BulbasaurusThe7th

I don't know, man. I'm just not excited about this. 30% in and I don't really care about the protagonist. I thought there was going to be a bit more about the other crew or something, but so far it just feels kind of boring.
Possibly I will try again later, but at this point, I have no feelings about this book.

Recently my friend recommended the Jujutsu Kaisen anime to me. I had a week off of work, so I was like nice, something to see.
This story is amazing. The whole thing is a lot of fun, it has dark elements, the characters are interesting, it has these random ridiculous moments that made me cry-laugh, with animation that was just gorgeous. (The OP song is also a banger.)

This manga volume is basically a prequel, a little story set in the same universe. In this world people's negative feelings can manifest as curses; creatures out there to seriously harm people. Some are small, weak and stupid, they make your back hurt and your sleep restless. Some are huge, though. They outright kill people.
So some, the ones who have access to a sort of magic, have to protect the general public, while acting in secret. They even have special schools to teach people.
Yuta is the new kid, though he is not there because he wants to be a hero; his dead childhood friend, Rika, returned as a curse and while she just wants to protect him, it basically makes everyone around him get hurt. The school is his only chance to be able to live a normal life.

For some reason, I expected the art to be much worse. It's actually pretty nice and Yuta's face is extremely expressive. I have read an interview where the artist claimed he can't draw women and that's what I call bullshit. There is a female character in this who has a pretty prominent role and she is so cute. It has some double spreads that are fascinating and of course it's full of bizarre creature designs. (Even if some monsters look like walking vaginas. That looked funny.)
Another thing specific to this is the fact that characters are not sugary sweet, but also the author doesn't feel the need that he needs to tell a bleak story that has no joy, which is a pretty popular thing in Western comics now. Either UWU ADVENTURE TIME or Batman, but with more death. This one found the perfect balance.
The teenagers are not damn annoying. Normally I like my characters to be adult and yes, the adults in JJK are amazing, but even the kids are likeable. Yuta is a well-meaning, vulnerable person who is struggling to form relationships. It also has a talking panda, called Panda. I like that.

I'm not sure how well the major concepts are explained to people who know nothing about the story. I'm not sure I would recommend this to be read before getting familiar with the world, but it was still a really nice read and a lot of fun.

I'm definitely going to with this eventually, as I need more and the second season of the anime won't come until at least next year.

RTC

No. I'm quitting this at 16%. I read the very end to see what the hell is going on and it's not good enough to make it worth my time. It's such a slog, with flowery prose that is there to pretend this is some good writing. It isn't.
Multiple POV characters, why? Especially in first person! The author is just so in love with her own voice that there is literally no meaning in it. Sure, it's probably for mystery reasons or whatever, but I expect a bit more than blabbering about what the floor feels like or what flower's smell they can feel from yet another useless clone character.
There was no pressure, no urgency, just boring ass pages of descriptions of mundane things.

I am not going to talk on some political tangent about the topic of this book, but there is one thing.
NEVER listen to someone who demands you to not read a book, but instead accept their opinion on how it is harmful or this-ist or that-phobic. If you have any intellectual ambition, just go ahead and read it if you want to know. You don't have to agree, but never accept ANYONE's word on how you are not allowed to read something.

This book is a brilliant choice if you want to pick up non-fiction that still feels fun. It's accessible, full on interesting facts and written in a pleasant way by a person who sounds cool.

Some people are incredibly odd in a great way. You know, like the people you randomly meet and then, you don't even know how, end up listening to blabbering about some totally unexpected topic AND they make you interested, even though you have no idea you could be.
This is what it feels like reading the writing of Merlin Sheldrake.
This book isn't dry at all, he has a lot of weird charisma about him.

I expected this book to be mainly about mushrooms that humans consume, and a bunch of it was. From truffle hunting to magic mushrooms, yeast that makes bread and alcohol.
But also a bunch of ways in which fungi communicate, breed, exist with other plants and animals. Ways in which they can be used to make compostable packaging and cure bees.
In that way, it felt almost short. I wanted to know more, I wanted to hear more from this person and his odd obsession with running around in a jungle. Making cider in a dorm room.

