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aldoregan's reviews
389 reviews
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
5.0
second read: november 20, 2018
if we’re gonna look at the entire series, this book is definitely the weakest and the most unnecessary out of all of them. but this book has quality content—chaolaena scenes, OG3, nehemia, fleetfoot, dorian+chaol— despite the kinda shitty writing. this, also, doesn’t have rowan in it. and for that reason alone is why im still gonna give this book a 5/5 stars.
first read: June 14, 2015
This was amazing!!!! And I absolutely LOVED everything about this book. The story, the characters, the world Sarah J. Maas has created!!! It's just-- words cannot explain how much I enjoyed and loved reading Throne of Glass so forgive me if my review is a bit... short..
Definitely a 5/5 stars. (I would give this a 10/5 tbh if that was possible.)
if we’re gonna look at the entire series, this book is definitely the weakest and the most unnecessary out of all of them. but this book has quality content—chaolaena scenes, OG3, nehemia, fleetfoot, dorian+chaol— despite the kinda shitty writing. this, also, doesn’t have rowan in it. and for that reason alone is why im still gonna give this book a 5/5 stars.
first read: June 14, 2015
This was amazing!!!! And I absolutely LOVED everything about this book. The story, the characters, the world Sarah J. Maas has created!!! It's just-- words cannot explain how much I enjoyed and loved reading Throne of Glass so forgive me if my review is a bit... short..
Definitely a 5/5 stars. (I would give this a 10/5 tbh if that was possible.)
United We Spy by Ally Carter
5.0
RE-READ: Sept. 11, 2017
EDIT
"So I stepped away, reminding myself that when you're a spy, sometimes all you can do is go on. One foot in front of the other, wherever the narrow path might lead.”
You know the series is a keeper when the last book leaves you in an emotional train wreck.
For me, the Gallagher Girls marked as my starting point to the world of books. I read books before I did read this series (that's why I discovered it), but I wouldn't call myself an avid reader that time. From time to time, I did read, but my love for books did not grow until that time I read I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You. It's not Harry Potter, or Percy Jackson, or whatever other famous series out there that made almost everyone in the book community fall in love. But it means the world to me. Believe it or not, reading it again has made me realize that I actually have learned a ton of things from this series. And there's even a big aspect of female friendship centering the story (and is my absolute favorite in the world), which I did not know I would hold so dearly today.
The story of this series is far from complex, the writing is straightforward and not at all extravagant, but the characters and the things that I learned from them mean the whole world to me and this is why this series is a winner. I, to put it simply, loved this series with all my heart. I always will.
"Turns out, you can take the girl out of the spy school, but you can never take the spy school out of the girl.”
ps
on a side note, i still have no idea which book from the series i loved the most. is it this one or is it the fifth book??? idk so i'm just gonna put those two up as number one.
1. United We Spy and Out of Sight Out of time
my second most favorite is definitely only the good spy young, third one is don't judge a spy by her cover, fourth one is cross my heart and hope to spy, and the last one (but definitely not the least) is i'd tell you i love but then i'd have to kill you.
one of the best things about this series is how each book progresses. there's so much to the story and it never deteriorated, it just kept on getting better and better.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?" Liz asked one final time. "She's a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy. And now we are at the end of our time at school, and the one thing I know for certain is this: a Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.”
-------------------------------------
PROS AND CONS OF REREADING A SERIES THAT YOU COMPLETELY LOVE AND TREASURE IN YOUR HEART
PRO: It brings back a feeling of nostalgia.
PRO: It makes you remember how much you actually love this series.
PRO: It makes you realize that even though you've read other series that are more complex and better than this one, you still love LOVE it!
CON: Reading the last book feels like the series just recently ended even though the series was already finished years ago.
CON: Which means there's going to be a lot of tears shed in the last book.
CON: Which means there's a lot of crying.
CON: A lot.
Full review to come. When I'm emotionally stable lmao awnejsjsj
EDIT
"So I stepped away, reminding myself that when you're a spy, sometimes all you can do is go on. One foot in front of the other, wherever the narrow path might lead.”
You know the series is a keeper when the last book leaves you in an emotional train wreck.
For me, the Gallagher Girls marked as my starting point to the world of books. I read books before I did read this series (that's why I discovered it), but I wouldn't call myself an avid reader that time. From time to time, I did read, but my love for books did not grow until that time I read I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You. It's not Harry Potter, or Percy Jackson, or whatever other famous series out there that made almost everyone in the book community fall in love. But it means the world to me. Believe it or not, reading it again has made me realize that I actually have learned a ton of things from this series. And there's even a big aspect of female friendship centering the story (and is my absolute favorite in the world), which I did not know I would hold so dearly today.
The story of this series is far from complex, the writing is straightforward and not at all extravagant, but the characters and the things that I learned from them mean the whole world to me and this is why this series is a winner. I, to put it simply, loved this series with all my heart. I always will.
"Turns out, you can take the girl out of the spy school, but you can never take the spy school out of the girl.”
ps
on a side note, i still have no idea which book from the series i loved the most. is it this one or is it the fifth book??? idk so i'm just gonna put those two up as number one.
