BulbasaurusThe7th

This is a DNF for me at 30% for now. I'm not saying I will never try again, I might, but this is just not very fun.

I want to start out by saying this. I do not know about Chinese history. Some other reviews talk. either positively or negatively, about this basically being a retelling of Chinese history in a kind of fantastical way. They are probably right. But as that is not something I know about, I can't really offer an input on it, other than the fact that...
So far the fantasy elements don't seem to be worth it that much. Some gods show up, trying to subtly manipulate history through pushing their champions. They are messy, there are too many of them. It's just not that interesting in my opinion. It's just one more layer on top of my biggest issue with this.

My big issue, you ask? So much exposition!
I accept that the history of this world is rich. Hell yeah, it's obvious. But. Do we need to be told about all of that before we connect to anything at all? We don't know much about the main characters (more on that later), we don't know what the tone will be, what sort of a story we are reading. But we already got the names of the states, their capitals, their principal gods, a bunch of generals, heroes, people who even change their names once they become emperor. A bunch of conflicts, more new characters just mentioned.
Did we need that? Sure, add them when they become truly relevant, but we just bounce between literally everything, from the kind of funny, typical fold hero chapters of Kuni Garu, the revenge story flashbacks of Mata Zyndu's.... uncle, some minister, an accountant, some bandits, an old soldier, the gods, more and more and more. Every freaking chapter is a new tangent.
Again, all these could have been introduced, sure, go ahead. But be a bit more subtle than “OH, and this random side character tells you his story for no apparent reason” and much later, when we already get a feel for what is going on.

Now you might say, sure, history is an amalgamation of everyone's personal stories. Yes. But this is a novel. It needs to be at least somewhat of a consistent narrative that has a focus, or else it will be a jumble of parts that don't work together.
This one tries to do too many things and therefore it doesn't succeed at none of them.
Maybe Chinese historical storytelling works differently and tastes differ, but even considering that, this is a fantasy story with fantasy names and places, so you have to freaking learn them
regardless, which makes it cumbersome still.

Now... Kuni Garu is charming. If the book focused on him, it would be fun. But it doesn't and that kills it for me. Hearing about the 99th freaking person for one chapter doesn't add much context, more like it bogs it all down.
After some time I skimmed. I skimmed over names and the random useless information about whichever state has a mountain and whatever lake and then it all became even more boring.
Many minor characters seem to be added just to be added. Oh, they just show up, they have one scene where they do something, then they die/are gone. Why? Nothing seems to have that much of an emotional impact because, again, we are not allowed the time to get attached to anyone.
So it makes the story read more like a distant history than immediate events. Possibly the point, not very engaging as a book.

All in all, the book has a definitive character that really turned me off. All the choices made were ones that made it a harder, less pleasant read for me.

In this one our kids go on to year two of their superhero education. Exams happen, fights, some parties. People outside the college are getting involved with them and big events in the outside world are influencing what happens to them.

I would say this was more of the same as the first book. I still enjoy it. I feel the writing has improved, even though there are still some awkwardly overwritten parts, they are less and less at this point.

I have one issue with it, though. It's small, but still. There are a lot of characters, all of them with their own superpower. Sometimes I really didn't remember who did what, especially because some of the skills overlap in use. One girl has siren song, another manipulates noise to attack. Which is which now? Sometimes a character gets mentioned and I don't remember what they can do, but then it turns out maybe we weren't even told yet.

My second DNF in a row, about halfway in. I'm not happy about it, but I refuse to waste more time on a book I dislike so much.

The Emperor is killed, though he had three children, two sons (Kaden and Valyn) and a daughter (Adare). The two boys are sent away to study, one with monks, the other with warriors. The daughter is home as a minister.
And they're all bloody boooooring. Lets just start with Adare. She is young, but she becomes someone very important because her dad hands her a position. Of course she is pissed, because every fantasy princess needs to be an entitled shithead. Why didn't she get an even better position? Because she is a woman! That's also the reason why people are sceptical about her, not because she is young and got here because her influential daddy made it so.
Kaden is with the monks of boring. They are trying to achieve the state of emptiness. Because that sounds great. Of course his dad told him nothing about the purpose of it and the monks also tell him nothing at all, so some wonderfully exciting rock carrying and pottery happens. For them reasons, ya'll.
Valyn gets fucked over a lot, someone is constantly trying to murder him. His best friend/crush is another spectacular “I am a victim because I am a woman” with huge emotional breakdowns who acts like a bitch when he is being nice. She is also incredibly sexist. (A murder happens and she automatically says it was a man, because women can't be cruel. Oooookay, gurl.) Oh, this warrior camp is also full of teenagers who are not even proper warriors yet, but just happen to be the best blower-upper, the best sniper, the best gigantic-bird-pilot. Good to know everyone peaks at 16.

The whole thing is just so slow and feels like I'm watching paint dry. We know these three will eventually meet, but fucking when??? While we're wasting time on Valyn being helpless at his girl's latest titfit or following Kaden as he does senseless, repetitive shit while some monk asks him questions he is expected to just figure out.... we're not getting closer to meaningful things.
But we do get some fantasy swearing. Now some people hate it. I generally don't mind, though this... just really crossed the line. The most common thing is “Kent-kissing”, which according to my Kindle is used 77 times. How is that okay? And this is just one of them.
But hey, the info dump is something crazy as well. We hear a lot of names, foreign words, gods, all kinds of things that supposedly serve a bit cultural purpose, but it's never really properly introduced, just thrown around to feel like you're reading an actual fantasy novel. Some authors do this well. They create intricate worlds with many different elements, but there is some art in serving it all up in a way that's palatable for the reader who doesn't have a whole notebook of notes and graphs. We don't know shit about these things. The way new information is thrown in as a “plot twist” where it's just some convenient shit that feels like it was made up on the spot... not very graceful, no.

But back to the female characters for a second. Everyone gushes about strong female characters, how they are a must and how we need to create this big bullshit ideological framework around them. You know what? I think people who blabber about it and what to prove something are usually ending up with shitty female characters, like here.
Women are not morally superior. With pretending that we are it's like every active good choice made by a woman is eradicated. To be a decent human to me is just as much of an effort as it is for a man. I'm not born as an angel without a malicious bone in my body. We also have to learn, to work on ourselves. These ridiculous women are not flattering to me, more like annoying and wasted.

I have a week off now and I am not going to waste it on this. No. I'm uninterested, downright bored, I can't stand the characters. I will definitely not read the next book. It was so disappointing to read the hype about this, then see for myself and just not have a good time at all. It could have been something so much better, but it fell short in every single way I could come up with.

Good night and let me fall on my own blade!

DNF at about 30%.
I just don't really like books like this. It's kind of meh, I feel it's predictable and just not very exciting.

This one took me so long, it's not even funny. Not because it was bad, it wasn't, but there were certain elements that made it a bit... more difficult to read.

By now we know for sure Corban is the good guy and Nathair is the bad. It's obviously.
So his group needs to escape, to find a safe place while war is going on.

