botanicals's reviews
665 reviews

The Darke Toad by Angie Sage

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

4.0

Magyk by Angie Sage

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adventurous hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

The Fated Prince by Mikki Madison

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funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

(I received an eARC of The Fated Prince. I'm not obligated to give a good review, just an honest one.)

I asked for this ARC because I liked Mikki Madison’s story in the Aether Beyond the Binary anthology. The Fated Prince is published under the Duck Prints Press's explicit imprint, which I suppose, makes it obvious what the focus of the story is. What hooked me into the story was the mundane being made foreign (to the fae), like sunburn and how to treat it. While there were certainly some good scenes in the story, I felt that the non-POV character was very opaque. That is probably part of the point when writing fae characters—in which case, this story was excellently done—but I realised as I was reading it that I don't particularly like a very mysterious character in an explicit short story.
Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kōhei Saitō

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.5