lolajoan's reviews
927 reviews

emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

Charming and well written, with some nicely intelligent insights and turns of phrase, but absolutely not life-changing in any way.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring reflective medium-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

5.0

Wonderful. It's fun, exciting, moving, and full of charm and character. I like Grossman's ability to be breezy and lighthearted sometimes and then be poetic and moving and intense at others. The characters are vivid and warm. I feel like he does a good job of pulling together all the bits of Arthurian legend and making something coherent out of it. Totally recommended. And despite some mentions of sex, assualt and violence, I think I could let me kid read this as a teenager, so that's nice.

Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-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

5.0

Brilliant. This book is tense and gripping and visceral. The author (and translator?) has an incredible voice that speaks universal truths in a way you've never heard before that is vivid and moving and intense. In tone it's similar to the film Parasite (obviously the subject matter overlap may inspire that comparison) though it's not quite as horrifying as the film, more unsettling and sad. And there's a deeper existential question that remains at the end, which would be a spoiler to explain, but suffice it to say that this book will linger.

Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

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challenging medium-paced

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

3.25

It's a very interesting world and setting, but I found the pacing uneven somewhat tedious at times. And the main character's faults are totally aggravating - like, c'mon man, if you just listened to people, and stopped being a selfish idiot, things would be much better. Sigh.

The Darkest Road by Guy Gavriel Kay

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

A wonderful conclusion. This series has everything that classic fantasy should: a sweeping novel world with a rich history; high stakes; normal people doing things they never would have thought they could; intense relationships; beautiful descriptions; and a lyrical sense of full-circle completion by the end. And it doesn't have some of the things that I hate about classic fantasy: obvious author-insertion faultless heroes; pathetically one-dimensional descriptions of women, non-white males, etc.; mind-numbing over-description of politics, war tactics, and history (obviously these things can all be important and integral to the story, but there are appropriate amounts); a rigid morality and class system that are unnecessary; and non-sensical deus ex machina. There are some flaws in this series, though. I prefer a magic system that can arguably make sense, but in this series the magic is mostly just the power of the gods and therefore not limited by any physical laws. I also really like the newer trends in fantasy to let go of traditional ideas of gender, relationship structures, and uniformity within races/nationalities, and this series could easily have adapted to those new ideologies if it were written today. All that being said, this is a great read. The characters are rich and nuanced, each having their own motivations and needs. Some are more vivid than others, at least for me, but that's okay. The story is big and complex but intertwined in ways so that all comes together in the end. The writing is gorgeous, and I enjoyed the textile analogies in the the worldview as well as the Toronto landmarks in the "real-world" parts of the story. It is a slower read but totally worth it.

The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

Beautiful, emotional, complex. It suffers somewhat from the same malady many 2nd-of-trilogies have - it's got a lot of ground to cover, it picks up in the middle of things so you have to remember stuff from the first book, and it doesn't fully resolve because that's what the 3rd book is for, and there's some character development but obviously they can't reach their full potential yet. However, it's undeniable that the writing and world-building is absolutely excellent.

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring fast-paced