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ncssundormas's reviews
134 reviews
Foul Heart Huntsman by Chloe Gong
4.0
“You are bound to me in matrimony. If you break it and descend into another plane of existence, I will chase after you and snatch you back.”
I have to admit, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have multiple issues with the way this book was executed, but honestly, I can't bear to rate the finale of one of my favorite series of all time lower than 4 stars, so what would've been 3 has turned into 4 (which to be honest I'm fine with after that epilogue because that was like 99% perfect).
Firstly, I love how humorous this book consistently was. Alisa had me laughing constantly, she's lowkey my favourite character of the series as a whole, I love her. There were also some more spoilery moments that were comedic gold, which I'll write about in my spoiler section!
We also had some beautiful moments between our main couples in this book, although I'd have to say that Celia and Oliver would be my favourites; I wasn't so sold on them at first, but here, they were just so good and so sweet, I'd love to have seen more of them. I also loved HighTide, of course, but I think they weren't done justice in some ways, which I'll explain in my spoiler section too. Silas and Phoebe were probably the most disappointing for me; I loved Phoebe throughout this book, but her relationship with Silas was clearly an afterthought the whole way through. it needed a lot more development for me to truly care about them as a couple, and I didn't get that. However, they did have a couple of moments between them that had me smiling, so that's something I suppose.
I loved the appearances of the "old ghosts" and "adversaries turned allies." That was appreciated, although I thought that it was a little too... well, little. There wasn't enough, and I'm not saying this just because I wanted more for the sake of it, I mean it because it would've aided the storyline (but I'll comment more on that in spoilers).
There were so many events in this book that relied on conveniences and a lack of any sort of scientific base, which I guess is reasonable seeing how it's a fantasy book, but also... no?? Some of it was just so blatantly convenient and plot armoury on purpose and ugh. It threw me off.
Finally, and this is the most complex of all I have to say, I just feel like this should've been two books. There are so many bits in the story that you can tell have been trimmed, outright cut from the story to cut down the word count, and some characters that were full on neglected for a good chunk of the book just because there was so much stuff going on that there was no way to address them. I'll mention more of what I missed in spoilers.
As you can tell by now, a lot of what I have to say includes spoilers lol.
Okay, now I'll finally talk about spoiler stuff!
Right, first I'll mention those funny moments that I was talking about. Just, Orion with his amnesia lowkey flirting with Roma was gold. And then no longer with amnesia recognising Marshall because of meeting him once at a White Flower cabaret was freaking amazing and perfectly in character for both of them ngl. Honestly, Orion was the star of the comedy show along with Alisa.
Then, I'll complain about how HighTide were done dirty. Okay, they weren't, but the fact that Rosalind and Orion reunite when Orion gets his memories back outside of Roma and Juliette's house instead of in the actual moment... it was so anticlimactic. Like, what was that? Rosalind couldn't bear to go outside in case he lost the memories for good? Oh, come on, that's so unsatisfying. I lowkey hated that. Not even Orion's joke afterward about all the stupid stuff he said while he couldn't remember anything made up for that. It was not the way I wanted that to happen, and I hate that that's how it did.
Now, Silas and Phoebe WERE done dirty. They were given so little time on page for us to see their relationship really bloom properly, especially given the fact that we saw them on the page and there wasn't really any sort of chemistry between them. It was just Silas hyper focused on Priest and Phoebe trying to throw him off the scent without being too obvious about it. I just didn't really feel any sort of romance potential between them, but that might just be my hatred for friends to lovers seeping through.
Okay, what I mean by there being too little of "adversaries turned allies" is Benedikt and Marshall. We last saw them in LVC, which we now know took place during this book, but we never saw the tail end of their journey in trying to find Lourens and then bringing him to Zhouzhuang to try and help Orion. I feel like that was an essential bit of the story that we should have seen, but we didn't.
The plot armour I'm talking about is the fact that Orion survived so long at the end with a stab wound like that, and was actin almost fine?? And then when Rosalind goes to give him her blood for the transfusion, assuming that her blood type will be the same as his, that's not how blood types work?? AND YET IT DOES?? AND THEN she takes that cure and suddenly she's no longer immortal, AND it's spread to Orion during the transfusion, so he's no longer strong af?? You're joking. Like, no, that's way too convenient. Absolutely not. You can't kill him anyway because all your fans would hate it, so why pretend like you will? Don't stab him in the first place, or put him in such a critical condition if you're going to save him like that a few pages later. Also, the fact that Silas was so trusted by the Nationalists that they didn't even question him when he said that she escaped on her own is... sketchy. Like, come on, not even a sliver of doubt? Really? When he was the only one guarding her?
