Lori

This book delivered on giving perspective to the Laconians and the story was greatly executed. Complex characters, relationships, and moments combined to make this story hard to put down.

You get all the time you need with the Laconians and it provided a depth to the people, their decisions, and the culture. This is done mainly thought the POV of Teresa Duarte (daughter of Winston Duarte). Her perspective is truly unique and engaging as she is almost in the center of all that’s happening on Laconia. This was the best part of the book for me. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the resistance side of things as Bobbie is truly a god among mortals and that’s all I will say about that.

I didn’t rate this book higher as parts of the book namely the parts with our favorite characters were just not as good as in other books or were barely there.

This was an ok ending, but the book is pretty slow. It takes awhile to get any answers and there are a lot of filler. The engagement is similar to Cibola Burn in that a lot of the story didn’t matter and there is not much connection for the reader to the people or events. I was hoping for more in the final book and maybe my expectations are clouding some of the good parts of the book.

The ending was unsatisfying as there are not enough answers and was completely rushed. There should have been a cut of the unnecessary side character plots and more expanse on the ending. Going from the great storytelling in Tiamat’s Wrath to this was a bit of a kick to the reader.

I was hooked from beginning to end as the writing was fantastic and always engaging. It is hard to tell you what was done better the characters or the storyline.

The horror part of the book delivered and there were a few scenes where you could feel the creeping and unease. Looking past the slowly rising and increasingly elaborate deaths the book talks about gay erasure from media and corporate greed but is never heavy handed. The book also brings up the use of AI and property rights in a very creative way.

The characters are full of complexities with unique voices that add to the story with out detracting from the main story. The main character is so detailed that you become invested in his story. The glimpses of the inspiration behind his characters are worth the addition and only add to the overall story.

I wouldn’t say this is a really scary book but it’s still a great horror story and one I would defiantly recommend. It's a horror with a message.

This book reads as a young adult, and I was really not expecting that. With such complex issues I thought it would be a great book to bring up social and racial discussions like the description lead me to believe. Instead, the main character has no growth and handles everything and a petulant way. Many of the books main issues are swept under the rug and are now ok.

The one gay character in the book comes out at the end of the book where their bigoted family just accepts them. This could have been done better instead of just dumping it on us at the end not doing justice to any gay reader. This moment felt like a check box.

This book was great but what stops be from rating it higher is that it was hard to get through.

The individual stories are great and well researched. I loved how the author would explain how people might have come to the conclusions and actions that they did. A good amount of background is provided for the locations and time period, so you never feel lost.

These detail rich and interesting subjects are too much at times rendering the parts boring. I wanted to learn something interesting but instead I felt like I was trying to study a textbook. Still the book brought up a lot of great conversation and I did enjoy it overall.

I always hear people talk about disliking this book and I don’t see why. I really enjoyed the book, and it was nice to finally see the other side of the story as this book has a small connection with Dolores Claiborne. Maybe people don’t like the talk about sex, but it really isn’t a big part of this book, or it could be because the book is entirely to the point of view of the main character who may be seeing things.

Since it is entirely one women’s internal monolog it can be slow, and I found the good wife voice to be a little too much at times. If the book was shorter, I would have maybe rated the book a little higher. I did like the discussions the book brings to the reader about trauma and how the charter confronts what has happened and what’s still happening.

The moonlight man had some of the best parts of the book and I loved the ending. IF the book had more to do with the moonlight man, I think this would have brought the book to a higher level. Still, I would recommend reading this book at least once as the fear of being trapped to the bed and under all that trauma is incredibly written.

This book is by not means bad, but it is slow to start with getting to know the crew of the Roci again despite that not much has changed. I wish there are more changes to the people both on the crew and in the universe. For that amount of time to have passed I would have thought more would have happened. The time jump was an interesting device to use but only really used for the change in Laconian technology.

There were some great parts to this book mainly how the Laconians dominated the other navies and their culture. But part of this felt like just another fight. The invasion is fairly quick, and I wish there was more detail and perspective on the Laconian side.

