Bryce
The Kingdom of Gods is a messy novel. It juggles so many different plot points and characters at once, some handled worse than others. It's a disjointed book and the weakest of the trilogy. And yet, for whatever reason, I found myself fully invested for (most of) the duration of the story. There were plenty of things I didn't like (unnecessary characters that only complicated things and added nothing, some general weird character inconsistency), but the beautiful prose and fascinating world kept me interested.
I want to read the next one! This was a fun and well-written story, even if it took some time to grab me. The simple illustrations littered throughout the book are charming, it's fun to see some of the characters and objects the way the author imagined them. Why can't we have occasional illustrations in adult novels?
I would have liked to see more of the hotel and the strange people that live there, and I'm excited to see how Stella finds out exactly what she is, and where she came from.
I think I enjoyed this book more than the first. I thought the blind protagonist added an interesting perspective to the story, and I just found myself more into the action than I did in book one.
There's a lingering feeling that this series is just short of being really special, but I can't pinpoint what's missing. Regardless, what's here is well-written and worth reading.
This is more of a 3.5 than a solid 4 for me, all things considered. Sleeping Giants is different than anything I've read lately, and I appreciate it for that reason alone. While I felt that it dragged at certain points (mostly when it was info-dumping, an unfortunate result of the interview format), it held my attention for most of its 300-ish pages.
It had a real sense of mystery and wonder, though that feeling seemed to come and go after the first few “parts” of the book. Unanswered questions are littered throughout, some that add mystery and some that just frustrate. The good usually outweighs the bad however, and I'll be looking for the sequel.
It had promise, but overall I found myself very disappointed by this novel. It started off slow and only mildly interesting; it took a solid 100 pages to really grab me. It held my attention until the last few chapters, when it ruined the promise that preceded it with a terrible ending that felt far more like anti-fracking propaganda than any kind of meaningful closure.
I really enjoyed the character of Ruby, and there were moments throughout the book that I liked. If It weren't for that terrible ending, it would be a decent 3 stars. It had promise and fairly good writing, but I came away from it feeling like I had wasted my time.
This was a pretty cool book. It ended up being much more original and definitely more engaging than the back cover description led me to believe. Jemisin is a talented writer, only rarely did exposition feel a bit heavy, and some of the more complicated concepts were partially left to the imagination (which I appreciated, even if it was a bit hard to grasp).
Good writing, good characters, and a solidly original concept made this novel consistently engaging and fun to read. I'll be reading the next two as soon as I can.
I tore through this book. It captures the spirit and atmosphere of Victorian London (and the novels that inspired it) so well. Well, maybe I shouldn't say it captured the spirit of a time period I never lived in, but it captured what I imagine the spirit of Victorian London to be. That counts for something, right?
Anyway, this was an excellent novel that I couldn't stop reading. Great writing, characters, and a thoroughly engaging story. It's such a great feeling to be so completely wrapped up in a book, to try and guess how the characters will get out of their predicament and then be surprised by some surprising (but logical) solution. I don't think I've ever read a 500-page book so fast.
Reading this felt like a weird fever dream. A few of the other reviews say the same thing, and it's pretty apt. It's weird, kind of confusing, a little funny, a little touching, a little brilliant. The writing is pretty great, in my opinion, and I cared about these strange, complicated characters a lot more than I thought I would.
I can't put my thoughts into words all that well, not with this book. It took reaching the last page for me to really appreciate everything that had come before.
I received this book for free through Net Galley.
Mary Lawrence is an excellent writer. That's what I expect to remember most about the book. Her writing fits with the period incredibly well, and her skill in detail brings the setting and characters to vivid life.
As a mystery, I was never fully invested in the outcome. I wasn't bored, the story and characters were perfectly engaging, but it wasn't the most successful mystery in the sense that I had no real need to figure out the culprit. If you don't go in expecting an edge-of-your-seat mystery, you'll be pleasantly surprised with a smart and well-written novel.
The atmosphere and writing is a success, and I was mostly satisfied with the book altogether. Definitely worth a read, hopefully the next book is even better.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.
Elizabeth Strout writes with grace and subtlety, and her writing is what makes this story the mix of beautiful and tragic that it is. It's a story about one woman, but it's laced with moments that shine a light on the lives of many different people, even if only for a page or two. Every character that appears is treated with the same compassion, and written with the same depth, as Lucy Barton herself. It's worth reading if you're looking for a short book with depth.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.
This is a book in which not much happens, at least in the traditional sense. Our main character, Jeremy, owns a bar. His life has complications and struggles, as do the lives of the people around him. That's as much plot as you'll find here, but it's not entirely a bad thing. Plenty of stories in plenty of mediums have made a low-key, realistic style like this work. Whitlock has an ear for dialogue, and he writes believable characters, but I never once found myself actually invested in anything that happened to them.
Congratulations on Everything is a competently-written and fairly enjoyable novel, but it all felt like a setup for something more interesting (and this isn't the first time I've had this complaint about a book). Your mileage may vary, and I'm more interested in seeing what the author will write next. Hopefully a story with a bit more substance and focus.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.
