Kayla Savard
3.5 stars. Probably a 2 star in terms of actual logic and depth, but the entertainment value was high enough to carry this whole book on its back in spite of the general lack of everything else that makes a book really good. I absolutely hated the main character, and though I am extremely pissed off that she got away with everything and rode off into the sunset with no consequences at the end, with her mediocre and personality-less "love interest", and all the characters (and their relationships) in general were super one-dimensional, I was very entertained the whole time – which in the end I guess is pretty much the only thing I'm looking for with books like this.
Honestly, its kind of like watching an episode of “Jersey Shore”. I never would want to hang out with these people, and if I think about it too much I hate all of them, and by extension the narrative for not punishing them in a cathartic-enough fashion – but if I switch my brain to the right setting, watching insane drama from irrational people is very entertaining, and that is worth something.
The prose, imagery, and poetic nature of the setting was what really got me to 5 stars by the last page. Honestly, I don't think I am much of a fan of mysteries, because 99% of the time I end up feeling like the mystery/plot-twist distracted me from appreciating the details in the lead-up. Obviously that is the entire point of a mystery, so this is my own personal hurdle to overcome, but once I'd finished the book all I could think was that the “mystery” was rather unimportant to what the book was actually about. As I rated this 5 stars though, I found that there was much more to digest, which made up for that rather disposable (imo) element. I really look forward to re-reading this book already knowing the answers, so I don't have to be distracted away from the more philosophical/thematic ideas.
Buyer beware though: this is not a character book, and clearly wasn't meant to be a story where you connect with and deeply understand the narrator. In the end that didn't end up negatively impacting my experience because eventually I got it, but for like 75% of the book (when I didn't connect with the narrator and I had no idea what was happening because the mystery hadn't been solved) I was definitely having a hard time because I kept expecting to understand who he was as a fleshed-out character, instead of just accepting that he was more of a vessel for observing and meditating on the book's themes.
Basically: this book has a lot of elements that I normal wouldn't like, and yet somehow does it all so well that I ended up enjoying it much more than would have expected at the start.
I had such a hard time rating this book because I vacillated wildly between being touched by the interactions between Betty and her father, being extremely put off by bullying Betty endures (both from her classmates and siblings and mother and teachers and random strangers), enjoying the writing, being absolutely disgusted and full of hatred towards Betty's mother for the very graphic and traumatic near-reenactment of her childhood rape onto Betty on her 9th birthday, complete with holding her down and thrusting against her, connecting with the story deeply due to a large amount of parallels between this story and my grandmother's life, being again disgusted and full of hatred towards Betty's mother for her horrificly brutal killing of a bunch of kittens by beating them to a pulp, hating Betty's grandfather, hating Betty's oldest brother, hating Betty's nearest sister, hating the teachers, hating the neighbors, etc., etc. One nice father just can't make up for all of that emotionally (especially when I also feel like, as nice and whimsical as he was, he was either willfully or ignorantly blind to all of the terrible things happening in his house and to his children).
Strangely though, with everything I know about every person around Betty (and my strong feelings towards all of them), I think a huge area of weakness in this book is the fact that somehow, after 450+ pages, I barely know who Betty is. We are seeing through her first-person eyes, but rarely gaining any insight into how she feels about the things that happen around (and to) her, and only very rarely see in action how it impacts her as a person.
Basically there was a lot of strong feelings inspired by this book, and while the feelings were mostly negative, I have to give credit to it making me feel those negative feelings so strongly. Because of my own personal life experiences, and those of my grandmother (who, like Betty, was part Native American and stood out more than her siblings and peers, was closest with her father but never told him the worst things she went through, had a mother with major childhood issues that she took out on my grandmother, and many, many more parallels), I feel glad I read this just because of how much it made me think of my grandmother – and it certainly made me grateful to my grandmother that she didn't continue the cycle of “My childhood was bad so I'm gonna make sure yours is too” onto me or my dad, but I also can't imagine recommending this to anyone because I have no understanding of people's love of this book separated from those myriad of personal connections.
It certainly moved me and got stuck in my brain, and will sit on my shelf and bring up strong feelings when I look at it, never to be read again.
This was such a pleasant surprise of an enjoyable and well-written supernatural-tinted mystery! The atmosphere it created through the prose was excellent, the mystery was intriguing, the characters were well-drawn, and while for my personal taste the ending was a little rushed, it certainly didn't detract too much from the previous 95% of the book. I am definitely going to check out more from this author!