Here is the thing, this book did really feel like a kind of middle one in a series. Why do I say that? So much of it is about setup. Forming the big factions, the characters travelling around, trying to get in position.
Also, a lot of new characters are introduced, which is one of the things bogging it down; book 1 already had a LOT of story lines and characters and things going on. Individually, they are all great. I don't think there are any characters I dislike (other than them being bad people, but even then, they are well-written). But because there is so much going on, I don't think every single one can shine.
The format also doesn't help. The chapters are short. So short that often I felt like I wasn't as invested as I should have been, because I only got a few pages of a character and then we skipped to someone freaking walking on some mountains and I KNEW it was going to take a long time to circle around and get back to this person.
The parts with action and stuff going on were fine, great. But it wasn't easy going. I still liked it a lot, I jsut hope the next ones will be a bit more fluid. Even with the deaths, we still have too many people around.

15% DNF. My luck with books is not brilliant this year, it seems. At least I'm willing to try stuff, I guess. But this... is genuinely impossible to read to me. Some time ago I tried [b:The Bone Season 17199504 The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1) Samantha Shannon https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1421412990s/17199504.jpg 19248070] and said it was incredibly graceless when it came to starting you out and building up the world and yeah, that is true. It was a clunky think. This one, though... OH GOD. In not even 60 Kindle pages (smallest font) we had so many characters that I could not follow anything. When you maaaybe started to be able to imagine them the story skipped to a whole new group of people. The most you could get was a very basic, very superficial little hazy idea of something there and then you were somewhere else. Priests, prisoners, officials, ogres, all kinds of random people doing their random things. Mentions of gods, wars, conflicts, countries. A heist that we don't know about, while a bunch of people are in different ranks, relating to each other's history in different ways. I understand worldbuilding ain't easy, but I prefer if it doesn't steamroll me until my brain is a huge bowl of porridge. The names don't have any rhyme or reason, which adds another layer of hardship to me being able to know what is going on. Theeeeen for some reason we even have situations where two conversations are going on at the same time. Like one political, one about a heist. When you can't even keep the characters straight, I have no idea how I would be able to follow two conversations of new information with these impossible to follow characters. Then there is my personal little issue with the protagonist. Why is that so many authors think establishing a “strong female character” is best done through making her beat up a man you assume is much stronger than her? It's just a tired trope, boring, lacking any originality. If it could be anything other than “and then she beat up a soldier/knight/gangster and you knew she must be cool”, I would be so happy. So there it is. This book confused me with how it was even published. I'm pretty sure it does get better, but the beginning of the book to me was not enjoyable at all. I tried to push myself, I really did and it did not work. It was more of an uphill battle than an enjoyable reading experience that pulled me in. Sorry about not giving it a real chance. I couldn't make myself. Have a nice day and wear a name tag, please!!!

This really isn't my usual thing, but I was like hey, let's mix things up.

Rachel is a college professor of economy in New York, with her also-a-professor boyfriend, Nick. Stuff is good. Nick is a lovely guy. Except, he is also the heir of a billionaire big deal family in Singapore. Well, technically they have connections in China, Hong Kong and all over that corner of the word. He has a million cousins and Aunties and everyone who matters there is connected to him, in one way or another.
And they are NOT happy some no name woman from America is dating the most eligible guy from their circles.
So when Nick decides to take Rachel home for his best friend's wedding, shit hits the fan big time.

This book is satire. I've seen many people take it too seriously, talking about Asian representation and how this is offensive, “problematic” and stuff. If you have half a brain, you will notice that the whole thing is just so over the top, the author surely did not mean to say this is realistic and how real life people act, totally unironically. Now, I get it, some rich people can get over the top. But also, this is comedy. People need to RELAX.
Saying that, there are also unrealistic things I enjoyed much less than the hilarious banter and freakout sessions over ridiculous stuff. While Rachel and Nick are sweet... sometimes the way certain characters interacted felt super weird. Rachel gets bullied, which she takes with no issue at all, until she freaks the fuck out. No build up. Just pleasant to ballistic. Why? In a book so thick, you HAD the space to develop her beyond the most superficial expressions. Same with the nice people in the book, like Astrid or Sophie. The moment they meet Rachel, it's like BBF central. Why?
They also go from serious topics to “UWU, let's grab a drink” at the very end. Weird. Just tonally... what the hell?

What I really enjoyed was the fact we were expected to think these people are nuts. It's not Sex and The City, where people act like pampered assholes, but you are meant to wish the best for them. No no, this one is juicy and drama-filled in the fun way. You know that even the nicer characters (like Araminta or Astrid) act ridiculous.
Now Astrid, one of the more prominent characters is painted in a sympathetic way, but then she also realises her mistakes. You are not meant to feel she is normal and infallible.

I will be brutally honest. Half the time I had no idea about the EXACT nature of the things they talk about in this one. Sure, I knew some of the designers and fancy stuff. But as a person who never experienced being rich... I just filled in the rest. Still a fun experience.
Another thing with extensive mentions is the food. Is Kevin Kwan a foodie? Because man, he made me hungry multiple times, even though I am not even familiar with a lot of the foods he described. I had to stop 30 pages from the end to grab a plate of creamy shrimp and mushroom pasta, because this was the book equivalent of a Ghibli movie with piles of amazing food everywhere.

All in all, this is fun for people who like some juicy drama for fun. I think I will be reading the rest of the series eventually

Along with [b:The Magicians 6101718 The Magicians (The Magicians #1) Lev Grossman https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1313772941s/6101718.jpg 6278977], this book belongs to my “I have no idea what I was expecting, but I added it to my to-read list because it's kind of controversial with the reviewers and I want to be surprised”. I loved The Magicians (bite me, I really did), but this.... I have no idea how I feel about it. 2 stars means IDK in this case, as there is no way of marking it in any different way for me. Area X is this mysterious place overtaken by nature where things are weird, it is more of a myth to the outside world than a real place where you take your family with a tent. The army sends expeditions there, after some rigorously brainwashing training, this time the protagonist (the biologist), the surveyor, the psychologist and the anthropologist. They don't know the goal of their trip, so you don't know either, they just go because they are sent and then things are starting to be weird. I swear this book makes no sense, it is all just one sequence of unexplained things that happen and make you feel like everyone is probably a bit high and getting paranoid. (Remember the flasback sequence from the Simon Pegg-Nick Frost movie The World's End, when they all get high on top of drunk and it's all fucked? Yeah, like that, but the characters all feel distant.) Things happen and you feel no rhyme or reason, at least I didn't. The worst about it is that it never really gets a proper reason and the protagonist is probably losing her mind, so you are not even sure if you can trust her. Some people love that form of ambiguity, but I personally felt like the book was weightless because of it. Sure, the things go wrong and you pretty much just know that there is no way of a positive outcome, but to me that wasn't enough to care for real. The distance from the characters didn't help with that either. The whole thing was philosophical, to the detriment of making the characters truly relatable and believable. They stayed weirdo , artsy fictional characters who never really acted like people. I guess that can be an interesting exercise if you are looking for one, but I'm still not convinced by it. The protagonist is especially infuriating in her rambling artsy ways;she is actually being sold as a true scientist with an asocial and rational mind, while she keeps rambling like an poet on crack. On what level does that make any sense? It goes against what we learn about her. Sure, I guess the author was just writing in the way he does (which was pretty sweet, I really liked it at some point), but I don't think first person narrative was the right choice for it. Made no sense to me. When the end rolls around, it doesn't feel like a proper ending, which was possibly expected from a book that made so little sense. Sure, the protagonist offers some idea, which is probably right in my opinion, but it is nothing objectively, proven right and while an open ending is not something I automatically dislike, this book seemed to lack any real factual information about the world and with the weird plot, it just resulted in a mess of “or whatever”. The style of the whole thing is just very defined, very bold in its ways, which is something you will either get and like or not get and dislike. In that way it reminds me of China Mieville and that one half book of his I tried to read. I guess weird fiction is just not really my cup of tea? All I'm saying is that it is something not everyone is going to dig, which is supported by the reviews. I'm back to not being able to say anything meaningful about this. Did I love it? Nope. Did I hate it? Nah. I just don't think I'm the right person to appreciate it. The weirdness is making it likely that I'm going to attempt the next book, not sure with how much success, plus the covers are absolutely awesome, I wouldn't mind hanging them on my walls. The artist deserves some kudos. Not sure how many times I will be recommending this book, other than the times when I want to hear someone's opinion about it; I don't really think I'm friends with anyone who would truly enjoy it, which probably makes me a sad human being with boring friends. All in all, kind of meh. Have a good night and preferably avoid camping in the Twilight Zone!

