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ladybugwrites's reviews
217 reviews
The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
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
3.75
It's been a while since I last read a Karin Slaughter book (and I have only ever read one other). I do wonder if these books would be better if I read the series in chronological order, but idk and it doesn't matter. They're still relatively well-written and exciting books.
And like every other crime novel, this fits exactly what it's trying to be. It has an intriguing plot of murder, there's relations, there's the specific intrigue with our main character and bla bla bla. It does a lot of things very well, and I had a good time.
However, it is fucking detail oriented. I think you could get the same story out of this book in 200 less pages if you just, drop a few of the details. I get that a lot of it is important, but some 100 pages worth of details aren't. I assure you. And a few pages was just a complete repeat of something I'd already read just with a few added pieces of information and names you're not supposed to know which I thought was just boring and kinda lazy. I didn't need it.
And in the end, well, I really just wanted the book to end. I didn't really care that much anymore. To some degree, the edning also felt a little lazy but it wasn't bad. I liked the overall story, I just don't think I liked it as much as the other one I read or I might just have different tastes after it's been possibly almost 10 years since I read the last one. Hard to tell.
And like every other crime novel, this fits exactly what it's trying to be. It has an intriguing plot of murder, there's relations, there's the specific intrigue with our main character and bla bla bla. It does a lot of things very well, and I had a good time.
However, it is fucking detail oriented. I think you could get the same story out of this book in 200 less pages if you just, drop a few of the details. I get that a lot of it is important, but some 100 pages worth of details aren't. I assure you. And a few pages was just a complete repeat of something I'd already read just with a few added pieces of information and names you're not supposed to know which I thought was just boring and kinda lazy. I didn't need it.
And in the end, well, I really just wanted the book to end. I didn't really care that much anymore. To some degree, the edning also felt a little lazy but it wasn't bad. I liked the overall story, I just don't think I liked it as much as the other one I read or I might just have different tastes after it's been possibly almost 10 years since I read the last one. Hard to tell.
Kafka på stranden by Eiko Duke, Yukiko Duke, Haruki Murakami
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
whilst i think i do like Murakami's writing style (or at least how it's been translated), I don't necessarily think I like Murakami. This is the first one I've tried, and maybe I'll try another one and see if I like it more, but I think that maybe Murakami isn't for me.
The novel is a plotless story of self discovery, easily seen with the main narrator being a 15 year old kid on the run, but his story is not fascinating or exciting and it's mostly ruled by some weird fetish of wanting to sleep with women and then thinking/hoping they're actually family?? The sexual parts of this book were completely unnecessary and very oedipus-esque in a bad way. Maybe Freud would like this book.
The parallell story that follows along this one is more interesting. I like cats and I would love to be able to talk to cats. And the files on the incident that left Nakata as he was are way more interesting than anything else but almost felt irrelevant by the point I got to. I wanted more of that.
In the end, despite all the things I know the book is trying to be, the only thing it accomplished for be was being boring with a few exciting things here and there that made me continue in hopes there would be more of them. It kinda sucks because I was hoping to like Murakami (despite his way of writing female characters) because I think he's important to world literature, but alas, it didn't work out between us.
The novel is a plotless story of self discovery, easily seen with the main narrator being a 15 year old kid on the run, but his story is not fascinating or exciting and it's mostly ruled by some weird fetish of wanting to sleep with women and then thinking/hoping they're actually family?? The sexual parts of this book were completely unnecessary and very oedipus-esque in a bad way. Maybe Freud would like this book.
The parallell story that follows along this one is more interesting. I like cats and I would love to be able to talk to cats. And the files on the incident that left Nakata as he was are way more interesting than anything else but almost felt irrelevant by the point I got to. I wanted more of that.
In the end, despite all the things I know the book is trying to be, the only thing it accomplished for be was being boring with a few exciting things here and there that made me continue in hopes there would be more of them. It kinda sucks because I was hoping to like Murakami (despite his way of writing female characters) because I think he's important to world literature, but alas, it didn't work out between us.
Supernova by Marissa Meyer
dark
hopeful
reflective
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
I had high hopes for this book as this series has so much potential, and for the most part I did like this one too (4 stars is good, do not get me wrong), but I was left disappointed. With a premise with so much to it, so much nuance and a lot of it being shown throughout the other two books and the start of this, I was hoping for a real ending. There is an end to this book, and it's not bad, I'm just annoyed that it doesn't actually show you the changes that are advocated for throughout the book. It's just a 'oh now everything's nice' and I was definitely hoping for more.
Alsowhy have an epilogue that only leaves more questions? What was the point there? I'm going to find out if there's a sequel series or a companion book or whatever, but I really just don't understand that part.
It's still a good book. I still liked it fine as an ending to a series I've liked a lot, I'm just left disappointed with knowing what could be.
Also
It's still a good book. I still liked it fine as an ending to a series I've liked a lot, I'm just left disappointed with knowing what could be.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
fast-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
3.5
This book is much the same as a lot of other young adult books. It's cliche, it's predictable, and it has an interesting concept and premise that keeps you engaged throughout the whole book. There's many good things about this one and I did enjoy it, especially the kind of nuanced conversation about murder (which was very spoonfed in a way), but I have small gripes with this book.
