Sarah

So atmospheric and creepy that it had me literally looking around and flicking forward because I was scared I was going to get jumpscared by a book lmao

Really enjoyed, even better than Cleopatra and Frankenstein I think. Lucky chapters were my fave

Not a fan of Rafe tbh

Someone take the unreliable narrator trope off these thriller authors omg!!!!!!! This isn't even how it works she had the narrator outright lie to us. You're meant to just leave things out!

“You'll never see this twist coming” well no because it didn't actually make any sense, the narrator flat out lied about what happened and you're telling me that Abby managed to climb back up a rock cliff while cloroformed????? And then instead of going to the police planned a year long revenge?

Also the idea that Grady would have a vasectomy without telling his wife and Abby would literally get pregnant without telling her husband, that is the most toxic marriage I've ever seen

The only thing this did right was it really nailed the atmosphere of this creepy island, the writing felt very claustrophobic and atmospheric so that's the one thing stopping me from giving it 1 star

Really starting to love this series. Feels so much more developed than any of BKs previous series she's really grown as a fantasy writer. Again nothing really happened in this one, it's just pages and pages of people talking, but ohhh the intrigue

So sick of unreliable narrator trope just becoming “who of these two character viewpoints did it” because it's always so obvious

I did enjoy the bit where they were both in the cabin thinking how to kill the other though that was super tense so it gets a +1 star bump for that

Very sweet and made me chuckle a few times

Very fun, easy reading. Nothing revolutionary though

Argh I love the concept but the execution is shocking. A real shame because I like Lauren Asher's dreamland billionaires so I suppose she has at least improved as a writer from her debut, but man this is painful. The dialogue is sooooo stilted and good dialogue and banter is so crucial to a romance!! Plus there's just no real development to their relationship they really both go from “they're hot” to “I have genuine feelings for this person” with no onscreen communication

The writing is so beautiful that you can almost ignore the fact that this comes at the expense of the sentences actually making sense. Almost

Open water had the same problem but I really hoped he'd improve a bit by his sophomore novel, oh well, still a very good read

Absolutely perfectly captures the feeling of being young in summertime though. Super nostalgic

Very very sweet and absolutely full of heart but I did not feel any sexual tension between these characters lol, it was like they were best friends

Agree with everyone saying the writing was bad too, very blocky sentence structure at times

Absolutely cackling at the way Caroline just applies for Cambridge overnight, immediately assumes she's got in and starts applying for housing, and planning her dissertation on this apothecary shop... for an English lit degree???????? Oh I would love to see the look on the interviewers face

I didn't know anything about the Ramayana before this (and I do note all the reviewers who had read the Ramayana didn't like this as much which is interesting) but I really enjoyed learning more about it!! It started off quite slow because it's essentially just telling someone's life rather than having a driving plot, but the climax of the novel was phenomenal

I knew this was a litfic not a thriller going in but come on your heists have to have some modicum of plotting. Every heist was just a string of conveniences with very little thought. The characters were very half baked, the only one with any depth is Daniel. And the writing is super pretentious in a bad way, it really think it's smart when it's just poor. This is how every sentence is written: with a clause followed by an elaborate over descriptive phrase. God help me if I have to read another of those it really pained me to write one

Really nice blend of mystery fantasy and romance in all one so very up my alley. Knocking a star because the curse and the ending didn't quite make sense (maybe this is just a me problem) but ignoring this it was a really fun read

So so so upsetting and gross I don't think I'm ever going to eat meat again

I know Frieda McFaddens plots are normally insane and uncredible so that's not what I take issue with (although the uncredibility remains very much in situ). This just didn't deliver. Nothing happened that wasn't so heavily hinted at that I would've assumed it was a red herring, but no, turns out that really is just the main twist

Completely disagree with people saying it's slow, I actually loved this one. Yes the first half is mainly setting up for the second half because, y'know, that's how plots work. And I enjoyed this one. I will say I think it's main weakness is that it's very surface level fantasy, there's not loads going on, the world is really well written and developed but plot wise it's quite basic, it's like reading a YA except for the constant swearing

I'm sorry but I unironically love JQs absolutely batshit insane plots

Exactly the same as the first one but worse in every way. The plot was all over the place (and I hate the resolution which felt way too deus ex machina), the message was way less subtle and I just got super tired of being hit over the head with it. I get it, I agree, you're preaching to the choir, please stop hitting me.

Very interesting depiction of a surveillance state dystopia, it felt very claustrophobic. Not one for people who like things answered though

Thoughts
-again the writing quality is not it

Having a bit of a in between stormlight books palette cleaner

This was cute!! A bit unfulfilling at the end but I liked the neighbour banter

Impressive that a somewhat decent murder mystery was fit into 50 pages, but somehow the characters are just so annoying. Your friend has just died. Why do you not care???

This was my favourite when I first read them. (On reread I think I preferred tWoK but that's partially just because it's slower pace suits a reread more)

Thoughts n stuff:
-The sanderlanche in this one is intense, so much more happens than in any of the others ... so far
-Dalinars backstory and journey to the eventual climax of the novel is absolutely SO WELL DONE. Such a well written character.
-I know the voidbringer twist has been done before but it still hits every time
-seeing kaladin fail to swear his 4th oath and “maybe it's time for someone to save you” is amazing. I know we see him stumble in WoR but he gets back up again at the end but this ends on a bit of a low for our main protag and I love that. You know I will just eat up any book where the protagonist fails