chocorb's reviews
80 reviews

The Italian by Ann Radcliffe

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

1.0

this book was…now normally if idk what to describe the book as, i would say interesting, but really, this book was just boring and plain. what am i even supposed to say beyond that?

1 star, hated the experience, mildly disliked the book, lost most of my brain cells. was this worth it? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

it immediately ticked me off from the beginning (i didn’t think so at the time but since i need to vent i’ll just point out every little detail i disliked), with the whole “love at first sight” angle. i absolutely hate it when books do that because isn’t that just liking someone based on their looks? vivaldi saw her and heard her voice and that was all it took for him to fall in love. smh might as well fall in love with some random person on the street, what was so special about her that other women didn’t have, huh? and the fact that he pursued her so vehemently, despite not knowing what she was like in person. i would’ve liked for them to atleast interact first, and then for him to realise he’s falling in love with her instead of going to her house and singing. the thing is, when he did get to know her, she wasn’t even that interesting of a character LOL. i hate how in classics the women are always so scared all the time, they always cower and think about the protection of their lover. it’s like they don’t have their own lives besides in what they exist for men. 

im going to stop thinking about their ridiculous romance for the sake of my mental health. i didn’t realise this while reading but there was one friend of vivaldi’s who showed up in the first few chapters but we never saw him again. maybe i missed something that happened to him but he just vanished and then he got replaced with paulo. 

paulo, paulo, paulo. he kinda reminded me of sancho from don quixote but that feels like an insult to sancho. he literally had no life outside of his master. i hated how he was just there existing for the sake of the plot, because first it was vivaldi’s friend and then out of nowhere, paulo just steps in and revolves around vivaldi.

the writing in itself was pretty boring too. everything is so dragged out (looking at you kidnapping scene) so that even the actually decent scenes feel a bore. i did think this was fast-paced because stuff happened pretty quickly, but not quickly enough because do you know how many times i zoned out or fell asleep during this book?? 7 times, that’s how many. for something that is considered to be gothic fiction, i felt no gothness in it besides when finished and that’s when i became a goth myself. damn it i’ll kill ellena myself just for something to happen in this book.

im gonna be honest, the whole captivity, then running away, then getting taken again, then running away again, then blah blah blah was so ANNOYING, like die if you must! the whole time ellena was in danger, she just kept thinking about vivaldi, and that infuriated me, you cannot even imagine. MISS GURL, if i was held hostage or on the verge of death, i would not be thinking about the creep who followed me around and sang outside my house at 3 am. i would be screaming for my life, like hello, where the drama? the fear? the tension? ann radcliffe locked all these in the room with ellena but never let them get out.

the twists were twisty. nothing more to add on the plot twist because i could not make myself care about any of those characters or whatever happened to them. i was hoping ellena would die because then atleast it would all mount to some grief in the end, but instead they all end up with their happy ever after. where is my happy ending? what about the time that i lost, the itch of boredom that built up inside me, the hatred that slowly boiled to intensity. yk if i was vivaldi i would just stop looking for ellena and save us both the misery. they’re all so dramatic but nobody really asked them to do anything so grand, did they?

i wanted to talk about the romantic tension between vivaldi and ellena BUT DUDE THEY BARELY HAD A NORMAL CONVERSATION. how do you fall in love with each other like literally what do guys see that we don’t???

Batman: Contagion by Chuck Dixon

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

2.25

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

0.75

excuse me while i go and mourn over the time i could’ve spent doing literally anything else other than read this book 😖

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

do you want to waste your time :D

do you want to read a mystery book because i guarantee you’ll lose yourself in search for the part where you actually care :D

do you want red herrings with no purpose :D

women with no personality :D 
(who needs personality when you have such strong men AM I RIGHT AM I RIGHT)

and last but not least, do you want to be run over by a train yourself by the time you finish :D

100% Match by Patrick C. Harrison III

dark fast-paced

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

4.0

what the hell did i just read 

Batman: Cataclysm by Jim Aparo, Jim Balent, Rick Burchett, Devin Grayson, Kelley Puckett, Alex Maleev, Doug Moench, Klaus Janson, Eduardo Barreto, Alan Grant, Scott McDaniel, Mark Buckingham, Graham Nolan, Chuck Dixon

adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense fast-paced

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

3.5

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, Alexander O. Smith

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

i didn’t particularly like this book, mostly due to the slow pacing. i get how you can build up the tension but i don’t do well with slow-paced books.
i didn’t feel particularly attached to any of the characters either.

i would’ve appreciated some explanation on what the disappearances were so random (not why things were disappearing but why choose birds or calendars or photographs of all things, what was the reason for those particular objects?)

i really liked the novel within the novel though, felt like both the stories were paralleling each other — the mc losing her body parts and then at last her voice, while it’s the opposite with the girl in the novel.

i will say i found the last chapter very, very impressive and it resonated with me a lot. the last chapter was the redeeming factor of this book lol.

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0