Maryn

Het is bijna onmogelijk om een aantal sterren te geven aan zo'n persoonlijk verhaal. En toch doe ik het maar, want ja, er is altijd objectief iets te zeggen over de kwaliteit van een boek. Een prijs voor beste structuur, schrijfstijl, of inhoud wint het voor mij niet, maar toch was dit boek het zeker waard om te lezen.

Ik wist nog niets van Eva voordat ik dit boek las. Nee, ik weet het, zij was best bekend voor zowel haar sociale media als haar deelname in het programma Over Mijn Lijk, maar hier kwam ik pas achter nadat ik aan dit boek was begonnen. Dat was gelijk pittig, want ik leerde zo al snel dat zij niet meer onder ons was. Dan lees je het toch net even wat anders.

Longeneeslijk is een collectie van perspectieven - het meeste is geschreven door Eva zelf, en haar ervaringen met het leven terwijl je weet dat je ongeneeslijk ziek bent. Maar onder andere haar moeder, man, en vriendin, voegen ook hun eigen waardevolle perspectieven toe.

Voor mij voelt alles wel net even te oppervlakking. Er zit weinig diepgang in hoe haar ervaringen en die van haar naasten worden beschreven. Dit had van mij wat uitgebreider en een stuk dieper gemogen, dan was het een nog krachtiger boek geweest.

Rust zacht, Eva.

6/10 - Still really enjoyable, but missing the spark the first book has. The subplots weren't my favourites and I feel like The Red Circle had a more solid plot and structure than this sequel.

Ik ben bekend met Patrick Martens sinds ZOOP. Vanaf dat moment is hij één van mijn favoriete personen op TV. Make Up Your Mind, WIDM, Het Perfecte Plaatje, ga zo maar door - ik zit er naar te kijken, fingers crossed, met de hoop dat hij wint. Toen ik zag dat hij een boek had uitgebracht, ook nog eens door hemzelf voorgelezen, kon ik het niet laten om het te lezen.

En om blijkbaar voor het eerst iets te leren over de echte Patrick Martens.

Het is moeilijk om te horen hoe iemand die altijd zo vrolijk, open en vriendelijk overkomt, zóveel heeft meegemaakt en zó met zichzelf heeft gezeten. De verhalen in dit boek gaan niet alleen over Patrick, maar ook vele bekenden komen er in voor, waaronder mijn favorieten Ellie Lust en Envy Peru. Hun ervaringen op het gebied van geaardheid en (zelf)acceptatie en discriminatie zorgen voor een variatie aan perspectieven en ervaringen die dit boek nog meer diepgang geven.

Ik hoop dat we op een dag in een wereld leven waarin je zo verschuilen en overcompenseren niet meer benodigd is, en dat zelfacceptatie een natuurlijk iets wordt. Dit boek is een eerlijk en kwetsbaar inzicht wat niet iedereen zou durven om zo open en bloot te publiceren.

7/10. Kort, krachtig, en betekenisvol in de maatschappij van nu.

Ew, it's beautiful describes this collection of short comics perfectly. The art is gorgeous and it offers a nice variety of comics, so you definitely won't get bored going through it! I don't think all of them are winners -some I really didn't get, but others I want to frame and hang in my house to look at forever.

6/10 - Gorgeous art, funny, sometimes deep, will make you a fan of seagulls.
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Thank you, Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley, for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm so sad I'm caught up with this series :( It doesn't fully feel like a final installment and I had hoped that there would be more books! The world, characters, plot - everything is very well written and engaging.

I thought that especially the beginning chapters were very strong (moreso compared to the second book). I love the tarot themes and how Sherlock learns more and more about his past. The subplots here also felt like they actually added to the story and weren't just filler.

7/10 - Recommended to anyone who likes mysteries and (modern) Sherlock. Very underrated!

"Perhaps today is the day."

What an amazing sequel to The Crimes of Rooker Flynn. It feels exactly as a sequel should - starting right where we left off in the first novel, developing characters, and moving the story forward to yet another ending that will make you look at your copy of the book in shock. Why? Because now, you surely have to read the last book to know how this will end.

The Trial mentioned in the title is both one mentally and physically. Rooker is still in the Locke Institute, having just betrayed his one and only ally, and still longing for the Venture Brigand more than anything else in the world. Throughout the story, Rooker has to learn what is truly important to him. The character development is wonderfully executed, feels natural, and will make you understand his mind and choices much more than in the first installment.

A sequel is always difficult - it is the bridge between the beginning and the end, and can fall into the trap of being nothing more than that - but it didn't feel that way at all while reading this book. The goal is clear, the stakes high, the characters interesting. Plenty of what was brought up in the first book gets resolved or elaborated upon, while also leaving enough open to leave you wondering how it's going to affect the story in the final novel.

