Nikki
I feel like if it hadn't been for the last 50 or so pages I would've probably given this two stars. I didn't have any issues with the writing, I just didn't connect to any of the characters and wasn't really into the plot until the end.
Alright, so... I wanted to like this book, I really did. However, pretty much as soon as I picked it up I wanted to put it down. Seriously, I constantly found other things to do as soon as I started a page.
If it wasn't for the audiobook I may never have gotten past the first couple chapters.
I found Katsa to be super annoying, childish, and unlikable. Po was better but, how did this guy who came off as at least a bit more mature fall in love with this childish teenager? Po seems like a bit of a martyr, he's a prince that's not like other princes, he likes that he has the smallest castle and is last in line, he has to hide his grace, he even takes his blindness with the acceptance of a saint. The only reason I'll give this two stars is because I give one stars to the books I actually loath and I didn't loath this, I was just really, really, really bored. I wanted it to end about 10 chapters before it did and had to drag myself through it. Their romance seemed shoehorned in to me, like the author was told that it needed to have a romance because it was YA. I didn't care about them or their love. honestly would've been better if it was just Katsa going to find and save Bitterblue. Or if it was told partially in Po's POV as well.
Like the last book I read, if it hadn't been on a list of books I'm trying to read through I probably would've DNF'd it.
It was fine; Another one of those if I'd read it when it came out I probably would've enjoyed it more type books. Can't really fault this book for the plot feeling predictable since it came out before most of the other books that made this style of dystopian tiresome but, that doesn't mean I can't sigh over another “teenage orphans (who fall in love) try to rise against fascist government” plotline.
Don't see myself reading any further in the series but I understand why people like this.
I didn't really know anything about the plot when I started the book, and I'm glad I didn't.
I didn't even know it was a horror novel; all I knew was there was a portrait, and I had a vague sense there was a macabre feel to the story.
I highly enjoyed the book whilst despising the characters (in the best possible way), would recommend to anyone who likes stories about uppity victorian era English aristocrats, and those who don't mind disliking the main characters.
I don't know that I would've got through this without the audiobook but, I'm glad to have read another classic.
overall it was good but I had quite a few things that kind of got on my nerves after a while. One of which being how long it was, there wasn't any plot (not a huge deal for me normally) so the book felt so much longer that it needed to be. You can only read about them having sex so much before you want there to be some real conflict and not just some poorly done “villains” in Cara and Clint. There were a few other things but it didn't bother me so much that I feel like I need to harp on all the bad things.
If you like ‘wild' man meets modern woman, a bit of misogyny, and lots of sex, you'll probably like this.
I went into this thinking I wasn't going to enjoy it that much, mostly because a couple other books on this YA list, that I'm slowly going through, haven't been all that great, coughGracelingcough, and admittedly, for the first few chapters I was checked out because I genuinely thought it was going to be the same as the other newer high fantasy YA that've been on this list.
But it surprised me and I found myself actually invested in the story and completing the whole thing at 3 a.m. because it kept me intrigued till the last page.
After looking through the reviews I feel like a lot of people's critiques are that they found the heroine to be too ‘not like other girls' and I get why they feel that way however, I felt like that trope was done in a way that I didn't find Celaena to be annoying. It wasn't like crazy good assassin from birth, somehow gets plucked off the street by prince to compete in competition, being a crazy good assassin was something that took years of training and didn't come easy and she wasn't plucked off the streets, she was dragged out of a death camp where she was imprisoned.
Another criticism was too much show not enough tell, that one has merit in some aspects but, I was okay with it. It allowed for the story to move along. Calaena was malnourished and emaciated from being in the camp how are you going to ‘show' that she's highly trained right away, in a way relevant to the plot? could it be done? sure, maybe, I'm not a writer, but I was fine with just being told she's a ‘amazing assassin' until it could actually be shown.
