captainoliimar's reviews
58 reviews

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.75

I enjoyed the first part of this book. I enjoyed understanding her thoughts of why she chose to

kill her grandparents

in that specific manner and why she felt they deserved it. I also enjoyed the portions where she was in jail and slowly uncovering the reasons why she was there.

However, I think that I stopped enjoying the book as much when she killed

Andrew

. I felt like her motivation didn't make as much sense as the others as he had never directly done anything against the main character or in the same vein as what the other family members had done.

The sections where we learnt more about her backstory felt like they dragged on too long too. I understand that a good portion of it was necesary to understand her motivations and build up to the ending, but I just found myself waiting for those sections to be over to get back to the interesting parts of the book.

The ending felt like a huge let down too.

I could see the plot twist coming that her father was killed by someone else and I thought it was an interesting twist that her careful plans didn't pan out the way that she thought they would. However, it felt kinda cheap that this mysterious character swept in at the last second to take everything she had worked for. It felt especially frustrating as he had grown up in a much more priveliged position and didn't "deserve" or "need" the money in the same way. I think I would have enjoyed it more if she was able to get the money and then he showed up and found a way to manipulate her out of the money or something.

Characters: 4/10 x2
Atmosphere: 5/10
Writing: 5/10 x2
Plot: 6/10 x2
Intrigue: 6/10
Logic: 6/10
Enjoyment: 4/10 x3

Solitaire by Alice Oseman

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.5

I really enjoyed other Alice Oseman books so I dove into this one expecting the same thing. Unfortunately I didn't click with this one the same way I have with others. I struggled to connect fully with Tori, even though I like her character in other books. It kinda just felt like she was existing in different places for the whole book and never fully engaged with the plot herself. I also unfortunately found Michael quite awkward and irritating. Something about the way he barged in to the meal just felt quite icky to me and I think that overshadowed his other appearances.

Characters: 6/10
Atmosphere: 7/10
Writing: 4/10
Plot: 5/10
Intrigue: 4/10
Logic: 6/10
Enjoyment: 5/10

Content Warnings

The Pits by Katy L. Wood

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

I got my copy of this book slightly early as I backed it on kickstarter but I couldn't wait to read it! I couldn't put it down and read pretty much all of it in one sitting. This was my first book by this author and as soon as I finished this book I had to go and read Poison in the Blood, which is one of their other books because I enjoyed this one so much!

I loved the worldbuilding and the mystery surrounding the Pits and the author's descriptions were so interesting. The Pits were so mysterious and spooky and there was a creepy energy the entire time the characters were in them! The characters are very intriguing and I constantly wanted to learn more about them too! The characters are diverse but in a way that feels perfectly natural and makes complete sense within the story and their individual stories and perspectives are so interesting and cause a beautiful level of conflict between them.

The ending

was so beautifully frustrating. My heart broke for the characters and I immediately had to convince my friend to read the book so I would have someone to talk to about it. I need to know what the bit right at the end with Royal is going to mean and my heart breaks for Clarabella.

Overall, I loved this book and I will be (im)patiently waiting for the sequel! Though I do think the ending to this book is complete enough that it is satisfying to read by itself, there are amazing plot points that will be picked up in the second part that I cannot wait for!

Characters: 9/10
Atmosphere: 10/10
Writing: 10/10
Plot: 9/10
Intrigue: 10/10
Logic: 9/10
Enjoyment: 10/10

Content Warnings

Sappho Intl by Mvxx.Amillivn

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mysterious slow-paced

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

1.25

Hoo boy, I have a lot of thoughts on this book, I could probably write a lot about my feelings but Instead I am just going to make a list of them:

Near the begining of the book there's a vague reference to the main character being a gold star lesbian, which is stated to be a good thing. This is incredibly gross, transphobic, and just all around exclusionary.
The main character is written without any flaws and is rather conceited, which to an extent is fine, but I found annoying.
There is an extreme emphasis on masc/femme relationships, with it kinda coming across like those are the only valid relationships. This is incredibly exclusionary and its weird to be applying hetero relationship standards to non-hetero relationships.
The descriptions of the locations were interesting, but they were far too long and detailed. I didn't feel like I needed a thorough interior decoration lesson each time we moved rooms.
At some point in the book there is also a bit where the main character mentions that most women she's encountered have never had a real orgasm before and she's the only one who can give it to them. This just feels incredibly egotistical and weird.
I really didn't enjoy the amount of spiritualism in this book and it made every sex scene hard to read, this may not be a problem for everyone, I just don't vibe with that kind of stuff and it was so heavily intertwined within the book that I couldn't ignore it
One of the plot points in the book is that
the main character is upset that Flourish is having sex with The Shiek, even though there was an early point where the main character talked about setting boundaries on their relationship because Flourish was too possessive and one of the main rules of the society is that there are no exclusive relationships allowed. I don't understand how the main character could be upset at Flourish when she herself went and had sex with many other women in the book.
The way that the characters talk to each other doesn't feel very natural, and the way the conversations were written meant that I found it difficult to keep track of who was saying what, especially if there was more than two people involved

I also later discovered that the book was self edited, and I think that explains a lot of my issues with the book. If this book had a good, strict editor to help the writer iron out a lot of these issues, I really think I would have liked this book a lot more. As it currently stands, I really didn't enjoy this book and I'm glad I'm done with it.