So while it was a lot of scientific information, it never felt too much or suffocating. It kept me interested and a lot of it was unexpected. This is the enjoyable way to learn. I have already recommended it to multiple people in my life and I will continue to do so.

DNF at 18%.

This is just not it and my reason will not be what you think it is.
You could assume I have an issue with the concept of humanising President Snow. And here I am, about to say the wild stuff; I had no issue with young Snow. He is actually the only tolerable character, plus his Nice Boy classmate. I can't stand the female characters Susan Collins writes. Lucy is a freaking Manic Pixie Dream Girl, with annoying quirky antics. Katniss was the “she doesn't know she is literally amazing” and now we get this??
I'm probably way too old for this. No matter how bloody it gets, how brutal, this is still a teenage romance and I am so done with perfect quicky girls singing songs on television.

Ashok, Thera and the Sons are going to the secret hideout with their new members, Devedas is out to get them, while Omand is still a fucking psycho. So basically this series is still fun, still full of adventure and action.

I liked the first two books on the first read, but to get to this I had to go through them again. Man, was that a great decision, it's even better this way. Something about the way the story is progressing makes it impossible to me to see what's happening next and that still stands in this book. Some of the archetypes and character motivations are by themselves not that different, but what Mr. Correia does with them is unpredictable and completely different.
On another note, I assumed this was a trilogy. Nope. There will be at least one more book. Keep that in mind, it may change how you see the pacing. For some time I was surprised by how things are not getting resolved. Lol, because they are not meant to be!

It's official, I love this series.
The night with Yuri and the Forgers escalates. Loid starts to wonder what's going on with Yor. Anya actually gets some chances to get ahead with becoming an elite student.

There is something so wholesome about this. Everyone constantly lies, but in contrast with that we have Anya earnestly trying her best because she knows what's going on, but doesn't understand it. Her little fantasies about how avoiding war can happen are the most adorably childish things ever.
I have no doubts about Yor and Loid ending up together, but what I appreciate more is that they are becoming a family first and foremost and while the two of them do bond, it's more than just them being into each other. They appreciate each other's effort and try to do their best.
There is action in this. There are punches thrown, explosions and guns, but it's still such a feel-good thing because the characters make it so.
I also love how they are doing all the things a proper, healthy family needs to do, but it's all framed in this “we need to do this” way. But then it still just works.

We already know the gag of the story. We do, but there are just so many layers to it, because the lies vs the truth modify the relationships between all the characters. Even if one or two things eventually get uncovered, there will be enough left to go on.

And also... they are getting a fluffy dog! I'm a sucker for animal characters and I'm so excited about a dog coming, I can't even explain. Again, they are doing things for the mission or for peace or for appearances... and they are so typical wholesome family!

I lasted 5%. This book is absolutely AWFUL. No, honestly, it's just so bad I'm almost impressed by the lack of skill or good taste. And the thing is, it probably already has about 99.9999% of its flaws ahead of me and I'm already over my breaking point with this absolute TRASH. Give me books about books. I want to find some novel where the characters work at a library or deal with book and knowledge. Why are they all so bad, though? This was pretty much a possibly even worse version of [b:Ink and Bone 20643052 Ink and Bone (The Great Library, #1) Rachel Caine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1418350512l/20643052.SX50.jpg 39934787]. The first thing that hit me was the prose. Using random, big words to create the clunkiest sentences ever doesn't make you witty. It makes the book annoying to read and it becomes a chore to find what the actual point is under all the ‘coalesces' and ‘intractables'. There is nothing wrong with a wide vocabulary. There is a lot that's wrong with breaking out your pretentious thesaurus for every. Single. Sentence. A bunch of times it doesn't even make sense! How do you “ravenously avoid each other”? RAVENOUSLY? What? That's the wrong word. It doesn't add anything to the sentence, just a sense of fauxtellectual bullshit. Then again, that plays into this fad of “UWU, soooo dark academia, yaaaas”. It feels like the fans of it think smart people are like those studious cartoon characters. This plays into that idea perfectly; sassy back and forths between overachieving sadcases, everyone's inner monologue sounding the same level of analytical and “witty”. Everyone is Le Depression. I bet my ass they will all fuck each other as well, because UHHHH, nothing matters, “I just want to feel something”. Another funny thing. One of the main characters, exceptionally smart and educated Libby... thinks the Midas touch is a positive thing. I'm not sure what to think anymore. How am I supposed to buy this is a smart book for smart people about smart people by a smart person when we get THIS? HOW???? A book about books, where a part of one of history's most read books is totally misunderstood the way only semi-literate people would do. I think I'm too old for this. Apparently, this is a Tiktok sensation, which explains a lot to me. It is the “lip sync to crappy music” of novels all right. And this is coming from someone who loved [b:The Magicians 6101718 The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) Lev Grossman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1313772941l/6101718.SY75.jpg 6278977].

