Currently reading
Bearing an Hourglass
Peter the Great: His Life and World
A Curse Dark As Gold - Audio Library Edition
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
Les Misérables
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
Healing Trauma
Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles 8 Book Bundle: The Surgeon, The Apprentice, The Sinner, Body Double, Vanish, The Mephisto Club, The Keepsake, Ice Cold
It's not that Witch World is a bad book per se. I wouldn't say it's a good one either. The experience of reading it was like watching barracuda's circle in a tank. Nothing's really happening, but a lot could happen and feeding time is coming any moment. Just like carnivorous fish Pike's characters have little to no emotional depth to attach me to them. Nothing has consequences until everything does. I could see why some people might love it but it's really not for me. I'm going to pass on the rest of the experience and move on to books that are more up my ally.
There are a few things I really loved about Steel's Edge. One is a character development point for the main character Charlotte. She's barren. When Andrews discussed the pain of that fact and the loss of dreams it was so real and made me empathize so strongly. It's a central fear of women and one that is rarely discussed in novels. Yay for the Ilona Andrews team for taking it on. Also I liked the focus on slavery and the importance of the fight against it. Though it's still not my favorite Edge book (love you Bayoo Moon) it was a great read. I'm sad that it's the end. The series wrap up parts felt tack on, so it's an odd thing to think that it's over now. All in all a good book.
I'm rounding up a bit in the rating because Benson pulls it together in the end. My typical reaction when I first start reading a Death's Daughter book is WTH? Really. They're not very well written, and the mythology and plot structure are just confusing. It's mindless entertainment that's depressed. For all of that, it's just good enough that I can finish them without feeling like I'm pushing the proverbial rock up the hill. So I keep reading and keep wondering why.
I watched the video's that the toy company has put up on it's site and I was really unimpressed. Considering that it's Shannon Hale it might just turn out amazing despite that!
I can see where the appeal comes from, really I do. Anita is gritty and determined and the writing is funny in that biting sort of way. I'm just really uncomfortable with the whole dominated aspect- her friend is dominated by a vampire and taken captive, she is dominated my a vampire to get her to do what they want, etc. I was 14% in when I realized that it wasn't fun for me. Plus it started in a vampire strip club.... Magic Mike with the undead!
This is where the series falls apart for me. Disclaimer before I start: I read this at seventeen so my reactions to it probably weren't mature. The writing is still strong and the characters are still fascinating. The ending completely lost me. Fallon chose to take the series down a road that I had a pretty hard time agreeing with.
My overwhelming memory of this book is my dad mocking me for the amount of boob the model on the front has. That's really hysterical considering he likes military sci-fi, the cover boob capital of the fiction world. At the time I was just mortified. Considering I loved this book I hustled around with the cover carefully facing me.Now that sharing time is over, how about I talk about the actual book? Treason Keep picks up with R'Shiel being a fierce warrior maiden, leaving forever behind the girl that we started with in Medalon. I loved the romance in this one. Tarja was an interesting character that I really rooted for. Yes, it is slightly icky that they grew up thinking they were siblings but it works. Treason Keep is a fascinating addition to the world Fallon is building.
It's funny to see this book pop up again because holy moly did I love it as a teenager. I was famously cheap as a kid (still am) and I actually ordered Harshini, the last in the trilogy, early and at full price. Medalon was as addicting as crack and happily went around hawking it to all friends/relatives who couldn't get out of the way fast enough. So what's there to love? R'Shiel is smart and determined and so very real as a young women growing up. Her mother is a harridan and learning to stand against her is hard. Having a very strong-willed mother myself I could sympathize how hard it is to try to reach an impossible bar. The gods were catty and fascinating, the Harshini confusing, and the love interest totally stole my heart. So there you go:) Read it and tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I never actually read this book. I brought it home from the library and my husband beat me through it. Watching him grow progressively more grumpy was very entertaining, but his reasons for growing grumpy were legitimate. I sent the book back and didn't worry about it. After all, only one person in a marriage should have to suffer for a bad book. That's what partnership is all about. Now, years later, it keeps popping up and I keep forgetting I didn't read it for a reason. So I'm officially marking it so I will stop getting mixed up about it. So if you're look for a recommendation for or against The Unremembered you've come to the wrong place.
Really not my kind of story. It works hard for the erotic angle, including having the main character sign a contract with a demon that exchanges sex for help in getting revenge. Ummm.... Prostitution anyone? Any women who usually chooses her own partners should be at least a little uncomfortable with this. Then again, if you don't have sex in the first ten pages then it's not a romance novel so Ms. DeWylde just had to start early.
I've discovered I like reading about a normal military campaign a lot less then I do other things. In epic fantasy those things are hopelessly overblown magic battles, political intrigue (with magic), and romance. Not for everyone but they work for me. Considering that Modesitt chose to make Imager's Battalion true to real life war I wasn't as engrossed as I hoped to be. Other then that it was fantastic as usual for him.
I find it interesting that in a book called Princeps the main character only holds the title of princeps for the first few chapters. Modesitt continues in one of his best series to date. Queryt is a fascinating character and watching him do such disparate things as try to straiten up a city riddled with corruption and win battles against overwhelming odds is a pleasure. Modesitt isn't for everyone but I love him.
What to say? I can't even give Stormdancer a rating. Were it was good it blew past the five star system and started claiming impossible six and seventh stars. Where it was bad it fazed into indifference, a very scary place for a book to be fore me. The amazing: Just about everything past the first hundred pages. I loved, loved, loved Yokiko. She was so different from the normal YA heroine in a very good way. The way she reacted to things turns the genre trope on it's head and I ate it up. Buruu, the griffin/sky tiger was sweet and I loved the way his relationship with Yokiko changes. Lastly I liked how the larger cast was so flawed, and yet so special. Way to be Mr. Kristoff. Mostly there is just this incredible epicness that sweeps you up and sucks you in. I'm not even sure it's really YA. It feels like the best in adult fantasy with a teenage heroine.
The head scratchers: The first 100 pages! I appreciate that the world is complex but wow, a 100 pages of set up. Shoot me now. Plus there are some Messages, you know, that kind. Then there's the Big Myth that rubbed me the wrong way.
So yeah. It's both brilliant and incredibly flawed. You should check it out and see for yourself.
Wow that was....aweful. Delsol's wit and easy to read style could not rescue Flock from turning into a FUBAR. The tension between the characters was contrived, the plot meandered between unclear to non-existant, and the ending.... Oh my gosh. Not only were the last fifty pages a collection of two-five page climaxes but the main character gets the powers stripped from her and her boyfriend, transferred to her best friend, and it's a "good thing". Obviously I'm a little bitter. On a more reasonable note I would probably say that it was an interesting ending, but not one that I felt was true to the characters or the world that Delsol created.