Rudi and his friends travel home while revisiting some of the people he met on his journey to the east coast.
I enjoyed the first Emberverse trilogy deRudi and his friends travel home while revisiting some of the people he met on his journey to the east coast.
I enjoyed the first Emberverse trilogy despite (or maybe partly because of) its excesses, but this follow up series has become disappointing. The idea of Rudi crossing the continent with a small group of young people who grew up in the changed world is pretty great, but reading about him meeting and usually winning over members of various wacky post-change cultures has gotten repetitive.
I assumed that we were going to finally see some aftermath of his journey, because it would be great for the story to finally move on a little further. Instead, this one is heavy on recaps and the characters talk every idea and feeling to death. The battle scenes seem thrown in to liven things up a little, most were low-stakes to the point of boring.
At this point I'm still invested enough to want to find out about the resolution of the war, but I hope the author gets on with it already.
Merged review:
Rudi and his friends travel home while revisiting some of the people he met on his journey to the east coast.
I enjoyed the first Emberverse trilogy despite (or maybe partly because of) its excesses, but this follow up series has become disappointing. The idea of Rudi crossing the continent with a small group of young people who grew up in the changed world is pretty great, but reading about him meeting and usually winning over members of various wacky post-change cultures has gotten repetitive.
I assumed that we were going to finally see some aftermath of his journey, because it would be great for the story to finally move on a little further. Instead, this one is heavy on recaps and the characters talk every idea and feeling to death. The battle scenes seem thrown in to liven things up a little, most were low-stakes to the point of boring.
At this point I'm still invested enough to want to find out about the resolution of the war, but I hope the author gets on with it already....more
This training program seems pretty intense, but the book does a good job of reinforcing the idea that everything you do with your dog is training it hThis training program seems pretty intense, but the book does a good job of reinforcing the idea that everything you do with your dog is training it how to act. We'll be getting a puppy soon, and we'll be using at least some of these tips. I'll be reading a few other training books first, so it's hard to know right now which one we'll stick closest to.
Merged review:
This training program seems pretty intense, but the book does a good job of reinforcing the idea that everything you do with your dog is training it how to act. We'll be getting a puppy soon, and we'll be using at least some of these tips. I'll be reading a few other training books first, so it's hard to know right now which one we'll stick closest to....more
Choosing to use a blind heroine but then giving her cool assassin magic that keeps her disability from affecting much of anything (beyond giving her tChoosing to use a blind heroine but then giving her cool assassin magic that keeps her disability from affecting much of anything (beyond giving her the occasional wistful memory) is a cop out.
This was also too plot-driven for my taste, with lots of describing the conflict rather than making me feel it. There's an interesting idea here; it's just not carried out very well....more
Bold of the author to spend one of the first three pages on a (mercifully hypothetical) description of a hot tub filled with human shit.
Honestly thouBold of the author to spend one of the first three pages on a (mercifully hypothetical) description of a hot tub filled with human shit.
Honestly though, I did appreciate the signal right up front that despite the compelling blurb and domestic horror slant, this was going to be too wacky and omg-lol for my taste. I'm grateful that I got it from the library, so I could drop it instead of feeling like I should pile wasted time on top of wasted money....more
This is not a Murdaugh book, it's Mandy Matney's memoir of covering the Murdaughs.
Maybe I'd have realized this in advance if I'd done more than skim This is not a Murdaugh book, it's Mandy Matney's memoir of covering the Murdaughs.
Maybe I'd have realized this in advance if I'd done more than skim the first few Amazon reviews (clearly written by fans of the author's podcast), but to be fair, the subtitle and blurb all point towards this being The Murdaugh Book by the reporter who broke a lot of news on it. This book isn't much about "Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty" though. It's a rambling account of Matney's life and experience covering the story.
The whole book comes across as self-aggrandizing, an impression that probably wasn't helped by listening to the audiobook version. Matney complains a lot, including about people who helped her. She takes shots at bosses and coworkers, at other reporters on the story, and at sources who didn't take news directly to her first. She dramatizes personal interactions that don't seem worth the significance she's assigned them. She writes as if being early to the coverage means that only she cares about the victims or can do the story justice. She writes about the praise she's gotten from her inner circle. From grateful families. From fans. It feels like she's mythologizing herself.
Her insistence that she was honoring the victims and families started to grate on me after a while because it was sprinkled through a narrative that mostly treats them as asides in Mandy Matney's scrappy reporter journey....more
This was an interesting concept, but time-slip novels can be a tough sell for me because at some point all the "oops, I said the wrong thing!" bits stThis was an interesting concept, but time-slip novels can be a tough sell for me because at some point all the "oops, I said the wrong thing!" bits start to feel repetitive. Mallory/Catriona also spent too much time consciously prodding at and reevaluating her own thoughts for my taste.
Great concept and setting, but the story felt underdeveloped. I was also thrown at times by jarring info dumps or awkward transitions.
The protagonistGreat concept and setting, but the story felt underdeveloped. I was also thrown at times by jarring info dumps or awkward transitions.
The protagonist's habit of blurting whatever crossed her mind made her somewhat annoying; it came across more like a way of sharing backstory than a natural part of the character....more
This was an impulse purchase that I almost DNFed right away because of the painfully slow start and awkward worldbuilding. The opening throws a ton ofThis was an impulse purchase that I almost DNFed right away because of the painfully slow start and awkward worldbuilding. The opening throws a ton of goofy Space Opera Jargon around, and for me, that stuff is nails on the chalkboard of genre fiction.
Then I got to the male lead, and y'all. He's Kylo Ren with the Disney trademarks filed off. So reader, I finished it.
The writing style is smooth but not especially engaging, and the chemistry between the leads is too light for my taste. But if the idea of slow burn Kylo Ren/female OC AU floats your boat, this would scratch that itch....more
I still enjoy these characters, but I may be tiring of the series. The book opens with a shattering personal development that feels a bit too cruel foI still enjoy these characters, but I may be tiring of the series. The book opens with a shattering personal development that feels a bit too cruel for my taste; maybe after the previous 16 books I'm over watching Sebastian get tormented for drama.
Then the mystery does that thing where the sleuths just circle around talking to the same group of characters again and again with occasional breaks for ambush attacks. Obviously a lot of mystery novels are structured that way, but there needs to be more spark in the rest of a story to make the repetitive conversations more tolerable. Maybe the Bourbon Restoration setting was interesting enough for some readers to bridge that gap, but I start to fade out on historical mysteries that seem more driven by the history than the mystery....more
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