For my issues with the frenzy of events in this book, I simply think that too much stuff was going on at once. This book should've ended when they rescued Oliver from the military base. It would've made sense. Oliver has been rescued, but Phoebe has been captured. Orion's memories are still up in the air. Japan's invasion has started. There would've been plenty of material to write another book with, and a much better opportunity to flesh out the characters who missed out this time around e.g. Silas and Phoebe. But instead, we got this mess, where the plot that the blurb claims goes on in this book has finished by page 130 of 520, loads of scenes have been cut to avoid this turning into 650 pages (when it's the final book of the series, so it's not like someone's gonna decide to not read it because of how long it is, they're in it for the long run by this point!!), and where characters like Jiemin don't just disappear off the face of the earth for convenience (like seriously, where the hell did he go?). Just, the execution of this book had so much potential and yet it was really poor for Chloe's standards. Especially because you can feel how she starts to rush things by the end, speeding things along and no longer doing those random chapters from the POV of the city to comment on the state of politics at that point.
To finish off the proper review, I'll comment on that one thing in the epilogue that I don't think was perfect, and that's Phoebe's ending. I'm really not sure if she'd stay as Priest after everything that happened. After all, she just joined the Communists to keep Orion safe, but now he's no longer an agent going into the field, so what's she still doing assassin work for? All she wanted, as she said herself in this book, was a home and safety, and I don't think she's getting either one of those things as Priest, so I don't understand why she's still going with it at the end of the book. To help against the Japanese invasion? I don't know, maybe that's just me. It's a shame, because apart from that the epilogue was perfect. Roma and Juliette will be fantastic girl parents (thank god for the B&N bonus story that I saw reposted on twitter confirming that lol, I wouldn't accept them having a boy sorry!).
Overall, as you can see, I have many personal gripes with this book, but because it's the final one of this series that I love so much, I can't bear to rate it any lower than 4 stars. However, in reality, it's more of a 3 star read. I had a lot of issues with it, but the good parts were so good. Basically, the highs were really high and the lows were very low with this book lol.
I'll really miss this series and these characters. I started reading this series back a couple of months after TVD released, so I've been with it a hell of a long time. Thank you, Chloe, for writing these characters. They mean so much to me.
I have to admit, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have multiple issues with the way this book was executed, but honestly, I can't bear to rate the finale of one of my favorite series of all time lower than 4 stars, so what would've been 3 has turned into 4 (which to be honest I'm fine with after that epilogue because that was like 99% perfect).
Firstly, I love how humorous this book consistently was. Alisa had me laughing constantly, she's lowkey my favourite character of the series as a whole, I love her. There were also some more spoilery moments that were comedic gold, which I'll write about in my spoiler section!
We also had some beautiful moments between our main couples in this book, although I'd have to say that Celia and Oliver would be my favourites; I wasn't so sold on them at first, but here, they were just so good and so sweet, I'd love to have seen more of them. I also loved HighTide, of course, but I think they weren't done justice in some ways, which I'll explain in my spoiler section too. Silas and Phoebe were probably the most disappointing for me; I loved Phoebe throughout this book, but her relationship with Silas was clearly an afterthought the whole way through. it needed a lot more development for me to truly care about them as a couple, and I didn't get that. However, they did have a couple of moments between them that had me smiling, so that's something I suppose.
I loved the appearances of the "old ghosts" and "adversaries turned allies." That was appreciated, although I thought that it was a little too... well, little. There wasn't enough, and I'm not saying this just because I wanted more for the sake of it, I mean it because it would've aided the storyline (but I'll comment more on that in spoilers).
There were so many events in this book that relied on conveniences and a lack of any sort of scientific base, which I guess is reasonable seeing how it's a fantasy book, but also... no?? Some of it was just so blatantly convenient and plot armoury on purpose and ugh. It threw me off.