In my review of The Crimes of Rooker Flynn I mentioned that you don't need to read The Legend of Black Jack before diving into this trilogy, which I still hold to be true, but you may want to read it before this sequel. It's still not necessary, but I believe it may be useful in helping you to fully appreciate the story and the world of Keymark.

I can honestly only recommend it. I cannot usually picture scenes clearly, but these stories feel like I'm watching a full-on series in my mind. It's a grand adventure, and I am very much looking forward to the final part of this trilogy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Nepenthe House for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review

This book neatly wraps up the trilogy by answering a couple of questions that were unanswered in the first two: what happened to Snow? Where is the book? Will she finish her next novel?
As much as it answers, the ending was SUCH a surprise. No way this is how you end a trilogy, right?

I would have been really upset with the ending of this book if I hadn't found out through other reviews here that there is an entire other series (The Withering Mysteries) that continues after this one! One one hand I really don't like that this series has such an open ending, but I can forgive it because I love that I now have three extra books with these characters.

My critique from the earlier books still stands - although there is a mystery, there is nothing in the writing that helps you figure it out. Who has the book, what happened to Snow... things like that are only spelled (hehe) out for you, but you are not meant to know before Paige does. I wish it was more of a mystery where you can actually infer from clues what is going on, but that's just not the kind of series this is, it seems.

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7/10 - I have such a soft spot for these books

“Every book is a little mirror, and sometimes you look into it and see someone else looking back.”

Legends & Lattes

specifically

“People always say that your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, but honestly, people should try solving murders more often.”

Vera Wong is the star of the show in this lighthearted whodunit. She is the owner of Vera Wang's World Famous Tea Shop, neither belonging to Vera Wang nor at all world famous. Her shop is failing and Vera is lonely, having lost her husband and having a son that does not seem to appreciate her, well, motherly texts and calls.

Her life changes when suddenly, a man turns up dead in her tea shop. Finally, something exciting is happening in her life, and Vera decides to play detective. She has seen CSI, and thus obviously knows more than the police about how to properly investigate.

More than a whodunit in search of the murderer, this book turns into a search for healing and family, and how to deal with wrongdoings that have been done to you and starting a new chapter in your life.
It's wholesome, with plenty of funny moments, but also touches on some serious topics.

The murder mystery aspect of the story could have been a bit more fleshed out. Honestly, there are only a handful of characters in this book, and most of them can be eliminated from the suspect list pretty early on, leaving you with only one possible culprit. I don't mind it too much, even though I love to be surprised by who actually did it, but this book offers so much more than just a detective-working-a-case plot.

Can't wait for the sequel!

I picked this book up because I really liked the premise - a writer gets cancelled for lying about seeing ghosts, and then ends up actually being able to see them. This short book included a lot more magic(al creatures) than I expected, but the magic system so far seems a bit underdeveloped, but who knows! It felt like the prologue to a larger plotline, so that may improve in the sequels.

At the centre, this is supposed to be a murder mystery, but the mystery wasn't my favourite. I wish there were more solid clues throughout the story to be able to figure it out. The resolution felt too quick, and the culprit lacked a solid motive.

6/10 - Felt underdeveloped, but I will still check out the rest of the series!

“It's my life, I think with amazement, and it's beautiful, and I can paint it any color I want to.”

I Am Not Jessica Chen

so well

“Well, shit. Milky bean water. I'll be damned.”

A story about an adventurer that stops adventuring to open up a coffee shop instead. It's cute, cosy, and very low-stakes. Everything goes a little too smoothly, conflict is resolved a little too easily to be a pageturner or an I'll-think-about-this-story-for-weeks kind of experience. Still worth it if you don't want to read something too intense, but doesn't really have much else too offer.

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens."

I really had a hard time with this book. I had to switch from the e-book to the audiobook version at times because just reading the e-book felt like moving through quicksand - I was trying to move ahead but I was getting nowhere fast. A lot of the contents of this book can be summed up as 'walking and talking' - nothing truly happens and if about 40% of the story would have been cut, nothing would be missed.

It definitely has its moments and has beautiful prose and poetry, and lessons we can still learn from today.

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."

And more than anything, this feels like just the set-up. Like the preamble to a dark and eventful journey yet to come. It's only the beginning of the path to Mordor. I am excited to see where it goes, and hope it will be a little bit more eventful than what this first book in the trilogy has to offer.

I want to end this review by saying Sam Gamgee is everything. What a cutie, a 10/10 friend.

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7/10 - looking at it with a modern eye, it's far from perfect. The real adventure is yet ahead.

I may have gotten into this with the wrong expectations. I thought this was going to be a mystery, but it ended up being anything but that. There's nothing to deduce, no clues to collect. It's steeped in culture and folklore which is great, but as a story it did nothing for me. The ending is confusing, and the whole thing only really works if you read it as a fairytale.

