Fiona
DNF because it was due back at the library and the author really lost me when she started drawing parallels between melanin science and the continued exploitation of coloured folk. The Shuri reference was spot on but Chandra admitted the arguments were not well-formed and I was like, “why didn't you rewrite it then?!” I have no patience for authors who don't put in the work of editing elements that need it.
I'm not a huge fan of stories told in vignettes, where you have to weave the threads of plot yourself but this is a novella so it didn't last long. The first half was very good, then it stumbled around in a series of thoughts about multiple things before resuming with the plot, which was left unresolved. I think, with the right editing, this would have made an extraordinary short story but instead it is an inconsistent and unsatisfying novella.
I was sent a free copy of this book for review so thank you to Hachette Press.
I've never used slack and I am def not the target audience but this was a quick and easy read. I never bought into the notion that the main character was trapped inside a virtual environment but there was some lampooning of office culture and the uselessness of bots that amused me. Ultimately, I think the book is hindered by the choice of format.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Kind of a mixed bag. Angie Thomas delivers the goods, as usual (plus a perfect resolution that defied the trope) and Nicola Yoon did a neat job of tying things up (and managed to quell my lingering dislike of her over Everything, Everything). Tiffany D. Jackson offered a solid story that suffered from being told in instalments and Nic Stone's contribution gave me all the feels although I think it needed another round of edits. I continue to feel no love for the writing of both Ashley Woodfolk and Dhonielle Clayton; neither story held my interest and ended in the exact formulaic way I was expecting.
This book's biggest problem is the complete lack of primary source material; if you're going to write an entire book about women's involvement in QAnon, talking to some of them, or at least thier families, is not just expected but essential, imo. But this is just a regurgitation of information that can be found elsewhere and its not terribly well-organized or -written.
An endearing bit of fluff that was too full of pop culture references for my taste. The plot is yawningly predictable but the characters are so strongly drawn and the dialogue is sharp; if Painter devised a less hackneyed storyline, well, I'd probably be gushing like a fountain and calling her my new favorite author.
I was annoyed at how the narrative was constructed at first but it's a solid story and I was sucked in. There are more plot threads here than I'm used to seeing in MG books but they were well enough integrated that it dovetailed nicely at the end. I kept losing track of secondary characters though cause there's a lot of them. While this is very much an “issue” book, its well-fleshed out and doesn't resort to preaching. The stuff about memorial day and the locals who had died in “the First Gulf War” was a bit fucked-up and serves as a sharp reminder of how militaristic the US has become.
Very engaging and readable and highly recommended. However, I was turned off by the author's use of pop-culture references (using season 18 of The Bachelor as a date/time reference was the most irksome cause who the fuck knows when that was?!) and such things only make the book dated. Also, I find the lack of an index troublesome.
Pretty standard romance novel and exhaustingly predictable. Celebrity girl meets semi-famous boy and they face a bunch of “problems” that impede thier getting together for 250 pages. Probably of interest to those who like to read about fame and jet-setting lifestyles because it's not badly written, just unoriginal.
I received a copy of this book free from the publisher for review.
Having been written in the 1930s, there are certain aspects of this book which have not aged well. There is a distressing use of the term “ni**er minstrels” in the first chapter, although only by the least sympathetic characters; Jeeves and his erstwhile employer both employ the enlightned-at-that-time “Negro minstrels” to describe this group which never actually makes an appearance in the book but who's existence provides an impetus for two characters to don blackface. Kind of an interesting historical study of how such things were viewed by the upper crust.
I got a couple of chapters into this and started to feel like I'd heard it before, then I realized he was treading the same ground as Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics which I read a few months back and it was a way more entertaining and better written chronicle of this topic. So I doubt this will be worth my time to finish.
I always feel bad when a publisher sends me a book and I hate but here we are. It didn't start out very strong; any book that needs a prologue to draw the reader in makes me wary. The actual opening scene was weak and the MC has no personality, other than she thinks she's different and the other kids are “sheep, all of them.” (Cue eye roll.) Then the accident happens, which did nothing to actually propel the plot forward, despite my optimism. The story drags endlessly and eventually there's a conclusion that made little sense to me (although in retrospect, it sets it up for a sequel). McFall's writing isn't actually bad but the characters are formless and the story premise is thin, consequently its not what I consider readable.
I was sent a free copy of this book for review by Walker Books.