DB
As I've said countless of times before – one mark of a good book is when I don't realise how much I'm reading until I make myself stop and it's like 40% or I've just finished the entire book. Glad to say this was one of those cases. Also I'm glad that I've had a couple of those experiences in my read book for this year. Makes up for the not good experiences that I unfortunately had to endure.
Johnathan Newman, a vampire hunter, newly assigned to a small town, was a good main character to follow. He's smart, empathetic, and has a sad backstory. The sad backstory wasn't a reason for me to like him, I'm not that kind of reader; but it allowed us to get to know him really well.
I liked Vic. I liked how he appeared to be all mysterious in the beginning and how he reveals his personality through Johnathan. Not only does that mean Johnathan gets to know him but we as the reader get to know the both of them (as they reveal themselves to each other). Plus we see their relationship growing.
I definitely want to read the sequel to see their relationship grow. I think Jacques did a good job of forming it and hopefully more cute moments will appear in the future. Luckily I'm able to get the sequel from the same site (StoryOrigin) so I hope I can read it soon.
I really enjoyed the plot in this! I thought it would go one way, be abc and then it was entirely upside down and I couldn't predict like I thought I would be able to. I actually prefer these to the books where I can predict what happens. I hope that the next book also has a plot where I don't really get to predict it.
Asterisks indicate my favourite ones.
Silver and Gold by Natasha Ngan – 5 stars! This was so good! The spider squid sounded absolutely terrifying and I never want to see anything like that. I really enjoyed the characters and loved how they played off each other.Five Stars by Amy Spalding – Just like the title says – 5 stars! So so so good! I love Amy Spalding and this was so funny
Okay, so I realised why this book didn't work for me; even though it's really good. I read the synopsis but I kept thinking the two girls (Chloe and Natalia) would team up and solve all the mysteries. Maybe it's because I've been reading more mysteries? See, the synopsis says Chloe and Natalia form an uneasy alliance and then you pair it with a mystery.
So, I was annoyed for a bit because I viewed it differently. It affected how I read the rest of the novel; but also I rated it 3 stars because of the writing style and the characters. The writing didn't flow easily in my opinion. I would read and the way the paragraphs flowed from one to another – it wasn't natural. Most of the time it felt stilted – like Hall didn't work enough on ensuring paragraphs were linked to each other.
It's a dual-pov but I much preferred Chloe's chapters to Natalia. I couldn't get a feel for her (Natalia's) personality. She first came off as a mean girl and then she was distant. But then she really cared, then she didn't seem like she cared. It was too confusing for me. Chloe I understood and also cared about more.
I felt for them, for the characters involved, for the story and the fact that this type of subject unfortunately happens all over, all the time.
I was really hoping I'd love this and read it as quickly as everyone else is loving and reading it. Unfortunately, I could quickly tell that this was definitely not the case. Straight from the beginning I didn't like the writing style. It's too awkward and Julie uses too many uncontracted sentences (it is on the table instead of it's on the table).
In my opinion, if you do not contract, you tend to be more formal and uncontracted sentences are more often seen in fantasy novels and less so in young adult novels. I tend to sometimes not contract my sentences, but that's because I tend to write a bit more formal at times. So therefore, even though I use uncontracted sentences and often did when I was younger, most teenagers do not. It felt weird reading them.
I wanted to be sad and feel the same way Julie did but I couldn't get past the writing style and feel the same way as everyone else. The transitions from flashbacks to normal was also not written well, in my opinion.
I moved from liking it and not liking it all throughout my reading of the graphic novel. First I though it was an interesting take on the Final Girl trope. Then it's giving too much of the trope. One time it says what I feel about the horror genres, next I could tell so much that it was written by a man.