Wow, I loved this! Every fifty pages I kept thinking “Okay, I should really stop reading so I can cook/eat/sleep...” — but I just kept going, and ended up devouring it from start to finish in one sitting. A truly delightful world filled with wonderfully endearing characters (who wouldn't be won over by an amorphous blob who aspires to be a bellhop), and a reading experience that somehow feels nostalgic as soon as you start reading. The whole experience was like drinking a deliciously cup of hot chocolate on a snowy day, and I am so happy to have been temporarily transported into such a warm and inviting place.
Everyday I order coffee and pie while I read or finish homework, imagining that I look mysterious and adult sitting in a booth all by myself.
While reading this book, I was often struck by how very personal to my own story as a teenage girl it felt, and it is all boiled down in that quote. It could be a line out of my own diary at fifteen - being called “mature for your age”, feeling like I got along better with adults than with people my own age, being swept away in the romanticism of the taboo and depressing, feeling as if no one understood my hidden depths, and more than anything thinking that I was already grown up and in control.
All of these hallmarks of adolescence, which feel so singular to yourself in the moment, are the exact kind of emotional foundations within Vanessa's character that are ripe for potential abuse once you mix in the fact that you aren't actually as grown up and prepared as you thought. In Vanessa's story, unlike mine, someone unfortunately did notice her in all those ways she thought she wanted, but in the end was ill prepared for. In the book's flashback chapters, there was no point that Vanessa seemed to care for Strane as a person (in fact, she notes on several occasions how unattractive she finds him), but rather is groomed into a strange possessiveness towards him – where she feels disgust one minute, jealous the next, wanting, and then repulsed. As she grows older, she continues to seek him out, even while not wanting him to touch her. She is a victim, but one that deals with that reality by drawing out the unhealthy relationship for over fifteen years in order to convince herself that there's no way she could actually be a victim. Even in her adult form, she not a clear-cut sympathetic figure – she acknowledges (in an observational sense at least) her potential to become exactly the type of abuser she endured, she lashes out with cries for help just as often as she returns to comfort her abuser, she continues to both belittle her own experience and the experiences of the other girls, and I'm not truly sure she has understood any of those behaviors in herself by the end of the book.
Because of that deliberate stagnation in her character growth, this is much more of an “it's about the journey” type of story, but works extremely well as an emotional dissection of the murky waters of sexuality, consent, victim-hood, and cycles of abuse. All the questions her experiences bring up are laid out for you to contemplate within yourself, but are left open ended and without conclusions drawn. Why is the lure of a younger woman/older man trope so strong (both internally for a lot of teenage girls, and externally in pop culture)? Can you feel like you had autonomy in an abusive situation? Do you have an obligation to tell your story, no matter how bad a light it sheds on you? The answers are that there aren't really answers at all, but examining the questions and the emotions behind them is still worthwhile.
Sidenote: Why is it always an English teacher? As I discussed with my friend while reading this, the English teacher at my high school had that friendly vibe that made you feel like a peer instead of a child (and who every person had heard substantial rumors about, and who we all still talk about amongst ourselves over a decade later), it feels like it's always English and Literature teachers. At her school it was the exact same situation. I guess there is something much more alluring and accessible about roping someone in over classic literature than over the quadratic equation.
2.5 Stars
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did. Though the writing is lovely (reading a lot more like a very long journal entry rather than actual scenes, in part due to the lack of dialogue) the actual relationship and plot of said relationship felt very flat and ultimately very cliché to me. I guess I am just kind of over books (and really, all media) that feature an LGBT couple who have a brief affair in their youth, eventually spend decades apart, and then everything ends with the tragic death of one of the pair.
Certainly not terribly written, but overall very underwhelming. Though the book wasn't short, by the end I was wondering what had actually filled up all those pages: the characters are not particularly deep (and in general I couldn't really tell you who these characters were as people outside of some very broad and heavy-handed traits), character relationships seem largely foundation-less and unexplored, the plot wasn't complicated or surprising, and in general I felt like nothing happened - and when something did happen, I didn't care.
I would say my main issue was the failure in the writing to get me invested in any of the character relationships. Victor and Eli's dynamic, both as friends and as rivals, should have been the backbone of the book (according to the plot) - and yet in practice, it was pretty much non-existent. Why were they friends to begin with? Or really, were they even friends, or was that just something I was told by the back cover? Because in reality, we meet Eli for one scene, Victor will randomly think something to the effect of “There was something tweaked in him, just like me!” while they have largely emotionless interactions, and then they are trying to kill each other. There isn't any foundation of actual caring between them, so when they “switch” from being friends to enemies I was completely apathetic.
