not sorry, you wrote something amazing.

Also, what a cute ending. How dare you make me cry. Please don't tell Father I did.

So... I read that far too quickly, and now I have to wait for the next book.

That ending leaves me wanting more. I neeeeeeed it

That was fun.

bam-ba-ba-dam, shinee's back

I really liked this book. I really, really liked this book.

I'm so used to both the villainess and transmigration tropes being solely manhwa/webnovel only things (and yes, I had to figure out the difference between reincarnation, regression and transmigration), so finding out there was a western romantasy-villainess-transmigration book was exciting! (Also, yes, I know, the Venn diagram between villainess stories and transmigration stories is basically a circle.)

Anyone familiar with those tropes knows that there is a kind of formula that they all follow.

• "Where the hell am I?"
• "Hang on a minute, this wasn't in the source material!"
• "Argh, fine, I'll deviate (as if I wasn't complaining about it a few scenes ago)."

I can't lie, this book does follow the formula, but it didn't bore me at all. There were some twists and turns that I really didn't expect, but they didn't feel shoved in for sake of deviation.

I found the pacing of the flow of the book quite good, at least compared to other romantasy books; it's unfortunately too common for a romantasy book nowadays to be like a sports car in the winter: you spend 50 chapters trying to start the car, then suddenly it goes from 0-60 in 2 chapters. This book goes about balancing trying not to do that, and it tried its best at succeeding.

If you want to continue reading something like this and want a western source, try the "Oh God Not Again!" fanfic, by Sarah1281. It's on the red website.

For an eastern source, try "The Villainess Turns the Hourglass", or "Beware the Villainess!".

hiss

I unfortunately have no idea where I was while reading this, and I don’t think the book did either. Like a certain snake, I started hibernating by the end of it.

The ending felt like one of those special deleted scenes you get in DVDs of films; roughly inserted as a “oh, we forgot to add this” entry.

The pacing… should have been better.

I do appreciate the snark of the main character - it strikes a balance between damsel in distress and damsel causing havoc.

That’s it, though, really.

You’re probably wondering why my thoughts are all over the place. That’s because that’s how the book is too.

THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

I dove into this immediately after Strange Pictures, curious to know how Uketsu was planning to take me with this mystery book.

It started off rather innocent - as the namesake states, you're introduced to a strange house layout. Once I saw the first layout (not a spoiler - the book title has plurality), I realised I had seen it from somewhere else already. Perhaps Uketsu themselves, or TikTok, or Instagram - some other media. Anyway, I had forgotten what I gained from seeing it the first time, so it wasn't much of a spoiler for me and rather spurred me on to find out (or remember) what was so strange about it.

I had no idea what I was in for.

The story takes you way further than just peculiar blueprints. It takes you to (in Uketsu fashion) a world smaller than you'd like to admit, to family secrets, to whodunnit-style sleuthing, to shock and horror. One wouldn't be wrong in thinking that the entire situation was simply too complex and extreme to be realistic, but humans are capable of more than you would like to admit.

At some point, I was hit with a barrage of information on how things came to be. I got lost in the sheer amount of names, their relation to each other, but I think I got there in the end. I'm sure if I go back and re-read it, perhaps with a pen and paper, I could get my head around the intricacies of the plot. Perhaps I will, in the future.

For now, I liked what I read, and I look forward to the next translated book.

There's a gravestone here for someone with the same name as me.

Disclaimer: I only read this because my local bookshop had the hardcover with sprayed edges. It's so pretty!

That out of the way, this was a tough read for me. I'm not a fan of storylines involving imprisonment, and any unsavoury actions associated with that kind of lack of control, trigger warnings aside. It was tough, icky, and uncomfortable, but I was warned.

The book does well to pull at heartstrings (no pun intended, seriously) and the author is great at highlighting how awful people, primarily men, can be when you let viewpoints and actions go unchecked. Like, disgustingly well. Every time we're taken back to Biltmore, I gained a knot in my stomach and really didn't want to continue reading for fear of what could happen.

In typical Enemies to Lovers fashion, I roll my eyes at the love interests. This isn't anything against the author, but the trope has no choice in being insufferable. Two characters shout profanities, spit vitriol (and sometimes literal saliva), then proceed to test the structural stability of a windowsill by trying to repeatedly emboss an ass-sized dent in it. This book is no different in continuing this trope.

