maddy707's reviews
91 reviews

mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I am conflicted about this book. Although there were aspects I enjoyed, those aspects also come with things I didn’t enjoy.

For the most part I liked the main character. Though the random quotes/catchphrases I found cringeworthy. The autism aspects of the character are pretty stereotypical but also don’t make much sense. On one page you have her struggling to understand emotions and facial expressions. On the next you have her perfectly understanding people's behaviour. It’s inconsistent.

This book is written in a first person perspective which I wasn’t a fan of at first but I eventually got used to it. FPP will always read like fan fiction to me in the beginning.

At the end of the book there is this really great scene showing us the moment that Gran died. It’s incredibly emotional… and then it’s ruined by the main character essentially murdering Gran upon her request. Why couldn’t she just go in her sleep and stop breathing normally. Why did she have to make the main character do that? Additionally, while I understand Gran was very important to Molly, the constant mentions of her death and the grief that Molly feels is so overdone. It feels like every single page Molly is talking about her Gran’s death. Like we get it, she’s dead and you are sad about it, anything else?

The writing of Detective Stark is so unprofessional and not at all how a detective would act. It’s like this was her first case ever. Every single time she spoke it irked me so bad. Not sure if the author intended for me to be so annoyed by her.

The part at the end where it is revealed that Molly knew who the killer was all along makes no sense and almost completely ruined the book for me. Molly has no reason to cover for the killer outside of not liking Mr Black. About 50% of this book would have been resolved much quicker if Molly just told the police that. There are no clues given to the reader at all that Molly knew who the killer was. It’s like the author threw it in there at the last minute. It honestly makes 0 sense at all. It’s so out of character.

The actual crime itself makes no sense. Why did nobody check the security cameras? Why is Molly arrested when there isn’t actually any substantial evidence towards her being the killer. Why isn’t there more investigation into Mr. Black’s day and his ex-wife. It just makes no sense at all.

Content Warnings

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was a quick and enjoyable atmospheric gothic horror. The writing style flowed well and I was able to picture this book perfectly while reading. The story was fast paced and intriguing and the goreyness of the story was well done. I enjoyed the casual queerness of this book. The relationship being WLW adds to the seduction the author tries to create with the whole blood stuff. If it was MLW the vibes wouldn’t be the same.

Content Warnings

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross

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dark tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I was just so bored with this. It doesn’t hit the same as Divine Rivals and there wasn’t nearly enough romance for me. It just left something to be desired. The pacing was so slow through the first half, Dacre and Enva’s relationship wasn’t expanded upon nearly enough. The tone was so jarringly back and forth. And so much stuff was just randomly thrown in without much expansion.

Content Warnings

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

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emotional funny tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

Here’s what I liked:

The writing style. It’s exactly what I look for in a book. A balance between lyrical and not. The flow of the writing and the pacing of this book is perfect.

The character’s. I loved all of the main characters in this book, especially Iris and Roman.

The exploration of grief. It was beautifully written.

Here’s what I didn’t like (none of these things were enough to drag the book down for me):

Once the romance actually turned into a romance it went EXTREMELY QUICK. At first I didn’t like it but then the themes of the book came into play. This story tells us that life is fleeting because of the threat of war and how so much can be ripped away from someone in a single day. So the choice of Roman and Kitt getting married straight away actually makes sense when you think about it.

The ending is a bit miffy. It was so… abrupt. But again that’s what the book told us. I think it felt so rushed and quick because the author needs to lead into the next book, which I imagine is going to focus a lot more on the war. She just wasn’t able to do it as smoothly as it should’ve been. Maybe an extra 50 pages would have helped.

Content Warnings

Scrivener's Moon by Philip Reeve

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adventurous 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

2.5

I wish I loved this as much as I loved the first 2 Fever Crumb books. I was finding this series to be so much more enjoyable then Mortal Engines. But this book just didn’t live up to the first 2.

There were too many characters and towards the end everything just felt complicated and clunky. I couldn’t follow along with what was happening. It wasn’t until Wavey died that the book even piqued my interest. But there were just so many different threads of this book that were left unfinished. For example, Dr Crumb’s writing just felt so out of character. I didn’t like it at all.

Something I did like about this book was the writing of Charlie Shallow. The sociopathic nature of him came across very well. I also enjoyed the whole bisexual arc Fever went through. I wasn’t expecting it and I found it endearing. Especially considering how much I liked Fever and Arlo together. The audiobook performance in this one was the best it’s ever been. Each character had a unique voice and it added a lot to being able to picture the characters.

Overall, I would say this book just feels unfinished with too much happening in it and some poor writing choices.

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