1. United We Spy and Out of Sight Out of time
my second most favorite is definitely only the good spy young, third one is don't judge a spy by her cover, fourth one is cross my heart and hope to spy, and the last one (but definitely not the least) is i'd tell you i love but then i'd have to kill you.
one of the best things about this series is how each book progresses. there's so much to the story and it never deteriorated, it just kept on getting better and better.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?" Liz asked one final time. "She's a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy. And now we are at the end of our time at school, and the one thing I know for certain is this: a Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.”
-------------------------------------
PROS AND CONS OF REREADING A SERIES THAT YOU COMPLETELY LOVE AND TREASURE IN YOUR HEART
PRO: It brings back a feeling of nostalgia.
PRO: It makes you remember how much you actually love this series.
PRO: It makes you realize that even though you've read other series that are more complex and better than this one, you still love LOVE it!
CON: Reading the last book feels like the series just recently ended even though the series was already finished years ago.
CON: Which means there's going to be a lot of tears shed in the last book.
CON: Which means there's a lot of crying.
CON: A lot.
Full review to come. When I'm emotionally stable lmao awnejsjsj
The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
i read this book in school because i was bored lmao idk how to rate it tho.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
2.0
“You’re nobody’s doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.”
Every Heart a Doorway had a really interesting concept, but didn’t deliver, sadly. I found it really difficult to connect with the story and the characters, and I read the book not really caring about what’s happening. I found myself more intrigued by what happened beyond the doors that they found rather than what happened after they got back to reality. This book could’ve been wonderful had it added something more.
Something that bothered me a lot throughout reading this though was the representation of diversity. It’s funny how I literally just saw a video discussing the representation of diversity in books and its problems. Here’s the thing: this book offered diversity, and yet delivered it so poorly. The video that I watched (which I’m gonna link down below) talked about how some authors write diverse characters like it’s a checkbox, thus not even giving them depth and complexity like how one would write a white heteronormative character. There’s a huge difference between an asexual character and a character who just happens to be asexual. The former’s character depends solely on their diversity (which in this case, being asexual), while the latter doesn’t, which means that the character’s asexuality does not define their entire being. Diversity is important in stories, whether its film or books or any other form of storytelling, because it represents the world that we live in today and it is also a way for us, the minority, to be represented. Yet businesses treat it like a marketing strategy because nowadays anything with diversity sells. However, not everything with diversity is good and it is important that we acknowledge that because it is a way for us to encourage writers to write diverse characters the way they would write any other character. Perhaps the lack of depth the characters in this book had had something to do with the shortness of the book. It read more like a short story rather than a full novel, therefore it didn’t give that much time for the characters to develop. Either way, I wish the characters were made to be more than their sexuality or their race and I wish them being diverse was not treated like it was a unique “trait” or that it was a “trait” at all.
video: https://youtu.be/zyvF4G6eDZ4
Every Heart a Doorway had a really interesting concept, but didn’t deliver, sadly. I found it really difficult to connect with the story and the characters, and I read the book not really caring about what’s happening. I found myself more intrigued by what happened beyond the doors that they found rather than what happened after they got back to reality. This book could’ve been wonderful had it added something more.
Something that bothered me a lot throughout reading this though was the representation of diversity. It’s funny how I literally just saw a video discussing the representation of diversity in books and its problems. Here’s the thing: this book offered diversity, and yet delivered it so poorly. The video that I watched (which I’m gonna link down below) talked about how some authors write diverse characters like it’s a checkbox, thus not even giving them depth and complexity like how one would write a white heteronormative character. There’s a huge difference between an asexual character and a character who just happens to be asexual. The former’s character depends solely on their diversity (which in this case, being asexual), while the latter doesn’t, which means that the character’s asexuality does not define their entire being. Diversity is important in stories, whether its film or books or any other form of storytelling, because it represents the world that we live in today and it is also a way for us, the minority, to be represented. Yet businesses treat it like a marketing strategy because nowadays anything with diversity sells. However, not everything with diversity is good and it is important that we acknowledge that because it is a way for us to encourage writers to write diverse characters the way they would write any other character. Perhaps the lack of depth the characters in this book had had something to do with the shortness of the book. It read more like a short story rather than a full novel, therefore it didn’t give that much time for the characters to develop. Either way, I wish the characters were made to be more than their sexuality or their race and I wish them being diverse was not treated like it was a unique “trait” or that it was a “trait” at all.
video: https://youtu.be/zyvF4G6eDZ4
The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand
3.0
this book was kinda creepy and really reminded me of Coraline. didn’t love LOVE it but i had fun reading it and i think the ending was nice.
The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay
4.0
Contemporary is the genre I often stay away from because I don’t enjoy them most of the time. I find it more difficult to connect with the characters and to immerse myself in the story. It’s so hard to find a contemporary novel that’s genuinely a memorable reading experience for me. A Sea of Tranquility started no different. I initially thought it was going to be one of those books. But as I read along, I found myself connecting to the story and to the characters. Once my interests peaked, I couldn’t stop reading and reading until I eventually finished it in a heartbeat. I can’t say that it’s the best, however it is better compared to most YA contemporaries I’ve read in the past. It’s quite disappointing that this isn’t as famous or as hyped up as it’s supposed to be.