Holly Dykstra
The best parts of this book were its descriptions of the Bolivian jungle -it brought the environment alive, and it was fun to imagine someone from suburban America finding her way through an entirely new way of life. The story and especially the love story felt one-dimensional, though.
This book is a hidden gem – good writing, a provocative premise, and a tightly thought-out narrative. It creates a world that brings some some commonly-held philosophical beliefs about what is good to their logical conclusion. I was absorbed the whole time I was reading, and surprised at several plot points in the book, which rarely happens even once in this genre.
I was so excited when I found this at a bookstore - a book about magic with adult main characters! At All Souls! I've been to All Souls!
It turns out that I'm too old for this book. I bet I would have liked this as a teenager.... but maybe not post-#MeToo. It's just not at all fun to read about a man bossing around his girlfriend. We need a new vampire romance trope where the vampire men rate a cut above human men because they know how shitty toxic masculinity is since they've been living for thousands of years.
The characters don't feel like adults at all, sadly. I used to wonder if I would ever outgrow YA; not that I think that's something that should happen! But I've definitely outgrown this type of YA.
Clever mystery. I wish it had a little more heart, and it won't be the one I recommend to people, but I see why it's famous!
I always love a good Agatha Christie mystery but I can't count this one among my favorites. We don't meet some of the central suspects except through a newspaper article, which makes it more difficult than usual to parse the mystery and keep track of who's who.
I really wanted to like these books. I finished this one and even tried to read #2. The setting is wonderful - a perfect place to set a murder mystery: cozy, intimate, but also a little off. But somehow, I never connected with the characters. Jimmy Perez just didn't have a personality.
What's even more funny is that I tried to watch the shows that are based off these books, because I wanted to see more of the Shetland Islands - they changed many things in the TV show from the books, but even so, it's also impossible to connect with the characters!
I really enjoyed this book–a neatly written murder mystery with a dry sense of humor. The setting is fun and main characters are lovable and full of personality. The fact that they're septuagenarians means there's lots of asides and commentary on modern society and tech. Also makes for some very touching moments. A fun little book to get wrapped up in.
I would have given it five stars, but I was bewildered by part of the ending, which made my first instinct when I finished it be to downgrade it... something I'll probably adjust soon. But did anyone else find it strange that Elizabeth thought that justice would best be served by John killing himself and Penny too while he was at it? It felt very sudden, callous, and unjust. I still can't wrap my head around why someone would think this is the proper ending for them, or why they would think that Elizabeth would think that. I at least would have wanted some discussion or introspection about this from her character; even if it was something Poirot-like that murder is never acceptable.
Great atmospheric murder mystery, made for fast-paced reading. I was able to predict some of the plot turns but the ending snuck up on me--all the pieces fit together at the end, which was very satisfying on multiple levels!
I'm writing this many months later, so I've forgotten enough of the details to write a very good review, except to say that this series has stuck with me and rises to top of mind from time to time, which is a marker of a good book! A historical fiction of the Celts fighting against the invading Saxons. In addition to being a very compelling narrative, I also learned a lot about the time period, both from the book and from what it led me to read afterwards–this in part thanks to the author's great description at the end of the books' historicity and her sources. Looking forward to #3.
This book was a wonderful read. J.K. Rowling meets Middlemarch. For my friends who had read it when it first came out and didn't like it so much, I think it ages well - in particular with the more distance you put between J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter in your mind.
I swear I wrote a review for this book immediately after putting it down, which must have gotten misplaced in the bowels of the internet. At the time, I was emotionally caught up in the fact that Krystal was trying SO HARD to make a better life for her and Robbie, it failed so spectacularly, and nobody had any idea about what she was trying to do. . Phew. Thanks, J.K. Rowling. (But I really mean it!)
This is a beautiful work of historical fiction about 6th century Scotland - one of the best books I've read in a long while. I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes family sagas, well-researched histories, and stories about love and loss. It brought a time period into focus that I hadn't been able to imagine before.