One, there's a few sentence structures that I do not think work. They take away from the flow and these are repeated. It feels like sentences structures just to not use a pronoun two sentences in a row, really. And there are other places where the writing is just slightly off, but for the most part, the writing is good.
Two, the romance does not work. There was not enough build up to try and make a romance, and yet it is so forced in there. You can not want to kill someone (this is not a spoiler it says so on the back of the book) without being in love with them or having romantic feelings for them.
Three, take a look into how to do POV writings. I accept an overlap in classics because they usually have a differenet structure and a very clear narrator where it makes sense, but in a YA book like this, I do not want to ask myself which POV I'm currently reading, or have it be one and then the other in the next paragraph (this is actually one of the things that has me DNF fanfiction and the only reason I didn't DNF this book bc of it is because it wasn't that bad and tolerable and at some point, there has to be clear lines between the POV).
Four, the characters. They seems great, I like them to an extent, but I have a hard time understanding some of the choices they make. I have a really hard time with how fucking stupid they are and it got on my nerves.
Honestly, as I said, this is a pretty typical YA novel. It was very predictable honestly to the extent that I'm not sure I needed to finish the book to know what the end was, but it was still an enjoyable, easy read and I might, despite the four gripes above, still pick up the next one just because I kinda wanna know what happens next (also I did find the premise and concept of this dystopic world to be very interesting and fascinating and I do, somewhat, want to explore more of it).
One, there's a few sentence structures that I do not think work. They take away from the flow and these are repeated. It feels like sentences structures just to not use a pronoun two sentences in a row, really. And there are other places where the writing is just slightly off, but for the most part, the writing is good.
Two, the romance does not work. There was not enough build up to try and make a romance, and yet it is so forced in there. You can not want to kill someone (this is not a spoiler it says so on the back of the book) without being in love with them or having romantic feelings for them.
Three, take a look into how to do POV writings. I accept an overlap in classics because they usually have a differenet structure and a very clear narrator where it makes sense, but in a YA book like this, I do not want to ask myself which POV I'm currently reading, or have it be one and then the other in the next paragraph (this is actually one of the things that has me DNF fanfiction and the only reason I didn't DNF this book bc of it is because it wasn't that bad and tolerable and at some point, there has to be clear lines between the POV).
Four, the characters. They seems great, I like them to an extent, but I have a hard time understanding some of the choices they make. I have a really hard time with how fucking stupid they are and it got on my nerves.
Honestly, as I said, this is a pretty typical YA novel. It was very predictable honestly to the extent that I'm not sure I needed to finish the book to know what the end was, but it was still an enjoyable, easy read and I might, despite the four gripes above, still pick up the next one just because I kinda wanna know what happens next (also I did find the premise and concept of this dystopic world to be very interesting and fascinating and I do, somewhat, want to explore more of it).
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
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? Yes
3.0
I did not actually have high hopes for this book, but when I started it, it was better than I expected it to be. I really do like Stephen King's writing style, I think it flows and it's just the right amount of descriptive. I also, at first, didn't mind how much the book dragged. It has a really slow start, not really getting to the meat of the story until like 250 pages in (which is more than half the book), and it didn't botter me for the first 150 pages or so.
And then it did. At the end I really kinda just wanted to finish to finish. I think most of the last 200 pages were incredibly dragged out and slow and could've been done well without all the repetition and details tbh. This book started out as a tale about death, about what it does to those that are left, about what it looks like, and about the fact that some things are better left dead. And it ended up as, well to a degree that, but not in really a way I liked. It wasn't the nuanced conversation it started out as and instead became the horror I would expect - which whilst what I technically signed up for with a King book, wasn't really what I wanted after I read the first 200 pages.
And then it did. At the end I really kinda just wanted to finish to finish. I think most of the last 200 pages were incredibly dragged out and slow and could've been done well without all the repetition and details tbh. This book started out as a tale about death, about what it does to those that are left, about what it looks like, and about the fact that some things are better left dead. And it ended up as, well to a degree that, but not in really a way I liked. It wasn't the nuanced conversation it started out as and instead became the horror I would expect - which whilst what I technically signed up for with a King book, wasn't really what I wanted after I read the first 200 pages.
The Way of Kings Part Two by Brandon Sanderson
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
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
4.25
Honestly, this is one of the slowest building books I've ever read, and yet there's never a dull moment. It did take me some time to get back into it, but with everything I had to read for uni and working on assingments, I didn't really feel like reading anyways. But once I got to sit down during some nice summerdays that I just had, I raced through the rest of it. And those last 150 pages were amazing. I told myself that I would use a break between the book here because they're so long and everything, and I will read some other books between this and the next one in the series, but that break might not be as long as I initially though it would be.
Stories by Neil Gaiman, Al Sarrantonio
Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.
It's been over a year since I started this collection and I stopped because most of the stories didnt keep me engaged. Now, I've read the few stories from the authors i wanted to, and even those were kind of disappointing. The stories I did read are very well written, they're just uninteresting, I don't care for them. The only one I marked that I liked enough to reread is the one by Neil Gaiman. It kinda sucks, because I had high hopes for this considering some of the names on the cover, but alas, cant always get what you want.