Lucille Ancrath

Needs more dragons!🐉

I see that a lot of people found this book scary and put it into the horror category, but to me it feels more like a mediocre slasher movie. There is a lot of gore described in great detail, but most of it just makes me question how it even happened. I'm also not a fan of Stephen's writing style in general.

If anyone has read H.P.Lovecraft's “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” they will know about a chase scene that happens in it. I found that whole story a lot creepier than this book, but the chase scene in particular, was in my opinion done a lot better by Lovecraft.

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Now, the thing that annoyed me during this whole reading experience is that this book could have been about any regular kind of white trash and with minimal changes, the plot would've stayed the same. Essentially, Native Americans could have very easily been “spared” the pointless bad light that this book shines on them.

For starters, The Only Good Indians doesn't actually have many good people in it. It focuses exclusively on a group of poor, fairly uneducated Native Americans driving beaten up trucks and wasting their lives away in bar fights. This might be a somewhat accurate representation of todays youth growing up in the reserves, but without the social commentary on why this is so, I feel like this book simply uses them as a sensation.There are no rituals here, besides one towards the end, that is only used as a convenient plot setting. There is no real folklore, there are no tattoos, no tales, these guys don't even follow their own clan rules. In fact, they don't seem to know much of anything related to their roots. Word “Indian” gets repeated a hundred times in this book, but besides protagonists thinking of themselves as such, there are no other indicators that they are.It's worth noting that the author himself is an Indian so I wonder why he chose to write this book the way he did. If anyone should be aware of both folklore and modern social problems, it should be him. And if anyone should feel the obligation to showcase the beautiful traditions and abilities of a certain group of people, it should be one of them.

Either way, I doubt that most Indians would like to be portrayed in this light. And I also doubt that the wider audience will gather anything positive or useful from this portrayal of Natives.

The Only Good Indians is a good monetization of author's roots, but one that, in my opinion, comes at a moral cost.

As others have said, beautiful art, but the choice to start comic seemingly mid-way through the story was bad. It literally feels like u were late to the theater and came in 45 minutes into the movie. I had to check 3 times to make sure I'm reading the first volume because it felt like I was missing some prior information.

I generally like the first third of this book. The rest of it not so much. Everyone uses more words than necessary, which makes for a boring reading experience.

It also feels like some of the featured artists aren't very experienced with teaching art to others. They are good at creating it, but it feels as if this was their first time trying to explain the proces, so they just made a quick list of steps they took and called it a day. But that's not really teaching, is it?

I think Aveline Stokart's tutorial is technically the best, even though it was arguably the simplest painting and not an art style im interested in. She actually took the time to draw multiple perspectives and dissections, as well as to point out what not to do or when to switch to a new layer. This shows that she understands what others might not know yet. Kudos to her.

I liked a few others as well, but as I've said above, the book is very wordy, so I would've appreciated some cutthroat editing and more emphasis on raw information.

Interesting, informative and well-written. Audiobook is good too.

All that glitters is not gold. Which is to say, I found it boring.

If I had father like God, I'd be in therapy for childhood trauma for the rest of my life.

There were too many strange names, which I couldn't connect to anything, that made me space out parts of the plot.

I also kept forgetting they're underwater due to elves having no physical characteristics to back that up. No gills, no fins, no finger webbing. Some of them are blind, but that's unrelated to water and doesn't seem to be an impairment.

So for a big portion of the book, whenever someone “moved forward” I'd imagine them walking instead of swimming. I think the language should've been adjusted to showcase their submersion a bit more obviously. Same goes for words like “forest”. I forgot to visualize it as kelp.

Another reviewer said they had issues with physics and logistics of this sea world and yeah I can see that too. A lot of it seems to work purely based on magic and I didn't really expect so much pure high fantasy in a 40k universe. My bad, I guess?

The audiobook narrator was excellent. And I found the idea of Sea Elves and their underwater society pretty cool. Story was a bit basic on paper, but writing was definitely professional.

Overall, for a big-game-franchise type of book, it was pretty good. I'd read more.

Just read the Old Man's War instead.

I don't know. It didn't click for me at all.

They fell in love, the type where you sacrifice yourself for the other, in 3 days. Worldbuilding and visuals were very nice.

Everything is oversimplified to the point where it feels like reading fan fiction of some other, deeper book, which unfortunately doesn't exist.

I'm also glad her mom died.

In essence, this is a memoir written by a 19th century English lady about her scientific expedition to Alpes. Places, ethnicities and some of the animals are replaced by fantastical ones, but everything else is pretty much the same.

If we swapped dragons for eagles this would be historical fiction about a woman struggling to get her footing in a world dominated by men. Which also shows that this isn't a children's book, or at least that most of the social commentary and thus most of the book, would go right over their head.

As for dragons themselves, there are numerous encounters with beats and people do get hurt, but the book tries to stay grounded in reality. No one is swinging swords and magic amulets against their blazing breath or anything like that.

If you like books set in 1800s you will probably enjoy this mild fantasy. But if not, I doubt dragons would do much to make this interesting enough for you.

Love the art style, but the story is under-developed.

This is so well researched and each plant has an interesting myth, practice or historical fact tied to it. I highly recommend it!

Very edgy.

I wish it had a bit more world-building because I don't think most western people, including myself, have a very vivid knowledge of what 1300s China looked like. This also ties into Zhu's character. The whole philosophy of having one set faith isn't very familiar to me, so I wish it was explored from more angles.

I guess Asian readers have these same complaints when reading western books. But since this was written and published in the USA, I think improving these would have helped with clarity and immersion for the book's main audience.

I did like the characters and the slightly fanfiction-y tension between them. Also, the way men often put down women and their worth, in the passing, while talking about unrelated topics, was great.

I don't know... it has ups and downs. I like the fancy language in general, but since this is a very contemporary story I feel like staying grounded and having more focus would've helped the script. But then again, if you like more dreamy, loosely sewn together stories, you'll probably enjoy this more than I do.

In theory, I should love this, but it annoys me in the same way the Murderbot series does. It tries to be relatable with obstacles the main character faces, but then it also ignores the long but necessary process of struggling to overcome said obstacles.

For example, Dex (they) face an interesting challenge at the start of the book, but then there's a time jump and suddenly they're a master of this new, complicated skill. Why? What's the point of skipping this? At the end of the book, they have a mini breakdown, but it feels shallow because we never got to see them struggle, fear and evolve. We recognize the words they're saying as something we relate to, but we don't feel them with our heart because we didn't get to bond over our struggles at the start of the book. I get that the author wanted to write a cozy, feel good book, but come on...

I just didn't care much for this one.

It's lovely, but it feels like closing chapters of a novel we never got to read. Very strange.

He said.
He said.
He said.
For the love of god.....
Otherwise it's a cool, little, self-contained story.

I really liked the mystery and adventure in this one. The kids get into all sorts of trouble, which doesn't feel clishe because they're intelligent and good-natured, so the way they maneuver around obstacles is also quite unique. There's no melodrama and stupid misunderstandings. I'd definitely read this story to someone younger.

“And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis.'' — Well that rings a bell, doesn't it?I liked this prequel a bit more than the [b: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe 100915 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) C.S. Lewis https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353029077l/100915.SY75.jpg 4790821] because in this one, I think he did a better job of weaving an adult message into a children's story, which for me automatically elevates it to another level. The writing also feels more comfortable and coherent.In conclusion, I think this is a good, self-contained children's story and I'd gladly read it to someone younger.