Flaire
So I love a good dystopian and when I heard the premise of this I knew I had to read it, dark plots are so interesting to me. Luckily it did not disappoint, since that's always a fear with super hyped books.
I love both Rowan and Citra (rare for me to enjoy both viewpoints in a multi-POV book) and the secondary characters around them were interesting as well.
This book may have been sitting at 4 stars for me for most of it, because I loved it I did but then that ending?! Blew it out of the water! Can't wait to read the next 2 in this series!
This was delightful! As an adult this is the exact type of children's lit I like to read, but I do believe I would have enjoyed it when I was a child as well.
The narrator is very entertaining, Penelope is quite intelligent though also very sheltered/naive too (in the best way) and the children are adorable! Also I listened to this on audiobook and the woman who preformed it, Katherine Kellgrin, was a excellent! Highly recommend it!
Loved the way it ended on a mystery as well and can't wait to pick up the second one.
Honestly this one just wasn't for me. I loved all the sisterly vibes of the previous two books, but I felt they weren't nearly as focused on in this one.
As far as Peter and Lara they are cute as always, but they did have a lot of issues in this book (as high school couples tend too). That and all the last year senior year stuff just doesn't really interest me personally, probably because I don't look back on my own senior year that fondly. Any-who, that's a personal problem but in the end solidified that this wasn't a book I'd enjoy.
I really, really enjoyed this. I listened to it on audiobook and the narrator did a lovely job.
This book was well written, at times creepy, and had a bit of a mystery as you knew part of the ending when you begin reading (the main character is now in jail for killing a child she nannies for) but you don't know how that ending came about or if Rowan is innocent or not as she claims:
I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending but am giving it a solid 4 stars for now, though I may come back and bump it up to a 5 in the next day or two if I'm feeling that way.
Edit: about a month later still sitting solidly at a 4 star. The very, very ending with what happened to the main character just could have been better for me.
Okay admittedly I haven't read Jane Eyre... I know, I know. I actually didn't realize what this was when I grabbed it from my library, I just thought the art looked cute. I know bad reason to read a book, so sue me.
I did love the artwork of this but that's it. All the characters were flat, and Mr. Rochester didn't have an attractive personality to me at all. Also nothing was explained in this, but I'll chalk that up to you are supposed to have read Jane Eye in order to understand this. My bad, but personally I do feel that makes it a weak retelling.
I'm happy to see from other reviews that those who have read Jane Eyre didn't seem to care for this much either so that gives me hope that I will still enjoy that classic when I get to it.
Okay, so this book did take me forever to get through as I kept reading other books around it. But... I did like it. It was just long with a lot of dumped information. Not my usual favorite style of book.
My favorite parts were Frank Sheeran's story telling and then the last few chapters where Charles Brandt wraps up all that happened in the making of this book.
I personally had trouble following all the big information blocks that were put in the book, but I do understand the necessity. Even though I was annoyed by all that information while reading after having gotten through the whole book I have a deeper understanding of the events surrounding Sheeran and Hoffa and appreciate the information a lot more.
Where to start... I liked this I did, I mean I gave it 4 stars so I must have really enjoyed it. I do typically love a good dystopian and this being a classic example I'm surprised it took me so long to get around to reading it!
I really did enjoy the world building on this and learning of this future society which is really most of the book. The plot is fairly simple and a little weird at the end for me. Some have said this book is boring and I can agree with that, but I personally often like books that are “boring”. It's a weird taste of mine.
All in all, I did enjoy this but couldn't give it a 5 stars because to me it's not nearly as good as 1984 by Orwell. Sorry Huxley.
Wow I did not expect to like this book more than the first one in the series, but I did! It was a crazy roller coaster of events but I liked the characters in this book even more than the ones in the last (I prefer Donna Tella and Dante to Scarlett and Julian... sorry if my spelling of their names is off, I listened to the audiobook)! I actually even enjoyed Jax as a character and loved the moments when Donna Tella and he interacted.
The writing style could be a little flowery at times. I mean stuff like “smells of secrets”. And occasionally Donnatella really annoyed me, I mean why couldn't she believe the game was real after she already believed Jax was a fate. That seemed silly to me but besides those two things I loved this!
The romance in this book was just the right amount for me balanced with the adventure and all the mystery. I can't wait to dive into the next book and see where it goes.
I personally really enjoyed the atmosphere of this book. I loved the small rainy seaside town setting and Shea Ernshaw's writing style.
I also initially liked the romance when Penny and Bo got together. It didn't feel to insta-love to me, though I know a lot of people didn't like it for that reason. As someone who was already saying “I love you” and talking marriage with a guy (who I'm now happily married to years later) within a week of dating, insta-love doesn't really bother me that much.
The love did bother me very much at the end of the book which I won't say why because of spoilers but that's the only reason I knocked a star off this book. The ending felt a bit rushed and I would have preferred a bit more time with Penny after all the book craziness to enjoy her and Bo's relationship at that time.
Besides that I loved the creepiness of the curse and loved the background information given about the Swan sisters so much so that if there was a book written about when they were still alive I'd be all over it.
All in all I really did enjoy the book and would recommend it.
What a great note for me to end the year on!
I loved this book so much more than I expected to. I mean the premise sounded interesting: a mysterious mansion, an eccentric recluse, a female protagonist that sees through the mystery and lies, plus takes place in the 1920's! I knew I had to read it.
Going in the first couple pages, it wasn't what I thought it would be and I almost put it down. The main character came across younger then I was expecting and definitely less mature then I typically enjoy. But I pushed through and obviously the book grabbed me, because I finished it the same day.
