luckyonesoph's reviews
277 reviews

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

emotional inspiring tense fast-paced

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

4.25

i loved this!!!!!! so so much!!!!!!! tracy deonn you are a goddess and i'd read you grocery lists. i honestly cannot write a super-detailed review because i inhaled all three books in 3 days and the details blend together a lil bit but trust me when i say this is one of the best ya fantasy novels ive read in YEARS. its so reminiscent of the golden age favourites; it has the found family of the raven cycle, the anti-establishment fmc badass-ery and political/historical awareness of the hunger games, and the sardonic humor and cameraderie of the percy jackson books. is it a bit tropey? sure! but it was just so, so much fun to read. 

the world-building was a bit info-dumpy at first, but i didn't mind it given that this is a four-book series with pacing that is otherwise impeccable. every character is so real and well-rounded, and the magic system makes sense, but also has endless possibilities, giving tracy deonn so many ways to shake things up and up the stakes. overall, it's such a strong debut for a series, and i reache for the second book immediately. 

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

lighthearted reflective sad 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

2.0

this reads like listening to the average pandemic-era podcast started by some guy who lives alone and has nothing better to do only he's a small-town british loser who makes too many 90s pop culture references

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

sad medium-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

snoozefest!!!! at least it had gay subtext. that part was fun!

(yes, i know it's a beloved classic. yes, i understand why it's a classic. yes, i know about the themes and the subtext and the symbolism and everything else you can learn by watching john green's crash course videos or by reading the sparknotes chapter analyses. yes, it was still a snoozefest.)

(i mostly read this so i could fully appreciate the gatsby references in taylor swift's music and i'm not even a little bit embarassed about it)

Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

(this is me hiding my face in my hands so my friends don't look at me. sorry for this.)

Ok, open the book, read the prologue/first chapter, close the book. Brilliant, 4 stars. A Paladin whose god is dead is an intriging premise! Give me more! (And then a lot less of the rest!) Or you know what, give me a whole book on Marguerite, or Zale, and I'm sold. 

I didn't hate this, but I was like...annoyed by it, which is almost worse. Because the more I think about it, the worse it gets. 

First of all....where was the fantasy? I know it's primarily a romance, but there was so little fantasy to be found, you could have put these exact characters with this exact plot in a real-life medieval village and I would not have noticed any difference. Maybe that's a me problem, idk. 

Second, not a single scene or page or sentence in this book could convince me that these characters are adults in their 30s. They are constantly second-guessing their actions like a pair of whiny adolescents wandering the halls of their high school. The constant horniness gets so old (and honestly extremely creepy) very fast. People are being murdered and Stephen is a 30-plus-year old man who is thinking about how badly he wants to fuck another 30-plus-year old woman. But he can't do that, so he'll just think very murderous thoughts about any man that approaches her. Please grow up. I wanted to smack him in the head and tell Grace to run, but she was just as irritating sometimes. I really wanted to feel bad for her - her backstory really is tragic and angsty and very real - but the constant internal monologue of "I'm so broken" really starts to drag the story down. She acts like a fragile child, and everyone around her treats her like one. And there's nothing I find more boring than the "I'm so ugly/boring/broken/etc, why is he/she/they in love with me?" trope, which both Stephen and Grace have. In spades.

And finally, all of that,

for the mystery to essentially get solved off-page? By other, less central characters? This, and so many of the author's other decisions, left me feeling so patronized as a reader, and I hate that feeling.

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke

emotional informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

This was a random pick off a random shelf at the library, and I was so pleasantly surprised. Really insightful, really imaginative, really poigant, and really emotionally resonant. 

"But loneliness isn't necessarily tied to whether you have a partner or a best friend or an aspirationally active social life in which you're laughing all the time. It's a variance that rests in the space between the relationships you have and the relationships you want. Loneliness lives in the gap."

First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison

emotional hopeful lighthearted 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

3.75

It was fun! I had a good time! Giggled lots! I loved the premise (Sleepless in Seattle is one of my favourite comfort movies) and loved the flirting and the banter. Overall, it was really well-written. If you're a fan of contemporary romance novels, I think you'll really love this! 

I just wish the two main characters had a little more emotional depth, a little more complexity. Aiden's backstory was touching, but didn't really align with some of his emotional outbursts. Lucie felt almost like a self-insert character, with no real passions or interests beyond finding love on the page. Like, I'm writing this review a week after reading the book and the two of them were so unmemorable to me, I actually had to look up their names. The supporting cast (Lucie's daughter, her co-parents, and Aiden's manager) really helped round out some of the more repetitive scenes, so kudos to BK Borison for pulling off a bit of found family in an otherwise pretty standard contemporary romance. Knowing that her fans say this is her strongest work, I'm not sure I'm inclined to pick up anything from her backlist now, but I am looking forward to future projects!

Sula by Toni Morrison

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

"So when they met, first in those chocolate halls and next through the ropes of the swing, they felt the ease and comfort of old friends. Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be."

There isn't much for me to say that hasn't been said 100 times over. Toni Morrison is considered the great American writer for a reason. Sula is honest and gritty and uncompromising, and so, so vivid. I loved it and I think I'm a better person for having read it. 

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.

oh my god nothing HAPPENS. no plot, flat copy-pasted characters, cliché as fuck, and nothing. fucking. happens. this is the book y'all went crazy for? seriously? i'm never this mean w reviews and dnfs but like...seriously????

She Gets the Girl by Alyson Derrick, Rachael Lippincott
Did not finish book. Stopped at 12%.

i cannot move past the banana scene i am so sorry

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo

emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

oh! well. ok then.

edit: ok i took some deep breaths and thought about it some more, and lowered my rating a little bit. i do think parts of this make for a fantastic memoir, but there are several damaging and outdated statements in here (primarily about certain modalities, professionals, and medications) that absolutely should have been edited out, or at least cautioned against, that I just can't move past. i understand that its a memoir, and that the author herself may not be able to assess her own experiences and her own work objectively, but with a topic as important and as potentially life-saving/ruining as this, an editor should have. and while my opinion is also subjective of course, i feel pretty good about it because im seeing several other reviewers with personal experiences of C-PTSD (like me) also noticing these issues. there's more to say, but i think some of the other reviewers do it better than i could rn. 

sending big hugs to other c-ptsd survivors who picked up this book hoping to feel validated. take care of yourselves <3