I first gave it a higher rating and now I'm thinking just a solid 3 star rating. Middle of the road, average etc. The 3-star rating is honestly very versatile so with Sacred Lamb because while I was reading I thought 3 star but more towards 4. Then when I finished it I thought “Nope, this is definitely closer to the early stages of 3 stars. Or like 2.5 to 3 stars.” I decided to just give it 3 because in the end it did focus on horror, the different aspects and elements of it, which I did like.
What I really liked was the different “eras” shown amongst all the Final Girls – the babysitter – though I guess it's also the “home invasion” horror genre as a whole? I was waiting for a Haunted House or Exorcism Final Girl but oh well. Can't have everything. I did want some type of Final Girl from a Final Destination/Wrong Turn/I Know What You Did Last Summer genre – which would fall under the slasher sub-genre, I suppose? I love all three of those movie franchises) and was waiting for one of those (the Final Girl) to show up.
I liked the illustrations and way they were shown – I did like that they weren't visibly perfect. I think a lot of the times in horror movies the female characters are always in tight clothing, hair's messed up but still looks great. Even when they're running away from the murderer they look super perfect. And I don't want that! I want messy protagonists – like physically messy – because looking super hot is a thing in horror movies. Either the Final Girl is a virgin and innocent or she's sexy even when she's in danger. I just want messiness!
I didn't really connect much with the main character? I think her whole thing about being an Influencer is fine, but she was... famous for just unboxing things? That just sounds like Brooklyn from Camp Cretaceous for me and I'd much rather watch that. I liked “The Babysitter” much more and would've preferred her to be the main character – even though that would've changed the plot around a lot.
I read some spoilery reviews, mostly to see what the paranormal aspect of the book was. I wasn't really impressed by it and showed me I was right not to carry on. I chose not to finish early on since I wasn't able to get into the verse style of writing. I'm totally fine with a book in verse, I just couldn't get into this one.
Another reason was definitely the characters. I didn't like Margaret at all. Found her boring as anything. Her friends were a bit more interesting but once again, not enough to keep me reading.
I was annoyed by the fact that we barely see any hint of any type of paranormal activity and I checked the reviews and some said it only appears quite far into the book and even then barely. Quite disappointing.
While I did like the lyrical parts and it could be soothing at times, it could also be a bit boring. The book felt like it was pushing the naval camp as this elite thing and that was also very boring for me.
This was a new cover for an older title – and I could tell (that it was an older title). The writing let me quickly know I wasn't going to make it further into the book. When I say that I could tell it was an older title; I mean the characters were so stereotypical. Like I can deal with a mean girl but only if she's interesting other than just being mean. There was also too much world-building and it wasn't done in a good way – just, pushed onto the page. I want to be interested enough to learn more about the world, not wanting to just skim read because there's too much info dumping going on. I have the sequel (as an arc) but won't pick it up.
I stopped reading before 20% – which is usually my standard ‘if I'm not interested by this point, I put it down' percentage. This looked interesting from the synopsis and it sadly went down from there.
Honestly, I just wasn't interested in anything that went in the little bit that I read. Not in the characters, the tiny bit of starting plot I got, not even the premise of thieves could get me interested. Like I can't even tell you anything about the characters because I couldn't get myself into wanting to know more about them.
I do get upset when I realise I'm not interested in a book but then again sometimes you don't click with a book. But also I'm glad that I realise when I'm truly not into a book and leave before I have to force myself to finish it.
I absolutely loved this book – actually looked just now to Amazon and Goodreads to see when the second book is coming out, couldn't find anything, so I went to the author's website. Apparently it's available as an audio fiction podcast which I'm excited about! Now I can reread the first season (I suppose I could call it that?) before I listen to the second one.
The story is filled with action and quite a bit of humour, which I very much enjoyed. There's mythology in, and honestly anything mythology is always going to get my attention – I'm just glad that it was well-written too. Iris and Andy were two fun characters to read, especially Andy. I feel like they played off of each other well and that they paired well with each other too.