4/10 - not the worst, but disappointed me with how much wasted potential this story has.

I think the faeries may have enchanted my reading experience, because I enjoyed this novel so, so much.

Emily Wilde is an academic, and one of the best in her field - that being the study of faeries. She is writing an encyclopaedia on faeries and her work takes her to a very cold corner of the world - not only the climate, but also the people are rather chilly about her arrival. The story follows her and her fellow scholar Wendell Bambleby, who Emily may or may not like very much, as they try to learn about the faeries whilst also trying to build rapport with the local people and help them with their magical problems.

I love the formatting of this book - it is essentially written like a journal, and includes many footnotes and lore throughout, adding to the worldbuilding and general immersion. Never did I feel like having faeries in this world was odd or underdeveloped. They are a natural part of this world and the fact that we are learning about them alongside Emily, as even faeries don't know everything about themselves, was very interesting.

The characters are all great, obviously Emily and Wendell stand out a lot. I love the relationship they have and the dialogue between them was always a treat . I do feel like some characters were moved to the background a bit too much near the end, and I wish we could have seen more development for them.

Also, if you are someone bothered by slow pacing in books - you may not enjoy this much in the earlier chapters. It's a cosy read, and it takes its time to get going. As the story progresses, it does pick up the pace much more, so it's not bad at all.

Some questions have yet to be answered and it's so clear that this was just the first stop in a mystical journey for Emily, so I can't wait to get started on the next one!

Prankster: ★★★☆☆Kids at Play: ★☆☆☆☆Find Player 2!: ★★☆☆☆
Average: ★★☆☆☆

Prankster: I love how open to interpretation this one is! Very intriguing and I love that the main character, for ONCE, isn't an absolute douche.

Kids at Play: Oh... and we're back to a cookie-cutter douchey MC. This could've been the younger version of Matt from In The Flesh - it's basically the same character. The only reason I am rating it this low, is because what happens doesn't make any sense to me. I know it's supernatural, but... what happens doesn't seem connected well to the rest of the story. It felt very random, in my opinion.

Find Player 2!: I love that this one is veryyy different. I'm not sure if there is anything supernatural about what happened, but I didn't mind it missing that aspect. It's quite sad and descriptive, and I think it is one of the better-written stories in this series so far.

Friendly Face: ★★★☆☆Sea Bonnies: ★★☆☆☆Together Forever: ★★★★☆Average: ★★★☆☆

Friendly Face: Weird, creepy, sad. Nothing new and not Scott's best, but still a decent read!

Sea Bonnies: I had a realllyyyy hard time imagining the sea bonnies. Fazbear Entertainment in these books is just WILD - fazgoo, sea bonnies, gumdrop people... Just go back to making animatronics, please! This story felt like a mash-up of In The Flesh and Gumdrop Angel. It wasn't too bad, and I like that we actually have a main character who TELLS people what is going on. It's just... Sea bonnies, man. I can't get behind that concept.

Together Forever: Definitely the best one in the book! Feels very in-universe with some main characters that I actually feel bad for. Harrowingly detailed.

The Accidental Medium follows Tanz, an actress who is in a bit of a career slump, and has to make ends meet by working in a new age shop. Here, she learns she actually has some pretty powerful abilities. As she becomes more well-versed in using her innate spiritual talents, it does not only able to allow her to help others, but also gets her in a heap of trouble.

There is not really an overarching plot - Tanz moves from job to job, helping people and spirits move on peacefully, while still trying to continue her career as an actress. The stakes do get higher near the end, but I feel like it could have been developed a bit better. Also includes the figuring-out-new-powers-on-the-spot in the end which is, to me, always a bit of a letdown.

I see a lot of criticism for the characters in the other reviews, saying the language used is crude, that the main character judges everyone for their weight, etc. I actually liked that no character is an actual saint and that some are struggling with very real issues. There's nothing crazy about an older actress looking at younger women with a judgmental eye. Should it make you uncomfortable? Well, yeah. But it's realistic and adds to her as a person - what she has been through and what she has been taught to care about.

I'd recommend this to anyone who is in for a cosy read without too many twists and turns. I listened to the audiobook, which is also read by Tracy Whitwell herself, and I do think it adds to my appreciation of the story, as there would be no better voice for Tanz.

The Puppet Carver: ★★☆☆☆Jump For Tickets: ★★☆☆☆Pizza Kit: ★★★☆☆☆Average: ★★☆☆☆

The Puppet Carver I like that it's pretty open to interpretation, but that also made it less impactful than it could have been.
Jump for Tickets all the Fazbear Frights tropes in one story. I feel like I've read five different stories in this series that are exactly the same.
Pizza Kit Gross, icky, don't read while eating (pizza). I like the ending and that it wasn't too predictable. To me, it's the strongest story in this collection.

