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gandalf's reviews
705 reviews
Phoebe's Diary by Phoebe Wahl
I saw this on Libby and checked it out because I'm nosy and would read people's diaries for real if not for The Consequences. This one ended up being pretty dull though except for the novelty (to me) of the PNW vintage-wearing theater kid subculture of the people in it. Totally different species than the people I went to school with. It's like if Rookie Mag was real. So funny how this girl was crushing so hard on these super dweeby dudes.
A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon
1.0
The tone of this book is absolutely insufferable. I'm grumpy because the topic is one I'm interested in but the author uses this quirky/relatable style that seems like it's meant to appeal to the true crime podcast demographic, which is not an intelligent or thought-provoking way to write about a subject such as this one.
Unraveller by Frances Hardinge
2.0
It physically pains me to rate a Hardinge book so low, but I've finally admitted to myself after, what, a year?, that I just cannot force myself to finish this. It is just too disappointing. If this book had any other author's name on the cover, I probably would have enjoyed it, but for a Hardinge novel, it comes off as an unpolished first draft. The characters and story lack her usual complexity, and even the writing itself feels too bland and simplistic. I really hope this is just an outlier and not a signal of the way her writing style is progressing.