caroline_mclaughlin's reviews
58 reviews

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

dark funny tense fast-paced

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

2.5

I truly never dnf books because the unfinished book will always haunt me, but it got to the point where I felt like this book would haunt me if I did finish it. Somehow, however, I managed to push through. 

I had so many issues with this book. It is gruesome seemingly for the sake of being gruesome. Some of the quotes and passages are so beautifully written, but there are also so many choices the author made that I don’t understand. The character development happened so quickly, it felt incredibly unrealistic. Also, the characters were both so deranged it was often hard to even tell them apart. Overall, it was an odd short story with a good beginning, grotesque middle, and hilarious end.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.75

It was nearly impossible to get into and through this book. However, I should mention I’ve never had a strong interest in the “Wonderland” universe, and this may have made the book less interesting to me. I found the world building to be odd and not well detailed, and the characters to be oddly one dimensional with strict interests like “baking” which felt overall pretty arbitrary. Though I like Meyer’s stories typically, and her romance always well done, I found this one fell short and dragged on, rather than adding anything interesting to the Alice in Wonderland story. 

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

informative inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

I just love the way she personifies the items and one’s house. She’s clearly an expert, and this book was a great supplement to her Netflix show.

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green

emotional informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.25

I think I’m reading this book at the wrong time. Though the essays have a lot of interesting information and reflection, and they look at humanity in a gentle way that refuses to be too saccharine, the constant references to the pandemic and positioning of the present in 2020-2021 makes it hard to enjoy. Reading it in spring of 2022, when we are on the cusp of yet another variant, I don’t find myself close enough to the initial stages of the pandemic to want to bask in comforting thoughts about our persistence, nor distanced enough to be able to enjoy reflections on the pandemic. Give it ten years and this book will feel like a time capsule of this era, but at the moment, it feels more like a painful reminder.

My favorite essays were Auld Lang Syne and Harvey.

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

This book has so much promise but it never really hooked me. It felt like the entire thing was the beginning of a larger story drawn out to fill the time. I’m also finding that I’m really not a fan of “motherhood” narratives, especially those focused on a woman discovering she may be pregnant after her partner’s infidelity is revealed and the subsequent ruminations on the loss of her chance at motherhood, which is of course supposedly the only thing all women want. If that hadn’t been one of the primary focuses of the story, I think it would’ve been much better.

Bluets by Maggie Nelson

emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

Interesting concept. I’ve found that I struggle with poetry and short form prose in the same way that I struggle with art museums. I’m incapable of slowing down and enjoying, but I often enjoy the individual pieces when shown separately. I did enjoy some pieces, and despised others, so the score kind of averaged out. I do wish a book like this had been given the credit rupi kaur was given so I could’ve bought this book as a college freshman instead and actually read something worthwhile. 

However, despite some of the insight I gained from it, I thought it suffered from some of the same pitfalls many books like this one often do. Maybe this is just my personal taste, but I found that the many gratuitous sexual descriptions all felt intended for shock value or to appear “gritty and raw” and none seemed to truly add anything to the piece as a whole. There were also a few other bad takes I found with respect to the Middle East. Placing these in between quirky epithets and yearning passages often felt inappropriate. I’m sure it’s composition in proximity to 9/11 did nothing to help that, but it made the reading experience much more uncomfortable. Overall, it had some interesting ruminations and some truly, seemingly unintentionally off putting sentiments.

Winter by Marissa Meyer

adventurous funny 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

4.25

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

informative reflective 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

Not sure I like Margaret Atwood’s writing after reading this and good bones and simple murders. I liked one of her poetry collections, and I actually found the poetry to be the best part of this book. I just wished she had written a few poems about these same topics instead of a full book where she didn’t really have anything new to add. Maybe this was very “new” when it was written, but I think now, with the many other takes on Greek myth, this is far less interesting. 

Unfortunately, it falls into the same trap many retellings told from a woman’s perspective seem to fall in: placing the main focus still on the main male character with some extra commentary, rather than really fleshing out the new protagonist. I also felt as though this book was lacking in love. No one seemed to really care for each other (Helen was awful, Odysseus is as bad as the rumors, Telemachus is less admirable, and even Penelope seems distant). This made it hard to care about anyone, and with the short length of the story and the somewhat repetitive writing, it was impossible to feel anything emotionally towards the outcome. Overall, though this may have been an outstanding work when it was written, it has been surpassed by other retellings, and I would suggest simply reading Circe instead.

War Storm by Victoria Aveyard

slow-paced

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

2.25

This book was only marginally better than the previous two, and I had a hard time distinguishing between whether I was enjoying the second half better, or was just feeling excited to be nearly done.

I don’t understand the point of adding in multiple perspectives for the final book, especially from those we have never heard from before. It feels like a cheap way to extend the story without actually introducing anything of interest. Also, why were they introduced when so many of them just think about how amazing mare is. I don’t need more perspectives talking about how fantastic she is when she is literally the least intriguing character in this whole series. I get that she is considered the protagonist, but there is no way that every other character would think about her that much, especially Iris.

This series seriously would’ve benefitted from a better editor to cut down so much of the unnecessary content. The amount of repeated phrases did nothing to help the theme or anything story wise, and just made every conversation so much longer. How many times do we need to have convos with diplomats or other leaders about the same exact things over and over and over again? It’s obvious that in a war, this would be necessary, but we don’t need to read it! We know maven lied, we know that mare was forced to do things, we know all of this info and we have been told it 6 times over every single time that anyone in this book talks to anyone even kinda new. The book was trying way too hard to be Game of Thrones with its level of political intrigue, but it lacks any of the world building to support something like that. I have to assume everyone who loves this book was constantly skimming or took super long breaks between reading each section because there is no way that the repetition wouldn’t bother you otherwise. 

This whole series had the tiniest bit of promise with the first book, but the narration style and the constant infodumping and unnecessary details made it so incredibly mediocre and boring, I don’t know how it has been recommended so much. I always feel there is something to gain from finishing a book despite not enjoying it, but this has absolutely proved that wrong. Just because it picks up a bit close to the end doesn’t redeem the meandering plot and repetitive nature of the book. This series is not worth reading and especially not worth finishing.