Something about this just doesn't work for me. I keep hearing it's excellent, though its supposed genius to me feels more like flowery prose and an undefined story.

DNF at about 60%.

Here is the thing. This story has a bunch of characters, which I like. But then... it just feels like they are never properly utilised. They are quirky and fun, but we never really get to know them properly, enough to really understand why they do what they do. We get told a couple sentences hinting at their past, but it's never fleshed out. Things happen and it still feels like the story is just starting.
I lost my enthusiasm.

I don't think this is all bad. I just feel like something is missing. Something about the creation of this is incomplete and made me feel like a half-formed idea, where the characters and the places were created, but it was never brought together. Somehow the unifying top layer just wasn't in place.

We need more single volume fantasy stories. This is just my idea, I mean you are free to disagree, but I honestly believe we would profit from having more single volume stories like this.

The laws of nature in Becar work this way; reincarnation is a fact. It's all based on your deeds. If you are nice, you will be human, if kind of okay, but with flaws, you will be an animal. The breed decided by your exact levels. But if you mess up seriously... you will be reborn as a kehok, a chimera-like monster that just lives to go on with harming people and murdering, living in the deserts, ensuring that you will stay a kehok forever.
Except, not really. Some people decided to just do something wild and capture kehoks to ride them in competitions. Every year there is a champion. The human rider gets money and glory, the kehok a special medal that erases all its previous crimes and it can be reborn better next time, as something other than a monster.
It does help that you can keep an eye on your own current status with the help of the priest class, the augurs. Doesn't help that they are greedy assholes.

Tamra used to be a rider, now she is a trainer that is not doing brilliantly. She is doing so badly, in fact, that his daughter, Shalla, will be taken as a ward of the augurs if she can't pay for her augur education any longer. The poor girl can't even just leave, as all children with skills in augur things are forced to study it. She needs to train a winning rider to fix it.
Raia has a horrible family, so now she needs to buy her freedom by winning the races. She needs a trainer.

You know, it all seems ripe for some “I'm a girl, hear me roar, UWU, fuck men, I am perfect”, 2021-style cringe. And it isn't! It's possible to not fall right into the stupid tendencies that plague stories now, especially stories with female protagonists.
Neither of the characters are spiteful assholes. They don't blame others for their own issues more than what's conductive of them bettering themselves. They have insecurities and flaws and they are never treated as some outside force they have no power over; they can do this. Of course they doubt it, but that's natural.
I feel many female-centric stories nowadays give ridiculous expectations to girls and women. You can argue older things gave those too, but what's the meaning in being critical, when you change things to something else equally unrealistic? What do I mean by that? Now female characters have to be flawless. Nothing bad ever happens because of her, she is a victim of everyone being against her. But she is also amazing. Born with naturally perfect skills and moral superiority. Doubting herself is just her being harmed by social brainwashing, it can never be her self-conscious trying to make her reexamine herself to make sure her decisions and choices are really correct, because they just are naturally.
And this book does better still.

There is something more on top of these two; a huge, societal change and a political conspiracy going on. It doesn't completely take over the story of Tamra and Raia, but it adds an extra layer and puts these two in context.
It also adds male characters. And tell you what, they are treated well in a story primarily about female characters. Look at THAT. Again, it can be done. They are flawed, but they are doing their best and they're not the the idiots who only exist to make the women look better.