Merged review:
I absolutely loved this book – actually looked just now to Amazon and Goodreads to see when the second book is coming out, couldn't find anything, so I went to the author's website. Apparently it's available as an audio fiction podcast which I'm excited about! Now I can reread the first season (I suppose I could call it that?) before I listen to the second one.
The story is filled with action and quite a bit of humour, which I very much enjoyed. There's mythology in, and honestly anything mythology is always going to get my attention – I'm just glad that it was well-written too. Iris and Andy were two fun characters to read, especially Andy. I feel like they played off of each other well and that they paired well with each other too.
This was my last read of August, like I finished this on the last day of August, sometime after midnight. I think I was watching Tarzan, actually. So maybe I was too into Tarzan to properly pay attention
I really thought the characters would have powers linked to death because it's called Graveyard Wars so that's where my line of thinking was. But actually they can just access people's skills sets? So like, if you need a doctor right now, boom you know how to do open heart surgery, I guess. I didn't understand some of the restrictions on their powers – like can they access ordinary people's skill sets or is it limited to dead people who also had the ability (to access the skill sets)? Maybe that'll be explained further down the line but I also don't know if I'll want to carry on with the series.
I realised (a couple of pages had passed) that there was a difference between 2 characters – I thought like it was the same girl. but it was actually 2 different girls. Another thing I did have an issue with was it the wasn't a lot of dialogue. so all I'm left with is stills of the characters instead of, say, narrative. With narrative, it makes it easier to follow the characters whereas with stills you have to sort of draw your own conclusion and I wasn't really interested in doing that. Might've been a reason why I didn't like it it as much as I was hoping I would.
I don't think there was a page that I didn't utterly love. Every single page was amazing and I loved them all. I could have read about a thousand more pages, even! Jimmy and Elise were funny and I really liked seeing them get into a relationship with each other.
I liked that there were no stakes and that it was a relaxing read. When you're like me and read a a majority of medium/high stakes books, it's always nice to breathe and read an easier book (easier here meaning a low-stakes fantasy book).
I really like Christine Riccio as a booktuber – even though she can definitely be a bit ‘much' at times (but then again I'm also very ‘much' at times so
This was absolutely such a cute read. My first book from both authors so now that I've read this I'll definitely read their other books – I believe Dietrich has like two YA mystery/thrillers that are very appealing to me. Which is great! I love when you read books that have two authors or even anthologies that have a lot of authors and then you can find more authors to read from! I recently reviewed two anthologies with new-to-me authors that I'll definitely be reading from their backlists or looking at their upcoming books!
I spent most of this book grinning like a total fool because it just was so cute! Literally in the first few minutes of the first chapter I know it would be a 5 star read. And that I would read it quickly – which was a relief as some of my reads lately have been taking long
It didn't take me long to love all four members of Saturday, the fictional band in If This Gets Out. Ruben Montez quickly established himself as the one who isn't allowed to be himself (although you could argue that the whole band isn't allowed to be themselves). He isn't allowed to show his theatre background. He's not allowed to come out or even sing the higher notes – which he definitely can hit (which I still don't really understand why he isn't allowed).
Zach Knight, whom Ruben says he's like a puppy – and that's true – but the band's marketing team makes him out to be dark and twisty.
Even though the novel does focus on Zach and Ruben we get to know the other two band members very well. It's like Jon Braxton and Angel Phan switched personalities. Angel's pushed into outfits that make the fans think he's the fun and innocent when he's more like how Jon is shown as. Even though Jon definitely doesn't want to dress in really tight clothing.
Knowing all of that and seeing it in action – telling the boys to act this way or to not act that way – all to keep that perfect image, was really sad. They're teens and they're taken advantage by adults who want to make money off of their talent. And you know this will have consequences for them later in their lives! You always see the child actors going rogue after they turn 18 or even before and it's like yeah! You wonder why?
Zach and Ruben were so, so cute together. I loved seeing their budding relationship – which is interesting as I'm not really a fan of friends-to-lovers. I'd read every friends-to-lovers there is if it were written like this. They had so many cute moments together – even before they actually got together. I'm definitely a big supporter of them two because they're just so cute!