Gumdrop Angel: ★★★☆☆Sergio's Lucky Day: ★★★☆☆What We found: ★★☆☆☆Average: ★★★☆☆

Gumdrop Angel: started out formulaic and seemed like many of the earlier stories, but I really felt for Angel and what she was going through. I don't understand the logistics of what exactly happened to her, but hey, that's FNaF for ya! Really liked Dominic as a character too - the way that his role in the entire situation is left unanswered leaves it pretty open for interpretation.

Sergio's Lucky Day: Sergio is one of those FNaF main characters that deserves everything coming to him. A perfect ‘starting of innocent and spiralling into insanity' situation, with a lesson for everyone - never take what you have for granted.

What We Found: Poor Hudson! Another main character that just really needs to catch a break but never gets it. Solid story that suffers a bit from being the third one and not being as impactful as the other two.

The House in the Cerulean Sea features the perfect amount of wholesomeness without becoming saccharine.

This is the story of Linus Baker - someone stuck in a job and following the motions without ever questioning why and how things are done the way they are. Something a lot of us can relate to, I assume. Linus is challenged on his every belief when he is finally put in a situation that forces him to see his profession and the accompanying rules and regulations from a different perspective, and it changes him forever.

The characters are all interesting and worth getting to know. The lessons it imparts important for everybody to hear - focussing on topics such as prejudice and (self)-acceptance . The romance is cute and gradual. It is a cosy read, meaning no intense conflict or anything of the like. That would usually make me like a story less, but in this case, it feels like a pie baked with just exactly the right amount of ingredients to make it taste exactly right.

The starlight didn't shine so bright, unfortunately.

If you love your fantasy to be as non-immersive as possible due to such wonderful anachronistic dialogue as, for example, “princesplaining”, “thick thighs save lives”, and “book boyfriends are simply better”, this book is for you.

For me, it ripped me straight out of the world it tries to build right back into feeling like I was reading someone's first attempt at a romantasy after reading only fanfiction. The worldbuilding is weak, with stereotypical and flat adversaries. So much is left unexplained, with whole chapters from a different perspective of someone who did not matter AT ALL to the plot, just to set up a sequel and to increase the word count.

And the biggest sin of all: Suraya's final words to the villain are "Go fuck yourself". What?? Is she a twelve year old? Amalie, you can't tell me you couldn't think of anything more badass and unique for your MC to say in that moment? Very, very anticlimactic.

I hoped it would be better, but alas :(

"Sometimes, all an old lady wants is a murder to solve. Is that too much to ask for?"

Vera Wong is such a funny and iconic character. She was hilarious in the first book and didn't lose her shine at all in this sequel. I loved the new cast of characters, the mystery (heartbreaking!), and that it includes a lot of issues pertinent to modern society.

9/10 - if you liked the first one, you'll love this one. I hope that there will be many more Vera Wong adventures in the future!

"The very presence of a mask tells us there is something behind it. And so, the very act of deception is itself a revelation."

This novel offers such a wonderfully classic mystery vibe, with a resolution that will make your head spin—in a good way. A haunted house where, one by one, the guests end up dying? A cast of suspicious characters with hidden motives? Murders committed in such a way that only those most knowledgeable in the art of locked-room mysteries can figure it out?
If you like novels like And Then There Were None, you will definitely enjoy this book.

“But whatever you do, don't let on that a member of their weekend party is a suspected murderer.”

Poirot

"She wasn't a child and resented all the emotions this "adventure" was stirring up in her. This was exactly why she avoided getting close to people or opening up. All it brought was pain, and she didn't need that. Stability was her refuge."

Arleta Starstone is a talented confectionist that unfortunately doesn't get the respect or recognition she deserves. Discriminated against on the daily for being magicless and barely getting by because of it, Arleta gets the opportunity of a lifetime after receiving an invitation to the prestigious Langheim Baking Battle. The only problem? Magicless are very much looked down upon in this competition as well. Throughout the Baking Battle, Arleta has to undo years of telling herself that nobody can love or care for her when they find out that she has no magic.

Arleta is a wonderful main character. She can be upsetting and frustrating, but at all times I understood her hesitation to open up or accept that she, too, has a place in this world.

Her personal growth is at the centre of the story. We only meet a few of her contestants and the baking challenges are simple and concluded in short chapters. It's not a bad thing, because it's not really what the story is about. But if you are looking for an intense competition, know that this isn't that kind of story.

It's cosy, cute, and I love all the characters we get to meet. Especially Jez and Doli are stand-out characters. I do wish we got a bit more physical descriptions of these characters. They are continuously referred to as “the fennex” and “the dwarf”, but I really don't have a good grasp on what they actually look like.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in cosy reads and cute romances!

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Thank you to NetGalley and Poised Pen Press for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.