Nathalie

In short: a team of six very different people get together to pull off an impossible heist.

Quite the pageturner! I finished it more quickly than I usually would. I loved the dynamic between the characters and I liked most of them in general. Each of them (well, five of them) get their own POV chapters, so that made for a great way for you to get to know them. They're all also very different, so there's bound to be one or two you might be drawn more to, and to others less.

So yes, a very enjoyable read even if just for the characters alone. They're a fun bunch! I didn't always care for what was happening in the story itself, but I was already invested so it was easy to get through those parts.

A beautiful little story (with the most beautiful cover) only enhanced by some really great and soothing narration that really sets the mood for the entire book.
Also, Katsu the clockwork octopus is the most adorable thing and I would totally let it steal my socks all the goddamn time.

This started out as a definite 4 stars and by the end I felt like it felt more like a 3 rating, but I'm rounding up. EDIT 11/08: Eh, I ended up rounding down after some more thought.

I appreciate that the story and setting was easy to get into. The characters though? I thought they were fine. But only fine. I liked Kell, but I took a really long time warming up to Lila, and everything else I never really warmed up to.
And while it was easy to get into, I found the story to be just okay. Nothing super exciting.

An enjoyable read, but not enjoyable enough to really look into its sequels.

It has been eight months since I finished this book, and what I've learned from this experience is that I should never TBD a review and instead just do it immediately, as it is a certainty I just end up postponing it to the point that it's not even useful anymore.

I barely remember it, but the things I do remember were great. I liked Davian, the main character, but I got less interested in him from a specific plot point. I was very intrigued with Caedan. The plot points (and certain twists) were interesting.

Don't think I'll be continuing the trilogy though. I'm not reading enough as it is, so that's only reserved for obsessions :D Though I do recommend the book!

19/08/2021
It took me months but we made it! RTC when I have time.

It feels strangely good to be emotionally traumatized again.

The first third was a bit slow, but once it gets going, it gets going. I can only imagine the next two are going to be really great, since they get to build off of this one.

As an aside, if you're going through the Realms of the Elderlings series for the first time, I highly recommend you read the Liveship Traders trilogy first before jumping into this one (instead of going directly to this right after Assassin's Quest). It gives tons of background information, gets referenced every now and then, and maybe most importantly, it makes the time that has passed in between books feel more natural.

Okay, so, technically I loved everything about it. I absolutely LOVED the humor, I loved the idea of it and the world and the robots and finally realizing that this is where the “42” thing came from.

Though, at the same time, I think that I overhyped it a bit for myself, since it kind of lost me somewhere halfway and I started losing interest, so this was definitely the right length for me. I loved the beginning though, and I was super into it, but ultimately I wasn't as into the rest of it as much as I wished I was.

I am very glad to have read (or rather listened) to it though! It does feel very much like a “must-listen” and I thought the narration was very excellent!

One day, 23 year old Martin Banks finds a giant text file in which he's able to do things like change people's height, his current location and manipulate time. When he uses it a bit too much to increase the money in his bank account, the police are onto him and he sees no other way out than to escape to Medieval England where he pretends to be a wizard.

Everything about this book is relatively straightforward. The story isn't very complicated and the writing style is very simple and easy to get into. The narration by Luke Daniels elevated this book immensely. It was perfection. It brought some more humor that might not have been as good when reading on a page.

As a fun lighthearted read you don't require that much of, it's great. It is over 10 hours long when listening though, and that was just a little too long for me, because I think it could have been shortened down. There were a few times I started losing interest, and then other times in the book that I was super into it.
I'm not sure I'll be checking out the sequels, since I think this stands on its own and I have no dire need to get more out of these characters.

Enjoyable and quite intriguing. There's a few stories that really work, and some that make less of an impact. Stories that are fairly straightforward, and stories for which you may need to look up other people's interpretations of them (I may be guilty of this).