This book was filled with references of real art pieces, tales of Greek mythology, which I was not expecting and loved reading about. It's also filled with mentions of real events from the year the book takes place in adding some great historical realism to this work of fiction.
I immensely enjoyed this and know I would re-read it again some time.
I really enjoyed this! I should probably start by saying I'm a big Christmas Carol fan, so I loved the existence of Project Scrooge! This was a very unique retelling of a Christmas Carol that I wasn't expecting going in, but I'm so glad it was unique!
This book was really cute and the perfect type of read for the Christmas season. I'm a sap so I did tear up a couple times and I really felt the Christmas Spirit while reading this.
Okay so I finished this and honestly I'm not sure how I feel about it?
The book is interesting and different from the beginning, being written in two different viewpoints from two different time periods that are somehow interacting in the 70s in Argentina. So I was intrigued right away, and I'm not going to lie and say I didn't pick this one up because of how people were saying it was weird or polarizing online. That's exactly why I borrowed it from my library.
The book has a great creepy horror feel, set in an old finishing school, isolated on a glacier (or a mountain with lots of ice?), that is being reopened for the first time after some virus killed majority of the attendants and staff some 60 years ago.
I really did enjoy reading from the point of view of Mavi. More so then Angel, since her background was actually made known, instead of Angels which was just being hinted at for majority of the book to make you anticipate the grand reveal. Which really wasn't all that shocking, I guess? Probably because his background story for the most part really didn't affect anything in the book at all, except for his mom being dead but we knew that really early on.
The end of this book, with its twist, was kind of a crazy mess and I haven't decided how I feel about it. So maybe I'll change this rating later when I've processed it more.
So I really wanted to like this, because I mean, lesbian romance! That's one of my favorite things but...
This book dragged for me. None of the characters felt real to me at all, there was very little world building, and the plot was barely there? I felt like the book was way too long for what happened in it. The story was almost 400 pages and I felt the whole plot could have been done in half that.
I was so excited for this but in the end it wasn't for me.
I read the first third of this book physically but then switched to audiobook for the rest.
I did enjoy this book, it's super whimsical and fairly witty at times. It's also weird while still being cute.
The part I found most interesting were the brothers of Stronghold and how their ghosts spoke and watched on after their deaths. I wish I could maybe have a whole book drawing that lore out.
However the ending really kind of knocked this down for me. I just felt like nothing really happened.
I look forward to seeing the movie as some say it's a little bit different, but I just don't see myself re-reading this book again or really thinking about it long after hence the just 3 star rating.
I enjoyed this until the ending, it was a fun series of events for me. Kid trying to be a different person gets caught up distributing weed and working selling cocaine. I found the main character fairly like able and entertaining.
I did however call the ending, and was hoping that wasn't actually the case since I didn't like where it was going. But that was how it ended and I am giving it 3 stars for that since it really kind of ruined it for me.
This was a lot of fun! I listened to this on audiobook from my library and really enjoyed the narration as well as the story.
Caraval seems magical and crazy, and just the kind of place/event I love reading about in fantasy. I loved the mystery of legend and this book had entertained all the way through.
I do have to admit I did initially hate Tella, and almost put the book down when Scarlett found her but luckily I pushed through my frustration and the end of the book was worth it!
4 stars from me, would re-read and can't wait to continue reading the series!
I did very much enjoy this story even if all the animal abuse made me cringe and want to put down the book in the middle. However this is a circus book so I can't really hold that against it, it was a pretty realistic depiction in places.
I liked the main character Jacob and I enjoyed how the narrative switched between his present life in a nursing home and his flashbacks to his time spent at the Benzini Brothers Circus. Honestly, I don't think I would have enjoyed this book nearly as much if it was just a straightforward tale of his time in the circus.
As others have commented Marlena is a bit flat of a character and I wish she had a little more going on, but then again since the story really wasn't about her I'm not sure what could have been added to make her more interesting.
I loved this and can't believe I waited so long to read it, since it's been on my radar for years. The way Erin Morgenstern writes is beautiful, and I really felt transported back in time to the 1800s and that circus.
I loved the love story in this book as well. It wasn't rushed or too romance heavy which I tend to get annoyed by in fantasy novels.
If you like magical stories with lots of world-building descriptions this book will probably be for you.
I found Helen's writing style to be beautiful and loved hearing about the journey of grieving she went on while raising this Hawk. I found the described moments of grief to be deeply relatable for me and moving. And even cried at the very beginning of this book.
What really knocked down the enjoyment of this book for me was all the parts about White. Honestly I found all that talk about his books and how badly he raised his Hawk to be pretty boring and weird. Especially all that talk about his tortured life and repressed sexual feelings. I'm not really sure what that had to do with the authors personal story of grief or of raising a goshawk. I had to fight myself to keep from skipping his parts every time they came up.
I really enjoyed this book, which I listened to on audiobook. The book was about Hannah, a girl who is institutionalized after an “incident” where her school roommate falls out a window. Hannah is being observed for signs of mental illness, too see if she was crazy and to try to see if she was capable of pushing her beloved friend out the window.
Hannah is obviously an unreliable narrator from the start. She tends to ramble and not always make sense but I really enjoyed listening to her. The book was an interesting depiction of mental illness and not really like anything I had read before. The plot line, and style of the book gave me similar vibes to the movie “The Uninvited” which I love, though without all the creepiness or mystery since this book is pretty straightforward: no creepiness, no big twists or surprises.