Right after I finished this book, I ran out and bought the next two book in the series, because that was how much I loved it. This novel ha4.5 stars!
Right after I finished this book, I ran out and bought the next two book in the series, because that was how much I loved it. This novel has so many aspects I'm obsessed with - an oblivious main character who kicks ass in her own unconventional way, a devoted love interest who the main character is oblivious about, multiple references to Ireland, worldbuilding, and amazing side characters. I definitely imagined Emily Wilde as Temperance Brennan from Bones. They have a similar way of looking at life, approaching their work, and generally very comparable personalities. I really liked how Emily struggled with people, because there aren't too many protagonists who actually struggle with people (despite what some of them claim) � and likewise, I loved the way that she was able to use her specialized knowledge of faeries throughout the novel to solve problems.
I also liked Wendell, of course, but not as much as I did Emily, because Emily is a nerd like me. What I do wish had been different is that I lowkey wish Emily hadn't already suspected Wendell of (view spoiler)[being a faerie (hide spoiler)] before he revealed it. I think that surprise would have been so much fun to read rather than Emily being like "oh yeah I knew that already." But regardless, I always really like a duo where one is book smart and the other is more street smart, and I definitely got that with this pairing. I'm super excited to see what happens with them - though tbh, (view spoiler)[the marriage proposal (hide spoiler)] was sort of unexpected and too sudden since they weren't even dating at the time. Maybe that's just a faerie thing lol.
The side characters made the book for me too. All the villagers were so great to read about and fall in love with, and when they all had to come together to help Emily, it was pretty much everything I ever want in fiction, because found family is everything. I also loved Poe and I hope he shows up again in the future books. And we can't forget the worldbuilding. This novel uses the same device of footnotes as Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which I always think is clever when done well, since it allows for more in-depth worldbuilding and pulls the reader right into the world.
I'm psyched for the next two books in the series, especially since Emily gets to actually go to the Otherlands and will probably nerd out like crazy, and I can't wait to get to them once I finish a couple of library books I have checked out! ...more
I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't get past the way it was written, just in terms of word choice and how words were spelled tDNF @ 30%.
I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't get past the way it was written, just in terms of word choice and how words were spelled the way they sound when spoken by the characters and not spelled as the actual word. It confused tf out of me, and it really pulled me out of the story because it just felt excessive and over the top. For example, words were constantly extended (like dayuuum or gooood) and it was just too much. It didn't feel like real people talking to me, more like caricatures of black people/culture.
I also really like books with POC when I'm not constantly hit over the head by the fact that they're POC. The fact that the characters were black were mentioned literally every five seconds, and I'm just like Maybe trust that your readers are not dumb and don't have the memory of a goldfish??? I'm able to remember the fact that the characters are black going to a HBCU without needing it shoved in my face constantly. It really put me off and I had no interest continuing to be smacked over and over with reminders.
Per another reviewer: It tries much too hard to be Black, so much so that it feels like a white person wrote it. It doesn’t get any better when Malik actually gets to the university, when it throws a barrage of Black media references in your face in case you forgot that the Black book with Black characters is Black. It’s one thing to display Black Pride. There’s nothing wrong with that. But this book shoves it down your throat from page 1, and it gets progressively more aggressive to the point that you forget what the book is even about.
Also the main character annoyed the fuck out of me and I really was not a fan of him. I already dislike characters who are generally angry and constantly having outbursts, but he also just casually steals a car in the first few chapters and I'm just not about rooting for that. I hadn't even really gotten to the misogyny that a lot of other reviewers had pointed out yet, but I'm not sticking around for it.
I support representation and reading books by and about POC characters...this one just wasn't it for me. ...more
I had such high hopes for this book, and my hopes crashed and burned along with Drayton College (don't worry, the schooWhat the fuck did I just read?
I had such high hopes for this book, and my hopes crashed and burned along with Drayton College (don't worry, the school was naturally saved by the power of the ~chosen~ MFM, unlike my hopes and dreams).
It's especially disappointing because the author had a good premise going. The idea of persuasion as a magic was cool and original, and I really liked learning about Drayton College and how that all worked. The twist wasn't bad either, and it would have been fascinating to explore more of that and about the college and world as a whole. I wanted to know more about persuasionists in the world and how they influenced important people and things, which was hinted at but never really fully seen.