Some minor things were there I didn't love. Sometimes it felt like characters were just repeating their motivations and feelings. I understand they had the issues on their minds constantly. Sure, I do. But it got a bit repetitive sometimes.
Also, there is a whole character I felt was wasted. They did great in many ways and then we reached the end, but the thing that happened to them was just so meaningless and I don't feel it added to the overall message or the end result. It was just lame.

The world-building was done well. It had to be sparing enough to fit in one book, so we didn't get over the top, useless add-ons some authors believe are necessary for a fantasy story. Yes, we all love Tolkien. No, you don't necessarily need to invent a whole language and mythology to write a story successfully. Don't force it if you are not already passionate, knowledgeable and obsessed with these things.

I was extremely impressed by this book. After my worst slump ever last month, it was a nice new start. I definitely recommend this and will be looking into reading more by the author.

3,5 stars, I suppose. At this point I still don't exactly know how I feel about this series. What do I mean about this?

Lugor, Shiva and Sandal are sent out into the world for some time to actually practice their Adventurer skills in real life, in their case they have to travel to a new island with the group trying to start a colony there. Meanwhile Lugor's village, including his mom are still kidnapped and nobody knows about them.
Which is part of my issue. I understand that the plot has to progress, but the way everyone is being all sorts of happy and contented with making horseshoes and grinding for exp all blissfully, meanwhile Lugor's mom is kidnapped by a crazy necromancer is just weird. Nothing bad happening feels like it has a true weight when 5 minutes later we just go back to fun times with taming giant birds. Someone loses an arm and not even 2 minutes later people (including the one who just lost the arm) are all “lol, loot”. Now I am not trying to say I want every book to be super serious, this just takes a lot of steam out of the big, emotional scenes.

The three main characters are still nice. Some of their interactions are a bit... lol sassy pop culture speak, which I personally don't like (it can and will date the book so so much), but otherwise they are fine. None of them are portrayed as way above the others and not really needing them, the trio is all needed for everything they do. Of course Lugor is unique in certain ways and is the strongest considering them.... it's not like he can do it alone.
The minor characters are still not very fleshed out and we also just went from one place to another, leaving behind the ones who received some attention in book 1. I really hope we will see some of them be allowed some development, other than just “Hmmm, Lugor, I think you are cool after all”.

Things have developed in this as far as the world building goes. I'm not sure how long this series is going to be and how far we are going, but I am sure there is more than a trilogy's worth of things to tell, partly because the books are short and also because there are so many things to discuss and questions to answer in it. I'm definitely going on with it for now, even with its flaws, because overall it's kind of fun and an easy read to get in between heavier and longer ones. Worth of a try for sure.

I got my copy from the author for free, in exchange for an honest review.
On that front, I have to add one more thing I feel is important to mention. The big retailers of ebook were having some issue with me, as I am living in Hungary. Many seem to think my address is fake, etc. When I told the author, she got back to me in a matter of hours and sent the file without having to deal with websites moaning at me. I thank her for it and I really appreciate her help.

So about the book. In a country that is the fantasy version of India, one of the big issues is the regular attacks perpetrated by winged creatures called the Aeriels. Our main character is part of the police force protecting humans from them and solving crimes.
One day they get news about the Aeriels planning on stealing some plans of new, more effective weapons and Ruban, our protagonist, has to team up with a pampered foreign royal, Ashwin, to get to the bottom of it and avoid imminent catastrophe.

Urban fantasy with mystery is always a good pairing in my book, then again, I am a huge Dresden Files fan, so I was pretty much trained like Pavlov's dog to automatically get interested. Another thing I love is creatures. Something is fascinating about humans having to deal with creatures not human, but not quite animal either.
In this case the winged ones are actually far more advanced than humans, stronger, faster, with powers far above what a normal person can do. In that sense, this reminded me of Attack on Titan (albeit much, much less gory and terrifying); there is some sort of an outside power and people have forgotten a lot about their origins, because of our much shorter lifespans.
It's just so striking, imagining these people with giant wings showing up to rain hell on you and you don't even understand why, because hey, these Aeriels were alive before your great grandparents and you are only a tiny speck in their lives.

