blewballoon's reviews
528 reviews

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A cute and fun teen romance. I had a little bit of a hard time getting into it at the start, but then once I was into it I was able to enjoy the humor and be charmed by the characters. I would recommend this to readers who like the friendships and lighthearted aspects of Alice Oseman's books. I was a little annoyed with the
third act breakup
, but it was a much less frustrating instance of the trope than I've read in other books.
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Forestborn by Elayne Audrey Becker

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a very well written book, with vivid world-building and interesting yet easy to grasp magic and fantasy. The characters are complex and intelligent. The tone is somber and heavy, with a sense of dread that builds from the first page and hardly relents. Arguably, the plot is a series of events going from bad to worse, a constant downward slope without many ups. For my personal preferences right now, I would have preferred there were more bright pockets to balance the reading experience. I ended up finding the plot somewhat predictable because I started just assuming the worst possible things could happen. If a slow, serious fantasy quest story is what you're in the mood for, this will work better for you.
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The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

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challenging reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

My boyfriend read this book to me at night to help me fall asleep, and it's great for that. If you need an example of a fantasy book with excessively convoluted names, this is the book for you. If want a painfully slow and dry story with a vague sense of political intrigue but nothing too intriguing, this book is an excellent choice. How much you enjoy this book will depend on how much you enjoy the main character. I personally thought he was.. fine? Not a bad person, but not an exceptional one either in the grand scheme of things. I was much more interested in his close staff, such as his personal assistant who arguably did the most, his rotating bodyguards, and even his royal dressers who picked out his clothes. (Notice how I'm avoiding using anyone's name because I have absolutely no hope of trying to spell them.) I think this book would have been vastly improved by having more perspectives, like the staff members I mentioned, and a female character perspective would have been great as well. The emperor arguably does the bare minimum in terms of treating women decently, at least from a modern viewpoint. I am glad this is a book where
"Good" people have good things happen to them and "bad" people don't get away with doing a lot of bad stuff for very long.
If this were a more pessimistic book, I think the snail's pace and difficult to grasp world-building would have been even harder to wade through. 
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Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

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adventurous dark 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

4.5

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I was worried that it would be a more grim fantasy story with a lot of violence and pain, maybe like Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler. There are definitely dark elements and high stakes, but the characters are really charming and easy to invest in. There is always a running theme that finding and caring for people is good, even though sometimes there are betrayals and mistakes. There were a couple turns the plot took that were refreshing compared to where I expected the story to go. A lot of plot was crammed in here. It felt much longer than it was, in the best way. The audiobook narration was pretty good as well. I'm definitely looking forward to more from this series.
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The 10th Kingdom by Kathryn Wesley

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 5%.
I tried reading this and it was basically just the series script, but worse. I was hoping it would add more depth to the show, but it definitely doesn't do that. Skip this and re-watch the miniseries instead.
How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster) by Marie Cardno

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fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This was cute and funny. I know it came out first, but I read it because I absolutely loved Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell and wanted to see how similar the two books were, since they are both sapphic and involve tentacle monsters. This is a much lighter read with an emphasis on humor, and in a contemporary setting. Both books were a good time for me, but if you want the monster girl romance without any violence, this is the one to pick. Alternatively, if you read this one and want a deeper read with more horror elements, I would highly recommend Someone You Can Build a Nest In. My small critiques with this book are that both characters are horny on site, which is odd since there's no actual spice in the book, and at times the writing was a little clunky.
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The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

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adventurous lighthearted reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

 Oh dear. I really wanted to like this. I have a nostalgic fondness for the 1982 animated film and I was hoping the book would have the same mesmerizing quality. From my recollection, the film actually follows the story and dialogue pretty accurately, if abbreviated. I wonder if it's this abbreviation that worked for me? The art style of the movie is so striking, and tonally works with the sometimes unnatural, meandering, and riddle-like way the characters often speak. In the text though, it feels like a bit too much. It almost feels like the characters are just reciting segments of nonsense poems like the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll to each other sometimes, they barely feel like people. The whole book is sort of like reading an epic poem that spends a lot of time describing things rather than on anything happening. Sometimes these descriptions are clever and well-placed, and sometimes they are just slowing an already slow story down. I wish this type of writing worked for me, and I wish I had enjoyed listening to this audiobook, but I know I didn't by how much I actively avoided listening to it. I found myself folding my laundry in silence rather than putting this on. I'm sorry, Peter S. Beagle, for not being able to properly appreciate the whimsy and imagery you cultivated here, and I'm sorry Patrick Rothfuss because your intro to the book was lovely and I wish I felt the same way about it as you do. 
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Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier

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adventurous hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I went into this one with low expectations because the last YA fantasy book I read from Book of the Month was "What the River Knows" and I thought that book was terrible. This book is so much better! I loved the setting/atmosphere with the tropical plants, mysterious ocean, and living tattoos. I loved the main characters, and the various supporting characters felt 3-dimensional as well. The plot was suspenseful and compelling. I do have some unanswered questions and concerns about how some plot points were left at the end, but those are small. Overall I really enjoyed this, a great summer fantasy read. 
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The Magician's Daughter by H.G. Parry

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed this. I checked at one point if it was YA or not, in some ways it reads young because not only is the main character Biddy only about 16 years old, she grew up in an unconventional way and is an interesting mix of intelligent and naive. The adult characters are seen through her perspective, but as an adult reader I had the experience of understanding them more quickly than Biddy did. I thought the writing was fantastic, both in terms of the prose and in terms of the plotting. I would be wishing for something to go a certain way, and then when it didn't I would realize that what had happened was inevitable based on the prior setup in the story. It was narratively satisfying. The audiobook was very pleasant to listen to and really suited the tone of the story, with subtle distinctions and accents to make it clear who was speaking. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in a coming-of-age historical fantasy.
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The Hatchling by Vyria Durav

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adventurous emotional informative fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I typically rate books by how much I personally enjoyed them, but in this case I'm unsure. I enjoyed the concept and the discussions of gender seemed really positive. I would recommend that section of the book to middle grade or young adult readers to help them understand what transgender means if it's something they're not already familiar with. Unfortunately, I thought the writing otherwise was clunky and awkward in many places. This definitely needed an experienced editor to polish up the phrasing and fix some blatant typos. I also felt like the back half of the story with the confrontation and aftermath was cartoonishly unrealistic. 
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