On the topic of the powers, and the lukewarm philosophy topics that they inspire, again, I didn't care. I didn't connect whatsoever with the religious angle (which, as far as I could tell, was Eli's one-and-only character trait), the general “Becoming an EO changes something about your morals and humanity” idea wasn't nearly as fleshed out as this book seemed to think it was, and certain moral questions I definitely would have like to seen explored (mainly the extremely non-consensual nature of ever single thing that Serena does with her power) were never touched.
Overall there was just not a lot of substance, and I spent a good amount of reading time hoping to get to the end already.
2.5 Stars - but honestly the more I think about it, the more frustrated I am.
This book was...interesting. It was an enjoyable enough read through the 90% of the book where I didn't know what the main thesis was supposed to be (which isn't even a positive really), and though I often found it hard to empathize with the main character in the way that the narrative seemed to want me to, I was willing to keep trying to force myself to have an open mind. Then the last two chapters of the book happened, and all of a sudden even the smallest of details that I previously liked were unimportant, or even thematically contradictory, and instead of enjoying the ending all I was thinking was that it was a badly structured and messily characterized book full of superfluous threads that didn't actually add up to anything impactful.
See, here's the crux of the issue: the narrative, with all the knowledge the ending grants, wants you to like the main character so badly, and wants you to agree with her POV so much that every “enemy” she has is a caricature of a mustache-twirling bad guy [who all gleefully murder people's pets, and then say things like "You shouldn't be sad your dogs died, they don't have souls and you're evil for mourning them"...like, who in the world would actually say that to someone who just lost a pet?!], every ally she has supports her no matter what [To the point of smuggling her out of the country when they find out that she is a serial killer. I do not understand why their devotion to her is this over-the-top.], and anyone in between those extremes are mindless drones who, according to our main character, are brainwashed robots who can't think for themselves.
A large majority of this book is spent on astrology, and I'm really grasping to understand the point of this in the end. She writes “serious” letters to the police saying that people are dying because of where the planets were when they were born – but am I, the reader, actually supposed to take her seriously? If it was intended to be taken seriously, the narrative majorly fails at convincing me of that. Similarly, the other majority of the book is spent talking about animal rights – but again, in kind of comical terms that made it difficult to suss out whether I was supposed to just suspend my disbelief and agree with her, no matter how ungrounded her assertions were, or whether she was purposefully written to sound unhinged [ It seems clear in the end that the author did actually mean for her to be the only "sane" person - all culminating in the scene in the church near the end, where she is standing up and yelling "Murderers!" at the entire congregation. Problem being is that I wasn't thinking "Yeah, you tell 'em" - I was thinking "This is weird, but kind of funny if you imagine actually witnessing this?".].
And in the end, it is revealed that she was the murderer, or was acting on behalf of the animals, but not consciously because she forgot immediately afterwards, but not really because she remembers all of it in great detail now and she was premeditating each murder in depth. Also murdering animals is evil, but her murdering people is fine? And all of her friends and acquaintances are totally okay with all of this, and they all help her escape and live a happy life.I couldn't help but think that the book would have been much more sympathetic and narratively coherent had the murders actually been committed by the animals, and the "twist" was that you were reading a bizarre dark fairy-tale all along - where animals conspire to seek revenge, the movement of the planets really did preordain everything, and it turns out that all of this woman's out-there ideas about Animal Conspiracy Theories were actually accurate. Instead we got a "who done it!" "twist" where the answer only made me retrospectively realize the amount of meandering and pandering that took place in the lead up, all to culminate in a straight-faced assertion that this woman's actions were somehow justifiable because...eating meat is bad.
Basically, any strengths this book had were revealed to be major weaknesses, and any nuance was ironed over in favor of drawing everyone in starkly black and white moralistic lines.
I feel like the only reason this book is highly rated is because the author met Ted Bundy before he was a known serial killer, because there is nothing in the content of her actual writing to justify how often this book is recommended on non-fiction/true crime lists.
On very basic levels, this is just not a very well written book. The structure is choppy, the writing style bland, the perspective lacking in any real depth or emotion, and the level of detail very shallow. The thing with non-fiction is: you still have to be a good storyteller to do the facts and reality justice, and this book just is no where near the level it should be at given how often it is referenced.
This was so freaking good! The characters were excellent, the magic was so interesting, the pacing was perfect, and that ending made me both extremely excited to read the next books and completely at a loss for what could possibly take place in them - which makes moving forward even more intriguing. Loved it!
Just a warning to potential audiobook listeners: the narration is atrocious, and the voices Cassandra Campbell gives the characters are so cartoonish and distracting.