2,5 stars.

With these books I'm feeling more and more like dragons are really just the backdrop and it's not good at all.

Isabella finally goes on another expedition after her first, disastrous one. So this time she packs her things, grabs Mr. Wilker, Lord Hilford's granddaughter Natalie and they leave for fantasy Africa, where a local chief of one country sends them into the jungle to bring him dragon eggs, which is not really ideal. But at least they can hang out with the tribes there and do stuff.

Which is exactly what happens. They get to kinda-Africa, different countries have conflicts, it's all told to us, but I personally couldn't be bothered when it was all just “these people hate those and the leader thinks they can beat them, but this caste in society is like this, while this is how they inherit things”. Fantasy words on top of fantasy words. Of course it's a memoir, but that's exactly why it should feel like a personal, approachable story, instead of the cheat sheet you write for a history test based on your 1000 pages long textbook. It made me skim. Not gonna lie. For a story so short the societal context was a bit much and in places overly complicated.
Especially so when the cover has a damn dragon. I want more, I want to see people interact with them, while the story is mostly just the characters hanging out with the jungle tribe and such. We even get introduced to a sinister hunter and... it comes to nothing. Nothing pays off. This is my big complaints about the series; it all feel like nothing. Like nothing matter, like we are being told tiny things (like how in this place Isabella is sent to a menstruation house with other women, where they chat and she meets this suuuuper interesting woman... who doesn't really play any role in the rest of the story). Like seriously, we have a scene where people ritually talk things out.

My other little observation is how the characterisation of Isabella really has its ups and downs. Sometimes she is genuinely empathetic towards Mr. Wilker, a low class man and understands that his status causes him immense hardships in getting ahead in life. Then she goes into “being a woman means constant victimhood” mindset. She claims women are the only ones judged and such.
Which is especially interesting, as she literally does whatever she wants. Some people dislike it, sure, but at the same time nothing ever really happens. Oh, she shouldn't go to a scientist meeting place? She did, everyone liked her. She shouldn't publish a scientific book? She did and it's a success. She is not supposed to go on expeditions? She does, everyone is crazy about her AND she lives off of her work. Oh, some people are starting rumours? Excuse me, she will become LADY TRENT, so not even a reputation will stop her from an immense step up when it goes to status.
So here we have a woman who did a bunch of stuff as a kid without any real repercussions, who married a man she truly loved, who went on expeditions and did scientific work, who could even leave her kid behind as she went to chase what she loved... She would be considered an exceptionally lucky woman and yes, person even today.

It's all sad as... the dragons are really cool! They are all different, with interesting characteristics. It's creative like that, but the ideas are not realised to their full power.

I'm not sure if I want to read the rest of the series, definitely not now. There is just so much stuff that is more rewarding and that utilises its best ideas more.

Good night and show me, don't just tell!

Did not finish at 80% I am genuinely disappointed. I wanted to read this book for such a long time and honestly, I usually love middle grade things. There is some sort of magic in them, this genuine joy for all the spooky and wonderful things. They are also often handle things in a very delicate and subtle way, which leaves room for the kids to take them at their own pace and just keep some of the childlike wonder. This, though. Oh, god. This book did the very same thing that I dislike with many of the popular, trendy YA reads; it tried to send its messages with the subtlety of a rail spike being hammered into the back of your skull (see how witty I am????). Up until about half way things just happened. Then suddenly in a few pages we get a lecture on how being a girl is the most horrible, because men whistle at you. How minorities can only ever be victims and white people are the worst. Also, how the only white people who are not automatically horrible are poor. If you are rich, you are default dick. It felt like the author just got a message that he really needs to insert these messages NOW, with the least possible delicate touch known to mankind, even making the characters say things like “Oh, no, fucking over poor people is indeed a bad thing”. Really? REALLY? You don't say. Here is how the story goes, which will only make things make less sense. A poor boy's (Will) father works on building the train tracks, so he goes to meet him. It ends in a mess, but results in the family's luck picking up and with them ending up rich, the dad being a boss with the railway company. Years later, on the first ride of the biggest train ever, the boy ends up separated from his father, being targeted by evil murderers preparing for a big burglary. His only helpers are a circus crew, with a wonderful and gorgeous girl (Maren) and a mysterious boss, who has his own secrets. Here comes one of my issues. A child who grew up poor would not be so sheltered. He is about 16-17 during the train ride, so up until puberty or so he was part of the lower class. Don't freaking tell me he had absolutely no idea that life wasn't just super easy. Why make him poor THEN rich when you still play him as this clueless little moron who only knows first class train cars and good education? Also, he is almost considered a man during the time period. He still acts like a small child. I understand shy and late bloomer characters existing, but it feels like the author didn't understand that back in he day teenage years weren't exactly what they are now. I remember praising Rick Yancey's [b:The Monstrumologist 6457229 The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist, #1) Rick Yancey https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1307409930s/6457229.jpg 6647553] for avoiding this exact thing, but that one was a much darker book. The love in this was ridiculous as well. For some reason Will falls in love with Maren after 3 minutes of talking and her stealing his Sasquatch tooth. After years of not forgetting about her, they meet on the train and she is just ridiculously perfect. It's not real. It's just so arbitrary and I felt like it had absolutely no foundation, you just have to take the author's word for it, which is something I genuinely dislike. Sell it to me! This book just lost the exact thing that I love in middle grade. It wasn't charming. It wasn't delicately made. Somehow it was almost like the author couldn't decide to tone down and go for middle grade or to take it up a notch and turn it YA. It went from ladida, sweet, adorable and innocent into genocide territory without anything in between or even building up some gigantic shock and impact. It just happened, because the author realised that whoopsies, he probably should go heavily didactic. I could have probably given in 2 stars. I even intended to do so, but the story just didn't push me to finish. It wasn't really there. Sure, Will was being pursued by people wanting to kill him for seeing too much, but... Here comes the middle grade-YA stuff again. I didn't feel the pressure. I didn't feel that I had to be afraid for real, because it just wasn't edgy enough like that. I don't think the author had thought this through good enough. His target audience, his goals with this story. It was all a mishmash, disjointed mess. The sentence structures simple, the characters naive, the didactic parts extremely serious and just right to the face with force. I don't even know. All aboard the disappointment train... leaving for WTF-just-happened town.