But instead, we are immediately dragged down by the super annoying main character, who I hated from the very beginning, to the middle, all the way to the end of the novel. Not only did Lennon constantly make stupid decisions (which is pretty terrible and usually enough for me to hate a main character), but she was just incredibly boring and her whole personality is that she thinks that she's terrible and that she has a boner for her hot professor. I'm not even mad/upset that (view spoiler)[she killed Ian, since Ian was sort of a psychopath and had it coming...that's probably the only decision she made that I agreed with—tbh, I was more annoyed that she whined about it for like 50 pages afterwards (hide spoiler)]. But her obsession with her professor just went on and on, and she would never take no for an answer when it came to him.
The relationship also just didn't do anything for me. I had no interest or emotional stake in it, and I couldn't care less about Dante. I cared about him a smidge more than I cared about Lennon (and that is a low bar). We find out all this info about his ~criminal history and how he's so ~mysterious and that just...goes away, I guess? It's just never mentioned again because he's hot and perfect. I didn't feel the chemistry there, and the whole relationship very much went against the idea of "show don't tell." tbh, Lennon's whole thing for professors/bad boys got super tiring after pretty much the first couple times it was mentioned. But maybe I just hated her, so everything about her got super tiring pretty quickly. This book would have been better with anyone else as the main character. Anyway, back to the relationship. The idea of her going off to his house with him and just spending the summer there vibing and having sex just...nope. I don't love it, I don't like it, and I don't believe it could ever happen in anything that approaches realistic—maybe outside of a professor grooming a student, which does not happen in this book and would not be the positive way that this relationship is supposed to be portrayed.
When I can't stand the main character (which tbh is more often than you might think), I often find that the book can be redeemed by the side characters. Not so here. None of the side characters had any sort of real defining personality. When I was reading this book, I put it down for a bit to finish a different book, and when I came back to it, I couldn't remember who any of the side characters were, but I guess it didn't really matter since they were all basically interchangeable. (view spoiler)[Once Ian was offed, even he was basically replaced by his advisor/professor. (hide spoiler)] Literally interchangeable. And at the end, when all the students banded together to help Lennon, I was just like...why? The narrative never made me believe they were such great friends that the students would literally risk their lives to do this.
And then, let's talk about the plot–or more accurately, the multitude of plot holes and things that were just left unresolved. I already mentioned Dante having a bad boy past, but also...why did Lennon's first portal/elevator thing open to Dante as a child? What the fuck was up with Dante (view spoiler)[having a secret child with Eileen (and then 5 second mention that Eileen apparently groomed Dante when he was like 15) (hide spoiler)] that was essentially never mentioned again? What happened with Lennon's family who are also never mentioned again? When did Nadia get a whole personality change and go from incumbent nun to (view spoiler)[knife-wielding psycho trying to kill Lennon for Ian's (dead) honor (hide spoiler)]? Who/what is the reflection in the mirror that Lennon kept seeing at the beginning of the novel and then later towards the end?
Also the ending would have honestly been so much better if (view spoiler)[Dante had just died (hide spoiler)]. Like some great final sacrifice, given the themes of sacrifice and all in the story, would have been great. But no, instead, Lennon gets to mope about how she's not with her sexy professor and months pass with her moping...much like in Twilight. But at least in Twilight, Bella is a teenager, whereas Lennon is literally an adult. Literally, we go from the end of summer-ish till past Christmas, and she's still moping. And then at the end, (view spoiler)[everything is magically okay again and Lennon finds Dante and all is well, since we gotta have our sexy heterosexual relationship live happily ever after, right? (hide spoiler)]
Fuck off.
I'm sure I have more that I hated in this book, but I've ranted for long enough about it. Also, my parting thoughts: Lennon's sister deserved so much better....more
This book has a beautiful cover, but they say not to judge a book by its cover, and that definitely applies here, because the 2.5 stars rounded down!