Finally, and this is the most complex of all I have to say, I just feel like this should've been two books. There are so many bits in the story that you can tell have been trimmed, outright cut from the story to cut down the word count, and some characters that were full on neglected for a good chunk of the book just because there was so much stuff going on that there was no way to address them. I'll mention more of what I missed in spoilers.
As you can tell by now, a lot of what I have to say includes spoilers lol.
Okay, now I'll finally talk about spoiler stuff!
Then, I'll complain about how HighTide were done dirty. Okay, they weren't, but the fact that Rosalind and Orion reunite when Orion gets his memories back outside of Roma and Juliette's house instead of in the actual moment... it was so anticlimactic. Like, what was that? Rosalind couldn't bear to go outside in case he lost the memories for good? Oh, come on, that's so unsatisfying. I lowkey hated that. Not even Orion's joke afterward about all the stupid stuff he said while he couldn't remember anything made up for that. It was not the way I wanted that to happen, and I hate that that's how it did.
Now, Silas and Phoebe WERE done dirty. They were given so little time on page for us to see their relationship really bloom properly, especially given the fact that we saw them on the page and there wasn't really any sort of chemistry between them. It was just Silas hyper focused on Priest and Phoebe trying to throw him off the scent without being too obvious about it. I just didn't really feel any sort of romance potential between them, but that might just be my hatred for friends to lovers seeping through.
Okay, what I mean by there being too little of "adversaries turned allies" is Benedikt and Marshall. We last saw them in LVC, which we now know took place during this book, but we never saw the tail end of their journey in trying to find Lourens and then bringing him to Zhouzhuang to try and help Orion. I feel like that was an essential bit of the story that we should have seen, but we didn't.
The plot armour I'm talking about is the fact that Orion survived so long at the end with a stab wound like that, and was actin almost fine?? And then when Rosalind goes to give him her blood for the transfusion, assuming that her blood type will be the same as his, that's not how blood types work?? AND YET IT DOES?? AND THEN she takes that cure and suddenly she's no longer immortal, AND it's spread to Orion during the transfusion, so he's no longer strong af?? You're joking. Like, no, that's way too convenient. Absolutely not. You can't kill him anyway because all your fans would hate it, so why pretend like you will? Don't stab him in the first place, or put him in such a critical condition if you're going to save him like that a few pages later. Also, the fact that Silas was so trusted by the Nationalists that they didn't even question him when he said that she escaped on her own is... sketchy. Like, come on, not even a sliver of doubt? Really? When he was the only one guarding her?
For my issues with the frenzy of events in this book, I simply think that too much stuff was going on at once. This book should've ended when they rescued Oliver from the military base. It would've made sense. Oliver has been rescued, but Phoebe has been captured. Orion's memories are still up in the air. Japan's invasion has started. There would've been plenty of material to write another book with, and a much better opportunity to flesh out the characters who missed out this time around e.g. Silas and Phoebe. But instead, we got this mess, where the plot that the blurb claims goes on in this book has finished by page 130 of 520, loads of scenes have been cut to avoid this turning into 650 pages (when it's the final book of the series, so it's not like someone's gonna decide to not read it because of how long it is, they're in it for the long run by this point!!), and where characters like Jiemin don't just disappear off the face of the earth for convenience (like seriously, where the hell did he go?). Just, the execution of this book had so much potential and yet it was really poor for Chloe's standards. Especially because you can feel how she starts to rush things by the end, speeding things along and no longer doing those random chapters from the POV of the city to comment on the state of politics at that point.
To finish off the proper review, I'll comment on that one thing in the epilogue that I don't think was perfect, and that's Phoebe's ending. I'm really not sure if she'd stay as Priest after everything that happened. After all, she just joined the Communists to keep Orion safe, but now he's no longer an agent going into the field, so what's she still doing assassin work for? All she wanted, as she said herself in this book, was a home and safety, and I don't think she's getting either one of those things as Priest, so I don't understand why she's still going with it at the end of the book. To help against the Japanese invasion? I don't know, maybe that's just me. It's a shame, because apart from that the epilogue was perfect. Roma and Juliette will be fantastic girl parents (thank god for the B&N bonus story that I saw reposted on twitter confirming that lol, I wouldn't accept them having a boy sorry!).