Maybe it is a bit sick in a sense, but I absolutely love mysteries, be it a serial killer, a disappearance, a John Doe corpse or anything unexplained. I love when I get the facts, also I really can't stand Hollydoow-ified, soap opera type approaches. This one actually wasn't like that all.
I understand that it must be hard making a story readable, actually engaging and somehow beating it into a book form and presenting it, without going overboard with describing the soft spring breeze playing on the unblemished skin of some beautiful girl who is going to fall victim of some horrible, satanic killer.
Well, in this one people just get majorly fucked by nature. So yeah.

In the 50's in Russia a bunch of university students decide to get a hiking certificate through completing an extremely hard, winter trip to the Urals. One of them has to turn back because of health issues, while the others never return. Later their frozen (and in some cases, seriously injured) bodies are found in various stages of undress out in the snow, with their tent slashed open from the inside. The government is all hush-hush about it.

Man, I love this case, which is probably extremely rude to say when people died. What I mean is that I find it extremely interesting and just crazy; think about how these people really faced the shit side of nature, basically. With roads everywhere and civilisation only ever a few miles from us, it's really hard to imagine these people being stranded out there, absolutely powerless to do anything. I find that fascinating and pretty hard to imagine.
There were also roughly my age, mostly. It's so obviously that they weren't even thinking about the possibility of things going SO badly. During the book we hear some anecdotes about them (like one guy chasing away a bear with a hammer on a previous trip), but this was way too big for them.

The book is also full of photos, just little snapshots of the group having dinner, messing around, acting silly. If they had colour, I could totally imagine them being youngsters now, on a skiing trip somewhere. It was eerily familiar. In one photo a guy makes a face that reminds me of an ex-bf. A bit of a surreal feeling.

What I really liked about the book was how it was actually informative. The author didn't actually try to sell some crappy idea about the yeti eating the people (have seen a “documentary” about that, it was ridiculous) or aliens messing with them. No mountain ghosts either.
I didn't really expect a conclusion, though, I was emotionally fine with the author just saying “we don't know, so yeeeah”, but he actually didn't do it. It's especially interesting as his methods of just going to Russia for whatever reason to look into the case and walk around was not exactly professional level.
The conclusion was satisfying. Scientifically sound, not over the top dramatic bullshit conjured out of nothing.

All in all, I really enjoyed this and I would love to read similar books. Non-fiction is generally not my thing, but this type, with interesting event and not a focus on what I call “suffering porn” is really up my alley.

Good night and stay inside while winter is coming!

I've gotten an ARC from [a:Benedict Patrick 15139422 Benedict Patrick http://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1487193678p2/15139422.jpg] back in around November or so. In one of my emails to him I remember mentioning how the amazing covers of his books really did help to get me interested, which is always a good thing for an indie author trying to gain popularity. This book is another great example for that; don't judge a book by its cover, but shit, good art always inspires me to pick it up. Interesting art comes with an interesting story in this case. It's... not easy to talk about this one without giving things away and taking away from the weirdness that I think you should experience for yourself. Thomas Senlin is not a great person. He's the headmaster of a school in a little fishing village, which also makes him the only teacher there. His manners are stiff, he doesn't care about anything grandiose and boring things fit him perfectly. We can call him anxious and a coward. Still, the lovely Marya marries him and even with their differences, they are happy. Their honeymoon takes them to the amazing Tower of Babel, this gigantic complex of everything fun you can just imagine. It would have been cool if they didn't get separated in the market around the tower, which leaves Senlin having to be brave, resourceful and smart to find her again. When I think of this book, I have to say that it is not for people who are not in for something different. It has a style that makes the whole thing feel like a bit of a dream, it's whimsical and horrible and just... something else. Personally I found it interesting, but I know it wouldn't be for everyone. Which is all fine, of course, I think it's great that a new author (and already a poet) is willing to take this risk. Not necessarily the easiest to read in places, but I find it worth the effort. Flawed characters are also my thing. I'm so tired of perfect people, especially ones who are somehow always morally perfect and just need to be better than everyone, because it makes their deeds weightless; you know that even if they do things wrong, it will turn out that they were actually right from the very beginning, you just didn't see it. Senlin is lovely, because he avoids this. Not a bad man, not really. Not hero material either. By the end you will see him becoming much bolder, ready for adventure and more and more equipped to fulfil his mission. Again, I have no idea how to describe it. Just give it a go, it really does deserve more attention, as it's something different and it could be a pretty great choice for people who are looking something out there and refreshingly different in the fantasy genre. Definitely going on to read the second book in the series and if it keeps this up I'm going to be excited about the book to come in the rest of the series, as I think there will be some interesting conclusions and great ideas about the whole tower system, which just started to happen at the end of this one. Good night and learn to enjoy your home sweet home instead!

You know things are not going well when a book makes you feel like you had a stroke. This one... did that to me and I wasn't happy.
Not sure what I really expected, I mean it's a typical teenage girl YA, which is something I dislike from the get go, but I tried. Actually, I tried until about 80% of the book and I still dislike it, so I think it's safe to just give up and say how I feel.

In Scion London, in the future people with supernatural abilities are not treated well. If the government catches you, you are lost, nobody comes back from that. Paige Mahoney is one of these supernatural people, which is bad, but she has a perk; she got picked up by a criminal gang of outsiders like herself. Sure, it is crime, their boss is cruel, but among her kind, she has is great.
Up until one day she gets snatched from her home and it turns out the disappeared are taken to a secret colony, lead by not quite human creatures.

This is one of the most graceless things I've ever read. Miss Shannon has absolutely no idea when a world is adequately built, she just keeps tacking on more glitter, more weird crap, more bits and pieces. Sure, an intricate world is good, A Song of Ice and Fire is awesome with its million families and cultures and everything. This, though... is just messy and impossible to follow.
We have a million different kinds of abilities, a lot of them coming even with slang name, but we do not get explained what they do. Paige has... of course a special one, even among all the specials. So it makes even less sense.
All in all, we get pushed in without anything. The book contains an outrageous amount of in-world slang. You have a little dictionary in the back and some supposed helping material with the different abilities drawn up on handy diagram (that still doesn't explain what individual one DOES), but again, it feels like the writing itself lacks any subtle ways of easing us in. Which, in my mind, is a bad sign for the book's quality. I don't want to read up on a million things just to be able to get some ridiculous YA book.

Can we also talk about the way I am annoyed by yet another teen girl fantasy where the characters are dumb as hell? Paige is supposedly some criminal underground cool girl, yet she seems to absolutely NO perspective and she doesn't understand why starving, sickly, unequipped people enslaved under superhuman probably aliens in a place that is basically one massive prison just... don't feel like rebelling in pathetic, school girl ways.
Buuuuut of course she is just so special and unique and AMAZING that she gets picked as the heir of her crime lord, then she is chosen by one of the alien guys, who is special even among his kind to be his apprentice, but of course they form a magical soul bond and OMG, they are so going to be in love, because he's the hottest guy around and she is the protagonist.
I swear this couldn't even be more typical. She is protesting so far, though, which means it's even more romantic and totally not just some token resistance.

Another thing. According to Goodreads, this thing is going to be 7 books long. 7. I have absolutely NO idea what they can stretch out to fill 7 full size novels with this vapid little girl daydream. Let me guess, 10 more people will realise they just NEED Paige for whatever reason, because nobody can measure up to her greatness.

