hazel_heart's reviews
71 reviews

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous slow-paced

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

2.0

I really hate Feyre. But even still, she didn't deserve what she has gone through.

I'd say that this book is mainly a romance book with high fantasy flavour. The romance takes place between The Beauty and the Beast but the plot twist is that the Beast is also beautiful and he sparkles. He's very hotheaded and shows his beast claws and roars at tiniest things. The Beauty has a severe case of damsel in distress syndrome, she'd not survive a single day without a hot strong male saving her life. Overall, I didn't find their romance to be very lovely. But I think it's up to preference.

First half of the book is Feyre being dragged to this Fae Land called Prythian. She'll be talking to herself most of the time about her plans to escape these terribl-y hot Fae. Even though the Fae already told her that she's free to go wherever she wants and that she's not a prisoner. But I think it's a running theme I missed out on, Feyre might be legally deaf. She will ignore most things being told to her and each chapter will begin with Feyre making silly plans in her head about escaping. But her plans are so silly that everyone kinda feels embarrassed for her.

Anyways, one thing leads to another, she develops stockholm syndrome and decides to save the Beauty/Beast from an evil fae queen. And even though I hated Feyre until that point, I still felt bad for her because certain terrible people keep taking advantage of her against her will, repeatedly, for months. But she still saves the day and instead of doing anything remotely reasonable, she just wants to bone. Oh yes, she wants to bone more than anything. In the middle of a world-ending event, she risks it all to bone her hot Fae boyfriend. She dies and gets resurrected and she's in the mood immediately. But she has gone through a lot, I guess. Bone to your heart's content Feyre, you go girl. Bone away.

PS: The book felt a bit repetitive. Feyre kept talking about the same things over and over again.
PSS: Nesta is a Queen!

Content Warnings

The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford by Philip K. Dick, Steven Owen Godersky, Roger Zelazny

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious fast-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

4.0

I decided to read this after watching Electric Dreams on Amazon and it makes me look eagerly forward to second season. It's an anthology series based on Philip's short stories. And I just learned that Philip's own daughter produced Electric Dreams, that's so wholesome. Reading this book is pretty much like watching another season of Electric Dreams, it was very enjoyable. Some stories are kinda "meh" but most of them had great premise. A lot of time travel themes, in one of the stories we see a time traveler being sent hundreds of years in the past to stop a priest from delivering a speech that ended all wars and the only identifying thing of the priest he has is his skull from the future. Some post apocalyptic stuff, in one story a tribe of humans travel to ask questions to the Great C, the tribe having lost all knowledge of science after the atomic apocalypse. Idk how to end this review, so here's an electric sheep 🐑

Figure Drawing for Artists: Making Every Mark Count by Steve Huston

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informative inspiring fast-paced

5.0

Study study study... I've learned about the beanbags and eggs and cogs. Some bigger concepts were lost on me though.

The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

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dark relaxing slow-paced

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

4.0

I don't think Poe needs my puny review but I'll say that this collection helped me understand that I suck at reading poems. When I listen to other people read his poems, they're awesome. When I read them myself, they sound like out of rhythm pop songs, even The Raven, lol.

I reduced a point because his Satire/Humor stories are, understandably, aged very poorly (Humor is a dairy product). If you can laugh at them, you're legally allowed to claim you were born in the wrong period of time.

I was going to reduce more points because Poe loves rambling about the most mundane things. If that's how people talked in the 1800s, I don't know how they could get anything done, small talks could take hours! But The Raven was so good, I just couldn't bring myself to give this book 3 stars.

And I knew there'd be racism and I've read Lovecraft so I was prepared for it. But his (only) novel still got me pretty annoyed with the racism and "oh we're so white and better than everyone" themes. And it kinda sucks.

Content Warnings