Take a look through the other reviews and you'll find everything you need to know really. This book is meant to be a trashy, silly, gory throwback to the exploitative horror movies of the 80's, and it does that. For the most part, I found that it captured the sleazy spirit of the movies it was trying to emulate pretty well.
The writing and formatting has a serious “first draft” feeling to it. Some of the mistakes/clunky sentences/weird formatting made me wonder if anyone even bothered to proofread this book, or if the first draft was written and printed the next day. Another thing that definitely got in the way of my enjoyment was the sexism that ran through nearly every scene. In a book that's meant to be trashy, I can overlook a lot, but I can't recall a single scene featuring a woman that didn't include some kind of abuse, objectification, or any other crude and unnecessary details. Even if you don't find it personally objectionable (“It is meant to be sleazy” you could argue), it's incredibly repetitive .
It's a decently fun and amusing book, just one with problems that are too hard to ignore. 2.5 stars.
I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley.
I think there are only two words that really describe this book: ridiculous fun. It's silly and completely over-the-top, and even when it's trying too hard, it's a fun read. While I had a good time with it, it didn't really work for me. The main thing that I thought the entire time I was reading this was that it was just trying too hard, trying to fit so many gags in that there wasn't room for much else.
I would rate this a solid 3.5. You won't be getting a complex story, or deep characters, or even razor-sharp wit; you'll get a gleefully absurd book that only really wants to entertain.
I received an uncorrected proof of this book through NetGalley.
If you enjoy well-written, engaging mystery/thriller adventures, The Beast of Barcroft is a great choice. It does exactly what it sets out to do, and it does it well. It's suspenseful and a little creepy, with some great characters and writing. There's a plot hole here and there, a line of dialogue that doesn't quite work, a twist that feels a bit too over the top. But I can honestly say that none of those things made the story any less fun.
It's fairly short (but not too short), cheap, and easy to get invested in. If the premise sounds interesting to you, I have a good feeling you won't be disappointed.
I received a copy of this through NetGalley.
It's hard to really judge a first issue of a comic, but I'll do my best. I love the setting, and the characters introduced already have my interest. It sets up the premise of what could become a very interesting series, but that's where the problem with this issue lies. It's an extended introduction (which is obviously fine for a first issue), so it doesn't work all that well as a standalone. I'd like to see where it goes from here, as I love noir-inspired stories like this.
On a final note, the art is very nice, with a sketchy black-and-white look that lends the story a lot of atmosphere.
I received this book as an ARC from Net Galley.
I found the concept for this book to be really interesting, it takes classic folk songs and details the true stories behind them. While many of them seem far too convoluted and over-the-top to be true, after reading this book I was reminded that truth is usually stranger than fiction.
As a whole, I was entertained and I learned quite a bit. I think some of the songs could have been cut out, some just aren't that interesting, or feel too similar to others in the book. A lot of the criticism laid out in this review mirrors what I felt reading this, some of these songs don't have backstories that are all that interesting to read about.
If you're interested in the stories behind American folk songs, or just think the concept is interesting, you won't be disappointed.
I received a copy of this book through Net Galley.
I have pretty mixed feeling about this one. On one hand, it definitely has its charms, and I enjoyed reading it. But it really feels like a rough draft. It needs a lot of polish, but at the same time there's a lot here that works if you don't take it too seriously.
The dialogue could use some tightening, it shifts between pretty decent and oddly stilted. The plot, and the book as a whole, really needed more room to breathe. If it had spent more time building atmosphere, building the world, developing the characters, (and maybe including some much-needed foreshadowing of the events to come) I would have more interest in reading the next book in the series. The cliffhanger isn't even really a cliffhanger, just a bizarre stop in the middle of the action. In my opinion, the mark of a great series is when every book has a satisfying story and arc without this frustrating method of “Buy book 2 to find out what happens next!”
So yeah, the book has flaws. Quite a few, in fact. But despite all that, I had fun with it. I'd rank it at about 2.5 stars, with a lot of room for improvement.
I received an ARC of this book for free through a First Reads giveaway.
It took about 150 pages for this book to grab me. When it did, it ended up being pretty interesting, but there's a problem when that takes over half the book to happen. The writing itself is very good, good enough to interest me in reading Mark Pryor's other books. The protagonist is a sociopath, and he's not easy to like, but that's the point. By the end I began to understand him, if not actually like him. I can't say it wasn't a bit of a barrier to my enjoyment, but it definitely added something fresh to the story (though I don't think it was necessary to have him constantly mention how he doesn't get people/has no feelings).
The ending was fairly good, but some of the late-game details felt completely out-of-the-blue. The topic of pedophilia became such a big part of the ending, despite absolutely no foreshadowing beforehand. It felt like a last-ditch effort to "redeem" the main character. "Oh, he had his reasons" sort of thing.
It's not the most original crime book, but it's pretty well-written. I just came away unimpressed.