This book has a beautiful cover, but they say not to judge a book by its cover, and that definitely applies here, because the book itself was sort of shit. I agree with everyone who has said that this book reads more YA than adult fantasy. The characters are mostly supposed to be young adults, but I literally imagined all of them as teenagers because that was how every single one of them acted. And not even well-written teenagers, tbh - because none of the writing in this novel could be considered good. Readable, but it was definitely not great prose.
The main character was annoying as shit and I just could not root for him because he thought he was funny, but I just found him to be an annoying and obnoxious asshole with the humor of a teenage boy. The child character (who was supposed to be 6) talked like no 6 year old that I've ever met, and I literally could not stand her. Lowkey wanted the murderer to off her so that I wouldn't have to read about her anymore. The rest of the characters read like a laundry list of DEI checkboxes that the author went through to make sure that she got inclusive points without doing the work. Disabled character? Check. Asexual, non-binary character? Check. Asian character? Check. Oh, and they all have different colored hair to distinguish which province they come from. What the anime/manga shit is this?
That's a nope from me.
The worldbuilding was incredibly weak as well. There were a lot of holes in the world which I will not reiterate here, and the whole thing felt like a blatant ripoff of the worldbuilding in The Hunger Games (12 districts = 12 provinces, and the child character was very Rue coded, but way dumber and more annoying, imo). The power system didn't really make a lot of sense and just seemed really surface level and...dumb, to be honest. And we know very little of the world at large, which feels like it is important in a supposedly "adult" fantasy novel. Even many YA fantasy novels have richer worldbuilding than this book did. And there was so much info dumping. Has this author ever heard of "show don't tell"? Because it doesn't seem like it.
As far as the mystery itself, it was fine, but that's about all I can say for it. Fine. This book as marketed as akin to Agatha Christie, but I've read her books, and that is just a blatant lie. I'm not sure who read this book and thought, "Ah yes, just like one of the greatest mystery writers who ever lived." That person needs to reread some Agatha Christie novels. As with the worldbuilding, everything was solved via the villain monologuing in the end. The main character spent more time moping around and stressing about his romantic life than solving the crime, honestly.
Don't even get me started on the romance, but I don't really care about romance generally, so I won't really get into it. (But basically it felt like the superficial nature of teenagers falling in love and at no point was I invested or did I care about any single part of it.)
I gave it 2.5 stars because I at least was interested enough to find out what happens in the end I GUESS. But I doubt I will be reading this author again. ...more
I will admit that I was not super impressed by the writing in Carrie, and I was sort of left at the end a little confused about why everyo4.75 stars!
I will admit that I was not super impressed by the writing in Carrie, and I was sort of left at the end a little confused about why everyone loves Stephen King. Not so when I finished this anthology of short stories. Every story is a masterpiece in and of itself; each story can stand up by itself and was both satisfying and self-contained. Of course, some of the stories included in this anthology were better and more memorable than others, but I enjoyed reading all of them, even the ones I hadn't originally thought that I would love. As I was reading, I started trying to note how Stephen King manages to build such a great stories in such few pages and noted the ones that would be great to have students of fiction writing read in a college class or something, because so many of these stories really felt like classics that should be used for teaching purposes.
I would 100% read more anthologies written by Stephen King, but I'm also much more interested in reading his other novels now, which I had sort of cooled off a bit after reading Carrie.
Breakdowns of my ratings for each short story:
1. Two Talented Bastids: 4/5 2. The Fifth Step: 5/5 3. Willie the Weirdo: 2/5 4. Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream: 5/5 5. Finn 2/5 6. On Slide Inn Road: 3/5 7. Red Screen: 3/5 8. The Turbulence Experience: 4/5 9. Laurie: 4/5 10. Rattlesnakes: 5/5 11. The Dreamers: 4/5 12. The Answer Man: 5/5
Basically I really liked the ones with supernatural/evil ancient beings/unexplainable phenomenon as the main topic moreso than the ones dealing with more mundane evils and darkness. Checks out for me! Anyway, I would highly recommend anyone (Stephen King fan or otherwise) read this anthology, or even a couple of individual stories on this list!...more
This book was everything I have ever wanted and some things I didn't even know I wanted. Found family, snarky diaT. Kingfisher fucking does it again!
