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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I enjoyed Catwoman: Soulstealer quite a bit, but I also have a lot of mixed feelings about it…
First of all, I am not a DC fan, I am a Marvel girl all the way, but I love SJM, so I wanted to read this book and when I came upon a second hand copy of the Waterstones edition, I went for it.
I have to say, I am happy SJM got to write about Catwoman just because she is my favorite DC characters for one simple reason: cats. I loved them, that’s it.
And honestly, I could feel a lot of tropes and even (obviously) the writing style, that were typical to SJM. And usually that would be a recipe for a 5 star rating for me.
But this book felt a little out of it at times, at least for me. For instance, I felt like maybe the publisher or whoever, wanted that typical SJM’s main character plotting and the reader discovering the ‘how’ and ‘why’ later on. But it kind of fell short for me, because I just spent a good chunk of the book wondering why Selina was doing things and didn’t feel as smooth as other SJM books.
Also, might be a spoiler for some, but the romance was a little flat as well. SJM always makes me swoon. But this relationship was cute at best, because it started super late in the book and was sort of rushed, at least it felt that way to me.
But overall, I still enjoyed reading this book and wasn’t bored. It was still intriguing and action packed, just like SJM can write it, just with a lot of DC vibe to it.
First of all, I am not a DC fan, I am a Marvel girl all the way, but I love SJM, so I wanted to read this book and when I came upon a second hand copy of the Waterstones edition, I went for it.
I have to say, I am happy SJM got to write about Catwoman just because she is my favorite DC characters for one simple reason: cats. I loved them, that’s it.
And honestly, I could feel a lot of tropes and even (obviously) the writing style, that were typical to SJM. And usually that would be a recipe for a 5 star rating for me.
But this book felt a little out of it at times, at least for me. For instance, I felt like maybe the publisher or whoever, wanted that typical SJM’s main character plotting and the reader discovering the ‘how’ and ‘why’ later on. But it kind of fell short for me, because I just spent a good chunk of the book wondering why Selina was doing things and didn’t feel as smooth as other SJM books.
Also, might be a spoiler for some, but the romance was a little flat as well. SJM always makes me swoon. But this relationship was cute at best, because it started super late in the book and was sort of rushed, at least it felt that way to me.
But overall, I still enjoyed reading this book and wasn’t bored. It was still intriguing and action packed, just like SJM can write it, just with a lot of DC vibe to it.
She was fun and light. This book reminded how much I've missed Sarah J. Maas's writing. Not my favorite rendition of Catwoman though.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this, so I'm going to try to sort them out.
The good - I liked that Selina was driven by her love for her sister, the other viewpoint was a person of color (Lucius Fox's son), there are physical and mental illnesses portrayed, this touched on the Gotham City Sirens and the relationship between Harley and Ivy.
But overall, I felt like this was way too messy for me to enjoy. I kept rereading most of the second half because I felt like I was constantly lost when so much got introduced. I liked the beginning, but as the book went on more and more characters and plotlines were introduced to the point that the narrative was just a mess.
If this is going to be a book about the romance between Selina and Luke, fine. If it's going to be about Selina trying to save her sister, fine. But when it became crime + a possible romance + not a possible romance + a plot revealed last minute, it was too much for me. This fell into a lot of tropes and dissuaded me from reading any more of SJM's work (not that I intended to before this).
I think what I've found with this series is that while I like reading YA featuring DC characters, I'm very critical of the output. We'll see how the last book goes later this year.
The good - I liked that Selina was driven by her love for her sister, the other viewpoint was a person of color (Lucius Fox's son), there are physical and mental illnesses portrayed, this touched on the Gotham City Sirens and the relationship between Harley and Ivy.
But overall, I felt like this was way too messy for me to enjoy. I kept rereading most of the second half because I felt like I was constantly lost when so much got introduced. I liked the beginning, but as the book went on more and more characters and plotlines were introduced to the point that the narrative was just a mess.
If this is going to be a book about the romance between Selina and Luke, fine. If it's going to be about Selina trying to save her sister, fine. But when it became crime + a possible romance + not a possible romance + a plot revealed last minute, it was too much for me. This fell into a lot of tropes and dissuaded me from reading any more of SJM's work (not that I intended to before this).
I think what I've found with this series is that while I like reading YA featuring DC characters, I'm very critical of the output. We'll see how the last book goes later this year.
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Sorry for being a hater of the basic premise but I don’t like retcons… I want the plot of cat woman from batman forever
They keep saying “Gotham City” I could have sworn it was just “Gotham” ?
The way Maas mentions the race/ethnicity of each character as part of their introduction is incredibly awkward… I get that she doesn’t want people assuming all the characters are white but there must be a better way than things like “’hello’ said the Asian girl.” Also I do not think you could tell a person who was wearing a tactical bodysuit was ethnically Russian just from looking at their face and it’s kind of an uncomfortable thing to bring into the story. Did not like that.
None of the jokes are quite funny. None of the badass lines are really badass.
Vegan poison ivy hell yeah
A lot of the wording is weird/bad. I don’t any seventeen-year-old says “hence”. She does a Caps For Emphasis thing at one point and omg this is not Tumblr.com this is a published book stoppppp. The phrase “sketched a bow” to describe someone doing a mock-formal bow is INCREDIBLY weird and awkward yet Maas uses it THREE TIMES.
Strange loose attempts to critique vigilantism and the usa justice system while ultimately endorsing both. For example Luke explains that he doesn’t kill people because he’s “against vigilantism” then he breaks someone’s nose immediately. Luke talks about how cops are racist but is constantly collaborating with them. The way they kept talking about the sanctity of the usa military was annoying. Batwing collecting wildly personal information about random civilians without their knowledge or consent but that’s basically par for the course.
The reveals towards the end were good I guess but needed to be foreshadowed wayyyyyy more.