So I'm giving this one three stars because when I read, I read like 100+ pages at a time. This was my Gig Book for when my partner plays at pubs etc, So I'm giving this one three stars because when I read, I read like 100+ pages at a time. This was my Gig Book for when my partner plays at pubs etc, and I even WENT TO A COFFEE SHOP to finish reading it on Sunday to give you an idea of how engaged I was.
Sadly though I don't think all of this hit. Conceptually I liked it in terms of "four girls who are spiritual/kind of actual sisters and must team up." I was also enticed by the location of Cambridge, as I've been there a lot/was just there six weeks ago, so it was nice to read about a place I'm familiar with. But this ended up being a bit too disjointed for me overall. I get what the author was trying to do by showing everyone's perspectives but ... eh.
Also it makes sense but I got mildly irritated by the fairy tale aspects for each girl. This could've been better but I needed it to be more consistent. (view spoiler)[Obviously Scarlet is Little Red Riding Hood ... she's got red hair, there's a guy named Wolf, and she lives with her grandmother. And Bea is Beauty and the Beast because her name is LITERALLY BEAUTY -- why couldn't her name be Bella or something slightly more subtle?? -- and she falls in love with a guy whose name is like Ukrainian for Beast or something. And kills him. Okay, fine, those two are like obvious enough. Liyana is ... the Little Mermaid? I guess you could make the claim that she's giving up one aspect of her life by maybe being forced into marriage, but it didn't quite fit. I couldn't quite get how that fit in. And then Goldie is Goldilocks, because her brother is named TEDDY, AFTER HER BEAR, but then the version of Goldilocks told at the end is deeply unlike any version of the Goldilocks story I've ever heard. Conceptually kind of cool, but then at the same time ... just ... bleh. (hide spoiler)]
I feel like I ended up mildly irritated with everyone in here except for Scarlet. Again I want to emphasize that this book sucked me in and I enjoyed the time I was there in the world, but afterwards I was left feeling kind of ... ehhhhh about the whole thing....more
Poison Study was so good! And this is ... okay. I don't know.
I like the expanded worldbuilding but it feels weird being outside of Ixia and into an enPoison Study was so good! And this is ... okay. I don't know.
I like the expanded worldbuilding but it feels weird being outside of Ixia and into an entirely different world. We're also thrust into a family that Yelena was bewitched into forgetting when she was kidnapped, which is cool conceptually, but also felt like she went into it a little too ... blithely? There's also an awful lot of SA happening (thankfully not to Yelena this time, but there's an evil sorcerer who's raping and killing young women to steal their souls).
I do appreciate that there is no random love triangle popping up now that Yelena's with Valek. Usually when the protagonist is away from the now-committed love interest, another guy pops up and provides a tempting alternative. Super thankful that didn't actually happen here, although it felt like it may with Cahil at one point.
I'm going to read the third because why not but honestly kind of a letdown after how good Poison Study was....more
Tentatively shelving as YA (my first YA book in literal years) although I don't fully know if I would actually consider this YA -- I view it as more NTentatively shelving as YA (my first YA book in literal years) although I don't fully know if I would actually consider this YA -- I view it as more NA, but that wasn't really a category 20 years ago when this was initially published. Yelena's gone through a LOT, but I feel like that's pretty par for the course with more modern YA.
I'll admit I did not have any high hopes for this book. I picked it up on a whim and nearly put it down but returned after reading The Five. I was really pleasantly surprised by the characters and worldbuilding in general. It's also nice to read something with romance but the romance is not the main focus. That's not my jam and why I tend to avoid a lot of modern romantasy, but this was pretty solid. I'll admit I picked up the next book pretty much immediately and I'm about ~100 pages into that.
Valek is pretty great, although in my head I keep calling him Vanek because the Sabres had a player fifteen years ago called Thomas Vanek, so he's like an assassin hockey-player in my head. Yelena was also a pretty winning character. I was worried that she was going to be Not Like Other Girls all the time (look, the 2000s were a rough time to be a teen girl ... not that it's not rough now, obviously, but there were a lot more limiting), but she's not at all. (view spoiler)[I was also pleasantly surprised with the Commander's subplot/secret. I think it might be written/handled a bit more differently now, but especially given that this came out in 2005 it was pretty empathetic. (hide spoiler)]...more
What a lovely, dark little gem of a book. Both laugh-out-loud funny and clever in its construction, full of characters you love to hate (as well as soWhat a lovely, dark little gem of a book. Both laugh-out-loud funny and clever in its construction, full of characters you love to hate (as well as some you love to root for). I've described this to a couple folks as Jane Austen-level wit but in mid-century Britain; learning Kennedy wrote a biography of Jane Austen also explains a lot about her own writing. She's brilliant at giving the reader subtle hints rather than spelling out each character's sins/backstories. I had so much fun reading this, and would love to pick up another one of her books.
Shoutout to the McNally editions display at Carmichael's Bookstore, which got me to pick this up -- otherwise I never would've known about this! Has also made me curious about other McNally editions to see what other gems I've been missing out on....more
I really wanted to like this one a lot more, but ultimately it was underwhelming. Conceptually I think it's awesome having a mute character trying to I really wanted to like this one a lot more, but ultimately it was underwhelming. Conceptually I think it's awesome having a mute character trying to communicate and having them be misunderstood by others in the community (sometimes willfully, sometimes just because they're not groking what she's conveying), but it left me wanting in certain places. A creative writing professor once told me that characters can be passive, but they have to choose to be passive -- and while I think there are a few times it happens here, largely it felt like a lot of things happened to Martha and she just didn't take action, rather than choosing to remain silent.
There was also some cool stuff in here involving the poppet, but (perhaps this is the fantasy part of me popping out) I wanted it to be real magic and to do actual stuff. There were also bits that were fully glossed over that I thought would've worked a lot better in scene, namely a lot of the torture Martha faces. Yes, it's brutal to read even in summary, but if that's what the author was going for, it would've been perhaps more evocative to have the reader bear witness to what exactly happened to these women.
I don't know what I expected from this book -- it's a bummer because it's about witch trials and the utter cruelty perpetuated by towns that turned on their own, it would be kind of weird if it wasn't upsetting at all -- but in the end I just felt kind of "meh" about the whole thing, which is unfortunate....more
(Reviewing everything belatedly from my UK trip -- this is what happens when I don't write reviews immediately after reading books, I end up with a li(Reviewing everything belatedly from my UK trip -- this is what happens when I don't write reviews immediately after reading books, I end up with a little backlog.)
I was a bit hesitant about this one at first because I thought Linette might be "not like other girls" in historical fiction, i.e. wearing trousers, not caring about love... not that I mind headstrong female characters (in fact, I love them), but I feel like a lot of the time in historical fiction, that flavour of character can become kind of samey and more of a modern feminist, rather than feeling like a real human being from that time period. Thankfully this subverted that, and I'm glad I continued reading.
There were a lot of fun, if not a bit eyebrow-raising, twists in here. (view spoiler)[I gasped aloud when we got the twin reveal -- again, a bit over-the-top but I thought it was pretty well done, and I didn't see it coming. I was less impressed with Rowena's heel-turn. For some reason I can accept secret twins, but I draw the line at the quiet love interest working for the big bad the whole time?? I think if the twins hadn't been there, I might've been able to swallow it a bit better, but having those revelations back-to-back was a lot to work with. (hide spoiler)]
Richly written and a lovely little ode to Wales. Will definitely check out this author's other work in the future....more