Now for the actual book: I honestly didn't mind all the naval gazing (or rather swamp gazing) that goes on, and the way those parts are written, but that is about as much as I can say for what I enjoyed. People throw the label “Mary Sue” around way too much, and often apply it inaccurately to any female character who has any skill at all – but Kya's picture should be pasted into the dictionary next to “Mary Sue”. She magically raises herself in a swamp from the age of 6, doesn't go to school or start learning to read until she's 14 (but then learns to read after a couple of hours of being show the alphabet), somehow has never had a serious injury (she had a huge puncture wound from stepping on a nail, but magically was fine after just sticking her foot in some dirty swamp water) or illness, and seems to also have no real emotional or socialization problems despite barely interacting with people for most of her life. Oh, and of course she's extremely beautiful (but she doesn't know it, of course), she's innocent and pure (not like the other girls) but extremely mature, she has real interests like fish and birds (instead of high heels and clothes like said other girls). And that is all just when she's a child – it somehow gets worse when she's an adult!
Additionally, I found the teenage romance portion to be very...creepy. I just really hate the Born Sexy Yesterday trope, and that basically makes up the entirety of the “romance” origin story we have to go through. This extremely beautiful, wild teenager can't read, doesn't go to school, doesn't have any friends or family or connections outside of Jumpin' and Mabel, is extremely innocent and naive because she has no experience in the real world – and this older boy, basically the only person near her own age she's ever spent any time with, swoops in to teach her how to be a person, while thinking about how stunningly beautiful she is, and telling his dad that Kya is innocent and amazing (unlike other girls who are loose and shallow), and then they get naked (while she is shy and he is leading her, obviously). No thank you.
Overall, the characters were bland, the dialogue was clunky, the plot was mediocre, and no amount of pretty scientific descriptions of marshes were going to make up for the complete lack of realism in every other aspect of this book.
It wasn't terrible by any means, and it took me less than an hour and a half to read so I can't complain too much, and there were certainly little snippets and sentences that made me go “Hey, I do that!” – but in the end, I think reading books like this has just reinforced that this kind of vague philosophical, disconnected-yet-lyrical, complete-lack-of-plot-and-characters kind of novel is just not for me.
I'd say 3.5 stars for the first half, and 5 stars for the last half. This book definitely took a while to get going in a way that I didn't really experience with the first two, but the second half of this book was probably my favorite chunk in the series so far! I absolutely adore Dalinar; he is by far my favorite character, and he really has time to shine in this one. I think, even though I wasn't super into the first half of the book and think [b:Words of Radiance 17332218 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) Brandon Sanderson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507307927l/17332218.SY75.jpg 16482835] is better paced overall, I still like this book equally, if not more, purely because Dalinar wasn't around nearly enough in WoR. My second favorite character coming into this book was probably Shallan, but I have to say I did not love the multiple-personality storyline here very much. As for the more grand scale plot stuff, I absolutely loved the explorations and reveals about the world (and beyond). Any mysterious magic or setting is just so interesting to me, and there was plenty of that to chew on here.Very excited that I am almost caught up with these books and then can impatiently await the next one alongside everyone else!
Pretty disappointing, especially given the positive reviews. There were about 40 simple ways that this book could have been improved, from thematic balls that were dropped between the two timelines, to the lack of successful world-building, to the failure of emotional resonance. Basically, good idea, bad execution.
4.5 stars.
This was such a strong continuation of the story, with a huge amount of plot momentum propelling us forward, more additional layers and insights into this world and its people, and some excellent character work focusing on Shallan. Adolin, Pattern, Sebarial, and Eshonai were also very well built-upon (in Adolin's case) or introduced (for the other three). I definitely missed Dalinar's more in-depth involvement, though I do know that he is a focus of the next book, which I am very excited for. Kaladin, while still giving me the highest highs of excitement with his triumphs, and the lowest lows of anger and betrayal when things don't go well for him, did re-tread some emotional ground throughout this book, which knocked some points off of my enjoyment. It was clearly purposeful, as he gets involved in a clearly-wrong plot to kill the King and betray Dalinar's trust in him, Shallan confronts him about his attitude and judgement issues, and he got majorly punished by the universe with Syl's temporary loss -- which all leads to him finally snap out of his wishy-washy feelings in regards to his gifts.
I am extremely invested in this story and I am in it for the long haul, that is for sure. Can't wait to pick up the next book!
Just as warm and comfortable as the first book, but this time with more baseball — and as a person who used to be obsessed with baseball, that was an enjoyable cherry on top!
