Tess

Yes, this story about a down on his luck man who turns his life around after a chance meeting with a quirky old lady with a tragic backstory is kind of cheesy and predictable, but I really liked it. The author's outlook on life is what I needed to read right now.

I liked this book a lot. It's an Asian-inspired dark fantasy, and managed to make the world feel big despite about ninety percent of the book taking place inside the palace grounds. The characters were great and showed a variety of ways that people react to trauma. Lei's impulsiveness sometimes annoyed me, but she's seventeen so it makes sense.

Heading into the ending I was expecting this to be five stars, but the actual ending feels rushed (I feel like almost as much happens in the last 20 pages as in the entire rest of the book) and one plot point, while not really surprising, disappointed me.

Overall though the book was great and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

This book was fine, but it didn't feel like it had a lot of depth. The essays felt a bit like blog posts and were a bit too “of course not all men” to me.

This book is hyped up so much everywhere and I didn't like it at all. The writing style is so over the top (every time the main character meets even a minor setback she's like “then he turned into a bear and shot me in the face”), the characters have one trait each, and the way the author can't seem to decide whether these characters' obscene wealth is embarrassing or aspirational and kind of tries to do both drove me nuts. (The dismissive comments in the afterward about Cady's “marxism” do suggest a few things though...)

I thought this was a thriller from the blurb but nothing happens and the twist is beyond stupid. (Also I have no idea how the character got out of the situation revealed in the twist without any injuries that would be noticeable months later even if she did have amnesia.) I don't think this book had any redeeming qualities.

The premise of this book was really interesting to me, but it didn't really manage to follow through. Each suspect gets POV chapters, but their voices all sound really similar and it becomes clear really early that none of them did it. The real culprit is somehow both obvious and unbelievable, and since that person isn't around to speak for themselves anymore it sort of falls flat. The way everything kind of ties up neatly with a million tidy romances at the end is really goofy.

I did appreciate the resource list at the end though, especially since the book is targeted at teens.