So dumb but it gets my second grader reading. There's a little humor for any adult forced to read along, at least.
Wishmakers is chock full of all the ridiculous slapstick that annoyed me when I was the target audience's age and now I just found it tedious. I couldn't quite force myself to finish it. I'm sure sillier kids will enjoy it.
I'm pretty lenient when it comes to historic accuracy in romance novels but parts of this really got my ire up. The biggest offense: Lily has a white wedding dress squirrelled away in her trunk, years before the start of that trend.
The plot is very contemporary. Lily's ex is going to share a nude picture of her with the world in two weeks and it's going to ruin her. Meanwhile her new love interest, a sexy manbeast in a kilt, has so much baggage he's convinced he's not worthy of any woman.
This book isn't very well constructed. Some parts seem like they belonged to a different story, then were edited in. The time between The Rogue Not Taken and this book isn't consistent either. Lily's only skill is sewing, but it's barely relevant.
Two characters from The Season make appearances, which is nice I guess. The aliterative chapter titles continue, but with less enthusiasm, up until the last few chapters where they make way for puns on “ward”.
No sexual assult! Remarkable restraint by the author. Helen's personality had to be entirely altered for this story but it's fun once you forgive that.
Owen Pitt is a masculine power fantasy who joins a private militia to kill monsters for profit and stick it to The Man. He's so good at hurting things, he scared himself into becoming an accountant. The accounting thing is used for a few punchlines and little else. He hits on the attractive female hunter repeatedly regardless of her refusals and her already being in a relationship.
The opening fight is especially gory. The others might have been as well but they go on and on so long I stopped paying attention by the time serious injuries occurred. The only thing more tedious than the fights are the specifications of every single gun and blade carried by every single character.
Painful racial and cultural stereotypes abound.
There's an okay story buried in there but it's not really worth finding.
Rich descriptions of the world, mythology, and magic. Very little actual plot. The blurb on the back of the book makes you think the full story will be complex but really those few sentences are the entire plot, just bloated with world building to be a full book.
Pretty Little Liars or Gossip Girl but in a futuristic sky rise city. There are five perspective characters, three of which are nearly identical rich girls. It's exhausting to keep them straight. The prologue has an unnamed girl falling from the top floor. By the time the story reaches that point again, I was still getting characters mixed up enough that it took me a bit to be sure who it was.
A dumb future is better than this dystopian present, so I'll probably continue the series. But I'll probably wish I hadn't.
Do you like those Star Trek episodes where they have to go along with weird alien traditions for whatever reason? There are no aliens but humanity has spent the couple thousand years since leaving Earth getting weirder and weirder. Each planet has gone its own weird direction and the titular Masters of Formalities strive to keep everyone polite and respectful.
It's ridiculous and awesome.
A commitment phobic aristocrat unexpectedly inherits a big pile of responsibility. A headstrong and damaged widow tries to maintain control of a household she no longer has any right to. They have a power struggle over the estate and later have a sexy times power struggle.
The efforts to modernize the estate and turn a profit, during the time period when large estates are in decline, are pretty interesting. Unfortunately rather than resolve the problems through cleverness and good business sense, there's a deus ex machina to magic all the problems away.
There's pretty good chemistry between the leads but half the sex scenes are the ever popular and unfortunate “rape but she liked it so it's okay” variety. A secondary couple is introduced halfway through with absolutely no chemistry.
Mercedes Lackey's books are always about the most super special person among special people. Joyeaux is certainly no exception. She's also a bit bland. She's your average highly trained fighter with little interest in fashion and empathy for the common man. She says “Wait what?” a lot because I guess that's how teenagers talk now.
The other thing Mercedes Lackey is big on is world building and Hunter has that in spades. The first 15-20% of the book is especially dense with annoying details. It gets a lot better after that but you may want to skim or even skip ahead. The only thing of import that happens during that section will be referred back to enough that you're not really missing out.
The hunters fight mythological monsters for the protection and entertainment of civilians. You've got that Hunger Games PR idea but Joy is able to watch the coverage and respond as needed. If you're into mythology, it's fun to identify what they're hunting, sometimes before the hunters do. But Joy having to describe some to the seasoned hunters (because she's so special) gets really old.
I hated the love interest. But at least there's no love triangle. The best friends are okay. The rival is cookie cutter. Nobody else gets much development.
Warning: Modern religions are mentioned and Christianity does not fare well in this dystopia.
The story starts out fairly interesting, filling in Ico's backstory and taking him through the castle. Eventually it switches to Yorda to cover a lot of the same castle wandering material, with flashbacks to her backstory. And it drags. And drags. Finally I realized I didn't really care to finish this story.
Reveka would like to solve the Twelve Dancing Princesses mystery, but she's not one of the princesses or a suitor. She's just an herbalist's apprentice who'd make good use of the monetary reward offered to not-suitors who tackle the puzzle. The Princess Curse is from a rare outside perspective and all the herbalism is pretty neat.
Unfortunately none of the characters have much personality. Everyone has the same voice and the only characters with any personality traits at all are relatively minor characters. And only two come to mind.
It's the middle Bridgerton son's turn and he wants to prove he's not just Number Two. In fact he is a big pile of Number Two - and a manipulative stalker to boot!
