Alex
I feel like this book was a lot slower than the first book. It focused a lot more on the political aspects of the series and I feel that a lot of the book was setting up book three. It has gotten me amped up for book three and I can't wait to jump into it next! Excited to see how Rebecca is going to wrap up this series!
Bethany Jacobs did the damn thing in this debut science fiction novel. It has everything I could want, a snarky FMC who is morally dark gray (I very much support women's wrongs), political intrigue, the quest for power, nothing is as it seems.
Just chefs kiss it's such a fantastic book. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to foray into space operas. It was perfection imo. Bethany just announced the second book is coming this year and I can't wait to read it.
This book is essentially Coraline but make it black and throw in time travel reminiscent of Dark Matter. This was a short and loving book. The bond between Hylee and her older brother Bubba really pulled at my heart strings. I think most can relate to Hylee's struggle of trying to understand her parents while they don't seem to want to understand her better. It was a beautifully tragic book.
I really wanted a bit more. I wanted more of grandmommy's background. I wanted to dive deeper into the relationship Eliam and his grandfather. I just wanted more. I know that's hard to do when you're trying to keep the book under 300 pages but overall I really enjoyed this one.
I liked this anthology of black horror stories. I am not one typically for horror or short stories, but I really liked the variation of the different types of stories. Yes, they are all within the horror genre, but the type of horror varied. From just plan racism to your typical body horror were included. I listened to this on audio and I would highly reccomend it, there is a full cast which helps differentiate between the many stories within the book.
This was a very quick read and rather entertaining but if I have to hear Domini talk about her biceps and pecs on more time I may just simply pass away. I love an unhinged fmc just as much as the next person but she was essentially stalking her love interest the last half of the book. I had a major problem with that, I feel like that scenario alone is a trigger for some people. I don't feel like the author truly addressed the racism and xenophobia presented in the book. I saw the situation developing from a mile away and yet we were just suppose to accept it and with Jolene calling the police on Sharif and getting him arrested and more people of color deported all because she thought the protest MAY be a bit violent. I feel like the whole time Jolene was virtue signaling and our FMC was still chasing after her? That didn't sit well with me. Not mention the white knighting that Jolene was trying to pull. Ugh. I really feel like she was not challenged enough.
Sorry that half of this review is essentially spoilers for the plot but there were some plot points I felt needed to be addressed deeper and to combat those ideologies. This is the authors first book so I'm interested to see what others she releases in the future.
Cordelia is a 17- year-old high school stage manager, doing the typical high school things. Until one day she has a new guidance counselor, Fred. He's essentially telling Cordelia she needs to improve her grades (something she has been told many times by her mother, the theater teacher, and her principal). This time however, it was a bit different. Fred tells her he wants a piece of her soul. They both laugh it off until Fred says he's not kidding. The fun kind of starts from there. I enjoyed this book so much because while it is a horror novel, there is quite a bit of humor to offset the dark subject matter. I would suggest checking the trigger warnings because it can be a triggering topic for some. I appreciated the queer representation and learning about some Filipino folklore. This book had one of my favorite tropes of all time, found family. We don't get to choose the family we are born into and sometimes things that happen to children are unfortunate and unfair, but I loved that Cordelia found a solid group of people to offset that. Thank you so much to Alex Brown, RB media, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
Feyi is a widow going through the ups and downs of grief when she decides after five years of grieving her husband's death in a tragic car accident (that she survived) to get back out there and get into the dating pool. Well, things get a bit...messy. I feel like we can all relate to Feyi to some degree. We have all been a mess, whether that is in relationships, friendships, just growing into the person you are now.
I had heard mixed reviews on this one but honestly I loved it so much. It was a book I was recommended and it was amazing.
I am writing this review after just finishing the book and I have a feeling this book is going to stick with me.
The author not so abstractly asks the reader to consider humanity in a time of inhumanity. Would you try to save someone by any means necessary if it means you will suffer unbearable consequences? I did not know what I was walking to and I feel like it had a deeper impact not knowing. Wow. The ending was so perfect. Man. My head is spinning and I absolutely loved this.
I am struggling with this book. While I wanted to like it, I found myself thinking it was too drawn out for what it was. Yes we are having a black swan moment and I love a thriller as much as the next, I felt like it was a little too much back story and building up to the conclusion. I just found out that this book is the first in a duology so I'll pick that up whenever it comes out because I have to know what all of this was building up to.