Ruban isn't a happy person. He is gloomy and grumpy and hates the fact people are interested in him because he does his job well. He is not trying to get attention or glory, he just wants to kick ass and protect the people. I can respect that.
As an opposite, we have Ashwin. Dude is hilarious, manipulative, he loves it when he is the centre of attention. He does what he does and makes himself look like an innocent little cinnamon bun in the process. Their opposite personalities really elevate this story. I always enjoy that kind of dynamic.

One thing kept me from getting into this even faster; there are many characters in such a short-ish book. I'm really bad with remembering names, so sometimes I felt like I couldn't remember who was the TV crew assistant person and who was some random person at a hotel.
If you are a bit smarter than I am, you probably won't have any issues on that front. :D
There were some minor continuity issues with the timeline, but I doubt anyone else noticed that.

All in all, I do recommend it.

Quit this one. When? Interesting question, as I stopped reading at about 25% of the book, but the last 25% isn't even the story, but previews of other novels of the author. You buy this and only get 75% of an actual new story and the rest is something else, which I find not good. I feel it's a bit of a cheat, really, like when your bag of crisps is not even full.

I stopped reading because I keep disliking Opal more and more, the drama with Nik is really juvenile even though I am fine with him, the whole jealousy issue is lame. The story doesn't seem to develop, we are back at square one with Opal's dad and all. She also acts like she is not responsible for anything in her life ever and lacks agency, which is funny, as she constantly goes on an on an freaking on about how she wants to be her own person, but she acts stupid at the end and never gets ahead.

DNF at about one third of the way in.
Malorie and her kids have to escape the school for the blind and then they spend a good decade in a former summer camp doing not much, until one day a man shows up. He is supposedly a census man, leaves them a book with a bunch of information about other survivors and the things they tried to do to get an explanation to the creatures and to adjust to a new life. This makes the characters want to move, to get to the supposed new civilisation and to see what is going on there.

I don't like Malerman's writing. I didn't like The Bird Box and I don't like this thing. There is nothing satisfying about him going on and on about random things, about what Malorie feels again and again without a conclusion. Without anything every being found out. Just cluelessly wandering around, being scared and being volatile. It feels like this whole thing leads nowhere and we will have another meaningless chapter where the characters go to a freaking well for water and putting on protective gear.
It's trying to be very artistic. It says random things that are supposed to feel like you can connect to the characters and events intimately, while to me they were more like random, useless pieces of information that lead nowhere. Malorie and her sister snuck into an adult movie and her sister fell asleep. That's cool and all, but it says nothing that would add to the development of the story, just Malorie thinking of useless junk.

Tom is the only character who actually wants to be proactive, who wants to develop and do things and Malorie just tells him no. Again, I am sure this was meant to be poignant in some way, but to me it felt frustrating. I'm sure someone will come and explain to me I just don't understand the intricate, deep things about this. But to hell with that, I am not going to try and rationalise the supposed greatness of a book that annoys me and doesn't give me a pleasant reading experience.

I'm admittedly not the hugest horror fan. What I like is building pressure and some sort of a catharsis at the end when either a satisfying conclusion happens or... shit just goes off the rails completely. These books have nothing like that, it just feels like it's slow and dragging and then by the end I want it to end, not because I care all that much, but because I still hope something will be resolved, when it doesn't happen.
It's frustrating, more than anything.

I personally wouldn't recommend these books. I have no clue why they became such hyped things, because I don't find the ideas unique, nor was the way they were handled. I guess they are short and easy to read? I don't know, I don't care at this point.
Doubtful that I will ever feel like reading anything other than this from the author, he is just not to my taste.

