Bryce

I really love the movie, and I'm enjoying going back and reading what it's based on. This volume is a good start.

Weird, intersting, original. I liked the 5 issues I read here, definitely want to see where it goes. The dialogue felt very natural and funny, hopefully the story can stay interesting.

This is a light, charming memoir with nice art. It's funny and entertaining, and the graphic novel format makes it a quick and easy read.

Quirky. Quiet. Quaint.

It feels like Wes Anderson a bit, not as good, but sharing a similar feel. It's charmingly weird, but it seems more focused on being odd than actually telling a story or doing anything all that interesting.

[sort-of spoiler] Despite the information on it in the beginning, the title's namesake ends up as just an odd running joke, and absolutely nothing happens with that little detail. It gets more annoying when a new detail about Bushman's location is introduced, and then the most that comes from that is the vague implication of the boat traveling there at the end. [End of sort-of spoiler]

It's got the character types and humor down, it just needs an actual story.

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.

I enjoy a good pulpy sci-fi story from time to time, and that's about all I expected from The Stargazer's Embassy. What I didn't expect was a very well-written and intelligent piece of speculative fiction that still managed to be a page-turner, much like the over-the-top alien story I had expected it to be.

There are moments when the sci-fi elements threaten to become ridiculous, even silly, but that never kept me from investing myself in the story. In fact, it's surprising to me that an alien abduction book didn't feel ridiculous more often. Eleanor Lerman's excellent writing makes it easy to take this story seriously when necessary, and the complex character of Julia keeps the emotional center of the book grounded, even in the midst of little gray invaders.

The Stargazer's Embassy seems keenly aware of the most important part (in my opinion) of good genre fiction: the authentic human element. A great main character, tone, and sense of pacing turns what could have been a silly, inconsequential alien story into something effective and capable of connecting on an emotional level.

The setting was what drew me in and kept me interested. The writing was pretty solid, the pages oozed with character. The book never bored me, but it felt like it should have been so much more. So much deeper, and more poignant, and more memorable. I kept thinking to myself, “You have the backdrop and the characters, do something exciting with it!”

But not much happened. The sort-of twist in the third part (act?) was a stab at making it something more intriguing, but it still felt oddly low-key. Low-key isn't bad, but I wanted more from this.

Bigger. Better.

I received a copy of this book through a First Reads giveaway.

I liked this! I enjoyed reading Say's story, and the illustrations did a good job of adding character to the book. As this is an 80-page picture book, there isn't a ton to analyze, but I can say that I enjoyed it.

It's a good premise, backed by solid writing. I read it in one sitting.

I read it in one sitting not because I was loving it. It was suspenseful, yes. Though that feels like the wrong word for this. Suspenseful makes me think of the best mysteries and thrillers. I read this in one sitting out of a need to just have it end, and I frequently wanted it to be over. Likely, this was due to the basic theme hitting too close to home, therefore not a problem with the book itself.

Her reasons, as pointed out by other reviews, are not exactly believable. They are more believable when placed in the context of a teenager's life, where every emotion seems to feel so much stronger than it should, be it good or bad. I bought it enough to get invested, and I found the story as a whole emotionally powerful.

Why three stars, then? Simple. I am not a professional reviewer, I don't review books based on how good they are objectively. I review them based on how much I like them, how they make me feel. For whatever reason, this book made me feel bad. Frustrated, at both the flaws in the book and the fact that not one person saw the signs and helped. I don't know. That's often true in real life, people miss the signs and things happen. I have seen that happen, unfortunately.

Still, I got nothing out of this book. It wasn't a happy book, making me feel good. It wasn't an honestly poignant and emotional book that made me feel something genuine. It was sad. Just sad, but not the right mix of sad and poignant. Just sad. Despair. Angst. Not for me.

I received this book from a First Reads giveaway.

I really only started to like it in the last two chapters. The rest was exposition upon exposition, telling instead of showing. It seems like an extended prologue, but it had some promise, and I might give the next book in the series a shot.

There are some typos and punctuation errors, and the writing is fine at best. I'm glad I was able to try it without paying and being disappointed.

This one is my favorite of the series so far. It's funny, engaging, and it felt over-the-top without trying too hard. Sad that there's only one left!

Tense, disturbing, and surprisingly sweet? It's an excellent 80's-set horror story, with some memorable and scary scenes, but the core of the story is the friendship between Abby and Gretchen. It definitely elevates this from just entertaining pulp horror to something that's more interesting than you'd expect. Really good stuff!

I received an ARC of this book through a First Reads giveaway.

I can't say that I enjoyed reading this book, it was so disjointed and meandering that it felt like a chore to get through. The comedy-drama balance felt off at times, especially towards the end, but the humor's undercurrent of darkness makes the tonal shifts work better than they would have otherwise.

I will admit that Quicksand has a solid sense of humor and wit. Unfortunately, Toltz seems to be a bit in love with his own wit, writing lengthy monologues that often feel more like the author's own stream-of-consciousness than anything necessary for the character. There's some good material in this book, but it isn't worth wading through the messy shit.

It's an entertaining pulpy vampire story with some clever twists on historical events, it just doesn't live up to the over-the-top potential of its ridiculous premise. I liked it enough.