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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Saw this at the bookstore two days before Christmas while on a date with my husband. Intriguing cover art, and was gripped by the jacket blurb. Woke up Christmas morning with it under the tree.
It is now 12/30 and I just finished it. This book was such a disappointment. Boring, whole chunks of it could have been left out. No beautiful prose, just a lot of telling and feeling like I’m reading a textbook about folklore. And a very immature “romance” with a frankly annoying leading man. Nothing appealing about him. Alice is worse than a Mary Sue because except for her power and connection to death there’s nothing particularly interesting or unique about her. She’s also really dumb. Lots of convoluted story lines, not a lot of character development, and a weird attempt at a love triangle that goes nowhere. A very explicit dog fighting scene. The main plot was to save Alice's best friend. They save her and then she dies a horrible death anyway. A poor attempt to marry Finnish folklore and Old Testament bible. I like swearing as much as anyone and have no issue with it in my books but this author uses it entirely too liberally, almost as if she doesn’t have a wide understanding of adjectives.
It’s just not a good book. I don’t have the heart to tell my husband he wasted his money especially after I made it pretty obvious that it would be a good Christmas gift.
PS Crowley’s reasoning for not telling Alice the truth about Jen’s whereabouts? Fucking weak. “Hey Alice I know you want to save Jen and I told you where to find her but I lied because you said you would leave as soon as you saved her and I didn’t want you to leave” excuse me? That’s not romantic. That is selfish and stupid. What was this book?
One more thing: I understand a second book will be published. I won’t be reading it. A first book is an introduction to the world and the author. It should be a good first impression. The second book shouldn’t be the struggle to make up for the mistakes of the first.
It is now 12/30 and I just finished it. This book was such a disappointment. Boring, whole chunks of it could have been left out. No beautiful prose, just a lot of telling and feeling like I’m reading a textbook about folklore. And a very immature “romance” with a frankly annoying leading man. Nothing appealing about him. Alice is worse than a Mary Sue because except for her power and connection to death there’s nothing particularly interesting or unique about her. She’s also really dumb. Lots of convoluted story lines, not a lot of character development, and a weird attempt at a love triangle that goes nowhere. A very explicit dog fighting scene. The main plot was to save Alice's best friend. They save her and then she dies a horrible death anyway. A poor attempt to marry Finnish folklore and Old Testament bible. I like swearing as much as anyone and have no issue with it in my books but this author uses it entirely too liberally, almost as if she doesn’t have a wide understanding of adjectives.
It’s just not a good book. I don’t have the heart to tell my husband he wasted his money especially after I made it pretty obvious that it would be a good Christmas gift.
PS Crowley’s reasoning for not telling Alice the truth about Jen’s whereabouts? Fucking weak. “Hey Alice I know you want to save Jen and I told you where to find her but I lied because you said you would leave as soon as you saved her and I didn’t want you to leave” excuse me? That’s not romantic. That is selfish and stupid. What was this book?
One more thing: I understand a second book will be published. I won’t be reading it. A first book is an introduction to the world and the author. It should be a good first impression. The second book shouldn’t be the struggle to make up for the mistakes of the first.
A delightful world with twists and turns and some out there ideas. But a most enjoyable page turner
This book had such a cool premise, but it took me so long to muster up the will to finish it because the main character was just. so. stupid. she made the worst possible choice at every opportunity and then was shocked things didn't turn out well? lots of plot points were never fleshed out (which is a shame cause the world and lore were the best part) I also have not been as thoroughly unconvinced about a romance in so long, they had no chemistry.
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
It's been a bit since I read this, but something reminded me of it today and thinking about it made me mad, so I decided to come back and review it. I may not recall all of my complaints, but the main two I was remembering are why the fuck, if the MC's soul is super evil and bent on destruction when left unchecked, does the MC not have any such tendencies to begin with? It makes no sense, even in-universe, that her soul's essence would be so divorced from her personality. Also, it is really fucking lame and boring to kill her friend off at the end. And the whole blood of the lamb thing is just... ugh. Like, we'll convince powerful being that we deserve to live by killing an innocent and painting our door with their blood – on the contrary, that suggests to me that you're trash and don't deserve to live. In this case, especially since the powerful being was the on ocent's bff. But no, her soul is completely divorced from her living self . Also the romance element is so very angsty and disinteresting. The twists are unsurprising and contrived.
Interesting idea but tedious characters - I gave up. Life is too short!
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A quick read, reminiscent of Daniel O’Malley’s Checquy Files and V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic. Entertaining enough but the writing was occasionally quite messy and hard to follow and there were just a few too many tertiary characters to keep track of.
I would like to thank Jamie and the rest of the Tor team for gifting me with an ARC of The Nightjar
I've had a thing for books with alternative London's since I read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman a few years ago. I absolutely loved the descriptions of both our London and the Rookery (the alternate London) and how the two London's weren't exactly the same.
I really liked the characters, especially Alice, who started off in the book just an ordinary woman having a pretty rubbish day, then suddenly finds out she is an Aviarist, which is quite rare and consequently puts her in danger. Crowley was such an annoying character to try and figure out but I really enjoyed how the author took the direction of the character, I didn't actually figure out some of the aspects of the character which I really liked. My only issue (and it's completely on me and not the book) is that my brain didn't seem to care how he was described looks wise, I still went from seeing him as David Tennant to Mark Sheppard throughout the whole book.
I do think it's important to mention the trigger warning here; there is a scene with dog fighting and animal death.
I've had a thing for books with alternative London's since I read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman a few years ago. I absolutely loved the descriptions of both our London and the Rookery (the alternate London) and how the two London's weren't exactly the same.
I really liked the characters, especially Alice, who started off in the book just an ordinary woman having a pretty rubbish day, then suddenly finds out she is an Aviarist, which is quite rare and consequently puts her in danger. Crowley was such an annoying character to try and figure out but I really enjoyed how the author took the direction of the character, I didn't actually figure out some of the aspects of the character which I really liked. My only issue (and it's completely on me and not the book) is that my brain didn't seem to care how he was described looks wise, I still went from seeing him as David Tennant to Mark Sheppard throughout the whole book.
I do think it's important to mention the trigger warning here; there is a scene with dog fighting and animal death.