Low key feel that a sizable portion of bad reviews are from people who just don't like Sarah. J. Maas, and hate read this, Which, hey, whatever floats your boat man, if that's not the case then I'd be surprised. It's a really good YA fantasy (I'm looking at you, the reviews that thought it was going to be GoT, why would you think that? GoT is 600+ pages of adult fantasy told from like 15 PoVs. If someone told you this was gonna be that, then they don't read fantasy at all). I don't know, maybe it's because I didn't read the synopsis or watch any in depth reviews before I started it but, I thought this was an intriguing story and paced really well. I thought it better than most other YA fantasy that've read.
I'd give it a solid 4 1/2 stars.
Very interesting to read about such an icon of pop music, and from her perspective.
This was a 4 star read but it's been a few months and I honestly don't remember anything from this book, so I'm bumping it down to a 3 star. It was an enjoyable read but also an unmemorable one.
Once again, another book out of this series that I just couldn't like. This time however I can at least put into words why certain books in this series are two stars for me:
- The storyline is basically the same as the other ones. which wouldn't really be a problem if the characters could carry it but...
- The female protagonists: all feel the same, sort of bland and virginal, and the women have this feeling of catty fake feminist to them that makes them unlikeable.
- The male protagonists: over-possessive (as are the women), and are over-the-top attractive (it's okay if your male protag doesn't have the most gorgeous face, the biggest dick, and have women falling at his feet).
Gabby kept talking about her ‘inner fourteen year old' whenever she was feeling attracted to Adam, it's weird to me that this woman has/needs a ‘inner' fourteen year old to tell her it's okay to be horny. Kinda weird. She is extremely immature about her attraction to him as well, acting like that fourteen year old she kept mentioning with how she handles her jealousy of other women because they dare look at Adam with lust.
Adam seems very immature, especially for someone that is over a thousand years old, he is jealous like an abuser, doesn't even like other men in the room with her.
He assaults her when they first meet and no one cares. Then he steals a pair of her underwear, of which he keeps in his pocket, and this is supposed to be ‘okay' because she kept one of his shirts. Then he later nearly kidnaps her to force her to take the life elixir and hold her hostage, until the elixir removes her soul so she'll no longer care about having a soul in the first place, but this is ‘okay' because he didn't do it and he loves her.
There was a few other things that rubbed me wrong throughout this story but I will say it's very readable, and fast pace.
Alright, I only started this cause it's on the ‘Been There Done That' list of ‘100 YA must reads' and after like 4 other books about angels, only one of which I enjoyed, I'm just not putting myself through another one. I got 20% in and I have no interest to continue it.
Insta-love / insta-wanting to bang. They were literally pushed off a waterfall and his first thought is about her body, like what? they're handcuffed together but it honestly doesn't seem that way most of the time, only when its convenient to the plot to make them sleep next to each other, naked btw (like how? their hands are cuffed). I don't know if I'm being too harsh but this didn't work for me at all and I wasn't in the mood to be forgiving.
3.5 stars
the story was interesting, obviously, it was based on a already established premise: the story of Tarzan. I liked the characters and the writing held my attention for most of the story. I'd say it's worth the read if the premise sounds interesting to you and you don't mind some, kind of plausible, insta-love.
However there were a few things that really pulled me out of the story and lowered the stars for me:
•Thorne's speech goes from caveman to surprisingly eloquent in like two pages and then would switch back. Also if Bwanbale taught him swahili and helped him better his english why wouldn't he have taught him to use first person pronouns? especially when that's one of the first and easiest things one learns when studying languages.•To me, the mystical nature of the jungle, and Thorne's ability to know exactly what the animals are 'saying', felt weird in an otherwise contemporary non-magical world•Why didn't Eden's parents play into this story beyond one phone call with her mom? For a story with such a heavy emphasis on family and found family, you'd think Thorne meeting her seemingly loving family would/could be a touching moment.