I don't think i'm that big of a fan of his writing style, but it was still easy to get lost in some of the worlds that Gaiman was able to create from within a few pages.
My favorites were definitely the shorter ones. The longer ones were intriguing and interesting, but often also very drawn out, and I felt the shorter stories therefore left much more of an impact by the time they ended. My favorite of them may have been “A Calendar Of Tales”.

I liked the story. I liked the flashbacks. I liked Sabetha.

I really liked the dialogue, and certain lines in general. I found myself highlighting more than usual.

This book made me a bit “meh” on Locke as that relationship really just drags his character down. They're hinting that there's something more behind his very obsessive infatuation but booooooy. I like her but she has no idea what she wants and is absolutely not worth waiting for. (I feel like a parent sometimes)

It's also a bit too bad that the cat-and-mouse game in the book isn't all that present (or even just happens behind the scenes). Instead we got Locke and Jean constantly being thrown for a loop, which got tiring after the third time of that happening.

I think there could have been more fun with the politics aspect of it, which is a sentence that you don't hear me say often. Election-rigging! Come on! I just missed the scheming in general.

The first two thirds were very strong. The last third (coincidentally) focused a bit more on the Locke/Sabetha aspect and that may be why I wasn't as interested. The note on which the book ended was great though. Overall, I liked it a lot! Just a few things that left me a teensy bit annoyed.

In a way, it's sort of “more of the same” compared to its predecessor Six Of Crows, but just with a little bit more of everything. Though I didn't think it flowed as well as the previous one, it was still pretty enjoyable and you get to know the characters you already liked a bit better. Among which my boys Jesper and Wylan. :) I felt the death at the end was a tad unnecessary though? I'm not sure what it accomplished so close to the end, but then again I didn't particularly care about the character.

Overall this was quite an enjoyable read, but I feel like it was slightly too long and at the same time also slightly too short. I feel like it ends kind of abruptly and therefore I had a harder time caring about Nakari's death
I also was a bit put off by the first person narrative when I first started it, but I stopped noticing it by the end.

I really liked this one! This was my first new canon book set closer to the prequel trilogy than the original trilogy, and I loved that the Empire and its characters were at the center of it. It's set around 8 years after Revenge of the Sith, so both Darth Vader and the Emperor aren't all that known in all parts of the galaxy, so these people think they can take on Vader (and the Emperor) and have no idea they're doomed.
I also liked the other things that were going on. Mors and Belkor were both great characters, and at times I had no idea whom of them I wanted more to survive (though I definitely made up my mind by the end). The Twi'lek stuff was interesting as well, though I didn't particularly care about their characters. But their point of view was interesting.
I have yet to see the Star Wars: Rebels series, but knowing Cham's daughter is in it (and he might show up at one point), made me want to start it even more.

Man, I was a bit disappointed with this one.

This one does everything you'd expect it does - give more insights into Tarkin as a character, his relation to the Emperor and Darth Vader (the latter which I find the most interesting aspect of it, because people generally have no idea who Vader is behind the mask, but Tarkin figures it out).

I find it just pretty boring overall. I had trouble getting myself to finish it even when I wasn't halfway the book yet, and I probably wouldn't have if this had had no relation to Star Wars.

Robin Hobb is quite the master of the slow burn. This entire book is basically just there to set up the characters and their history and their motivations, and only at the end it all comes crashing down. Sort of. A bunch of things happen right before the end and then it's over.
I'm not sure I'd be jumping with excitement to get to the sequel if it hadn't been for the Realm of the Elderlings connection, but I hear it gets really great, and the characters are all pretty well developed (even if I don't like a great deal of them), and I am actually pretty curious on where it's all going next.

This has all the ingredients of a book I could see myself obsessing over. A great group of friends, on a mission, mixed in with some humor and a lot of drama. Unfortunately what I missed was a bit more depth to it.

There's a lot of events in which things go unexplained because I feel like they just can't. (How did the Tailor know where they were going to be?) and a lot of what are normally pretty traumatic events are very much glossed over afterwards (There's a few days of torture which they talk about afterwards as just a thing that happened) and then other things I would have liked to see but we didn't because Falcio wasn't there to see it (Kest defeating the Saint).

