Sarah
I like historical fiction with some court intrigue (and alt history with magic being possible), but this still started rather slow. I didn't find the characters interesting and was struggling to keep going until about 40%, then I flew through it for a while again after the three “trials” were done. I'd never read much about non-Catholics during the Inquisition, more about witchcraft accusations in that time, so I was expecting to love this more than I did.
Some notes: I read this without yet reading Blacktongue Thief (or anything else from Buehlman). It takes a lot for me to like books that are this focused on battles and gore. I often get bored by books that are super “I am a self-decided expert on military strategy and I will show it by sheer volume of the descriptions of armor and maneuvers” or the violence just feels gratuitous or so bleak and dark that I just can't take more.
And this is quite grim and I'd warn animal lovers like myself. But it's a compelling story with a lot of valor in desperate situations, with well-written action. The goblins feel like a palpable threat throughout the whole thing. (So do the giant corvids, which felt really appropriate.) The world-building is detailed enough that it feels very familiar and well-rounded and the threat of losing individual battles and the war overall is obvious. There's many striking descriptions of the important characters - the initial, restrained comments about the eldest brother, for one example. I kept sharing quotes with my partner, who likes this type of book more than I do.
It's not a glorification of war for fun or profit or religion, it's war as a grim necessity for overall survival against a terrible foe. It feels like, for the world it's set in, this was about as devastating for human cultures as WWI, which is fascinating.
It's a dark coming-of-age memoir, but oh, I like Galva. And I'll read Blacktongue Thief soon.
I liked the magic system and how each strega has different abilities and can use them in different ways with a perspective shift; I liked how Teo was raised and how that continued to influence responses to new events. I don't like Cielo though - or at least not the cliche of “of course they're related to the direct threat to the five families.” But I'll likely read the followup.
Stereotypical paranormal urban romance in ways, and normally that's not for me, but I'd read more of this series.
An interesting look at divorce restrictions and customs around 1860, with a surprising amount of hearsay included in the trial itself.
Alien smut is not my thing but I liked this, the society feels surprisingly fleshed out considering it's set around the contests and the smut.
“a little girl who loves a place that doesn't love her back, a child making a home when she was never given one.”
I loved this. Messy found family and a creepy house that takes care of its caretakers, and the struggle of how to figure out how to let yourself be happy when that was never something you expected to be able to focus on.... this is good.
Good collection of stories, from mostly new-to-me authors who I'll be looking for more from. (Anthologies usually have several stories I end up skipping through - this had only one.) I appreciate that they're more sweet/optimistic/hopeful, with no “there can't be a happy ending if you're non-straight” bs. I'd recommend this to everyone.
Light, enjoyable, occasionally funny read, not too much spice. Will probably read more from this author.
Interesting story - even though I've never read Jane Eyre so I probably missed some of the connections.
The book itself is five stars, but this particular edition deserves one. Filled with irrelevant footnotes and there were missing words.
Just interesting enough to push through the times I'd consider a DNF, but I was a band nerd til the end of high school. The characters aren't fleshed out beyond being really good musicians. Which sort of worked since that's what mattered to them both, until the plot shoved them together entirely because “you're so talented and you insult me constantly, it's hot.” And then shoved them apart for the obligatory breakup and woe, and then back together.
Gwen getting first violinist simply for being young and pretty with a “story we can sell” seemed unlikely with the board involved - sure, it'd help, but that would be more believable if it was only the call of the jerk conductor. And the storyline of the conductor being a jerk (and about nobody reading their contracts at all or even having a friend do it) got lightly tedious quickly. I mean, those storylines seem plausible, it's just a really easy “look, he's a villain” approach. But this wasn't bad, I may read more from this author sometime.
I appreciated Lynn getting to find her own way and choosing to reach out to people as she could, rather than sticking with what her mom had demanded. The ending was very rushed and I don't know that I'll read the sequel any time soon, but I did like this.
Bored, I finished the first 2 months ago and the first ten percent of this was not interesting enough to make me want to skim the end of the first (which I'd rated 2 stars) to remember what had happened.
There's clear nods to fairytales and Juniper Tree specifically, but the closest thing that makes this a “retelling” is the horrors of domestic abuse and that the characters feel a little flat in spite of everything they've gone through. (The author seems to think that is essentially unavoidable in fairy tale retellings, based on an AMA. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/w2xmnh/im_ava_reid_the_author_of_the_wolf_and_the/)
Marlinchen especially has tried to focus so much on appeasing her father to not suffer even more, but she's not more sympathetic than the sisters. The characters didn't compel me, the horror details were bad and somewhat shocking, but low stakes because the characters didn't feel more real. (At one point I was thinking “why is the child sexual abuse warning so frequent on this?” and was distracted by checking Marlinchen's age when she meets Sevas, in case that was the reason - and then shortly after, I got to the reason that warning exists.)
This was really cute and sweet and funny. (I am so fond of the animated classic Grinch, the related jokes just made it better. Especially the snarky “narrator”.) The characters and relationship development were good, the town would be annoying to live in without a cheesy romance to distract you - really all of this was fun and hot, even though I'm not a big fan of romances.
Plot is borrowed from other, better books like someone forming a letter out of cuttings from magazines. The virus-awakening-magic-for-some was interesting except it's repeated over and over that you can develop multiple abilities if you work at it enough and the main character never questions anything at all about officials or motives for anyone beyond the surface stories he's given, even though his background should mean the opposite.
Very slow paced plot plodding along until about 80% and then it's like the author realized “oh I'd better wrap this up, there's no time to have characters make decisions that make sense.”
Yes there's some stale yet alcohol soaked crumbs of bi rep offered, but there are better books for that - ones that are interesting and have believable relationship development and characters that are developed at all.
If you're fine with body horror and self harm and tales of obsession, this is... still really dark. Interesting idea, uneven approach to it.
Fun story. World building was kinda sparse, but it fits with Misery being isolated from what she should have grown up with. Found family is one of my favorite tropes, and I enjoyed this.
Gets very dark right from the beginning, but it's appropriate. It explores sexism, classism, racism, with well-written main characters. Especially as a standalone, it's amazing. I'd recommend it to anyone who can handle heavy reads.
Cute, with creative world-building and humor and attention to real issues. And I liked hiding the supernatural side with red tape and good cover stories to explain away odd events. I'll definitely read more of this series.