This book was everything I have ever wanted and some things I didn't even know I wanted. Found family, snarky dialogue, semi-elderly (middle aged!) heroes kicking ass and taking names, women getting shit done, and a great full-on evil villain. I don't know how this author always manages to hit it out of the park, but somehow, it's like she knows exactly what I need and gives it to me, every time. I initially took this book out of the library, but I wasn't even halfway through it when I realized that I needed to get a copy for myself because it was clearly going to be a 5 star read.
One of my favorite things about this book are the protagonists. You have a bunch of older ladies, an adoring (and adorable) older man in love with one of the older ladies, and a literal child. T. Kingfisher is so great about writing characters who aren't always your traditional heroes and heroines, and they're always a breath of fresh air. I loved the found family and the fact that Cordelia finds parental figures in all of these older individuals who become super protective over her. And of course, it wouldn't be a T. Kingfisher without plenty of snark and humor. She always makes me laugh aloud as I read, which is quite rare for me.
The story itself was also A+ material. It's a classic good vs. evil story, and while I love my ambiguous heroes and bittersweet endings sometimes, this sort of fairy tale vibe is very nostalgic and feels much like wrapping a warm blanket around myself while drinking tea. (tl;dr Cordelia's mother is a sorceress who can control people's bodies and who is trying to seduce a local rich guy. The rich guy's sister, her friends, and Cordelia have to work together to stop her mother. And also her mother's horse, which may or may not be an actual horse.) I couldn't help but be thrilled when the bad guy (gal?) was defeated and everyone lives happily ever after, even when that feels too simple to be realistic. But in the current times, sometimes you just want to see evil defeated and everyone living happily ever after.
Sadly, there was no cute/funny/quirky animal companion in this novel, but there was an evil horse that isn't a horse, so...there's that?
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes fairy tales, witty writing, happy endings, or wants to read something where the main character saving the day isn't a hot 20-something year old. ...more
This book was not a short walk through a wide world, but a long meandering through a pointless plot (sorry, that was mean, but that's sort 2.5 stars!
This book was not a short walk through a wide world, but a long meandering through a pointless plot (sorry, that was mean, but that's sort of how I felt about it). I got the message that the author was trying to convey—that it's not about the destination, but the journey, and that seeing the world is what truly living is about, etc etc—but it could have been conveyed probably moreso as a novella or a series of short stories than a full-length novel. At its current length, it became a slog to get through, because the plot became fairly repetitive.
While all the different people whom Aubry met had different things going on, it wasn't like we really got to know any of them, since they were only in her life briefly before she had to leave them. And despite Aubry being the main character, I never felt like I got any significant character development for her to keep me engaged in her travels, so for the most part, I just didn't really care about her as a person. I almost DNF-ed this book, and I ended up reading over half of it in one day just to finish it and move on (because part of me was still curious about what would happen in the end).
We also never learn about the reason behind Aubry's illness, the situation with the puzzle box, the mysterious libraries all over the world, or any of the other mysteries that were posed in the novel. Maybe that is ~realistic in that we don't always get to know the answers to everything in the world, but I don't want realistic. I want a resolution in my fantasy novels! That was super frustrating to me, especially since I kept reading because I wanted to understand all of those situations and never got the resolution I needed.
Also, did she...die in the end? Did she just transcend time and space? Was all of it a fever dream as she just bled out somewhere? WTF happened exactly after she left the libraries for the last time? I understand nothing!!!
I don't like books where I understand nothing. 2.5 stars was generous, but I guess the message was admirable. ...more
I went through a rollercoaster of opinions with this book. At first, I thought I would love it, then I really wasn't a fan/got bored, then 3.75 stars!
I went through a rollercoaster of opinions with this book. At first, I thought I would love it, then I really wasn't a fan/got bored, then I went back to really loving it. The pacing was pretty uneven; the first half of the book felt slow and disjointed, but the second half of the book was when things actually started to really happen re: the plot and I actually felt way more invested. I had even thought about DNF-ing earlier on because I couldn't get into it at the time, but I'm glad I stuck it out (I will admit that the high average rating that this book has was what mainly led me to not DNF it). But I still think that this book could have used an editor to cut out a bunch of extraneous bits so that readers could get to the good bits quicker.