If any of the above things were handled with a bit more care, I would be all over this book and this series.

However, I do like the three main characters and their dynamic (even if I want to see it fleshed out a bit more) but that might be something that any of the sequels fix. I am going to check out Knight's Shadow in the near future.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.

This is just such an excellent example of long-running series and storylines introduced long ago finally coming full-circle. Getting answers to questions asked from even the very first trilogy. Characters finally getting their due and finishing their individual story in such a satisfying way.

I always feel guilty for wanting more of this series, because every time you think Fitz' life can't get any worse, it does. So I am very very very nervous (excited too, of course, but mostly nervous!) for Assassin's Fate, as I very much fear of what that fate is going to entail.

Loved this! As with most books, there are a couple of chapters that fall a bit short and then others I really liked. I think my favorites were definitely the more serious ones whereas the more comedic ones didn't quite work as well for me. Though I loved the last chapter the most, which was read in front of an audience, and that interaction with the audience made it even more awesome.

I think all books that are narrated by their own author and are personal to the author, should be read as an audiobook to get an even better experience reading it. This one was no exception. Amy is great, but all the guest appearances are fun too. And there's even some clips from Parks and Rec!
I would most definitely recommend if you like Amy Poehler, because otherwise there's no point. :)

This story follows Zare Leonis, who is a character that originated in the Star Wars: Rebels series, and though his story is lightly touched upon, we never see the resolution to his story. This series of books is looking to change that.
I find it really interesting so far, and I'm assuming it only gets more interesting from here. I like Zare a lot, and this will make me look differently at him whenever I see his Rebels episodes again.

Alright, where to begin.

First off, I find giving this 2 stars a tiny bit cruel (as it is well written), but I just did not care about any of it.

The story is about Kvothe (whom is telling his life's story, so there's a mix of the present and the past). I quite get that most of us paint ourselves in a better light than we actually are when recounting events, but not so much that it becomes utterly ridiculous. Kvothe is amazing at everything. He's slaying records left and right, creating legends and stories about him on his first day, has no problems with whatever task he is set out to do. Every woman he ever meets is the most beautiful being on Earth, and luckily he can quite often come to their rescue so of course he is also quite adored.

Mind you, Kvothe is not without his ~flaws. He's lived on the streets for a long time when he was young, he's very poor (they beat you over the head with his one), he also immediately squanders his money whenever he gets some, and he can be quite stupid.
The worst thing though, is that he can be incredibly obnoxious and pretentious at times, and it's no wonder so many other students and teachers can't stand him.

None of these things were apparent at the start of the story though, and I'm not sure what about it made me unable to really get into it. Because I quite like first person POVs (if well done). They can make it easier for me to really get into and understand the character. Yet for some reason in this case it just felt very distant, and I never felt that connection. It might have been because the story is being told to us, rather than happening in current time, but I don't really know.

There's other little things too. I mentioned that they beat us over the head with the fact that Kvothe is poor. They mention at least three times that “You wouldn't understand if you've never been poor” and it just comes across as really condescending. The exact same sentence also appears, but it's replaced with “if you've never been a musician”. It's just weird.
The chapters also frequently end with some ominous sentence like “This would be the last time this guy would tell this story” or “Too bad I'd never see him again”, and sure, such things are quite effective when used moderately. But after the third time in a short while it just makes me roll my eyes. I realize that these specific things are purely nitpicking though.

Aside from Kvothe, I found not much other things to like. Surprisingly, I actually quite liked Denna. Her character isn't ~nice, but I find her interesting. I do not like the pedestal Kvothe puts her on though, or how absurdly obsessive he tends to get.
I'm sure there's other things that were fine, but I can't seem to think of them right now.

Though more oriented towards managers and business owners instead of employees, this was still an interesting read. I've known Scrum in theory for a while, and haven't had the chance to put it to practice yet (should be soon). It's nice to get into the origins of it, by one of its creators.

