joannemae's reviews
210 reviews

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

3.0

I usually love a dual timeline story, but Melina’s parts were a drag to get through and I often found myself praying on her downfall.

Hide by Kiersten White

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.5

I would never trust anyone who takes me to a secondary location, but maybe that’s just me.

More thriller than horror.

The Will of the Many by James Islington

adventurous tense medium-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

3.5

Is the main character a Mary Sue? Yes. Is Vis absolutely deranged and unlikeable? Yes. Does his convictions make any sense???? Barely.

In fact, here's a list of the book's crimes:

• Daddy Tellimus is dumb. Like straight up dumb. Grief makes you do insane things, but he's dumb.
• So you're telling me Ianax is THE best swordfighter in the whole nation and Vis is not only new to this style of swordfighting, but also only had minimal amount of prep. And yet... Vis... didn't... get... crushed??? And I'm supposed to believe that this is... believable? Okay.
• So you're telling me not-chess is Belli's thing and yet she's easily tripped up by a little goading?
• ALSO, Vis is able to beat Belli in not-chess because he promises to pledge to Governance... but why??? Why does that matter? Why would Belli care about that when she's in Military?
• Vis is actually really dumb, honestly. For someone supposedly so smart, he's just... not.
• The exploration into themes of power and classism is very shallowly explored. Okay so the lower class stays lower class while the upper class get stronger day by day? Are we in Intro to Capitalism 101?
• I'm not saying that a white, male author can't be aware of social issues, but the way this was written makes it abundantly clear that he has a very, VERY narrow perspective on this.

But whatever magic Islington put into this book has absolutely bewitched me and he made it work 100%. For whatever reason, I was hooked and devoured this book the way I devoured books back in middle school (aka the good days) and for that alone, this warrants a decent rating. Because he wrote a book with such a genuinely amazing and well thought-out plot (AND insane world-building. I haven't felt this engrossed in a book's world since Hunger Games), it's easy to gloss over everything else that's wrong with the book. Needless to say, I'll be reading the rest of the series.

Vis, I'm praying on your downfall tho.

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett

funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

For a book containing drug dealing, drug addiction, death, kidnapping, a divorce, and *gasp* gifted child burnout, you'd think this wouldn't be a cozy book, but it is. And it balances being cozy while discussing all of the above with a decent amount of tact and poise.

This book is very cozy and very very very quirky which could a plus for some, but wasn't really hitting for me. Towards the end of the book, it even transcended quirky and landed straight into absurd territory.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

challenging dark slow-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? Yes

3.5

Comedic and grim at the same time, sometimes even in the same sentence. This book is very different and difficult to get through but once you get into the groove, it's worth it. Very weirdly fantastic and full of humanity and death. So it goes.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

challenging hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Absolutely devoured it and left feeling both seen and hurt. There's a lot of experiences that Hong finally gave me words for, but also a lot of feelings I felt disconnected from (a lot of her revelations are branded as Asian American centered when, really, they're specifically from an East Asian perspective).

Her writing is razor sharp, lending to several incredibly written and visceral to read essays.

This would have easily been a 4.5/5 star book but it's actually insane that she

admits to harassing her therapist

and the exploitative way she describes

her friend's mental illness WITHOUT consent

was deranged. Lucky for Hong, the rest of the book is a banger.

A Dangerous Education by Megan Chance

dark tense fast-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

2.0

I saw that this was for fans of Lessons in Chemistry and, frankly, if I were Bonnie Garmus, I'd sue for slander.

Technically a dark academia except there wasn't much in the way of any academia. Storyline was decently tense, but every now and then I remembered that the only reason tension occurred was because Rosemary is actually a dunce. How am I supposed to root for someone that makes this many stupid choices?

It's also a historical fiction... technically, because the threat of the McCarthyism was there but also... wasn't? There really wasn't ever a real threat of girly being taken in for her supposed communist-adjacent beliefs sooooooo what's the point in that.

Andromeda by Therese Bohman

slow-paced

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

0.0

It’s actually insane to criticize bad literature while putting out a book this awful. At some point, a character refers to a book as “dreadful, written in a pseudo-lyrical style that felt so intrinsically false,” which feels like the author was just looking in the mirror.

In Any Lifetime by Marc Guggenheim

adventurous medium-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? No

1.0

Not enough people are talking about how this is just a poorly written ripoff of an already poorly written book (Dark Matter).

Also, as someone dating a physics nerd… they are NOT as hot and charming as these books so desperately want you to think they are. Whatever physicist propaganda these authors are on, let me set you straight.

Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

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

1.5

Really milking this series dry, huh...