Travis

Pretty much garbage, if I'm feeling generous. Amazing that a book published in 2022 could be so obsessed with cryptocurrency and NFTs. Also written in a condescending tone that seemed to imply if you're not already rich, you have no one to blame but yourself. And it seemed to think taxes were one of the worst things blocking the everyday layperson's path to wealth, while also not providing any support for this claim or advice to act on it.

I'd requested this book from Libby thinking it was The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins. It's not, though I think that's an understandable mistake. Even the subtitle is nearly identical. Whether intentional or not, the similarity is misleading and feels deceitful.

The main character was insufferable but that was the point. I really enjoyed this take on time travel.

Docking a star because the book unironically praised Replay by Ken Grimwood as a good example of this genre.

Frankly ridiculous leap in quality from A Conjuring of Light.

Concept is great - vampires vs cowboys! But there's not much time spent on either. Not enough horror to be horror, not enough romance to be a good romance. We're told again and again how much the leads love each other but never shown any actual chemistry. More time spent on the issues keeping them apart than making me care if they get together. 99% of all the tension in the “romance” would be resolved if they just talked for 5 seconds. I did really like all the implications that the white invading North American army were the true vampires.

I like the second book quite a bit but this felt like it was just going through the motions to finish the series. The Big Bad never felt ominous, the character deaths were very easy to see coming, the plot felt like a way around taking down an enemy they didn't actually have a good idea how to defeat. Several scenes had a lot of build up and no payoff. There was also a good bit of attempting to raise emotional stakes by constantly flashing back to scenes before the series, but that often falls flat for me. It's strange to have a tense scene and then “oh hey this would be better with some emotion, lets have a flashback” thrown in.

Oddly enough once the winding down scenes at the end of the book started I was interested again. Despite this being a let down I'm actually somewhat optimistic about the Fragile Threads of Power sequel series.

Almost short enough to be a novella, and the structure felt like a collection of short stories (though not as much as the first book). This is one of the better “classics” in that it doesn't alienate me from the characters. I didn't love the love triangle but it was less drama than expected.

Definitely thought this was a comedy... nope. Still a great read, but an exploration of trauma was not what I was expecting.

How many twists is too many twists?

This was brilliant and it's a shame I didn't get to it sooner. I love the idea of Chosen Ones dealing with PTSD years after defeating the Dark One, and the audio production was excellent. This is how you do a limited full cast production (take note, Dune, you beautiful waste of data storage space).

Loved the heart and emotion. Not so much the sex jokes, though I suspect the excellent audio narration smoothed that over somewhat.

A little weird that robots were given sexual vices identical to humans, but okay. The Pinnochio elements were fun Easter eggs, even for someone like me who's only seen the movie a couple times almost 20 years ago.

Unsurprisingly incredible.

Atmospheric writing doesn't really work for me in books, so the first part fell flat. Then it got fucking weird in the best ways. Give this an 8-episode Netflix special.

So many interesting ideas, so little to actually hold my attention.

Both the hype and the hate seems overblown. I have dozens of nitpicks but overall enjoyed reading this and kept wanting to pick it back up.

Amazing. Somehow surpassed my already high expectations.

Fucking phenomenal. A small-scale story about a time traveling circus that just tries to make the world a little bit better, one person at a time. It explores the difficult and ongoing nature of recovering from trauma, queer found family, and the vital role art plays in making life better.

Read this thinking it might be a good gift to an in-law but it fell flat. I wanted to like it more than I did and on the surface it should've been great - F/F romance between elite soldiers on opposite sides of a war featuring giant mechas? That setup could've been GREAT.

The upside of having a trilogy where half the drama is characters not communicating is the last book forces everyone to actually talk like emotionally mature adults. Overall I thought this was a fitting end - a bit predictable, but done well. I'm conflicted that a major plot point is an attempted rapist saving the day by forgiving himself, though there are some extenuating circumstances due to the fantasy elements.

The highs were higher than book 1, but the lows were lower. On the one hand, I love the concept of people being forced to see their enemies as actual people. But the POVs constantly playing idiot ball and refusing to actually talk to each other was a bit infuriating.

Bit of a rough start (did there really need to be torture and attempted sexual assault in the first couple of chapters?) but I enjoyed it quite a bit in the end.

Really solid end to a very fun series. It's rare to say that a series increases in quality with each book but I think it's true here. And 800+ pages for one battle? Usually I'd hate that but it worked great.

Parts of this book were so close to being perfect for me, but it ultimately didn't pack the emotion I was hoping for.

Still lots of fun but missing a lot of the charm of the earlier books

One of my favorite fairy tale type stories! Actual characters and reason to care rather than rich atmosphere.

Fuck me, that was beautiful. An absolute delight.