Wow. This is a really hard book to describe, both in story and style. Parts of it are in second person (you get used to that pretty quickly) and there's some uses of narrative that are pretty unique and great ways in which different storylines come together.
However, I do think that I need more time to think about it more to truly appreciate it because I'm not sure I fully get and understand everything that happened in it. Granted, there's a sequel, so that may have been the point, but I do feel a bit disconnected from the book and I'm not sure I'm interested in checking out its follow-up at this moment. Maybe someday, because I did find it very intriguing.

I wasn't into it from the start, but it did get better pretty quickly.

We follow 3 POVs in this book - Kaden, Valyn, and Adare. Unfortunately though, the only POV I found interesting was Valyn's (cadet school, murder mystery, great side characters, Annick <3), which luckily was also the biggest part of the book. Kaden's story only got more interesting towards the end, and Adare's never got that great at all.
Overall I did enjoy this way more than I thought I would, but I'm not super invested in its world beyond this book.

Aside from that nothing really jumps out, except that sometimes it had the tendency to take multiple pages to explain a new term that would appear in the dialogue, which in turn took me out of the story for a bit. Nothing too bad, but definitely noticeable.

Okay so, overall I loved this. At the start and all the way towards the middle I mentally had already put this in the four star-range, but then towards the end I just got a bit frustrated with everyone's actions (or lack of actions) and how overly lengthy some parts were.

I like the story. I actually like Frankenstein (in a way that I find him very interesting, even if extremely flawed). And I like the questions it gives you about life.
But it just got very muddled towards the end. It started to lose me a bit during The Creature's tale which went on a bit too long, and then when Victor finally decided to take some action against the creature, and didn't realize what exactly the Creature had meant with "I will be there on your wedding night". Why oh why wouldn't you suspect that he wouldn't just harm you?? Also, how disrespectful towards Elizabeth to promise to tell her everything the day after their wedding, so if she wanted to back out after hearing it all, she couldn't.Also, as sorry as I felt for Victor overall, man, he sure didn't think things through. As soon as The Creature was created and he wasn't what he had expected, he just goes "screw this, I'm outta here" and leaves it there and then that's it. I was fine with that, because for him it was a surprise for him and like, what do you do in that situation, but that sort of inaction went on for way too long and it got very frustrating, I thought.

I do have to say, I am very glad I read/listened to this. I'm slightly interested in the classic gothic horror stories, but especially with Penny Dreadful, it's fun to get more into them. And this is still my favorite of the (albeit few) ones I've read by far.
I also love how much Penny Dreadful took from this (because of the adaptations I've seen, it's amazing how many just plain ignored a lot of stuff concerning The Creature). Especially him asking for a companion and being able to speak fluently after having taught himself. I loved that.

I listened to the Audible version, narrated by Dan Stevens, and I probably wouldn't have had it any other way. He was excellent and it wouldn't have had the same effect on me if it had been someone else or if I had just read it. His voice is great for storytelling and it helped a lot in the immersion.

Now this is the kind of dragon story I'm here for.

I really enjoyed this. What mostly makes up my enjoyment is the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire and everything surrounding it. Unfortunately though, I did not care that much about anything else (aside from the other dragons) and so the action scenes felt a bit tedious to me, as I was never all that worried about anyone.

But man, I do quite love these main characters a whole bunch.

The Dream Thieves is a sequel to The Raven Boys, which is something I (to be honest, surprisingly) enjoyed. In this one the focus is set more on Ronan Lynch, who is one of the “Raven boys” who didn't get as much attention in the last one.

Sequels are very good at making you realize what you do or do not like about a certain book, and in this one I realized it's basically just the kids I sort of care about. There's lots of fun in here with interpersonal relationships and conflicts and certain events that happen, but it didn't really excite me as much I thought it would and unfortunately I think that means I'm going to leave this series here. I still think it's good and enjoyable and maybe I'll get curious about it again someday and pick it up again, but not right now.