ladybugwrites's reviews
286 reviews

Morgenstjernen by Karl Ove Knausgård

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 43%.
As I first started reading this, I was under the impression I'd finish. It seemed to have a theme around death and I was fairly interested in what might happen. by the fourth or fifth person I'd followed for a few days and seeing this weird star, I didnt care anymore. Also, these characters are not likeable. I cannot explain how much I just, at some point couldnt stand them.

At some point, one character says something about how people have decided to say things are good even when they dont like them, that theyre expected to like it so they act like its great, and this only perpetuates the shit and makes there be more shit. Ironically, this book got a bunch of five and six dice from various critics and I'm certain they must being doing this. Nothing happens in this book, and also, when my dad says it's not really worth it and had critiques and he usually reads stuff like this or that some people find boring, well. that says a lot to me.

might try another Knausgård book at some point, but it's gonna be a while.
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 12%.
I had a hope that this would be good and that I could enjoy something like the shining again, but alas, I didnt even get 100 pages in. The writing is okay and I don't think the plot has really started where I stopped, but after the third csa story, I got kinda sick of it. The blatant misogyny didn't help.

I'm not against these things being in a story, but somehow, the way King wrote them left a bad taste in my mouth and I just don't care enough to read on.
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

4.0

This books has scared me for the past however many years since I bought it. It's been a, probably seven years since I read Six of Crows duology, and maybe four or five since I read the Shadow and Bone trilogy. Despite my love for the SoC, I didn't care much for Shadow and Bone (I did read all the books, though), and this scared me when I bought this book, something I did solely because it's about Nikolai and he's my favorite character from S&B and very much made the trilogy worth reading.

However, I had very little to worry about. Whilst I do think this book has an incredibly slow start somwhat unnecessarily - though it does pay off as you get into the meat of it - I still had a blast going back into this world. I have a thousand questions as I finished the book and I know for certain that I will be picking up the next one, possibly sooner than I might've thought myself due to the ending. I found the return to characters great, most of the plot interesting and fascinating. I will admit that, despite how exciting and nervous I was reading, parts of the plot aren't to my liking, not necessarily because it is bad, but because I believe Bardugo has the capabilities to do more instead of reusing something already done (that is very vague and iykyk). 

One thing I do want to highlight is Bardugou's great way of writing a slowburn. I am not a romance person outside of fanfiction, usually don't need it in my books, most often don't mind. Yet, I do sit here and giggle to myself like a teenager at times, hoping there will at least be a kiss to satisfy me. 

also this is just a stupid little thing, but how come Nina mentions Inej, Kaz and Jesper multiple times, but she doesn't mention Wylan even once? Am I misremembering something or did Bardugo herself forget about him (I know she didn't). Im sorry, I just wanted him mentioned whent the rest of them were
Macbeth by Jo Nesbø

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 28%.
This is a fairly okay book, but at some point I felt it didn't actually manage to capture what's good with the original play by Shakespeare. It's not only missing something, but it's doing a bad job of conveying what I think it should. I will also say that the way Macbeth is introduced at first makes the actions he takes later not make any sense. This is explained and it's logically makes sense, but it feels wrong. I don't believe it and ruins my immersion.