This book is more of a set up for what’s to come or at least that is the impression it gives. I hope the next book get’s a change to really get into the Laconian side of things.

I am happy I tried this book. I had read another book by this author called The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and didn’t like it as much. But this one worked on all the points I didn’t like in the first book.

The writing in this felt more adult and thought out. There is a lot to embrace in this book as I really enjoyed reading about the characters, the main story was well done, the found family didn’t feel forced, and it was a good amount of charming and heartfelt.

I didn’t rate this higher as I felt like there should have been more focus on the main story. Still, I liked the book as it gives a great cozy and slightly serious vibe.

After reading the authors other book The Troop I wasn’t sure about reading this one and I ended up choosing this book as part of a reading challenge.

The start was amazing. It was the right amount questions, information, and creepiness. The start isn’t too slow, and the pacing is fairly fast throughout the book. As you learn more about why the main character is there the mystery only deepens and the sense of unease increases. I love a book that can really scare me and most of this book kept me on edge. All the questioning was great, and the mystery evolved past what I thought it would be.

I didn’t rate this book as high as I thought I would while reading because the book reached a point where the sense of unease became dull. It’s hard to believe but when you are kept in a state of constant high emotions you numb yourself to it. There are so many moments when it could have been a horrifying scene with a significant impact which would have been great, instead it’s only a constant hum of malcontent. The same goes for the gore in the book. It starts off small and slowly increases as your progress though the story to a point where you ask yourself why I am reading this. It adds nothing to the better written sections and is more of a test of endurance.

I slogged into the ending after wasting so much emotion being ready for a big scare in this book. It’s better than The Troop but I won’t read this again.

An intriguing idea but this book was so boring. There are four POVs and they rotate in interest but never fully capture your attention.

This book should have been full of emotion from strong subjects like rape, uneven power dynamics, and women’s abuse and although the writing is good the story is detached. Most of the characters in the book a shallow and are more like tropes. They barely have any personality, and you can’t relate to them. For a global setting most of the book is U.S. focused and the descriptions of other areas like the Middle East is a bit insulting and almost racist. This is also written in the way that the American’s trying to deal with the power through education and enforcement while the Middle Eastern countries devolve to riot and murder.

The idea is there and there are sections in the book where the author delivers but it’s not the feminist book that was marketed. I thought there would be more of a discussion about woman coming into power and how some women would want to get back at men and the way women would govern themselves. This book was none of that and it doesn’t take long for pretty much all woman to become murderers and rapists. The women quickly take to this new cruelty and there is no real opposition to it. What happened to women with reason, morality, or basic kindness.

This wasn’t the discussion is should have been and the last half of the book almost had me quit.

This was a fun read but the romance side of this was not as good as the cover was. The cover was so cute that I hoped the book would be as cute.

There are certainly good parts with the farm animals and the ghost, but the chemistry is a dampener. There are at time good chemistry but some of what the male lead says is hurtful. I also didn’t like him pushing for the truth all the time. Yes, he was right to ask for the truth about being a scammer but some of her personal issues aren’t right for him to demand answers to.

If you don’t focus too much on the romance, it was a delightful book. The rest of the storyline is fun as the lead comes into her own in honest work. The work she puts into the shop and the friendships she builds is enjoyable. I would recommend this as more of a cozy story then romance.

The story is split between the past and present and the past timeline is really the most drawing part of the story.

The past brings up well formed issues and ideas around traditional healing, woman’s places in Male dominated fields, and independent lifestyles. The present timeline is where I didn’t like changes to the main characters personality and other characters judging her life as unfulfilled with no partner and kids. In both timelines the miscommunication trope is used to be the main problem in an unproblematic relationship.

I liked this book but wish there were some changes to the present timeline.

This book is written by someone who wants to point out all the worst parts of cozy mysteries or that’s what it came out as.

The book is filled with tropes, general characterizations, and annoying red herrings none of which is done well. The main character does all the worst things like jumping to conclusions, putting herself in into dangerous situations, budding into other people’s business, demanding answers, and not addressing serious problems. The threatening phone calls she didn’t report and the fact that she was more concerned that a random person she has never met thought that she could have started the fire then the fire itself really made me dislike the character.