Really solid sequel to ‘an ember in the ashes', glad it picked right up where the last one ended. I would've given five stars but truthfully I didn't feel connected to the characters (i.e. I felt very dispassionate), maybe because of the consistent pov changes I never had enough time to be fully immersed in the characters' minds? I felt the same for the first book too, so maybe it's just the way they're written that leaves me unaffected. Either way, the plot is good and keeps the story flowing smoothly and it's worth the read.
I did see Keenan being a bad guy coming from the jump, which is a little disappointing. I generally enjoy when the 'secret' villains are more subtle. As a fan of romance in general, and fantasy romance especially, I'm glad that it's a slow slow burn between Laia and Elis, too often the relationship feels so rushed (as it did with Laia and Keenan) that it makes me lose all investment with the story. Which is why I'm glad Keenan was a baddie, 'cause otherwise the whole plotline with them would've felt too ridiculously short even though it was over the course of months. also RIP Izzi, I wish it was Helene instead, 'cause boy did I disliked her chapters the most.
Better than I thought it would be, though I do feel like Beth was only there to die.
I was a bit exhausted by all the ‘glass half full' mentally throughout the novel, as if everything works out for the best in the end, and everything is a lesson in spiritualty. I guess I just prefer a bit of wallowing in novels.
It did feel a bit like 1860s Gilmore Girls, what with the close knit family and overall upbeat mindset, even in hardship.
Where do I even begin? This review is for the first book ‘Gentle Warrior'. A misnomer if I've ever heard one, the dude is as gentle as a thorn in the bottom of your foot.
So let's start here: Geoffrey is an ass, and grandpa is an expositional tool to tell the main characters how the other feels because they both have the emotional understanding of a gnat.
Little brother Thomas has memory lost for the first half, then PTSD for one literal paragraph when he remembers that he saw his family murdered, and is suddenly fine for the rest of the book. The main battle (the one against the brother-in-law who arranged to have her family killed, yeah, that guy) was completely skipped. Yup, just skip right over what could've been an interesting battle, nothing to see here.
There was no danger, no moment for Baron Geoffrey asshat Berkley to realize he's made a mistake in being such an unbearable twit.
Instead he sits by a lake, realizes he loves Elizabeth, but then still decides to let her wallow in sadness, thinking that her husband will never love her, to make sure she “learns a lesson” after saving his friend Roger (from not just enemy soldiers but drowning too).
On top of it all the other bad guy, uncle mustache twirler, doesn't really have any comeuppance. Sure, he doesn't get control of the castle and guardianship of Thomas, whoop-de-doo, not enough of a punishment to be satisfying in this book.
The moral of the story seems to be: obey your husband, and maybe he won't lock you in a room with no food or water... Again.
Better than Gilded, and exactly what I needed right now after coming off of a handful of books I didn't enjoy that much.
This book has no plot.
or, I guess, I wish that the plot that is kinda, sorta here was actually worth reading about. I didn't care about the triad and I don't feel as though the main characters did either.
I care more about character than plot in any book and I wish there was a character that made reading this entire thing worth it but there wasn't. The characters weren't good, and I don't mean they weren't nice people. I mean I thought they were just awful to read from the perspective of. There isn't enough sad backstories in the world to make me care about any of them. I didn't care what happened to them, any of them could've dropped dead and I wouldn't have batted an eye.
I feel like this is meant to be a stepping stone for older YA readers to get into adult dark romance. But it's not a good introduction, in my opinion. The dialog felt a immature, too many bad one-liners and too rushed whilst also being too long. This is a long ass book, 70 chapters, the characters didn't have to be banging by chapter 17. The insta-love is so, so jarring. It went from ‘I could kill her and I wouldn't care' to ‘I hope our enemies never learn about her ‘cause it'll destroy us if anything happens to her' in a week. Like I said, this is a long book no need to rush it, jesus. If I have to read the word Vipers ever again, it'll be too soon.
The best part of the book was the sex scenes and after awhile even that wasn't enough to keep me interested...
It was okay, it was a bit slow but I'd give it another shot in the future. Maybe I'll feel differently about it once I've sat with it for awhile and watch a few breakdown videos on the world. Idk