I didn't need this book at all. It wasn't good, it wasn't fun and it definitely didn't make me want to read any more of this series. The review probably turned a bit bitchy, but I completely lost my patience with this specific book and its ilk at this point.

Oh, by the way, the fact that the author is young is treated like some great thing. I find that counterproductive. Being young and writing a book is not some glory, literature is not a race. Maybe we should just allow every author to mature, to pick up enough experience in life, to work on their technique. God knows this book would have profited from someone with a more subtle technique that doesn't try to hit you in the head with a brick.

Have a nice day and let me leave on vacation during this season instead!

I didn't finish this one. Something was just off about the combination of the slightly weird prose (translation, probably trying to mimic the style of the original) and the way I couldn't get a sense of how the interactions were meant to go between characters. The way the protagonist talked to others just gave me absolutely zero sense of where he was standing.
I will probably try it again later.

Darren Shan is fun. He is just so much fun and while possibly by 2019 could be some super sensitive PC crap like many other authors (I don't know), at the point when he wrote this he was just unashamed awesome.

Grubbs Grady is a normal kid who likes making trouble, pranking his older sister. You know. Up until something is just starting to be weird with his family. Everyone is tense and he realises they made up a story to remove him from home for a night for whatever reason. When he goes to find out what's wrong he finds all of them dead, brutally chopped up by demons in their home. He goes insane from the trauma and is relatively “content” in his madness until his uncle Dervish shows up, telling him he believes demons really exist. So Grubbs goes to live with him and find out everything.

The thing about Darren Shan that I appreciate is that the child characters are not sanitised little genius saints who are basically mouthpieces for the author's agenda. They are not mouthpieces to tell kids what the author believes is wrong with the real world now, like so many YA books are right now. These are children who can be rude and are boisterous, they can be annoying and selfish, but they are all relatable. Not out there to flatter the kids and tell them what to think.
The adults are the same. They are not there just to be stupid to make it seem like teenagers are the only competent people who can see the issue and solve it too. Not there to hold the kids back and act all sorts of abusive because adults are bad.

Now you have to know that this series is fucked up. There is so much blood, so much suffering and death. It's not for easily freaked out people. Which is one of the reasons why I like it; it fills a niche that was definitely needed to be filled when it was written. I would say even today it's an interesting example of things. Now YA specifically is becoming incredibly political and melodramatic, with book after book of increasingly more ridiculous speculative shit about the laws the politicians that we NEED to hate today will totally absolutely pass (no, they won't). Among those this universal horror is really refreshing in a way. It's really outside the realm of those things, the Current Year drama about this or that. It's something that will definitely freak you out without any of that.

I have read these books way back, maybe 8 years ago. I'm going to say it, Dervish is still my favourite so far, freaking awesome with his slightly quirky ways. It's great to see a father figure who is not portrayed as either evil and sadistic or a total whiny useless Care Bear.

Have a nice day and it's your loss if you've not read this yet!

There is something slightly hilarious about the fact that I just read a book about manipulation because of a Reddit book club. Reddit. The site that is spiralling out of control when it comes to bullshit, agenda-driven, manipulative corporate fuckery. Ha. But hey, I just got tempted by the cool cover and... I need more books that are not part of a 34829374 books long series. Those are my excuses, I guess.
Also, Mr. Barry was genuinely really nice during his AMA thing. Seriously, he sounded extremely pleasant.

So I should actually talk about the book now, eh? In Lexicon we have an organization that is all about manipulation through words. They get to know who you are, then shout words at you, which make you easy to turn into a little slave to do their bidding. The magic word is NOT please. I don't care what your mother told you. One girl, Emily, gets taken to the magic word school and... she is one spectacular repulsive little fuckup. More of that later. The other story like is about Wil, who gets kidnapped from an airport by the word woodoo people, because they assume he is... someone. Storylines connect, hell breaks lose.

Rant begins here. Emily is such a gigantic selfish asshole I couldn't handle her. Now people who are specially picked because they are manipulators don't sound brilliant from the get go, but Emily is the worst. She had a hard life, being a runaway kid, but you know what? NOTHING makes it okay for you to run around murdering and raping, which is what our lovely protagonist does. She doesn't even act bothered by it, because... she gets away with everything. And the worst is... at the end she lives happily ever after with her very lovely, loyal and wonderful true love, without any punishment or consequences I will be honest, the reason why I didn't love this book was her. Maybe I am a dick, but I don't care.

Wil is... Wil. He's fine. He spends most of his time with another another dude, Eliot (word magic dude). They have some pleasant banter, good action scenes. They were a fine pair of individuals being forced to run together from awesome people trying to murder them. Later on he makes decisions that I found incredibly dumb. Again, annoyance, but it's complicated, so read it. Not spoiling it, ha.

The story was pretty original, which I could appreciate. To me it was getting a bit flat towards the end, so the last 20% took be about 2 days. I would even say it felt a bit rushed and I wasn't as affected by it as I expected to be. But I will give it to Mr. Barry, he really managed to suck me in at the beginning. That is how a lot of books go wrong for me; I can't get invested and it becomes a chore. This one? Made me want to read it in no time at all.

The topic was interesting. Some reviews talk about wanting to get into the actual theory of language and manipulation with some studying thrown in there. Personally I don't feel like doing anything like that now, but somehow the book managed to involve enough science for the science-y people and enough “magic” and action for me. Not sure how deliberate it was, but it did it so well. Technically it's probably a bit more sci-fi than fantasy, but from the side that could really work with fantasy people.

I will probably read more things from the author if I find anything catching my attention. Hopefully with less repulsive protagonists, haha.

Good night and think for yourself, kids.

DNF at 45%. Yes, I feel almost 200 pages were enough for me to judge this dumpster fire. Don't even bother trying to convince me I need more of it or that the next book is better. This is just... No.



What is the female version of ‘edgelord'? Edge...lady? Celaena is that, with a bit of Mean Girls added in. I will develop that a bit more later.

So we have an 18-year-old girl who is the bestestestest assassin EVER. We don't know, she just said so and because the best assassin said it, she can't be wrong. And we know she is the best, because she just said it. Stop asking questions.
She got fucked over in some way. No questions. So now she is a slave in a mine for a year already, which makes her special, as people die after like a month normally. BUT! The crown prince shows up at the prison colony (what did I tell you? Shush) to take her out and give her an offer she can't refuse. She competes in a tournament thing, wins, becomes the king's own killer for a few years she can buy her freedom. YAY.

Basically Sarah J. Maas just took a basic idiot, put her in a Middle Ages type fantasy setting she doesn't know shit about, didn't research or give a fuck and made her heroine (AHAHAHA) act like a high school girl. I know it is fantasy. I KNOW. But that doesn't mean I can totally forget about facts of life, like mines fucking you up bad. You won't just go on days long horse rides literally hours later. You don't just get better after a night of sleep and a bath. You won't keep up in a swordfight with a grownasss male soldier on your very first training session.
Sarah J. Maas obviously never tried riding horses, never looked into swords and fighting with swords, never did any physical labour and never missed more than one meal in her life for any reason. Which is fine. But then at least GET INFORMED.
But hey... it all doesn't matter when you use your world as a fancy backdrop for bullshit teenage girl drama.