Like I said, we get to know Angel and Jon pretty well (there's a scene with Angel's parents that I chuckled so hard at). There's a strong friendship between the boys – difficult not to when they're around each other basically 24/7. And even when there's issues within the band, there's still that feeling that they'll remain friends.
Most of the plot is tied to Zach and Ruben so I won't go too much into it – other than to shake my fists at the management that decided to force these boys into personas and reprimand them for acting like themselves anywhere near a camera! What I will say is that I loved there was a good balance between plot and characters. Neither seemed to play a bigger role, one didn't overshadow the other one – all well-balanced!
I knew this had mixed reviews going in so I wasn't really surprised when I found that I was on the “not liking it side”. What I didn't know was how much on that side I was. I only read until about 30% when I finally couldn't take it anymore and called it quits. I also ranted to a friend about it – which is always fun to do. I understood absolutely nothing of this book. There was no character motivation for anyone, no one had any personality. I couldn't see anyone improving at all which is also why I chose not to carry on. I can't stand reading a book if there's no character development of any type.
There's also nothing in this book that made sense. Eleanor hasn't seen or heard from/spoken to her family in eight years but she's just gonna magically go back home because she had an incident at the school. Then she complains about how her family's treating her – like yeah that'll happen when you never see each other but also then she keeps trying to play by their rules, tries to placate them. Why do all of that when they make it perfectly clear that they don't like you?
Absolutely NO ONE in the book is interesting or redeemable and I would rather jump off a cliff than be in the same room as ANY of them. Eleanor's mom was the only remotely interesting character and all we know is that she's in a bathtub. I don't think we're even told what type of supernatural creature she is – which is a shame because then I would be a bit more interested.
I found it very funny (in a bad way that made me not like her – Eleanor – even further) is that Eleanor's grandmother dies, right? And in a really terrible written way too. And she tells her not to invite anyone who isn't family to the house. So, of course... what Eleanor does next is that she invites basically the entire town to the funeral. At the house that the grandmother doesn't want any non-family members to be there. Admittedly, I didn't read far enough to get to the actual funeral, but I knew it from others' reviews.
I found it hilarious that Luma, her older sister (about 20 or so reviews have said), was her older sister because I first thought she was about 12/13 – because she acted like that age. I have no idea if she ever went to school with other kids and thus got that type of interaction. I'm not so bothered by characters acting younger or older than they really are but there's a difference between that and me thinking that a 20 year old was 13.
I think the absolute WORST character is Arthur. He's said to be middle-aged, bald, and I don't even know if he's actually conventionally attractive (not that that's all important) but literally EVERYONE in the family – from the grandparents to the TEENAGERS – Eleanor whom is said to be 16?? – is utterly infatuated with him. There's a huge spoiler about him that I won't say here but uhh he is not what he appears – either at face value or chronologically and that's all I'll say. Every time I had to see him on the page I wanted to physically recoil because he was the absolute worst.
I mentioned Luma not acting like her age and Rhys also never acted like his age? He's in college so I'm guessing about 20. I could not for the life of me imagine he's that age. Everyone acted like he was this amazing person and super super cool guy and you have me in the corner there's me in the corner side-eyeing this entire family because why on earth would you want to give a lot of responsibilities to THIS guy – it made entirely no sense whatsoever.
The bit of the plot I experienced was... well, quite an experience! I don't think even if I liked the characters I could stomach the plot, or vice versa. Honestly I'm amazed that I managed to get to 30% and kept wanting to read other books in January. And that, my friends, is why it's totally okay to marks books you aren't enjoying as “will/did not finish”.
shine your icy crown focuses mostly on sisters and their relationship. I liked that a lot because I like positive female friendships in books. There's a lot of the older sister giving advice to the younger one and (thankfully) I didn't feel like the advice was too cheesy or unwanted (I have an older sister and sometimes I don't always want to accept the advice
As always with Amanda Lovelace, there's the important theme of self-love and self-empowerment. In this one it's the big sister telling the older one to be more happy. Care less about what other people think. Stand up for yourself, make your voice the loudest advocate for you. Lets the younger sister know that even though others might not love her, her older sister always does.