Overall, as you can see, I have many personal gripes with this book, but because it's the final one of this series that I love so much, I can't bear to rate it any lower than 4 stars. However, in reality, it's more of a 3 star read. I had a lot of issues with it, but the good parts were so good. Basically, the highs were really high and the lows were very low with this book lol.
I'll really miss this series and these characters. I started reading this series back a couple of months after TVD released, so I've been with it a hell of a long time. Thank you, Chloe, for writing these characters. They mean so much to me.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3.0
this book didn’t make me feel very much, but it sure was a pageturner, so i’m feeling lukewarm. 3 stars
If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang
3.5
this was good, made me cry due to stress tho lol.
i’d write more but this is my second time writing this review because goodreads blew up the first time and deleted everything and it’s almost eleven pm soooo yeah, read this if you’re an academic overachiever, it will be your worst nightmare but also super cathartic
i’d write more but this is my second time writing this review because goodreads blew up the first time and deleted everything and it’s almost eleven pm soooo yeah, read this if you’re an academic overachiever, it will be your worst nightmare but also super cathartic
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
2.5
welp, that was a disappointment.
firstly, what bothered me most was the lack of soul in the writing. it was so dull the entire time (and not only because of how boring the story was, although that's definitely another point to be made) and had absolutely no emotion, just clinical descriptions and cold thoughts, so i only felt indifference throughout the majority of the book.
the chapter structure was also confusing. some were so long they told events expanding over a week in just one single chapter. others ended in the middle of the scene, leaving the next chapter to finish it off, which was weird and offputting.
then, the dialogue. it was mostly fine, but sometimes became very cringe. while it did feel like something someone would say in that situation, it felt very awkward to read.
the romance was also awful. no chemistry between the two characters, which i don't believe was intentional, and it went way too quickly. their final interaction left a sour taste in my mouth due to how anticlimactic it felt.
to conclude the negatives, i'll mention the page count and povs. this book didn't need to be this long, especially for a book with only a singular character's pov (which was, as the rest of this book, bland and boring). it would've benefitted from lucy gray and sejanus's povs in order to make it more bearable (not to mention an appropriate length). however, without them, this could've easily been a 400 page book and been a lot easier to swallow.
for me the only positives were the few mentions and hints to the original hunger games trilogy, which i found pleasant. for example, getting to know how some aspects of the games came to be was interesting (although the majority were just briefly mentioned at the end and that's it) and getting to know the hanging tree song's origin was a fun tidbit. but that's kind of it.
overall, this book lacked a lot, but was nonetheless not a book i hated, although that's probably because of how the dullness emanating from it made me completely indifferent. i'd read this in advance to the soon-to-be-released movie, but now i don't think i'll bother with it.
firstly, what bothered me most was the lack of soul in the writing. it was so dull the entire time (and not only because of how boring the story was, although that's definitely another point to be made) and had absolutely no emotion, just clinical descriptions and cold thoughts, so i only felt indifference throughout the majority of the book.
the chapter structure was also confusing. some were so long they told events expanding over a week in just one single chapter. others ended in the middle of the scene, leaving the next chapter to finish it off, which was weird and offputting.
then, the dialogue. it was mostly fine, but sometimes became very cringe. while it did feel like something someone would say in that situation, it felt very awkward to read.
the romance was also awful. no chemistry between the two characters, which i don't believe was intentional, and it went way too quickly. their final interaction left a sour taste in my mouth due to how anticlimactic it felt.
to conclude the negatives, i'll mention the page count and povs. this book didn't need to be this long, especially for a book with only a singular character's pov (which was, as the rest of this book, bland and boring). it would've benefitted from lucy gray and sejanus's povs in order to make it more bearable (not to mention an appropriate length). however, without them, this could've easily been a 400 page book and been a lot easier to swallow.
for me the only positives were the few mentions and hints to the original hunger games trilogy, which i found pleasant. for example, getting to know how some aspects of the games came to be was interesting (although the majority were just briefly mentioned at the end and that's it) and getting to know the hanging tree song's origin was a fun tidbit. but that's kind of it.
overall, this book lacked a lot, but was nonetheless not a book i hated, although that's probably because of how the dullness emanating from it made me completely indifferent. i'd read this in advance to the soon-to-be-released movie, but now i don't think i'll bother with it.