Because this was teenage girl non-issue drama galore.
Celaena Sardothien is a bitch. You see the cover? There is none of that. But she squees about dresses. Judges other based on their dresses or appearance. Hot guys get a pass. She gets bitchy if she is not automatically the best at everything. She is stupid as fuck and others have to tell her how to survive. She has no manners and in this world nobody sees any issue with her asking private questions of the bloody crown prince of... Arlanda? (Yes, that is a Swedish airport, but the country's name is similar and I don't care. Arlanda it is.) She is boastful.
Also, doesn't make any sense. She flippity-flops between “my master made me break my own arm at like age 8 to train me, it was brutal”, but then legitimately makes one of the guys bring her slippers to her bed, as she refuses to step on the cold floor. She has NO SKILLS and as much as she hates on the rich girls around her, she is not one bit better. NOT ONE BIT.
She is edgy, though. Uhhhh. She keeps fantasising about murdering this or that person. Everyone. All the time. Never does it. But hey. I was almost as edgy as her at age 13, when I bought a fake nosering, but only dared to put it in once I knew none of my mother's acquaintances were gonna see me.

We also have the issue of how this is going to be a love triangle and a “kiss her ass” contest between the two hot guys. They are best friends, though, he prince and his super duper soldier boy. Both are like... really cool and have super sassy conversations with the protagonist. Giggity. She wants to kiss them. She really does. Especially the prince for now. But like... the other. But the prince.

What about the competition, you ask? (Even though I told you not to ask questions.) They are bullshit. Bull. Shit. What is the first trial? Pffft, an archery competition? Then there is “climb the castle wall”. Then we don't even see the sneaky one and tracking, because who gives a shit? Show me more of Celaena being a bitch because she is not invited to the ball. The boys fawning over her. Celaena judging this other girl based on her dress and because she dareth being pretty in the vicinity of the prince and is even interested in him. (That is strong from a literal assassin, which means murderer in my country.)

But hey, Celery gets a new BFF, who is a PRINCESS, who is also super rebel and rude as fuck. Together they can judge the shit out of everyone else while they frown through the country of Arlanda.

This book is absolutely awful. The worst I've attempted to read this year so far.

So here I am, years later, rereading this because when I originally read it... I just kind of didn't go ahead with the rest of the series. So I needed to just go from point 0, because years passed and I didn't remember shit.
On my second read, I would almost give it 5 stars. 4,5, it is. Still a great read. Still a lot of fun. The child characters are still a pleasure and not just the typical smug little bastards so popular nowadays. Good job.

——————————-

Based on the cover and the title this sounded like grimdark to me. Something incredibly depressing, so dark it was going to make me just feel this weight of everything being completely hopeless and generally horrible.
It actually wasn't like that, so if you worry about it, don't. It has its sad moments, but it really isn't that horrible. Now that my public service announcement is out of the way, lets just discuss the rest. There is quite a lot.

Here we have a continent with a lot of smaller countries, all under the rule of a king, the whole thing under the rule of a... super king? Lets say that. Super king. As it is customary, all the smaller kings tend to be a little bit petty, having their own conflicts and alliances, which comes in handy when things are changing.
What I mean by that is the god war, the battle between the forces of evil and good, lead by two battling gods and their respective heroes that will decide the fate of the world. So far pretty standard. As the war approaches, things are going bad for everyone. Lawless bandits, long dead monsters, wild clans of giants are tormenting the different countries of the place.
Meanwhile we have multiple storylines, all holding different characters, all nearing each other, with young boys, giant slayers, ambitious princes. It's complicated, okay?

That was actually the reason why I can't give this book 5 stars; it's just really complicated. Certain storylines (especially of the character Veradis, first sword of prince Nathair and at the very end even Corban's) just have way too many names. This probably sounds kinda petty, but there are pages that have 10-15 people and places mentioned. It's not easy to keep all of it straight, especially when so many of them sound similar. I understand that it connect them and shows their common origins stemming from the culture, but it was not easy to read.
It's a world with rich history, so we were going to get a lot, but sometimes things were difficult. I think a lot of it will be much more smooth in the later books in the series, partly because of Mr. Gwynne getting more comfortable in the world, partly because we learn a lot and actually get to know more than just a name about the mentioned characters.

Even with that, the book was just very pleasurable to read. The action and the prose felt fluid to me, the different POV parts had a nice variety. A lot of characters were a joy to read (like the awkward, bullied young man Kastell finally finding his place and becoming a much better version of himself). It had serious moments, but it wasn't weighed down by needless darkness just to push the plot. Don't get me wrong, I like me some ASOIAF, the grim things were done pretty well there, all divided up to be easier to handle by bright moments of fun and exploration and all. But this one was a bit more of the heroic and idealised kind.

One thing I personally find many authors do wrong is young/teenage characters. Here, though... god, I loved what Mr. Gwynne did! It really shows he has kids in my opinion, as the young characters were imaginable young people. None of that uppity, “I am so much smarter than actual adults because of reasons” crap, room left for development, flaws, imperfections that are real and actual parts of the characters. The kids have to better themselves, not just sit around being perfect little revolutionary heroes after a life of carefree village kids, no training anywhere.
Aaaaand no unnecessary suffering is thrown at them for no reason other than trying to make you care about them. I am so happy there wasn't any of the “everyone hates you, 12-year-old kiddo, but we don't say why, just torture you as it is the favoured activity in our picturesque village”. Here being a good kid means some people will actually stand up for you, because human relationships are like that. Appreciated.

The story itself is very much part of a series. While it ends with a very action-packed sequence of scenes winding down and everyone sitting down to catch their breath, it could have been just the end of a chapter. Yes, things are blatantly left unsaid (“hey, I need to tell you something” “later, I'm hella tired”), they are not impossible to guess, I think they are pretty obvious. Talking about that.... Nathair is go getting Stannis'd, it's almost funny, but as a Stannis fangirl, it really freaking isn't at the same time. Daaaaamn, boy.
So yeah, a lot of what happened here will actually bloom and come to full effect in the next book. Hopefully it having a solid base will mean a bit less cramming of names and things, maybe... edited down and streamlined a bit more.

Overall, I found it a fun read, really enjoyable, but I would say it needs you to train yourself for fantasy, as you really need to be able to handle fantasy names. The tropes and other elements are perfectly digestible, it's just the bloody names, oh goood.

Have a good night and make love, not god war!

We have a a small town with zombies... where they are filming a zombie movie. Right. It also involves dead people (who don't move anymore) and everyone is doing secret shit.

You know, so far this was my least favourite book of this series. It's still fun to have a zombie book with actually intelligent zombies who aren't the enemy or a hostile element in the world, but the protagonists who do their things. Here they even have almost like a zombie mafia! How is that not cool?
Though I feel there isn't much of a world opening up so far. This is the third book and the overarching story is... not all that monumental. Not saying all series need to have one, but here I feel it would deserve some sort of a big thing. Maybe this will be another one of those gazillion volume ones, which could work, but I don't feel there is too much going on right now. It's still fun, sure, just not really that much.