I gave the book its rating because, alongside my view on the dark themes, the communication between the two main characters is abysmal. Sure, it's intentional - secrets need to be kept, and legilimency (yes, call a spade a spade) is a serious issue in the plot - but they're literal teenagers and I'm too old for their bickering.

..and yes, I was informed before reading that this spawned from a Dramione fanfic. The Auction, if you're interested in reading the story in its origin form beforehand. At the start, I tried to see which Harry Potter characters mapped to which characters in this book. However, it wouldn't have been to the author or the book to continue thinking that way, so I stopped and read the book as its own canon. There was a certain person I couldn't help viewing a certain way, but I'll leave that to your imagination.

I may read the next books in the series, if only to find out how it ends.

Where did he go?

What great writing. I wasn't sure where this book would take me, but I'm glad it did when it did. I gasped with each revealed plot point, slowly understanding what everything meant and where the pieces of the puzzle fit.

The images which bound the spine of the story were fun and surprisingly intriguing to think about. I really couldn't figure out what they meant before the book explained their meanings, but I think that added to the shock. They reminded me a little bit of dingbats (or rebuses for some) in how one had to view (or rather, solve) them. I won't spoil.

I also have to mention the troubled cast of characters, beautifully carrying out their roles in the story. The world is small, but in this case, perhaps a little too small for comfort.

Overally, a spooky book that I liked reading. My only wish is that I hadn't finished it before it was time for bed. I think I'll stay up a little.

I'm glad they weren't bad.

It's a feel good, coming-of-age-but-already-of-age book that you would enjoy in a week - I certainly did. It has a nice mix of humour, British sarcasm, mysticism and growth.

It does have the usual tropes associated with placing fantasy in an unexpecting world: the friend who doesn't know, the hastily forged band of characters, the plot twist that completely wrecks the status quo. Tropes as they may be, I think they were portrayed and handled well.

There's a healthy balance of switching between the normal and the abnormal, with a dash of realism. It must have been exhausting to be unable to put your all into both your day and night jobs, in general - let alone while being tired.

The ending felt a little sped up compared to the rest of the book; I don't know if it's fantasy books in general but what I've been reading recently starts off quite slow and foundational, then events quickly become flash cards by the end. In this case, once I got to the last chapter, it became very "but then everything was okay in the end" and I think there may have been room to flesh out what happened in more detail. I was in no rush.

Overall, I liked it and I look forward to the second in the series.

What an asinine thing to do!

It was good to take a break from fiction and start reading this.

I've been a long-distance runner since 2021 (although I only started doing actual races in 2024), but I've never really read about other runners until Goggins' book. Even then, that was more of a book about getting my ass out of bed and being more productive than it was about pure running. So, when I realised Murakami had a book about their running journey, I figured; everyone raves about Murakami and I'm not in the mindset to read their fiction, so this is a good halfway house!

Anyway, I digress. It truly is a memoir, and you can feel from the writing that it's a self-reflection on the ups and downs of their running (and triathlon) memories.

One does have to read the book not expecting it to help them improve anything major - the book isn't about improving your marathon times, or moving from the couch to a 5k, or even a run to a triathlon. The book is essentially a diary of various entries Murakami wrote about times they ran. If you can keep that in mind, I think it's an interesting book and a keyhole into their life both inside and outside their writing career.

I aspire to be as witty and straightforward as that gargoyle.

I liked the book. It was a nice read and wasn't something I would have typically looked for, so forming the ideas and settings in my head was refreshing.

However, The book has me of two minds.

I found the start of the book to be a little slow - a gentle introduction on the current state of affairs, the mystery of the dreaming, the six Diviners. If you approach it from the view that the Cathedral and each other is all that they knew about since the start (and that this is a two-book series), then the world-building is easier to digest.

As soon as the characters leave the Cathedral and everything unravels, the book picks up in pace and they're jumping from area to area in order to complete their objectives. That speed unfortunately came with a slight lack of depth, though; I would have liked to know more about each area: how they came to be, why something is where it was. Naturally, once they were done with their objective in one area (and also because of time) they immediately moved on, which is fair, but they left me behind as well.

I'll admit - I wasn't expecting the ending. I should have, but I didn't.

All things aside, I have no complaints - only wishes. I'll have to see how the second book goes.