Fiona

I was expecting more philosophy and was disappointed.

The plot is good and the resolution caught me totally off guard. But the writing is very heavy-handed; there is no subtlety to the storytelling and all the characters feel contrived. I don't see myself reading more from this author even though I would not call this badly done.

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.

More entertaining than I expected. Sophocles is an intriguing subject but mostly I feel sorry for his wife (becoming a widow probably made her life better in many ways).

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.

DNF because it looks like a web cartoon that somebody zoomed in on buy nobody bothered to improve the image resolution and the pixellation is irritating af to me. So glad I got this from the library and didn't waste any money on it.

This is the 3rd book I have read by this author and while I admire the world-building and creativity in his plots, TJ Klune's books leave me unengaged. The characters are too cartoon-like and I never actually care what happens to anybody so I end up skim-reading, just wanting the whole thing to be over. So I'm forswearing this author henceforth, despite all the love he gets from readers cause there are too many other authors on earth to enjoy.

Given the title, this is surprisingly objective. Draper has done proper journalism here, interviewing subjects and witnessing events firsthand, and it makes for a good read.

A cute (albeit unoriginal) story about appreciating what you've got but I do not care for the artwork and the plot could have been tightened up. Babymouse has a lot of imagination and her digressions are amusing so I can see how this would be popular.

Maybe it's just cause I'm not a dog person but I didn't love this the way I usually love Ibbotson's works. Still, an engaging and readable adventure.

I expected this to be a graphic novel but it's more like a picture book. The plot is odd and I enjoyed the ending but the whole thing feels unpolished. But maybe that's because I was expecting another Zita the Spacegirl; as a picture book it's quite good.

A sweet story about loss and connections. The characterizations are strong and the pacing is brisk, with short chapters so the tale doesn't get too bogged down in feelings (which my poor heart could not take right now).

I received a free copy of this book for review from the fine folks at Tundra Books.

Schu explores story as: healer, inspiration, clarifier, compassion, and connector, and offers numerous books for each category. A great resource although I skipped over much of the discussion about specific books because I have too many books to read already and its just gonna result in me finding more books I want to read.

Adorable. I really like the artwork and the story, while absurdist, is well-done.

I don't think much of the artwork and the plot is absurd, what with the demonic pigeons and ghosts but it can be enjoyed as a parody.

I bought this book because it won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award; perhaps my standards are too high but I was hugely disappointed. There was only one part that was actually funny to me and the writing was a bit choppy (this definitely would have benefited from an extra round of rewrites).

Very readable. Proper journalism with actual primary research (an increasingly rare phenomenon these days). Highly recommended. However, Sommer really ought to buy himself a thesaurus cause using “allegedly” repeatedly in the same paragraph is obnoxious.

I have no idea why I requested this from the library. Readable, decent art, but I really find the endless parade of superheroes tiresome and I will go back to avoiding marvel and DC stuff methinks.

I got forty pages in and I just don't care. I'm really finicky lately.

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

A quick read. I found the narrative voices for the child characters (i.e. Sylvie, Laura and Bing) unconvincing as children (uneven tone, with phrasing and pov very adult at times) but otherwise I enjoyed this.

As awesome as I expected.

Sound premise but repetitive and very academic in tone so a bit of a slog.

Having not read the first book, I struggled to get into this. The book is choppy and there's no segue between the floraverse and the real world, the characters are just there in the next chapter. I enjoyed learning about Anishnaabe culture and there are some clever concepts plot-wise but the writing is inconsistent, particularly Kinew's action scenes where there's a tendency to tell instead of show. I hope Wab keeps doing kids books because I'm quite sure he'll be turning out blockbusters with a little practice (and a more invested editor?) but this reads like the publisher put this out before it was ready because they knew the author's name would propel sales and I find myself disappointed by the result.

I received a free copy of this book for review.

Perhaps “brief” was intended as irony because this does not meet the definition at 504 pages; the visuals are archival photos and drawings (I was expecting a graphic novel-type format but I guess that's on me). This is basically a high school/college textbook full of detailed examples of anti-Jewish propaganda and incidents, with question-and-answer sections inserted at regular intervals. It is not, unsurprisingly, an entertaining read.

I received a pdf of this book from the publisher for review but I never request ebooks so I'm not sure how that happened.