This books is very powerful – even more so for getting me to actually think about what power means for the first time (hot take: power is the ability to influence other people). I consider myself someone who has thought a great deal about how the way society constructs gender, and how that construction affects the way people interact with each other, but this book gave me new and deeper levels of understanding how it works.
BUT if you had asked me what I thought while I was reading this book, I would have said the book was meh (and I did say this a couple of times to my boyfriend!). That is to say, STICK WITH IT, even if you're not enjoying the writing/ the characters/ the plot very much – some of it feels very derivative of other dystopian worlds. But, while you're focusing on the details (or I should say, while I was doing that), there's a bigger picture emerging and taking you along for the ride. I've found myself recommending this book to many people in conversation because of that.
The writing was absolutely terrible. It's frankly baffling to me that this book is so beloved and has won several awards. I would have loved to get to know small-town Quebec, but alas, it's not meant to be with me and this author... just goes to show how different people can have such different relationships to authors. If you sort by one and two-start reviews, people with more patience than me have given good examples of what was off about the writing.
I got too bored to keep going... the writing is just not that good. There's not enough detail and fleshing out of the characters for me to really care about them. I'm looking for an urban fantasy series to mirror Richelle Mead's lovely stories and groups of characters, and this one just doesn't make the cut.
I enjoyed Mistborn #1 well enough, but started pushing myself through #2. I started reading them because of comparisons with Rothfuss and other major contemporary fantasy/adventure series. But, I'm sad to say, this series just doesn't stand up to the comparison. The story is a bit too linear and straightforward, and I simply became too bored, so it's ended up in the did-not-finish pile.
The series does have some strengths to recommend it: a very full female heroine (by a male author of fantasy!), the relationship between Vin and Elend, which was more of a quiet burn then your typical adventure series fare, and the shaky evolution of Elend into a leader... these were all much more nuanced than I'd normally expect in this type of book!
This book was incredible. Dreamy and dark, but also shrewdly observant about gender constraints and the ways it can affect your relationships and your inner self. Definitely an exercise in misery; but I liked it?
The Afterword by Sally Beauman in the Kindle edition was also FANTASTIC and very helpful for providing context.
This one was a fun read! It had a unique feel among her books - more of an international crime novel - but the characters were quite fleshed out and there were several different people's perspectives in the book. Poirot felt a little caricaturized (of course he always does, but more so here, maybe because it was an early book?) so I missed some of his more pointed reflections on human nature, but Katherine Grey made up for it.
This is my favorite Agatha Christie book so far! The first-person POV took a couple of chapters to get used to, but it's like swimming in ocean water – you forget that it's cold after a while. This will be my go-to recommendation for Agatha Christie.
Did not finish. The writing was good enough, but it turns out even well-written faerie stories aren't my cup of tea. With unlimited magic and indifferent world building, I can't get too attached to the narrative.
This book combines two of my favorite genres: it's a murder mystery about monks! I enjoyed the writing and the history, but the tone of the book is very negative... you could not call this book uplifting. For that reason, although he does a fantastic job with the historical detail, I can't continue with the series - I need something with a little bit more heart to read in my spare time.
These books were fun - but better for children than for adults. It's interesting how so many bad guys in children's books are fascists! I now understand why.
This book has become such a classic, and has many great qualities to recommend it, which other people have written about better than I could. I'm glad I read it–especially since I often end up reading books that are marketed as “for fans of the Secret History” or “Secret History crossed with _____.” However, it feels like it's missing heart–I think this is what kept me from feeling fully connected to the story, which is also how I felt reading The Goldfinch. I think that I would have looked past this if I were in college... the characters are earnestly and insufferably pretentious, which is perfect, since they are, in fact, undergrads! It does a great job capturing the feeling of entering college and trying to keep up with these new kinds of people you meet who seem endlessly cool and interesting. I recommend it to my younger self. But ten years later, it's too much.