I thought this would be a fun story revolving around a bookshop and besides being a location the shop and books in general have no place in this story. I wanted to like this as the author does well at showing the main character pick up minute details and clues but none of that is used to resolve the story.

I found this book on Instagram funnily enough. The book was good, but it left me wishing there was more to read and that there was a deeper dive into the origins of some words.

This book focuses on the modern impact and uses of language. This alone is interesting, but I had thought it would also be an analysis on these developments. It really only talks about the uses in modern society and the development once it reaches the forefront.

It was still engaging and informative while being a quick look into modern language.

Saying I hated this seems too strong on an emotion to invest in this book. I chose this book as part of a reading challenge. I didn’t really want to read this after completing another book by this author The Hunger earlier this year and disliking it as well.

Split between two timelines, first on the Titanic and second on the Britannic. You jump back and forth and there is not much of difference in the main character to help you tell them apart. Both stories are boring and add nothing to the original tragedies as there is no development of interesting charters in either timeline. I though the point of this book was to add more depth to the stories of the passengers. What’s there is very superficial both in details and characterizations. There are also too many points of view in the book, and they are not needed nor wanted.

The book is marked as horror but is more of a romance with slight supernatural elements and if you read this as a romance book you will also be disappointed. You are told there is a connection between the characters but there is no chemistry.

The whole book is overly complicated and not that deep.

This book was good but not as good as others in the series. We get this large buildup form the last book, but the beginning of this one is slow and not very rewarding.

There are some parts that were added that added depth to the story but most of it was not needed. One thing that has always annoyed me in this series is the multitude of different POVs. This book had a few new POVs that were unnecessary and took up time and for a book with such great characters already this was just filler. It reminds me of the Harry Potter movie franchise where they split the last book into two films. All this filler adds nothing and annoys readers.

I also didn’t like that none of the main characters died. This might not sound like a bad thing, but it would have felt more real for the main casts to have some losses. They seem to be more indestructible then the protomolecule.

We do receive some moments to reminisce about all the characters for the last battle and if there were not already more books out, I could see this as a final goodbye for readers.

This was a huge pick up from the last book and sucked me right in. This book is the start of a larger all-out war and getting to see each little piece being put into place is magnificent. The reason for not marking this higher is that you gent no satisfaction in seeing the outcome simply because it is not apart of this book. This is only one half of the story with the next book completing the storyline. So, this book is all build up which may not be bad seeing as how I ran to read the next one but if I had to wait for the next book I could see this being frustrated.

The crew of the Roci is spread thin this time and we get the stories of each crew member until they slowly lead back to each other. The pacing is slow at the beginning but as each story progressed the speed increased as well. There is a lot of great details and hints in this book about what is to come. This book added more backstory to most of the characters, and it feels like they set this up so that there can be a deeper connection to the characters in the next one. Since I saw the show first, I wonder if the character out comes will be different in the next book.

This book starts off strong with interesting characters and a hearty competitive atmosphere between the two love interests. From there I had a tough time staying interested in this book.

One thing that made it hard to read was the internal thoughts. At times it was large blocks of thoughts and feelings while at other times it was short and jumpy. It was hard to get into a rhythm with this much inconsistency much less stay interested in the main story. The timeline is also a little hard to follow. The timeline jumps around with no connection made to help its readers.

I liked the supporting characters, and the author does well with including without making it feel like the characters were tokens or forced. The author also does well at showing a realistic sexual relationship. The rest of the relationship however was wrought with miscommunication or simply no communication. This does lead to some deception though withholding information until they could hurt each other most making it harder to root for the couple as the book went on.

This wasn’t for me.

The story is not developed enough or maybe that it’s not sharp enough to make it’s point. The story is emotionally disconnected that the climax is more anti-climatic. No matter how I think of this story there is no impact of what happens. It’s hard to explain but it’s the same as how what I am writing now won’t have an impact to those reading it.

This was a very captivating story that’s well written with a lot of details. But I didn’t really like it.