Essentially, this novel asks the question of what happened to the Knights of the Round Table and Camelot after Arthur's death? And the answer is: A lot of shenanigans. The main character, Collum, is an aspiring Knight who shows up to Camelot only to find that most of the Knights have died along with Arthur. As the book continues, we learn more about the backgrounds of some of the surviving Knights and start to grapple with the fate of England (not called England yet at that time lol) now that the man who united it is gone. There is also magic, mystical creatures, and witty repartee.
I never really felt super connected to any of the characters in the first half. The story jumped back and forth from the main plot to the different characters' pasts for a bit, which felt super jarring to me and kept pulling me out of what was going on. Also, the plot points never felt super connected since the characters were just running around going on what felt like random quests for a bit before the main plot smoothed out, and I quickly grew bored of that. But then, once the situation became more clear, it felt like the story had a direction for the characters to go in, and that made this book infinitely more interesting and compelling. The last 200 or so pages were so good, and I couldn't put it down at that point. I loved the twist with (view spoiler)[Lancelot becoming the villain, especially since at first the book sets up Morgan to be the Big Bad (hide spoiler)] and that whole associated arc.
I particularly liked how the book ended. I thought the writing there was especially poignant and beautiful; the reflection on the future of England, the discussion of the future, and the point that things are always and will always change was a really good summary of the entire almost 700 page novel. I found the last line of the last main chapter before the epilogue to be really eloquent and I read it over several times. If the writing for this book had been like the last 1/3rd of the book, it could have been a 5 star read. Ultimately, I wish this book had been edited and cut a bit more, but I ended up liking and rating it way higher than I had thought I would, so I guess it all ended well....more
This book was too fucking long. Over 800 pages (on the kindle version)??? This could have been split right down the middle to make two books and wouldThis book was too fucking long. Over 800 pages (on the kindle version)??? This could have been split right down the middle to make two books and would have made a lot more sense and been much more consistent that way, especially since there were two natural ~sections of the book that had a very clear divide between them.
Okay, now that I got that off my chest, I can continue.
I very much agree with everyone who said that this book was way worse than the first book. And yet, I gave it almost a similar rating, because it still managed to charm me and suck me into it despite the first half dragging so terribly. That's what I mean about the book being inconsistent - the first half was super slow and had pretty much nothing interesting or character developing going on, but then the second half was all go go go without any time to breathe. I stopped reading this book for a long while right before getting to the second half because I just couldn't get into anything that was happening, but once I picked it up again and finished the first half, I finished the second half in less than a week. There was also just too much going on packed into one book, so I'm pretty sure I've already forgotten half the important stuff.
Character-wise, my favorite characters are the dragons because of the banter and also because dragons, duh, and then all the side characters. I really don't care about Violet or Xaden or their romance, especially because it felt super repetitive (lots of hot sex, Violet gets mad about Xaden not telling her things, Xaden professing how much he loves her, rinse and repeat). To be fair, I'm not a romance person at all, but this romance just doesn't feel like a true partnership between two equals. Not that I think a good romantic paring needs to be all rainbows and kittens all the time, but just professing your deep obsession love and having a lot of hot sex isn't it either.
I'm not even going to talk about Cat and the deeply unnecessary love triangle shit going on (even though it did get better after a bit)...give me Cat/Violet friendship instead where they are badass women accomplishing things together and kicking ass. In general, the friendships Violet has with her squad and those around her were consistently way more interesting and rewarding to me than anything Violet/Xaden. I also wanted way more family stuff with Violet and her siblings. I love both Mira and Brennan and I love family/sibling drama in stories, so give me that instead of overly-repetitive romantic tension.
(Also Violet annoyed me most of the time, but I do often tend to get annoyed at the heroes in fantasy/adventure books and movies lol, so maybe that's just a me thing.)
BUT the final battle in the book was so epic and I couldn't stop reading. The stakes felt so high and I could totally see it in a movie or TV show. I also just love anything where the dragons are featured, and Andarna is just my favorite bb, so I'm glad she got to feature more in the second half of the book (and especially in the battle). This battle alone (and okay, the second half to a lesser degree) basically turned the book from a 3 star to a 4 star read, so it was pretty damn good.
So...will I read the next book? Most probably—but mostly for the dragons....more
Loading...