Another thing I loved about the first two books was how Angel wasn't this super amazingly perfect little thing who is just undeniably superior to everyone else. That's boring. Angel is Angel, she isn't super smart, she isn't super perfect. She has problems and weaknesses. Not morally superior to everyone else. Some people love her, some don't.
But now it's basically an Angel lovefest. There are a few categories. Young men who are hot are in love with her. Or if they are taken or too old or too ugly or women they simply think she is the best person ever. Or they are evil. There is nothing else, at this point she is offered to work in part time at a hyper laboratory when she has zero qualifications or even just self-taught knowledge. Why? Because she is just naturally so cool and everyone absolutely adores her. People would jump into freaking Mount Doom for Angel.

It's still easy to read and entertaining, I just wish the series would go a step further and tone down this “the protagonist is the most wonderful and adored person ever born”. This shouldn't be one of those things. There are enough series where it's like that and I already dislike them enough without that stupid cliche fucking up an otherwise perfectly fine series with a female protagonist who isn't an annoying twat.

I'm going to read the next in the series, I just hope for it changing direction.

Have a nice day and get a room, kids!

This year I have read many books so far, discovering some truly excellent ones. Seriously, it seems like a pretty good year for reading to me. Bridge of Birds was one of my absolute favourites, though, so grab a drink and prepare for the gushing that is about to happen here. It's not going to be graceful and it's probably not too valuable to anyone who reads it.
I don't really mind.

Number Ten Ox is a nice person living in ancient China, a young man who is not particularly brilliant, but is a generally good one. An orphan, but not really a damaged, poor sod. In his village a mysterious illness makes every child between the age of 8 and 13 to end up in a come, heading straight to death and of course someone like Number Ten Ox can't just let that happen, so he goes to find a wise man to help him cure the children.
He ends up with Master Li, who is wise for sure and really cunning, but a bit of a senior troublemaker. The two of them have to go through everything to save the children and uncover many mysteries and help strangers, some of them dead for centuries already.

The whole thing reads like the most charming, witty, entertaining folk story for real, it doesn't just sound like that. It has life, it truly shines as a hearty tale of hilarious heroes and some sort of a positive, wise outlook on life. It just made me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, okay? Don't judge me, but this thing was what I needed. You know, sweater weather and all that.
But really, Mr. Hughart managed to create something that feels alive, like a story you could imagine people telling each other, maybe piece by piece, then forming one coherent story, like the mysteries the characters solve, that also formed one big thing that wraps up nicely.

Now the setting is ancient China, which, again, was solved with triumphs of storytelling. You DO feel like the prose takes you to a whole different era and place and it absolutely (thankfully) lacks any form of signifier of being created in the 80's. No, you won't think of that time, you will feel like you are actually getting something much older.
At the same time the “Chinese feel” doesn't distance it from you. At least I never felt like I couldn't follow because of the cultural differences. It just felt... right. Like it was some sort of a universally enjoyable story with values for everyone, really. Timeless, I say.

The character all started out as these typical, slightly over the top fairy tale people, as it is customary in stories like this. But then the author did these things when somehow they managed to rise above that. Some moments were generally touching, not gonna lie, I even cried once or twice.
For a book that was so incredibly hilarious, it had really deep moment of true emotion and beautiful scenes.

It's really hard to write anything else. You have to experience this book. I'm kind of baffled by it not being all that known; this is the kind of treat that deserves to be out there, accessible for everyone and receiving more love. I guess another book I will try to make people read?

Now go and track down your copy (it will be an adventure of its own, Chinese wise man not included)!

3,5 stars

So the thing is, I'm generally not a horror fan. I guess I love starting my reviews with being honest about my not-so-nice characteristics, eh? But hey, that's life, I get things out of the way. I am not a horror fan. What I like is suspense and mystery, so I guess this book was more up my alley than for people who enjoy serial killer clown and cannibal incestuous hillbilly clans.

Nate Tucker is an (I assume) early thirties guy in LA, working some mind-numbing, dead end tech job, having no money and no girlfriend. Generally not a happy existence, eh? One day he gets recommended some place to rent in a huge, old, creepy-ass building for good money and as he has nothing going for him, he takes it. But as any person would have done, he gets suspicious when roaches are bright green, apartments are random size and shape, some doors are permanently locked and his building manager dude not only dodges questions, but gets pissed. In his defence, as the story progresses, he discovers that a lot of tenants have noticed things already. So they start investigating.

Man, there were some really cute little connections with real life! I enjoy that. I enjoy authors taking real life facts and incorporating them to make the story actually seem more real. To me running to the nearest device to go online and do some research on some name or place. Do it more often, I will buy your book forever. Like... if you ever write a book and you... care about the opinion of one random weirdo. Eh.

Another thing I personally love is a good cast of people who are all kinds of crazy. Yes, I want to see people who would NEVER hang out in real life fight doom together. It can possibly turn into a stupid quirk-fest, or it can go this way and be awesome fun. Retired super awesome cool guys, artists, tech people, carpenters. Without going down the rabbit hole, I love this kind of a “diversity”, the kind that means different point of views in skills, strengths and weaknesses, ways of dealing with issues to form a team I can root for. Skin deep stuff doesn't cut it to me, sorry. But whatever.

What made me deduct some stars was... the writing, though. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't some horrible, nonsensical prose that makes you want to claw your eyes out, but the thing about mystery and suspense is that it can be really supported and taken to a whole new level with some kickass writing. Here... I was missing that thing. Sometimes the descriptions felt really pragmatic and lacked that uneasy feeling that would have made this an at least a 4 star read.

Another slight issue was the end of the book. It was a bit rushed, a bit abrupt. Some things could have been explained a bit better, with more inventive tools. Again, not the worst thing I've ever seen, I just can't say I was 100% pleased with it.

I wouldn't want to call it disappointing, but some polishing here or there would have done good. Maybe I'll try to look for something similar. It was actually a pretty pleasant read. Still, I'll keep looking for something with a similar concept, but a bit more of a polished execution. I would definitely recommend it as a light read, something fun and a bit of a palate cleanser between long series.

So long and keep the monsters at bay!

I challenge Leigh Bardugo to write an adult book. One without stupid teen girl tropes with all dudes loving one girl, gossipy clique shit, sass throwing, etc. She has the creativity, the world building here was great, some moments truly had a lot of weight. Basically it's time for the big battle, finding the last amplifier, winning over The Darkling and deciding the future of Ravka. A lot of work. I will have to repeat my previous reviews of this series; the world building shines. I wouldn't say there was too much added to the already existing things here, but the conclusion was pleasant and it felt like it was worth the wait, it satisfied. Though I will have to add that there wasn't too much of a surprise when it comes to Alina's future, we all knew she was going to end up the way she did. I wouldn't say any of it was too surprising, except for one plot twist, which was really just played for the drama. Otherwise... a lot of characters felt slightly wasted. Anyone Alina doesn't LOVE super much WILL die. A lot of focus is about how she feels, her internal workings and closest relationships while we have a bunch of interesting concepts. There is only one prominent Fabricator character in the time of the story who does ANYTHING, but we know how Alina feels about every single thing, in long form. Really, this series would have benefited from third person narrative. The first and last chapter in every book was in that form and it just felt so much better. It had so much possibility for an opened up world from different perspectives. Preferably ones that aren't bitter and whiny. Nikolai, for example is a much more interesting character whose issues are pushed to the background in a way. The foundation for something brilliant is there. It's in the author, I know she could do it. If she dared to stray from the extremely lucrative YA trope land. Which... she just did even more with Six of Crows, which I hated with passion. I don't really think she will ever leave behind the formula that worked so much for her when it came to fame and most probably money. Still, I would be extremely happy about it, because I believe she is worth more. Among the the rest of the genre, this one is a solid offering, though. I would say it is way above many of the others and for people who like YA or just simply don't dislike it as much as I do it would be a great choice. Russian settings are not that common, I think, the only other I could think of was [b:The Bear and the Nightingale 25489134 The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1) Katherine Arden https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1470731420s/25489134.jpg 45268929], which I absolutely hated for having the most typical special gurl with no discipline or manners because she can be a jerk, she is magical. Alina is a bit better; she is bitter and grouchy, but she can care about people close to her. There is a lot more possibility in the world as well, so in a way I'm happy the author is trying to work with that, though as I said, Six of Crows was a gigantic miss for me. The Nikolai books are about to come out so I really hope we'll get more of this side of the universe. My gut feeling is that it will be some sort of a romance, though, which is tired and boring and I am over it. I'll give it a go, though, for sure as he deserves more than what he got here. I would say this series was disappointing. I still like it, I love some elements, but it's very far from a perfect score. Have a good night and rise above all the shit!

