Zoë
3.5 stars
This was fun storytelling. The characters are immediately recognizable. There's the misogynistic boss, the stalwart best friend, the brooding love interest. The plucky and relatable main character whose insecurities and imposter syndrome must be overcome to be the hero in her own story. It's warm and fuzzy with a little bit of drama and subterfuge.
The first book, Divine Rivals, was really good. This one felt slow and uninteresting. It could've been abbreviated and added to Divine Rivals to make a satisfying stand-alone. It would've had great pacing and explained all the backstory for both the main characters and the divine beings. I really liked the story; I wish it had been given more care in its telling.
who doesn't want to know what their cat really thinks?
Scalzi always writes such fun, quirky stories. This one is chock full of quirk with cats and various sea creatures working in cahoots with a super secret cabal of villainous tycoons. Fast-paced, dialogue-heavy storytelling that propels the reader like a missile to the satisfying ending. 3.5 stars (I liked it!)
Alix E. Harrow's Starling House is a heartbreaking and haunting gothic story gorgeously narrated by Natalie Naudus. As Harrow does so well, this book serves magic, mystery, love, and enough tension to keep readers wanting more. Steeped in the painful reality of poverty, homelessness, and hunger in Eden, Kentucky, we find our feisty protagonist Opal struggling to care for Jasper, her book-smart brother with a bright future to preserve. An encounter with the brooding and mysterious Arthur sets off a chain of events that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives. A must-read for anyone who has ever wanted to find a door to a magical space beyond.
Natalie Naudus narrates this with a perfect mix of intention, personality, distinct and recognizable voices, and her unique ability to keep the listener enthralled throughout. The delicious slow burn readers savor in an excellent gothic mystery like this is beautifully enhanced in this audio rendition. Naudus handles steamy passages with just the right amount of sensuality, and her voice with Harrow's text is so, so good. Together, they will take you on a journey full of humanity. There will be laughs, possibly some tears, perhaps a little rage, and ultimately a satisfying scratch for that itch we call nostalgia for all those magical stories read under covers by flashlight.
I wanted to love this one because Neil Gaiman and fun art, but the story held no surprises and the art was not for me. One star for the art; three stars for the retelling, but only because it's decently written. It's not inventive or original in any way which is fine; it's just not worth a read unless you've never read the original version. The art is all in black and white, mostly black, lots of it. I love illustrated books, so I was excited to see a new one. It doesn't really work for a fairy tale. I don't see kids poring over it like I did with so many beautifully colorful books I had growing up which is a shame, but maybe this one is for the adults? In which case, WHY wasn't the story developed into a text for mature readers? It just didn't work for me, and I expected something better from Gaiman, frankly.
Never have I ever wanted to reread a book immediately upon completion. That changed with this book. I'd give it six stars if I could. This is a book meant for savoring. It's not your fast paced, page-turning, knock it out in a day kind of read. It's the difference between that bite you grab in a cafeteria and the six course meal you have prepared by an incredible chef you had to wait years to experience. This is a book for lovers of mythology, epic battles, slow burns, fully fleshed out characters, representation, worlds you just want to fall into. Get the hardback if you can because the cover and end paper artwork are a perfect match to the stunner Jimenez creates on the page. Gorgeous.
What a page-turner! When I started this gothic mystery I thought it was going to be a stand-alone. I really did not want to start another series. So often the stories are dragged out unnecessarily, leaving me annoyed at having my time wasted. I'm slow, so I was about halfway through before I realized this wasn't about to be all tidied up at the end. Ha! Instead, what we have here is a strong foundation for a supernatural ride through 19th century London and...Egypt? Maybe?
Ivy is our MC. She's meek. She's isolated. She's smart and determined and, despite all she's come to believe about herself, courageous beyond reason. After her mother dies, Ivy meets a mysterious woman who drops some heavy clues that her mother was more than she seemed. Ivy sets off to London from her country home to find out answers about who her mother really was. There are all the spooky themes one would expect in a gothic (soft) thriller. A book filled with more questions than answers paves the way for a potentially awesome series.
