Fiona

Terrible. Relying on virtually every fantasy trope available, this is the most pointlessly formulaic book I've ever read. The phrase, “Don't waste your time,” seems tailor-made for this tome.

The story feels very formulaic and only rates 3 stars with me but the artwork is so beautiful that it garners the book an extra star.

Fascinating content, very detailed and thorough; too much so, in fact, cause it's a bit of a slog and I found myself skim-reading most of it. As a journalist, Bryant clearly wanted to cover his bases but the narrative should not have topped 500 pages if it was going to be readable.

The first part of this book was very engaging but then it just turned tedious suddenly; I only skimmed the last 150 pages and am quite sure that I missed nothing. This book was trying very hard to be historical fiction, I think it even had daydreams of being a biography, but was really just a romance novel set in the past. And badly set there. The author's need to cram in historical figures is just farcical; I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the whole Robbie Burns episode.
I'm kind of sorry I wasted my time finishing it.

Hard to keep the characters straight; relying on fonts to differentiate the narrators = weak. But a cute, enjoyable read, nevertheless.

After hearing so many people rave about this book, I foolishly assumed it would be impressive in some way. It wasn't. I mostly skimmed the second half because it seemed like such a waste of my time; another reviewer mentioned this is for people who want to write like Stephen King and I have no desire to suffer that fate.

I felt a little disappointed by this book, it failed to suck me in and drag me along for the ride like Ms. Anderson's other works always do. Still, a very solid historical fiction work, with believable, if sometimes flat, characters and, once the action picks up near the end, a very enjoyable read.

I have already requested the sequel, Forge, from the library. I'm anticipating good things as I enjoyed Isabel's interaction with Curzon, which seems set to continue.

Oddly adorable.
I liked the extra bit at the end where Kazu explains his creation process; very useful for kids who are clearly the target audience.

I like these two authors less together than either on his own. :)

The historical aspect is well done, the plot is interesting and the pacing is good but the writing is choppy which prevented me from actually getting into the story. I found the characters rather flat and I feel no desire to read the other books in the series.

Thank you to whatever nice publisher it was who sent me the ARC for review.

I had stopped reading series books, too much reading for not enough return. But This. Was. Wonderful. So wonderful that I wasn't even irritated by the joke name of one of our two protagonists.

The pacing is glacial and I don't like Ishiguro enough to struggle thru.

What a delightful romp! The artwork is lovely and the concept charming; solid plot and pacing with enough self-referential humour to satisfy my current fickle mood.

I probably would have loved this when it first came out but reading it 20 years later, I am unimpressed; there's so much more graphic novel awesomeness available now.

An unexpectedly amazing tale but the illustrations are not nearly good enough for this story.

A solid piece of historical fiction, full of edifying asides, although nothing to write home about.

I got to the end of the first section and found myself bored. The premise is sound and interesting enough but it's one of those “everything but the kitchen sink” books, where the authors include every single thing they know rather than paring it down to the most essential and deliver the clearest message. (Perhaps with three authors, they thought it needed to be three times as long?) Consequently, I decided to listen to the podcast and I found that to be a lot of pointless chatter in between relevant points (as many podcasts are, imo) but, frankly, it was more engaging. So, in conclusion, I wouldn't recommend this book but the podcast is interesting enough that I will be listening to it occasionally.

Thank you to whatever publisher it was that sent me this advance copy for review.

Charming historical fluff that was exactly what I needed. (And I love it when I pre-order a book and it arrives before the release date.)

As awesome as I expected.

Having decreed yesterday that I was done with TJ Klune, I come home to a copy of Wolfsong in my mailbox courtesy of Tor, who are reissuing the series with new covers. Its like the universe is mocking me.

I got about 50 pages in before I noped out. Sorry TJ, nothing personal.

The content is interesting and the narrative is structured well. But I find Egan's writing irritating and I don't think I'll be reading any other books of his on purpose.

Fairly standard YA fantasy romance. The world-building felt laboured, particularly with regard to language and the glossary was inadequate (usually I'm a fan of such things but half the time the word I was searching for wasn't even present). The characters, pacing and plot are quite satisfactory and make for an enjoyable read but none of it is particularly memorable.

Thank you to whatever nice publisher it was who sent me a free copy for review.

Intermittently interesting but mostly repetitive. I skim read most of the book and I'm pretty sure all the interesting bits amount to less than 20 pages.

Slow beginning with more set-up than I really like but once it got moving, the story was engrossing and the characters well-drawn and memorable.

For anyone who has studied psychology and sociology, the concepts in this book are old news. Game theory, identity politics, the trust paradox, etc. are covered in depth and mingled with examples from both research and the author's own life. The writing is academic in tone and I found myself drifting off any time I read more than a couple pages. Ultimately, I was not engaged by this but it isn't unreadable, just boring.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the free review copy (and for helping me fall asleep every night as I tried to finish the book. :)