It is the author's debut so I don't want to review it too harshly.
I truthfully could not connect with the female main character. She was consistently whiny and while I appreciate the representation of a fat black woman with a chronic illness, it felt very YA to me. I don't think I would recommend this book strictly because thee main character and her love interest had a lot of growing up to do.
I was told this book was tense and dark but I truly did not grasp the severity of it. Please check trigger warnings because it is mighty graphic.
That being said RF Kuang is an auto buy author for me. Her attention to detail and the amount of research that has gone into each of her books makes her stories so real. There is a scene, in fact multiple scenes that had me crying because of how vivid they were.
This will be a book that I think about for years to come. I'm excited and nervous to finish the rest of the trilogy. I hope it's not as brutal as this but I'm excited to see what happens in the next book.
So convoluted. I had high hopes for this book. It's all over the place and there are many murders spoiler and so many false identities galore /spoiler.
I needed a damn flow chart for this book. I will try another book by this author because I did like the pacing and writing but the content was not ideal.
I would like to give a big thank you to Kaitlyn Davis and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this story on audiobook. This book grabbed me from the very first scene. This is a beautiful YA retelling of Tristian and Isolde but with a twist, they are birds, specifically a raven and a dove. I have never read an avian fantasy before and I was hooked immediately. I don't want to give anything away, but one thing I will say is that this book was an immediate 5 star read for me within the first 5 chapters. I highly recommend to fantasy readers and I recently found out this book and as well as all of the books in this series are available on Kindle Unlimited. Heading there as soon as I submit this review and read all of her works.
#TheRavenandtheDove #NetGalley
I loved this book so much. It had me on the edge of my seat! I can't wait to read the other books in the series. I love the world building and the politics that we are exposed to during the course of this book. My favorite quote “anyone can betray anyone”. Girrrrrrl. The battle sequences had me losing my mind. I think this will be living rent free in my head for a long while.
This is a great sci-fi novella about Addi and Mila being stranded on a planet and their time on this planet isn't all fun and games. I loved this story, I can't wait to read more about Addi and Mila. It was a short read but it has everything I love in a story: adventure, love, drama, and some great one liners.
As a disclaimer I received an advance review copy for free, and and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This is a great sci-fi novella about Addi and Mila being stranded on a planet and their time on this planet isn't all fun and games. I loved this story, I can't wait to read more about Addi and Mila. It was a short read but it has everything I love in a story: adventure, love, drama, and some great one liners.
As a disclaimer I received an advance review copy for free, and and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I'm annoyed with the character or Marianne.
I will try not to spoil anything but girl needs a therapist asap. It seems like as Connell has grown and evolved throughout the years, Marianne is in a state of arrested development. Now an argument can be made for why she remains this way but I feel like she had ample opportunity to make changes and just did not.
I'm very annoyed with the ending. It could have been so much more. Anything would have been more. This is my first book by Sally Rooney so I won't give up on her writing just yet but this has left a sour taste in my mouth.
It was painstakingly slow and I LOATHED that there are so many phrases in different languages that were 99% of the time not translated. I mean we have English, Italian, french and malgasy ( I believe that is how you spell that last one). Towards the end of my reading experience I stopped looking up what the non-English terms were because they were used so often and they slow down the reading experience for me to put down the book just to look up the words/phrases mentioned. I hated this so much.
This hurts me so much to write this as a huge RF Kuang fan, I've read and loved everything she has ever written but unfortunately Katabasis was a huge letdown for me. It really came down to the characters for me. I could not connect with Alice or Peter. I feel like typically Rebecca's characters are the strong part of each of her novels. Whether you love or hate them you can always say that they evoked some kind of emotion which is the mark of a great writer. Alice and Peter made me feel indifferent. Which is not at all what I expected. I also feel like the marketing for this book was very wrong. This was sold to me as a fantasy when it's more of a fantasy romance. There is so much will they or won't they happening that it completely took me out of the plot. I wanted so much more. I wanted to be wowed by the description of hell and the levels to it but I found myself thinking “oh, and?” Which sucks because I really wanted to love it. I feel like if you don't have strong characters in a largely character driven story, what do you even have? Anyway I DNF'd at the end of chapter 20 and so thankful I did.