I read an ARC from NetGalley, so there were some unfinished aspects that I'm assuming will be cleaned up before the final is released at the end of the month. I noticed a hodgepodge of punctuation, spelling, and grammatical errors that I'm sure exist in most books before their final polish. I also noticed some continuity errors that were pretty glaring. I hope those were caught prior to printing. Nothing terrible—one moment someone has fainted and the next they're talking; another, it was 11:35 on one page and a number of pages later the clock is striking 11:00. So, not terrible, just distracting.
All told, I'd say this is a promising debut, and I look forward to reading the next in this series.
Harrow hits another one right out of the park.
What can I say? Alix E. Harrow writes the most gorgeous, feminist, pocket-having, touching stories that stick hard and fast to one's soul. Each time I finish her latest book I get antsy for the next. She deserves all the accolades and more. (This review is freely given. I received no compensation other than a fulfilling read. Again.)
Fatphobic farce
Perhaps this book doesn't have a wide demographic, a deeper message (beyond life happens—take the good with the bad), or the complex, interesting characters readers might care about. What it does have is a little bit of a train wreck quality that makes the reader want to know what happens—something that is encouraged by the sprinkling of gossiped conversations about the sisters throughout the book. It meets all of the requirements for a white female with a stable, dysfunctional family looking-for-love/success/self whose only real struggle is some unresolved feelings from that time her parents got divorced kind of book. It was too much about the need to be with a man with literally everyone being matched up by the end. Most of the characters are unlikeable or unrelatable; all of the female characters are portrayed as petty, bitter, controlling, or flighty. Don't get me wrong. There were aspects of this story that felt almost insightful. I laughed, I cried, I gasped once, I think. I wanted to know what happened in a fast-forward the movie kind of way. Now that I think about it, it's not too different from Friends...if it had taken place in Australia, the characters were just a smidge older, and the women were triplet sisters with a shared trauma. If I could've given it 2.5 stars I would have. I rounded up because it wasn't terrible. It just wasn't great.
This book was pretty good for upper elementary. If you're choosing between this and the Van Gogh Deception I'd pick the latter. Regarding another reviewer's claims that there is some kind of political agenda, here is the reference quote from the book, “The museum was filled with portraits of women who had shaped and continued to shape the direction of the United States. Portraits of women such as Rosa Parks, Gertrude Stein, Lena Horne, Billie Jean King, Toni Morrison, Denyce Graves, and Helen Keller filled the museum. There was even a massive portrait of all the women who have served as justices of the United States Supreme Court.” Just in case anybody wants to see the lengths The Gay Agenda™️ will go to in an effort to indoctrinate our kids to be authors, elite athletes, boundary-breaking singers, equality-seekers, or Supreme Court justices. The audacity.
Boooo. I was told this would be scary.
This book, while perfectly fine as a retelling of Judeo-Christian creation mythology, is entertaining, if not compelling. The circuitous route by which the reader is taken to meet all the players is bland. I kept going with the promise of horror and was met instead with some gore. I almost DNF'd so many times, but it was recommended in a list of scary books by a number of people, so I persisted. Arriving at the end with gratitude, I'm off to find something that lives up to its reputation.
This is a great book for those of us looking to live a more minimalist lifestyle. I recommend this to folks who are new to the ideas behind decluttering and the process that goes along with that including both the act and the emotional aspects associated with releasing our belongings.
This is a book both about the how-to and the underlying issues that can lead to having too much stuff in our lives.
The author makes every attempt to give this book away via Amazon so I suggest following her blog (which covers a wider range of relevant topics than simply decluttering) and wait until you can get it for free on your device. I like free. :)
DNF'd on page 29. If you like your female characters portrayed as pathetic, spiteful, and/or stupid “adults” who are just waiting for a male character to validate their existence then this writer is for you! Reader beware. This is immature, lazy writing more on par with cheap, late 20th century porn than anything resembling a book by a bestselling author.