en-US Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:58:59 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7454627523 Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:58:59 -0700 /review/show/7454627523 Brian gave 2 stars to The Art of Mindful Reading: Embracing the Wisdom of Words (Mindfulness series) by Ella Berthoud
]]> Review7452973527 Tue, 01 Apr 2025 03:42:20 -0700 /review/show/7452973527 Brian gave 4 stars to Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1) by Rebecca Yarros
A high action plot with lots of interesting twists and turns, good characters, and an okay romance. I didn't need the prevalent f-bombs (though they might be common in militaristic culture), and the sex scenes were pretty graphic (also unnecessary IMHO), but it IS adult romantasy, so more of that can be expected. Barring those two personal quibbles, this is well-written and a very engaging story, and the dragons are great! ]]> Review7433268720 Tue, 25 Mar 2025 04:28:53 -0700 /review/show/7433268720 Brian gave 2 stars to The Wind Singer (Wind on Fire, #1) by William Nicholson
I think the 4-5th-grade fantasy reader would thoroughly enjoy this book, with its caring, rebellious family, and its competitive world of social rankings. I found it a bit disjointed, with many questions unanswered, the main theme rather superficially treated, and the main character sidelined toward the end; it's an "ensemble" novel, certainly, but I feel it tried to make everyone into a protagonist, and lost something in the process. ]]> Review7422114721 Fri, 21 Mar 2025 07:31:07 -0700 /review/show/7422114721 Brian gave 2 stars to Sign of the Sandman (Hardcover) by Tom Turner
It's an interesting premise, navigating dreams and fighting battles in a DreamScape, but the problem is that anything can happen in dreams...and it does in this story, often quite conveniently. Also, just as dreams can feel disjointed, this plot sometimes feels that way, too. While that may be appropriate to create a "dreamlike" quality to the narrative, it is also disappointing when Deus ex machina takes over, and the characters and actions don't feel fully motivated. For me, this story needed several more revisions to tighten up the worldbuilding and the DreamScape functionality to be more believable. ]]> Review7418538274 Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:59:44 -0700 /review/show/7418538274 Brian gave 4 stars to Small Favors (Hardcover) by Erin A. Craig
A strong horror novel with a twist of romance and fantasy. I found it dragged a bit in the middle, but otherwise it's a page-turner. ]]> Review7404030318 Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:00:30 -0700 /review/show/7404030318 Brian gave 4 stars to House of Hollow (Hardcover) by Krystal Sutherland
This is the kind of book that keeps you uneasy through the whole story, and once it's done, you're STILL uneasy with the world. A changeling story that left me with the same disturbed feeling as Neil Gaiman's Coraline. ]]> Review7394228191 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 05:19:50 -0700 /review/show/7394228191 Brian gave 3 stars to The Red Knight (The Traitor Son Cycle, #1) by Miles Cameron
A war of epic proportions (man against the Wild: daemons, boglins, irks, etc.) dominates this narrative, told in vignettes from the perspectives of its myriad characters. I found it hard to remember who was who throughout the novel (there were so many people involved in the war), but it holds together and by 500 pages in, I had a pretty good sense of who the characters were (that may be more an issue of the reader than the story). If you love battles and strategy with your magic and fantastic creatures, this is the book for you. ]]> Review7314107137 Wed, 12 Feb 2025 03:09:01 -0800 /review/show/7314107137 Brian gave 3 stars to Mexican and central American mythology (Library of the world's myths and legends) by Irene Nicholson
Certainly a well-researched tome, the emphasis is on merging culture, history, and myth. While stories do make up a significant portion of the text, I felt they tended to be subsidiary to the culture and history exploration and presented more as artefacts than as engaging tales. So for those interested in an academic book on how stories provide windows and mirrors for culture and history, this book is on super. For storytellers looking for tales to share...not so much. ]]> Review7295275189 Wed, 05 Feb 2025 23:25:10 -0800 /review/show/7295275189 Brian gave 2 stars to Legends & Romances of Spain (Kindle Edition) by Lewis Spence
This tome contains snippets from a variety of Spanish romances (Poema del Cid, Amadis de Gaul, ballads, and Don Quixote) as well as one chapter of tales of magic and sorcery. As the introduction claims, "I have made an earnest endeavour to provide English readers with a conspectus of Spanish romantic literature as expressed in its cantares de gesta, its chivalric novels, its romanceros or ballads, and some of its lighter aspects." This is an accurate description of the work, a "taste" of the genre, accompanied by the author's historical narration to provide context and a deeper understanding of the form and function of these stories. Told in an archaic and academic style that is likely an accurate English rendering of the originals, the stories have the same chivalric style as Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and I struggled to read them and relate to them. Wikipedia describes Spence as "a Scottish journalist, poet, author, folklorist and occult scholar," and the book reads as such. Part of my disappointment (and hence lower star ranking) was that I was reading this as a storyteller looking for great stories to share, and I found these renditions unsatisfying from that stylistic perspective. The color plate illustrations also gave it the feel of a children's book, which this definitely is not! For the reader who wants an "academic sampler," however, the book fits the bill. ]]> ReadStatus8909038040 Sun, 12 Jan 2025 12:50:16 -0800 /review/show/7207310002 Brian has read The Giver by Lois Lowry
]]>