Did not finish at 12%
A Harry Potter reference. In a 2021 release. Maybe there's more. I wouldn't know. I wanted to like this book. It just, I don't know, didn't feel real to me? The characters and plus the tv show factor?
Like it's apparently very popular but... she's not popular at school? And I know it's because she doesn't want to be, but I don't know. I kind of expected something like when Mia was revealed to be the Princess of Genovia (in The Princess Diaries) and everyone was suddenly claiming to be her friend to the cameras.
It also features the friends to lovers trope, which is not a favourite trope of mine. I rarely read and enjoy these ones. I think I really need to check to see if the trope is friends to lovers, because I rarely enjoy those.
Never Have I Ever by Karen McManus – Barely 2 stars. Is she just known for plot twists? I liked this but it didn't grip me and it's a short story! It should quickly grab my attention. It didn't give me enough of the characters for me to like/dislike anyone.
Like Before by Maurene Goo – 2 stars. It started off moderately okay and didn't improve. I didn't like the characters and found the writing and dialogue to be a bit wooden. It had a cute concept.
Old Rifts and Snowdrifts by Kayla Whaley – 5 stars. This was so super cute! I loved Owen and Eleanor and the story setting as well. Loved seeing the disability rep and the very casualness about it too, you know?
Kiss the Boy by Amanda Joy – 4 stars. This was cute! I don't know which school would allow boys and girls to sleep next to each other
I moved from wanting to give this book 4 stars or 3 stars a couple of times. I finally decided on 3 and a half stars. It's not to say that I didn't like this, I really did! It just also confused me a lot.
What I mean when I say ‘it confused me' I meant that the comps are The Sun is Also a Star meets Jumanji. Now I've never read The Sun is Also a Star, and neither have I watched it (it's been adapted into a movie this year? Last year?). But I love Jumanji. I've watched the original multiple times and the new sequels a couple of times. I love all of them. But I think I focused too much on the Jumanji side of the comp when I should've focused on the other side – even if I've never read the other comp.
Yes, this does have the fantasy element in it but also I wanted more? I did really enjoy the utter absurdity of snow falling in the airport and plants growing everywhere. Their phones being permanently on 100% and anytime they tried to post about what was happening – they just couldn't. Like was it the airport somehow stopping them? Who knows and I quite liked that! I like the writing and that the author wrote an omniscient third person point of view. That was definitely different than other books I've read (I don't even know of any other). There was often a feeling of show, don't tell (meaning it felt like the author just described everything rather than letting the reader read about it), and I'm not a big fan of that.
The plot was interesting (even though I wanted more
This was a hard book to read because it features a difficult subject matter. But Sass handled it well. I have another Sass book that I definitely want to get to quicker now that I've read one of his books (because now I know his writing).
I think Connor Major being the main character was a great choice because Sass brought some lightheartedness in his narration and humour that I thought worked well. They're also teenagers, and teens are funny. I think it's a good thing to keep humour/make some jokes even when you're not having the best time (South Africans make jokes about, literally everything, so I know that well).
The plot and pacing was quick and that fit the vibe of the book very well. Maybe it's the author's writing as well and I'll know it when I read another of his books. I thought I would mind that the plot and pacing were so quick but I didn't – which I'm also glad about.
I really liked the other teens we meet at the camp. Especially as they became close and then found family – it is one of my favourite tropes so I was glad to see it. Found family in any book, in any genre, is always something I'm happy to read about – but I think it works particularly best in an LGBTQ+ book. Plus they've all been through a terrible experience so being able to stand together and stay friends is great.