Review to come

Chel is bored and miserable in a city where he was sent to be a sworn man to his step-uncle, up until he unintentionally becomes the protector of a young prince running from war. Up until the two of them get kidnapped by mercenaries, which only makes things much more complicated. Misfortunes start after that for real. The title of the book really gives you a clue about what is the best about the story; it really shines when Chel, prince Tarfel and the Black Hawks mercenary group interact and go through all sorts of insane things together. So really, my recommendation is that you should just push through the first part with the kind of... not particularly interesting stuff and then everything will be awesome. This little wait is the reason why I took one star from it, because I feel there is a lot more ahead of us and the second book won't need the setup. (Hopefully book 2 also won't disappoint like [b:The True Bastards 34299732 The True Bastards (The Lot Lands, #2) Jonathan French https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560049511l/34299732.SY75.jpg 55353538] did to me, sadly.) The characters are all fine by themselves, though it all makes sense with them as a group. Their interactions are fun and range from bickering to grudging respect. Then again, there are still a lot of things to discover about them so hopefully that will happen. The story was unpredictable, not necessarily in a huge way, I simply had no idea where they were going with the plot. The big, final plot twist wasn't bad, though it felt kind of abrupt and to me not all that jawdropping. Not like that's a bad thing, I don't mind. Definitely a book I recommend and I'm excited about the sequel.

This was FUCKED. Really. Especially fucked when the whole setting and everything about it is so damn normal.

Patricia is a normal housewife in the South, right? She does normal things, takes care of her mother-in-law with dementia, has two kids. Her husband is a doctor, so they are a bit of a big-ish deal and life works out fine.
Of course she needs some fun and that comes in the shape of a book club with a bunch of other, very different women, from tough farmer wife to super Christian do-gooder. The five of them are united by their love of true crime books, which is a bit naughty, but hey, let them have fun.
Then a new man movies into the neighbourhood and shit gets weird. Is Patricia going crazy and imagining that James is a vampire or did things go weird completely?

That is the most interesting thing about this; it plays out through a number of years and it's a slow thing to go from a new guy moving in to... dealing with the vampire. I knew for a fact this is about a vampire, it's in the damn title of the thing and I still got this weird feeling that I just want things to go back to normal.

The mystery wan't the fact if the guy is a vampire, it was more like a gradual building of pressure that eventually became just obvious facts.
I also expected the characters' relationships to be rock solid from the get go and it was refreshing to see something else. It took them effort to reach that point and that was good.

Overall, this was a good read. Messed up, but I'm still interested in reading more from this authot. Which is nice?

It took me one whole week to read 20% of this and I can't go on. This book is similar to [b:The Name of the Wind 186074 The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) Patrick Rothfuss https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1270352123l/186074.SX50.jpg 2502879]. Now many a Rothfuss fanboy will scream at my face about how KKC is liekm the best series EVER and it's absolute genius. No, it isn't. Nor is this one so. You know the feeling when you are like... 14 and everything is dramatic? You are so deep and every annoying piece of comical melodrama is the best thing ever? This is it. Except... it isn't? Because it has a lot of adult content. Which is fine, I am an adult, but because I am, the attempted gravitas is just pathetic to me, but also the content makes it not really suitable for actual kids. It's also very verbose. People of a certain country or region or whatever are obviously the world's version of black people. Yet we have to read repetitive descriptions of them being black and having dreadlocks. Pro tip, after making it obvious they are the black people, just mentioning they are from that place is pretty much enough, you don't have to also say they have dark skin every time. I also can remember a character having feckles. You don't have to tell me every scene. She is freckled, yes. It just never seems to get anywhere. We are going with the story and it's still setting things up without making any progress. I like me some vampires. That's not the issue. But this is such a stiff book. No flow, no playfulness, not wit. Just overwritten angst. It takes itself so seriously, meanwhile the story itself is really not clever or anything. I found some unintentional comedy in it, except I was also really dang bored. It has illustrations, though. They are pretty nice, I have to give that to them. A bit samey, Instagram, webcomic style, but with impressive detail.

I'm sorry, but this book is not it. I was so excited about finally reading it, but it just doesn't work. 15% in and I'm both bored and annoyed.

Look. Nowadays every fantasy writer and reader seems to be obsessed with worldbuilding and making it as over the top as possible. Of course some worldbuilding is necessary. But adding ridiculous words every two sentences is not good worldbuilding. It is especially useless and stupid if you are inventing new words to name something normal just to fake that your world is so rich.
Example. In this thing every single fucking position people can have on a ship is given a new stupid name. A damn doctor is called a hangshand! WHY? What does it add? Nothing. A hat is called a hat, but a doctor needs some uwu fancy new name for no reason. We are less than a hundred pages in, we don't know much about the characters or what's going on or why. But we get told the fancy fantasy names of the days of the week, which again, adds nothing.
Coming up with a new name for a palm tree is not good fantasy writing. Work on the things that are necessary for the story to glide, to capture people, instead of reinventing the wheel to seem deep.

