Jess
I'm convinced Patel puts actual crack in her books because I'm left craving more from her every time I finish her stories. I had to sit for a while after devouring the last three parts of this in one sitting and really contemplate what it means to be a woman. My biggest fear is having a sense of impending doom and nobody listening to me so I was really feeling it for this one. Kaikeyi was the original girl's girl and I'll stand by that.
My mom bought me the CD version of this audiobook when I was a kid and I remember reading along while listening to the narration. I was feeling nostaligic so I relistened to it and loved it just as much as I did when I was small. The humor is dry and witty and the characters are all complex and interesting. For a mid-grade book, it delves into a lot of deep conversations and topics with a grace I appreciated.
Maybe I'm cliche but I love a book with a headstrong and slightly annoying female character. Lila's personality carried the story, I feel like Kell was just kinda There and Conveniently Magic. Not that I'm complaining, I think it worked and I'm sure we'll get more of him later. The worldbuilding was fleshed out well and the story had good pacing to keep me hooked. Looking forward to finishing this series soon.
I feel like I have such a better understanding of Bourdain as a person now. I love hearing about food from people who love food and I really appreciate his perspective on what it means to so many different people. I laughed and cried with him through the whole book. We lost a national treasure but I'm so glad we still have his stories.
Read this while recovering from surgery so I was more distracted than normal but I loved it nonetheless. I adored the characters and the narration style with the asides! There's something about a mom who is just trying to do right by her daughter that hits me in the feels and the way we're reminded that she has her own life and story reminded me so much of my own mom. Really appreciated the chemistry the characters had and I look so forward to the rest of this series.
Thoroughly enjoyed this one! I was struggling to finish a different book and it's nice to have one that breaks you out of your slump. I love a morally grey main character that grows over the course of the story and it has just the right amount of romance without pulling away from the plot. Madly impressed that this was the author's debut novel because the worldbuilding is amazing.
I'm giving it an extra star because I actually stuck with it and finished it. Nothing was technically wrong with this book but I put it down so many times and swore I wasn't going to pick it up again. I haven't DNFed a book yet and I think it's only my pride or masochism that left me coming back for more. I like the premise of finding other species with whom to communicate with on Earth and I will be rethinking eating takoyaki for a while. However, the fact that every character in this book was constantly grappling with what it means to be human in the most suffocating way possible took this down a lot of pegs for me. I really wanted more of the research side and while I appreciate Nayler's perspective that the octopi probably see us as monsters, I kept hoping the book would end sooner than it did rather than contemplate our destructive existence on Earth.
I read this years ago and I literally haven't looked at trees the same way since. Every time I'm in the forest all I can think about is this book. It inspired me to broaden my reading horizons and try out other books like Entangled Life which I also thoroughly enjoyed.
