geraldine's reviews
319 reviews

Wild Geese by Soula Emmanuel

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.75

the lyrical writing style just didn't really work for me at all and this is the entire basis of my review score. i wanted to know about phoebe and her life but the writing style just did not grasp me and honestly at one point I legitimately fell asleep. this is a fully subjective take , so if you read an excerpt and it resonates with you, you may well like it!! please enjoy where i did not. 

the story itself was fine, just a little snippet of these women's lives over a long weekend.

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous dark tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.0

the actual end to this book is me exploding the darkling with my mind he sucks SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD

gee alina how come your dead mom lets you have three love interests, except that two of them are relatively generic handsome white boys and the last one is johnny depp as seen in the movie dark shadows

and brother, i'm a certified johnny depp hater

yet again the most compelling characters to me are mostly side characters and genya remains my favorite. surprised the book included that scene with her confronting (or really, being made to confront) the king. girl deserved every word in that pardon for poisoning him because she should have also exploded him with her mind.

there's a lot of stuff on the fringes of what the author is writing that makes the world seem bigger and also makes alina's story like... less interesting. though i did think some of the choices here with her at least were interesting. i do feel like she originally wanted mal to also be grisha and came to the (correct!) conclusion that making him also like """special""" like alina comes across flat. except that she did still kind of make him """special"""!!! and while I actually liked him and liked their ending i do feel like it was a bit of a cop-out, the way he lived. like not saying he actually needed to die at all, i think that could be an interesting story but could also feel just like being dark and depressing only dark and depressing's sake, but maybe come up with a way where he either never gets stabbed or doesn't have to like... die and then Magically come back due to Reasons. 

me reading this book: girl please just have sex with your childhood bff like please this is not helping anything just have sex with hi- ON THE FLOOR???? ON THE FLOOR??? THERE'S BEDS AND BEDROLLS PLEASE GIRL YOUR BACK

also thought nikolai was really interesting here. guy has really Been Through It. found out like 20 minutes ago that the other sequel series is about him??? except i also heard that those books are kinda mid???? there's a lot you could write about there but hmm.

did anyone else think there was sexual tension between nikolai and mal. please respond

Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

i enjoyed it, solid mystery book. guessed some twists, didn't guess others, all of them felt reasonably realistic for the story she was telling!

i did like

how so much of the book was focused on adore and bree's relationship, i found this the most compelling part of the book to me, even more than the actual mystery at the heart of it. and i liked the resolution with them.

more about bitcoin and cryptocurrency than i expected though. maybe that's on me because i usually expect zero bitcoin and cryptocurrency

solid book all around. would recommend if you like this genre

Unmissing by Minka Kent

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

was maybe a third of the way through the book and was struck by the feeling that I wished this was not actually a thriller and was instead just a story about a woman who was kidnapped and declared dead, finding her way back home to find her husband remarried with two kids and how she and the family navigated that and her road to recovery. this is not a criticism at all but actually speaks to the writing style of the beginning, i really liked her character writing.

all the asides about the restaurants really made me laugh i'm not gonna lie. also i genuinely think i would not like clam chowder. i'm not gonna say i would never try it, i'll try most things, but i just don't think i would like it!!!

Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of the Venture Bros. by Ken Plume, Patton Oswalt, Jackson Publick, Doc Hammer

medium-paced

read this as a PDF on my phone as there is 0% chance I will ever actually own this and then realized this is, in fact, a book, and this is how I beat my 30 books goal I guess. 

this book has a red barchetta by rush namedrop in it. that's really all you need to know 

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.25

when I opened this on my kindle to read it on the plane I thought it was wild geese by soula emmanuel, to the point that I even marked that one as "currently reading" despite them being completely different books. definitely meant I was a bit confused by the halfway point until I realized my error

solid book, compelling little slice of these girls lives and what they meant to each other 

One's Company by Ashley Hutson

challenging dark sad 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

read about 80% of this on an airplane, paused for my layover, and then when i came back later and saw the front cover i was like, damn that's good

compelling but so so so stressful

Don't Forget the Girl by Rebecca McKanna

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

liked the writing style, I found it immediately gripping. really liked the focus on the two women and their friend, and the critique of the true crime genre, and appreciated how they were all complicated and messy people.

i feel like i understand the reasoning behind bree's actions, and how different forms of abuse feel so normalized that you start repeating them yourself, but i strongly disagree with the authorial choice of her keeping the baby. i understand why the character does it but i feel like it hurts bree's growth. she recognizes how she hurt zach and takes responsibility for her wrongs at the school and with him...... but lies to him and tells him it's not his baby and keeps it??? continuing to hurt him with this lie.

as though her baby will never ask about their dad or reach out or even just do a mail in DNA test when they get older and now you bring this guy back to when his teacher preyed on him when he was a teenager. i'm not even questioning her desire to be a mother (both as an aspect of her character in the book and also as an authorial choice) but why could she have not gotten an abortion and THEN gotten a sperm donor. like the pregnancy cemented that she realized she did want to be a mother for real, but she knows the circumstances are shitty exactly like the original circumstances with the detective, just swapped around. it was gross when it was her and the detective and it was just as gross when it was her and zach.

anyway. i docked a half star due to chelsea

having her final character breakthrough moment in a lutheran church. true jumpscare of the book. i put my kindle down and ran my hands down my face.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Homophobia, Infidelity, Grief, Stalking, and Murder

Minor: Pregnancy

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

challenging dark hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

so I definitely misunderstood at least part of the premise of this book, and I think if I knew the actual premise I wouldn't have read it.

the writing style was fine and engaging and the characters were compelling, and it does a good job of making you feel the weight of the ever changing weather.

I've got some not-so-positive feelings about some of the themes of the book but i don't want to start typing paragraphs and paragraphs of word vomit """essay""" so I will leave it at that.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Gun violence, and Grief

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

adventurous mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

so did this book end with a polycule or what