The strength of this series 100% rests on the shoulders of these characters, with some support by the world building and lore, and that is the strongest part of this book along with the plot ending/semi-ending we are given—and while I love what was shown and given to us here, I do think there was something lost in diluting the cast with so many constantly-changing POVs and the condensed timeline this book takes place within. I love these characters, but condensing everything to 10 days and short 1/4-chapters-per-POV at a time with them did not feel like the best version of structure for this story to me. Additionally, I think this is the first time I have been genuinely distracted by the more modern-colloquial prose this series has taken on. I re-read TWoK this summer, and there is a noticeable shift in the linguistic atmosphere that I don't really enjoy as much in comparison to the first book.
That all being said, I still feel this is a solid 4 stars for this series. My favorite part of TWoK was Dalinar's visions of the past, and my favorite part of RoW was the explorations in the Cognative Realm—so getting multiple characters exploring the Spiritual Realm and the history of Roshar and the Cosmere were excellent. Additionally, I absolutely loved Renarin and Rlain's storyline through this book (I was literally Shallan in that one scene, jumping up and down clapping at their union), and very very much still enjoyed following Dalinar's journey from beginning to end.
Shallan, despite being one of my favorite characters in the series overall, definitely feels extraneous in this volume in particular—especially because I have never cared for the Ghostbloods subplot, and that was quite literally all she did this book. Honestly, a victim of the 10-day timeline this story takes place over.
On a different side of things in this map, if anything is true throughout this first 5 books of this series, it's that Kaladin's arc is the strongest and best overall. His character has grown, and regressed, and grown, and regressed, and grown—all in such believable fashion that I feel like, despite diluted POVs in this volume, he is still the heart and soul of this series. His and Syl's progression of whatever their relationship/dynamic is was beautiful, and his kindness and empathy with Szeth and the Heralds was so well realized after everything that he has been through and learned. A+ there.
Overall: I feel for sure that this is more of a Part 5/10 than it is a Part 5/5, and genuinely hope that in the years before BrandoSando starts on Part 6 that something reverts back to TWoK-era prose and pacing/focus within POVs, but there is no denying that this was a strong and interesting chapter in the Stormlight's overall plot and progression. I'm curious to see how it it eventually looks in retrospect once it is truly only the halfway point in the series, but for now I feel that it was a satisfying semi-conclusion to this part of the story.
DNF at 15%. I could tell immediately that the writing was very clunky and stilted, but thought I'd still try and give it a chance since the concept seemed campy and fun — but very very quickly became clear that this was not just awkwardly written, but was also full-on instalove (quite literally one scene after the intro, we are five months in the future and our POV character won't shut up about The Villain's lips), clumsy girl with question marks for a personality, dialogue straight out of a bad Hallmark movie, no humor that was hitting whatsoever, etc. It's a no from me.
This was such a great read! The pacing was excellent, the characters were all super enjoyable, the world is revealing itself in well-spaced and very intriguing tidbits, and the ending left me extremely eager for more. Can't wait to continue this series, and the accompanying series set in this world!
I don't feel like I can give this book 3 stars because even though there were elements that I enjoyed (The Stranger, some of the trials, some of the prose), I can't ignore that the flashbacks to the actual romance that led to this “I can't live without my soulmate, and I'll do anything to fix it” journey were not doing it for me whatsoever. She instantly fell in love at first sight with literally the first man she's ever been alone with, he likes her because...she's beautiful, and he can teach this clueless beauty about the real world I guess? Idk, I just didn't care about their dynamic at all, so was hard to bring that history into the Present Day chapters without feeling like this was all based on how a person feels when they are 11 and have their first major crush in Middle School because someone smiled at them.
So yeah, I definitely enjoyed the Present Day chapters way more than the flashback chapters, but given that is only half the book—and the Present Day chapters definitely had some issues with multiple deux ex machinas—I just can't justify higher.
Took me months and I kind of hated the book, but then I kept reading and learned that “Bella” also hated this book so...I guess I just hated the book-within-the-book, but liked the actual book quite a lot? It's confusing.
Why was this so good when it definitely didn't need to be! As a fan of super long books I wasn't expecting much out of this novella interlude, but was pleasantly surprised at how much I identified with Lilith, and how excited I was to get further growth and details in the world building — seeing the human continent and the dynamics with the other gods, hearing about the continent we spent Book 1 in from an outside perspective, gaining insight into the science vs. magic of this world, etc. were all really well done in a short amount of pages.
If I have one minor demerit, it's that I do think that Vale, as a romantic partner and a character in his own right, definitely needs further development—I don't think I could tell you much about him aside from that he was a recluse for a couple hundred years and he has a beard—but I have enough optimism from every other aspect of this little tale that I trust that his personality/role will be fleshed out more in the future.