hali's reviews
358 reviews

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

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

a great character study that never let you forget who annie truly is and where she really came from. set in a world that closely parallels ours, i could see technology like this being real. you’ll always find me rooting for the AI to get their dues and fight against their creators that don’t respect their autonomy.

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

adventurous challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

this could’ve been an email

but seriously, the first two work so well as a duology that this felt contrived. i wasn’t struggling to get through it or anything. i just didn’t care as much as i wanted to.

good luck to leto and his golden path but i’m getting off.

i miss when Arrakis was a desert planet… my Dune.

Piglet by Lottie Hazell

dark emotional medium-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

3.0

this is a book about a woman spiraling after finding out that her fiancé “betrayed” her in some way. she makes some horrible decisions and eats some great food while she tries to cope with what he did and how she will address it. i love stories like these. i like seeing relatively “normal” people become unhinged after something traumatic happens to them. 

still, i was hoping this would be weirder.

when she began imaging herself as a pig i was like YES! FINALLY! but it didn’t go much further than that.

not a bad read at all but i won’t remember it in a few months.

Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton

funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

a bit more enjoyable than the first book! that may be due to my expectations being set correctly and the great character work (i love mickey and nasha and their  friends!). i feel like the story has come to its natural conclusion, but i wouldn’t say no to a 3rd book either!

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

maybe i expected too much. i just assumed this would take a more thriller-y turn once Mickey8 was introduced. this was perfectly fine and fun to listen to. however, it was bogged down by too many flashbacks and ruminations on history (i like that Mickey is a historian, but there had to be a more interesting way to incorporate these scenes). the romance subplot was cute though!

this will make a great comedy film 🙂‍↕️

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett

mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

very fun and quite shocking at points. i liked the way this story was told through transcripts and screenshots and emails. i also loved the use of 2nd person.

Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris

dark emotional sad slow-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

5.0

the writing was simply beautiful. it was eerie, dark, and soggy (iykyk). i need to see these paintings brought to life! 

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

An interesting mystery, although I’m not certain the reader could solve this on their own. Still, I was intrigued and wanted to know what was really going on. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the answer though. I thought this was going into a more fantastical realm, and I guess that’s my bad.

Additionally, I liked that this was told through audio file transcripts. But the audiobook should’ve had at least one other narrator to make this formatting stand out more. I know why it didn’t (I guess…), but I missed that element. 

Animal Farm by George Orwell

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

5.0

“Man is the only creature who consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.”

Orwell does not care about your feelings. He seems to be a realist more than anything. There are no happy endings. There is only the truth.

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

1984 by George Orwell

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

“Where does the past exist, if at all?”
“In records. It is written down.”
“In records. And- ?”
“In the mind. In human memories.”
“In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?”