knkayaktel's reviews
447 reviews

The Last Letter From Sicily by Lindsay Marie Morris

3.0

A young Italian girl and her lover are separated by sea and war when Concetta goes to the USA with her family and Gaetano fights for Italy. While the plot was good, the writing style was not great. I love historical fiction romances (which this is slightly), especially revolving around WWII. The struggle of a foreigner in the USA learning the culture while being unable to talk to her boyfriend due to war politics was new to me which was fun. However, the writing felt very middle grade. Shorter sentences, very basic dialogue, simplistic plot and actions.
Short entries of what was happening between large gaps in time (in addition to the simplistic writing) made it hard to get into while being a quick read. It was difficult to connect to the characters as there wasn't much depth to them. It was very surface level. Much of the story felt like it was more of a retelling of a backstory than the actual plot. 
And then when the younger sister's "pov" appeared, the writing turned even more juvenielle making it seem like she was 6 rather than in 6th grade.
I felt like there was a lot of fluff "entries" that did not add to the story but were just there for the page count. and then there were unresolved topics

like the innaporpriate boss

.
One random thing that bothered me was how short the letters were, or at least how short the reader got to see them. They were writing about once a month because everything took so long, but the letters were only a couple sentences to a paragraph most of the time. You'd think they would make the most out of what they could.
The issues and reconnections and forgiveness and everything felt rushed and not in depth, making it hard to care or feel like it was really happening. Resolutions felt too easy.

I think the story had a lot of potential and I am disappointed I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

adventurous tense

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

4.25

I had no idea what I was getting into but I like mysteries and I was getting bullied into reading it and I’m glad I did. fun and exciting. def noticed a few parallels to JKR’s Harry Potter series. looking forward to the next one!

Amazon Woman: Facing Fears, Chasing Dreams, and a Quest to Kayak the World's Largest River from Source to Sea by Darcy Gaechter

adventurous challenging informative tense fast-paced

4.0

an adventure memoir of an intense kayak trip. as someone who has gone on (much shorter) adventures in groups, it is amazing they were able to work through their problems. while Midge (sp?) doesn’t always come off in the best of lights, Darcy admits she didn’t always react in the best of ways either. impressive and fun story to hear. 

Radium Girls by Kate Moore

informative reflective slow-paced

3.25

I wanted to like this more than I ended up liking it. I liked the writing style of the epilogue more than the actual text. the text had a lot of cited quote integrated into the work that felt like reading a research paper. 

the content was interesting and infuriating and I hate that they went through that and were treated so poorly. screw the Radium Company. 

Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

4.0

Quidditch Through the Ages by J.K. Rowling, Kennilworthy Whisp

informative

4.25

very fun! I liked the added info at the end of the audiobook, about the 2014 Quidditch World Cup.

my one complaint with the audiobook is the background noise (like brooms swishing, crowds cheering, and a few other things during the textbook part) make it hard to hear the narrator, it's too loud.

The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman

3.75

I had no idea what I was getting in to. the beginning was good but then it got a little wack. i’ve struggled a lot in the past with Backman’s writing style but this one was okay. 

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

adventurous tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.25

if you like sci-fi, this book is for you. I’m not a sci-fi person but had to read it for a book club, so I struggled with it a bit. very dense and (as audio especially) I struggled to keep track of who was who. it was hard for me personally to visualize things. but the ending was interesting if not crazy. I liked the writing. not sure if I’ll read the next one but maybe at some point.

I read the prologue and first bit early on and briefly paused before getting into the depths so it took me like half the book to realize the Julie from the prologue was the Julie that Miller was looking for lol

Emergency Contact by Anthony Ledonne, Lauren Layne

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

very Hallmark-esque. if you enjoy that style of movie you’ll like this book. the FMC was a little more insufferable than I would have liked but it turned out decently. 

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Did not finish book. Stopped at 27%.

I could not get into this no matter how many times and formats I tried.