So I'm reading through this series for the second time and honestly, I think I was totally right about my first time rating.

Alina and Mal ran away in book 1, but everyone knew the Darkling wasn't so easy to lose. He had plans with Alina, just like the Apparat with his new cult, prince Nikolai and really, everyone now.

The selling point of this series is the super creative world building. The whole Russian aesthetic is great, the things make sense. The danger feels real, there are so many pieces of lore, of different little parts that are interesting. This is exactly why I am so disappointed in the focus being Alina, the least intriguing character in the whole thing. They literally have the equivalent of the tough foreign PE teacher who would probably have a badass story of his own to tell. We are stuck with this bitter, whiny, boring, judge-y piece of a Mary Sue.
By this point she has 3 serious suitors. THREE. (Every single one too good for such a person.) I will be honest, the male characters are waster on this bullshit of chasing Alina. Mal is the most fleshed out, though he is the simplest of the three. It's weird that Bardugo could create interesting people like Nikolai, ideas like the Grisha school and army, but we get stuck with love overload. (Let me also declare that I found Six of Crows aaaaaaabsolutely shitty. No creativity, just bullshit 17-year-old super gang leaders and conveniently pairing up EVERY character into a forced romance, while ignoring any interesting world building.)

The first person perspective was a bad choice as well. It just hides so much about the setting and the other characters because Alina is clueless and boring. The first and last chapters in every book are third person, which would have opened up the story so much more. Not sure how much of it was an active choice or just a bit of a beginner way of not really knowing how to do it. But really, everything that obscures the culture and country here just bothers me, because really, it shines there.

Now I will be controversial, because why not. I do not love YA at all. Often times it's kind of diet stuff, the lesser kind of whatever genre it is and people just seem to let it slide because it's easy to read and it's for young people, so it doesn't matter as long as they read. Which is bullshit. Surprise, surprise, kids do deserve top notch shit as well and good habits can be formed without compromises of quality.
This would have been the PERFECT thing if not for the stupid tropes of all-dudes-loving-one-girl and such. I would still say it's way above the likes of Throne of Glass by Maas or City of Bones by Clare, so in that sense it's definitely recommended by me.

All in all, I'm conflicted, especially knowing Bardugo didn't improve on the weak parts but completely left out the good parts in her newer series. Sad. Especially because I'm re-reading this mostly to prepare for the new Nikolai duology. I want to see interesting things. Adventures. A protagonist who is grey in some ways and has his issues and such, but I fear the most wasted character of this whole series is going to become the centrepiece of another stupid romance and superficial shit. From the outside he looked interesting, I wonder how he will be if we get to know him better.

At this point the three books follow the route of the characters going after Morozova's three animal amplifiers, which is not a bad basic plot. For the most bare bones approach it's already enough, though I find the Apparat story line is very interesting, even if he is not a very fascinating character, while Nikolai's character is great (you really can't guess if he is a total charming sociopath or if he is really suffering under the weight of what he is doing) his story here is... mostly just “we have to pretend to be awesome so people will buy it”. Again, conflicting as hell.

I'm going to read the last book of course, even though I know what's happening. The vibrant details make it worth my time, especially because they are extremely readable, very fast and easy. Worth a try, I think.

Good night and see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I give up. Not going to rate this book, because technically I didn't finish, but I also didn't hate it. This series is just really not that interesting. The characters are fun, the magic system is interesting, it's just... not an interesting story and as books get longer and longer, I can't handle spending so much time when nothing really worthy of mention ever happens.

With a bit of a less... uninspired story I would have loved this. Being in a bit of a rut is not helping any of it either. I was just trying to read this and not getting anywhere, while thinking about what I'm doing with my life. Not ideal.

3,75 stars, I guess.
So here we have a bit of an oddity. We all know our feel good, syrupy reads about Christmas with cute children, pets, some kind of typical tragedies, then touching resolutions. Brom (Mr. Brom? I'm just weird with this one name thing, you're not Voldemort or Prince) said fuck all that, you'll have blood for Christmas.

In this one we have a failed Southern musician, with a fallen apart family, who somehow ends up in the fight between Santa, who is a Nordic deity and Krampus, who wants us all to return to our old ways of Christmas. Oh, and murder. There is a bit of brutal, splatter-y murder with guts. Enjoy.

This is where my kind of ambivalent feelings come. Our human protagonist, Jesse is not a particularly successful guy, his wife and kid left him, his career doesn't exist, got into some trouble with the local, really corrupt law enforcement. He's a pleasant enough fellow, I guess we wouldn't have much hate for each other, but... sometimes I feel like it's Krampus I want to read about, not him. Then again, it's not a fair thing, because fuck, not many people can compete with a mysterious, ancient creature who freaks children out, then gives them money.

Now Krampus, that is a cool one. You just can't know him. At one point he's scary and all wrong, the next he's actually an almost sweet guy. It's all just a matter of perspective. I guess that is something I loved about this book; when you read Krampus or Santa, you can understand them, respectively. You won't be able to simply, 100% hate either or them. (Yeah, I kind of rooted for Krampus, but I love slightly dark ones, deal with it.) I can really appreciate that.

The only character who felt a bit too sickly sweet and oh so tragic was Isabel, one of the sidekicks of Krampus . Didn't care for her much. Sorry.

The whole book has this mysterious, slightly twisted feel, which works really well with the prose, so I don't think anyone will have a huge issue with that. My only slight annoyance was that at the beginning there was a bit too much “Santa man” and “devil men”. Another GIGANTIC thing (for me, heh) that added a ton to the atmosphere was the art. Holy shit, it's brilliant stuff. You know, our Mr. Brom is a visual artist as well as a writer, so he sprinkled in some artwork, which was really something I enjoyed.

All in all, it was really hard to rate this book and I'm still a bit annoyed that with the updates Goodreads still doesn't allow half stars. I enjoyed it, I put it on my my-jam shelf, but sometimes it felt like not enough of the magical creatures and a bit too much of the humans screwing around and doing their stuff. Loved the change of pace for Christmas, though, especially after the endless wave of typical family movies. Would recommend it to the lovers of weird.