Everyone loves this, so my rant is nothing, but hey. Another thing.
Why is everyone going along with this shit? There is a ship, full of criminals who got condemned to serving here. The protagonist is the captain (called some other ridiculous bullshit, not captain, we are DEEP FANTASY NOW). Everyone hates him and they have exactly zero respect for him. But they just go with it because? Then some woman shows up and is like “YARR, I am the new captain here”. Why don't they fucking beat the shit out of her and leave it at that? Everyone is like super dangerous badass evil, but some chick can order them around because she... is confident?
Let me see ya try that with your local biker gang. See how it goes.

Another thing that is ridiculous that one more book tries to make us believe that it's totes mcgoats natural and indeed logical to pretend that women can be like 50% of some fighting force and biological and physical gender differences ain't shit.
Yes, some women can keep up with men. Very few. They are the exception. 99% of us can't. There is no shame in it and it's not helping anyone to pretend that I could ABSOLUTELY outlift and outfight and out... physical-labour men.

Something about the prose is also really odd. Often times the sentences are just written in this odd style where I don't even understand what they are trying to get to. Combined with the needless mumbo-jumbo lingo and me rolling my eyes at the ‘roided up Wonderwomen, I just felt like I was probably having a stroke.

All in all, this did not work. Most of you will probably love it. That's nice. I refuse to waste my life on it.

The craziest thing about this is while the book itself is satire... the quotes “Titania” uses to justify her brand of crazy are real. It's entertaining and I am also amazed by how fucking insane Laurie Penny, Sally Miller Gearhart and the like are. And they are celebrated for it! Something to think about.

My big issues with this series are that Reichis is the only one with humour (de Castell is a HILARIOUS author, it's a shame it's hidden here) and that as much as there is supposedly an overarching story, we just have episodic stuff with whole new nondescript characters in every single book.
Right now I'm just really bored of it. Maybe I will try again? I don't know. But really, they books are nowhere near as connected to each other as I would like, which is good if you have 15 books to go. But this is just boring at this point.

What have I just read? What was this?? A weird child is going through pseudo-Asia. He has the mission given by a Shinigami of killing an evil Emperor. Now a small child needs to have some relevant skills to make it so, yeah? Ein can take dead people, bring them back to life and make them help him through this. They are all notable, great fighters, special for some reason and if they manage to do this they will be fully alive again. Not much to lose, right? Getting into this short little book took me much longer than I expected, mostly because a huge chunk of the book is basically the characters going around, finding the next member of the group, making them join the mission, then going on. It makes it easier to remember the characters as they are not dumped at your face all at once and I appreciate that, but also it didn't feel all that exciting. In a way I would say it wasn't. It was fine, it was okay, the writing is good, but it did not feel much more like than your average wacky character heist story. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's not particularly exciting either. The buildup was good, though, by the end I was made to care about these assholes. Because yes, they are not really nice people and Ein is creepy as all hell. But still, I started rooting for them because after everything it only felt right for them to get their way, partially because this wasn't a complicated book and that just seems like the just thing for the characters. They weren't bad enough to not deserve it, damn it. The end, though. Without the end this would have been a one book deal, not even a long one at that. Then things got much more complicated than that. Was it too late to make this an amazing book? I don't know. I couldn't give it a full 5 stars and I needed some time to think about what just happened. At this point I don't know where we are going for the sequel either. Part of me feels a bit salty about the fact we are left at this point of the story. It was a setup. We were made to read something that could have justifiably been half a book. This was the exact opposite of what happened with [b:The Ember Blade 34673711 The Ember Blade (The Darkwater Legacy #1) Chris Wooding https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490348335l/34673711.SY75.jpg 55844744] and I am not 100% sold on either being the better way to divide a story into volumes. This was definitely interesting and creative, but also a very frustrating read. Short, though. I would recommend it because even if you are not on board with what is happening and how... it doesn't take too much effort. It's accessible and short and I think worth at least a look.