Sophie is the Cinderella in this retelling of the classic fairytale. She's the child of a mistress rather than a first wife, so the stepmother hatred and bitterness makes a lot more sense in this version. Inheritance law is used to good effect as well. Unfortunately the fairytale segment ends very quickly. I kept hoping to revisit the fairytale theme later but alas.
The kids set out to solve a four hundred(ish) year old crime while on their inexplicably long Thanksgiving break. This is my first A to Z Mystery and I found it about as predictable as I expected from a kids mystery book. I identified the bad guy within a couple sentences of introduction, as well as the “sneaky twist.” Exploring historical locations with a replica Mayflower and reenactment actors all over the place was a little spooky.
Does this tragic romance series not have enough tragic romance for you? You're in for a treat!
Luce hops back through time with her plucky gargoyle sidekick, observing so many tragic deaths that I lost count. It is actual time travel, rather than observing memories, but she's fairly careful about disturbing continuity and the rules are pretty flexible. If something changes, that's how it's always been. I didn't find it as frustrating as some time travel stories (granted my standards are already low for this series.)
The variety of ways Luce and Daniel are cast in different settings (not just European and North American!) is interesting, though some variations on their names are cringe worthy.
Pets are going missing and a circus is in town! I like how the kids do independent detective work but bring their findings to the police periodically. And the police already know some but not all of it, so they are shown to be competent but the kids are still useful. It's a good balance. The kids only do some stupid/dangerous thing over the course of the book.
Hurry and the Monarch tells the lifecycle of a monarch butterfly from the perspective of a tortoise, ironically named Hurry. It starts with the monarch's migration as winter nears, putting the caterpillar and chrysalis phases much later in the book. The unconventional timeline works well, with the beautiful butterflies catching children's attention immediately. I know The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic but I tire of page after page of eating.
There are a lot of locations, largely in Texas, mentioned as the monarch migrates. I'm sure it's a popular book in those places but for most people it's not going to mean much. The rest of the educational focus plays better. The personality clash between the short-lived monarch and long-lived tortoise is enjoyable. The art is gorgeous.
The most vanilla protagonist doing the most vanilla things in the most vanilla town. A mysterious death leads to a pretty vanilla detective story.
But it works. I actually found it really enjoyable. I didn't think I would early on but I stuck with it long enough that it got good.
Every chapter title is an alliterative tabloid headline, which was annoying at first but soon reminded me of the narration in Gossip Girl. I heard it in Kristen Bell's voice despite listening to the audiobook.
Ignore the cover picture - Sophie is described as plump throughout, which is a wonderful change of pace. Personality-wise she's similar to Belle: likes books and wants to escape the status quo. King is the typical damaged but noble hearted type. Other than a “surprise kiss” there are no consent issues. There are a lot of annoying communication issues spurring the conflicts of the story along but I guess we can't get everything.
Flame in the Mist most closely resembles Rurouni Kenshin fanfiction, except for some samurai anime I didn't watch.
Mariko is the super special Mary Sue. Her twin is an awesome samurai, her betrothed is an awesome samurai, and the two hot guys she ends up hanging out with are awesome ronin. In a story of samurai, she single handedly invents the ninja. Seriously, she invents the shuriken and smoke bomb in the span of a month.Pigeon Japanese is sprinkled throughout the dialog along with cultural trivia like what kind of socks they're wearing or tea ceremony in excruciating detail. The sort of thing you'd expect from fanfic.
These books have gotten increasingly difficult to get through emotionally. This one finally crossed the line into unfinishable. Bullying, torture, rape, torture-rape... I had anxiety attacks. I think this is the first book I've quit for health reasons.
Such fluff! It feels like a dating sim adapted into novel format. One special girl surrounded by eight similarly aged guys. There's the easy but shallow guy, the cold and aloof guy, the damaged guy with a dark destiny... and all the other guys nobody really pursues on their first playthrough. They exist as scenery but are really interchangeable.
The story is enjoyable but gets bogged down in exposition in the final act.
Add to Mr Darcy's lady criteria a talent for illusion magic, called glamour, and you've got the setting of Shades of Milk and Honey. I couldn't stop my mind from making connections between Austen's works and this as I went along. “He's the Darcy! He's probably the Wickham!” The story isn't an echo of an Austen plot but it's close enough that the distraction is unavoidable. Manners and propriety are still a big deal but Jane is more assertive than an Austen protagonist, which is a welcome difference.
The next book seems to be a direct sequel, rather than some other eligible lady's quest for a rich husband. I'm curious to see how that plays out.
Eglantine gets to star in this book but, unfortunately, is a complete liability the entire time. She's too young to do a lot of the things older owls like Soren get to do, conveniently ignoring the fact that she's THREE WEEKS YOUNGER! Pretty sure she and Soren are both more than two years old at this point.
Unfortunately that's such a big part of the story this time that it ruins most of the good bits.
So much better than the first book! There are a few returning characters but nothing requires reading the books in sequence, so do yourself a favor and skip ahead.
Charlotte is a recently divorced mother of two whose attempts at dating keep failing. So she goes on vacation to Pembrook Park, ready to dive into the make-believe and enjoy herself, but then one of the actors/bachelors stages a murder mystery game and reality and fantasy get all muddled.