inuyasha's reviews
334 reviews

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab

1.0

DNF at about 25% of the way in.

i read the first book in this series about six months ago at the recommendation of several friends/mutuals. i cannot attest to the pacing in the first book (which is my main issue here and why i'm cutting this one short) because i read it entirely on a plane, where even a badly paced book becomes god tier entertainment. i didn't really connect with all the characters - they were fun, tropey, just not the tropes i usually vibe with - but the world building and magic lore was REALLY well done, so i grabbed the sequel. and y'all..........

the characters i already wasn't super interested in became unbearable - lila is fine, but repetitious and i think her not like other girls shtick reveals more about v.e. schwabs probable internalized misogyny than it does about her ability as a writer. i have ZERO interest in rhy, for being apart of the main catalyst of the first book, you're never given much of a reason to love him, so this book starting out riding on the back of rhy/kell's conflict is incredibly boring. i do love kell, i think when schwab wants to, she lets him be really interesting, but his personality is pretty inconsistent and while him being so tightly restrained is apart of this books plot, it makes his scenes sooo dull.

i saw schwab on here mention that the first few parts of this book were actually originally intended as separate, short stories and god can you tell. tons of reviews and conversations with people who recc'd this book to me ended in someone saying "the plot doesn't really take off until around page 300".. ... girl................. who has the time??

i mean, like, clearly me because i'm writing a multiple paragraph review, but still.

also, the world building and magic i loved about the first one fell absolutely flat here, and definitely was heavily overshadowed by things from popular media around the time this book was published that schwab took for inspiration. which, hey, we all do it, but there's a sweet spot between subtle homage and something leaving you just wanting to watch/read the thing it was inspired from instead.

Anna K by Jenny Lee

3.0

feb. BOTM pick.
guilty pleasure, junk food of a book. i've always loved modern adaptions of classics (see: 10 things i hate about you and it being logged in my letterboxd at least 300 times), especially when it's done with high schoolers/college students. this was fun, and a good bit of escapism during a pretty stressful work week otherwise.
i think the biggest fault this book has is an overabundance of pop culture references that will surely date it (also, like four random chapters in the middle that not only reference songs, but include song lyrics.... cringe). it also veers way too into "how do you do, fellow kids?" territory to be 100% enjoyable. i think all authors would benefit from actually reading text threads between teenagers before writing YA books, idk why people are still pushing that they just come up with random acronyms all the time? lmfao.
i think a lot of the messages/takeaways the author was intending to have, especially given the differences she made a point of making from anna karenina came across as a little too ham-fisted in the end, and also a bit contradictory. having a character saying her boyfriend cheating on her was the best thing to ever happen was a little..... yikes from me.
that said, the ending DID make me misty-eyed and the author's note was very genuine and sweet :(

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

2.0

the thing that gets me most about this book is i don't... understand why it was written? it wasn't original or adaptive enough to count as fiction, but it wasn't as informative as it needs to be to be considered a resource on norse myths. considering that gaiman hasn't actively written in years, it's hard not to view this as a quick, cheap novel to pass off to a) keep his name in the literary world and b) get some royalty checks but tbh that might just be a bit mean-spirited because for as much as i love adaptions of his work, i've never loved gaiman's writing myself - and i don't know why i keep trying to force it.

i think this is an okay book if you don't know a lot of about norse mythology, specifically the gods, and just want a stepping stone into it - but i think there are better fictional versions out there and better informative titles out there as well. i'm also disappointed because i had at least hoped for more of a viewscope outside of the main gods. the one thing i will credit this to is being written as totally sympathetic to loki and sigyn and their family - the story of her with the bowl and the snake venom always sits with me for a while after i read about it.

The Witches of New York by Ami McKay

3.0

i am so.. .. conflicted about this one?? probably more like 3.5 stars than four. the writing was great, the different threads coming out of the main story reminded me of a lot of other books i liked (before the feast comes to mind), and the writing style and care and love the author clearly has for paganism/witchcraft is obvious. however, the characters felt kind of one-dimensional and there were a few plot points/questions that weren't resolved by the end of the book. but, i'm a sucker for witches and found families and specifically found families that involve pets, so! the ending felt very ghibli-adjacent.

This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us by Edgar Cantero

1.0

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

2.0

march BOTM pick.
hugeeee trigger warnings for pedophilia in this one.

god like.... this read like a bad jodi picoult book, which is ironic, because jodi picoult books are referenced near the end. the writing style is nice, and really had me in the first half, and then it takes a random nosedive into mediocrity. this is clearly fowler's attempt to project a novel into a world that is very politically charged, and wanting to get clout for being an author adding to that charge. i mean... race, class, pedophilia, abuse, enviornmental conservation - what topic does she not try to touch? what topic does she not include and then ultimately fail to say anything meaninful about?

absolute nonsense, meaningless mess of a book, that tries to end on an inspiring note - but if it takes the death of a black character to do that at the hands of racialized violence, i don't want it. i'm sure a ton of white suburban moms really into true crime will pat themselves on the back for this and feel about themselves, but this ain't it.

First Cosmic Velocity by Zach Powers

3.0

"i now know that leaving one place is not the same thing as returning to another."

more like 3.5 stars, i think. i'm still digesting. firstly, i have no idea who wrote any of the copywrite for this book - both the book jacket description and goodreads come across as wildly sensationalist and very pulp, which is not... this book at all. in fact, the whole thing about "twins not existing anymore" is never even mentioned in the text - very strange! this feels more contemporary fiction than historical or lit, but the marketing definitely doesn't reflect that.

maybe this isn't a great book, and maybe where powers decide to stay historically accurate and where he decides to fictionalize are odd, but this book is about loneliness - loneliness of duty, of family, of nationalism, of space. and it hit a weird spot for me, two weeks into quarantine, two weeks since i've left my house for anything. the mad, itching insanity of the younger leonid in space felt eerily relatable at a certain point. (also, a huge part of this book is about a character's relationship to a dog, and how they find their humanity through that connection, and i just adopted a rescue two weeks ago. like i said, maybe not a fantastic book, but it hit weird and personal and just right for me right now.)

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix

3.0

i think largely this book is pretty well written and paced, it just didn't do it for me. could have done with less hhhhh modern music bad hhhhh technology bad bullshit. grady hendrix's writing style reminds me of the better aspects of edgar cantero's books, so i'll probably read something else by him since everyone marks this as his 'least fun' book.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

3.0

i almost want to rate this four stars because i fucking devoured it, but a few of the lines made me cringe and tbh i got kind of weary of the story by the last few chapters. :(

talia hibbert's voice reminds me so much of the bridget jones movies that if you were to pull out of context dialogue from the movies and from this book, and ask me to guess what was what, i'd fail hard. also, not to be corny, but seeing a character with chronic pain in a book where the author seemed to know what she was talking about and didn't make it weird or patronizing or for diversity brownie points made me kinda weepy.

The Seas by Samantha Hunt

3.0

sometimes you read a book and know this is how you want to write, this is what you want your voice to sound like.

this book has my big and maybe only trigger in it and i didn't bat an eye. i think samantha hunt might be a witch for that one.