There are many little stories to make up the lifetime of the main charters and they could be good at times, but they took too much away from the main mystery. This book reminded me of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café in the way there is one character following the life of another told through many little stories with a bit of dark mystery woven though. We have a character that affects the lives of many others in their small-town while being at the center of much gossip. Where the stories diverge is that one is a beloved classic with great stories with a great payoff and the other is a bit pretentious with no pay off.

It was story after non important, completely unrelated, and dull story. There are good parts in the beginning and near the end, but everything in-between makes it not worth it.

The beginning of this book was great with a well done southern gothic feel and an interesting premise. Then it drops down to a family drama young adult novel.

There is a lot that it is frustrating about this book like the main characters inability to take in any hint that is presented to her. She also switches from a strong character who will not take abuse to a week one that will. Why she stays at the house is the most frustrating part. It doesn’t make much sense, and it felt like the author couldn’t come up with a good excuse. We get multiple sections of the character trying to figure this detail out.

This book focuses on forgiveness, but I wished it ended with her leaving that family trapped in the house forever. There is not a single redeemable trait or action of that family. The mother’s story is the worst part of the book; I don’t want to give anything way but its nonsensical. The book also deals with racism and uses it as part of the plot but not in a satisfactory way. There is a lot left unsaid and sometimes just completely ignored.

This book started of well and had a great premise but by the end all of it felt wasted.

I didn’t know much about the event that is the base this book derived from. I did end up reading a few articles on the event itself and honestly it was more interesting than the book.

It’s slow, very slow. There are quite a few characters to introduce and a few of the backstories are interesting. Very quickly the book becomes about drama and relationships. Longing glances and forbidden desires are interspersed between large blocks of people thinking. They think about why they are there, the difficulties of the road, the dwindling supplies, and gossip of fellow travelers. This I would say is almost 80% of the book.

Despite the large number of characters, different points of view, or even the simply the long length of the novel there is not a lot of character depth. Most things including descriptions of the people are surface level. This person is pretty, or this other person is mean. The backgrounds help but they still feel weightless. The desires of the people, often sexual, are the main driving force of their personalities.

Mostly the book feels like a psychological drama but there are supernatural elements that are forced in. Thoughts and discussions about ‘the hunger’ are constant so much so that you are annoyed at the characters for doing nothing about it. This element was more of an afterthought that added nothing to the story of the original event.

I need a book about an overlooked woman in history for a reading challenge and though I would give this a try.

The first part of the book was great as it talked about the myths surrounding Laveau and the why and how that these might have come to be. As well as what might be as close to the real history as we can get. It was genuinely interesting and makes you really think about how the history of one person can become so distorted.

What bothers me about this book is that the rest of the book is about how to practice with Laveau is sprit or mind. There was too much detail in this section on setting up an alter, spell work, and practicing Laveau’s type of spirituality. Not that it’s not interesting just that it really should have been made into its own book.

The ending has a really good description on why the author is so passionate about the book. There is a lot to like in this book, but I wish more time were spent on history and culture like the first part of the book.

I pick this book up mostly since I was bored and between audiobooks and partly because I like horror novels.

Firstly, I will say this book is not really scarry. I was listening to this book in an almost empty office on a darkened and cool day. The perfect day for a horror story, and yet I wasn’t scared even once throughout the book. This may be because of the writing style as the author wrote the book as if it was half documentary and half story. Some of the more shocking scenes as they were supposed to be felt passive and dulled. It is an interesting story but the book switches in tone throughout. From we are running with the belief that these events are real, and this is what they said happened.

I didn’t care for this book as it felt poorly written and the subject matter didn’t seem worthy of a book.

For an older story this was strong and very creeping. Quickly you are drawn into the characters perspective and the author does well at building a slow creeping fear into the story. It’s not a shocking story but it’s one that makes you think and lingers near afterwards.

The only thing stopping me from rating this higher is that I wish you got more time within the time frame selected. There are skips in time that are a loss to the story. What I mean is that the time frame the author selected was good, but we need more time with the character to truly feel the mental fatigue and paranoia that she feels.

This was worth the read.