Characters: 2/10
Atmosphere: 4/10
Writing: 2/10
Plot: 3/10
Intrigue: 1/10
Logic: 4/10
Enjoyment: 2/10

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

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tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Unfortunately, I think this book heavily suffers from a shift in perspective post-COVID-19 pandemic. The main character

skips quarantine for an increadibly grusome and deadly pandemic in which the government was burning down whole buildings where a case had been discovered.

That just really soured my feelings towards the main character, and my feelings towards her just never really recovered.

I also struggle to understand why this is marketed as a cinderella retelling, like I get that calling it a cinderella retelling would make it more marketable, but this story doesn't make sense to me as a cinderella story.

Like yes it has a lot of the main parts of the cinderella story, the evil stepmother/stepsisters, cinderella being treated as a maid, her going to the ball, her falling in love with the prince, the prince not knowing about her true identity. But it strays from the plot a lot as well, she meets the prince long before the ball, and she doesn't lose her shoe.

It just felt to me that adding the cinderella elements made the plot far more complicated than it needed to be, as it was already rather complicated as a cyborg/mystery plague/

people from the moon

story.

I don't think I will continue with this series, especially with the number of books there are.

Characters: 4/10
Atmosphere: 7/10
Writing: 4/10
Plot: 4/10
Intrigue: 3/10
Logic: 6/10
Enjoyment: 3/10

The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-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? No

5.0

I picked this book up a while ago and didn't realise it was part of a series until after I had finished it. That didn't stop me from enjoying the book, though, I feel like it stands up pretty well as a standalone book, though I am very excited to get to go back and read the rest of the series. I thought the mystery was very intrigueing and the twists were so cool and unexpected. The characters were fun to learn about and I enjoyed the way it switched between the present and the past when the crime happened!

Characters: 9/10
Atmosphere: 10/10
Writing: 10/10
Plot: 9/10
Intrigue: 9/10
Logic: 9/10
Enjoyment: 10/10

Content Warnings

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

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emotional informative inspiring mysterious 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

This book was quite an interesting read. I enjoyed the way it tackled identity and the ways that different identities interact and how you can be marginalised in some ways while also being discriminatory to those who are marginalised in different ways to you. I feel like I could recognise some of these characters in the people I knew when I was 17 like them. I enjoyed the exploration into identity, and the way that people with differing opinions on identity can coexist within the same community and how understanding your own identity doesn't always mean you get it right first time.

Characters - 7.5/10
Atmosphere/Setting - 7.25/10
Writing - 7.25/10
Plot - 8.75/10
Intrigue - 7.75/10
Logic - 8.5/10
Enjoyment - 7.75/10

Content Warnings

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

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mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Honestly, I don't think this book was for me, there was nothing particularly wrong with it, I just didn't gel with the writing style very well and I felt the book could have been 100 pages shorter and I wouldn't have missed the content that was cut. Though I will say I do think the descriptions of some of the more technical stuff would be useful for someone who isn't knowledgable about things like bullet matching or cellphone pinging.

I did find the case(s) intriguing and I wanted to know who the culprit was and how they did it, but I didn't find myself racing to get back to this book. I do think it is possibly aimed at an older reader which is not a fault of the book, but rather just a bad fit for me.

Overall, I don't think I will return to Michael Connelly's work again, but it was interesting to try out.

Characters - 5/10
Atmosphere/Setting - 6/10
Writing - 4.5/10
Plot - 7.25/10
Intrigue - 4.75/10
Logic - 8/10
Enjoyment - 3.5/10

Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda

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emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

4.0

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

5.0

I loved this book, I read most of it in one sitting and I was sad when I got to the end. I thought that the premise of the book was super unique and interesting. The way the chapters were laid out with the 'production logs' was really fun and I liked that they weren't just for show and you actually learnt stuff that was relevant to the plot through them. I spent the entire book trying to figure out who the murderer was and I want to reread the book and see how many bits of foreshadowing I can spot now I know the ending. I will say though that

I'm not sure I can forgive the author for killing the dog

.

I'm really glad that the writer has more books in this series and I can't wait to get my hands on them!

Characters - 9/10
Atmosphere/Setting - 6.5/10
Writing - 10/10
Plot - 8.5/10
Intrigue - 9/10
Logic - 7/10
Enjoyment - 9/10

Content Warnings

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captainoliimar's reviews 58 reviews

captainoliimar's reviews
58 reviews