The Darkening by Sunya Mara
1.5
pfft. this was very bad.
the characters were all very bland until maybe a few pages towards the end of the book, and even then that was not good because nothing seemed to inspire that change in them, just that the author changed her mind about how she wanted them to act (she did that a lot).
the plot was very predictable; even though I’m generally awful at predicting these sorts of things, I guessed a good chunk of the plot lines with the minimal and confusing info given by the author.
the romance (which is described too often as “electric”) was more wooden than a tree.
the prose (which actually had potential to be great) was rushed in order to move the story on, which caused quite a few pacing issues throughout.
this book was essentially a bunch of good ideas with the execution quality of a 5 year old’s imagination run wild.
1.5 stars, rounded up to 2 on goodreads
the characters were all very bland until maybe a few pages towards the end of the book, and even then that was not good because nothing seemed to inspire that change in them, just that the author changed her mind about how she wanted them to act (she did that a lot).
the plot was very predictable; even though I’m generally awful at predicting these sorts of things, I guessed a good chunk of the plot lines with the minimal and confusing info given by the author.
the romance (which is described too often as “electric”) was more wooden than a tree.
the prose (which actually had potential to be great) was rushed in order to move the story on, which caused quite a few pacing issues throughout.
this book was essentially a bunch of good ideas with the execution quality of a 5 year old’s imagination run wild.
1.5 stars, rounded up to 2 on goodreads
Midnight Horizon by Daniel José Older
2.0
I was so disappointed. no THR book had disappointed me before this point, but this one did, spectacularly.
I think what ruined it the most for me was Older's writing style. it is much better suited to comics and middle grade novels than YA, but either way it is a rule when writing just about anything that you shouldn't make a habit of using exclamation marks, and he did. there was also random bits of dialogue that you'd find in my texts e.g. "hehe", "liiiiiiike" and "haha." I don't know about the other characters bc I'd never read about them before but his interpretation of Reath seemed off to me. I haven't read any THR in a while though, so it could be me misremembering. the entire third act was sooooo confusing though, I couldn't picture it in my head, there was too much going on and honestly I think even Older lost track of what was happening. there were so many underdeveloped scenes and moments that had an impact too, which had me shook because this is an almost 500 page book?? you certainly had the opportunity to flesh it out and just didn't.
it did have a couple of redeeming qualities though. I thought Kantam was a very well-developed character and I loved their story. Lula and Zeen were very enjoyable as well. it had a few humorous moments that I didn't expect.
now for a couple of spoiler things!
- how did everyone survive that last battle?? if it's solely because of Yoda that's extremely weak storytelling.
- Reath becoming a Knight and Cohmac leaving straight after felt sooo out of left field and defo needed more to it.
- Loden didn't need to be mentioned that many times. he was mentioned like twice, okay, but I'M SENSITIVE? AND THAT HURT ME
so that wraps it up. I'm very disappointed. pls leave Older with the middle grade novels and comics and pray for me if he ever writes one of the adult novels lol
I think what ruined it the most for me was Older's writing style. it is much better suited to comics and middle grade novels than YA, but either way it is a rule when writing just about anything that you shouldn't make a habit of using exclamation marks, and he did. there was also random bits of dialogue that you'd find in my texts e.g. "hehe", "liiiiiiike" and "haha." I don't know about the other characters bc I'd never read about them before but his interpretation of Reath seemed off to me. I haven't read any THR in a while though, so it could be me misremembering. the entire third act was sooooo confusing though, I couldn't picture it in my head, there was too much going on and honestly I think even Older lost track of what was happening. there were so many underdeveloped scenes and moments that had an impact too, which had me shook because this is an almost 500 page book?? you certainly had the opportunity to flesh it out and just didn't.
it did have a couple of redeeming qualities though. I thought Kantam was a very well-developed character and I loved their story. Lula and Zeen were very enjoyable as well. it had a few humorous moments that I didn't expect.
now for a couple of spoiler things!
- Reath becoming a Knight and Cohmac leaving straight after felt sooo out of left field and defo needed more to it.
- Loden didn't need to be mentioned that many times. he was mentioned like twice, okay, but I'M SENSITIVE? AND THAT HURT ME
so that wraps it up. I'm very disappointed. pls leave Older with the middle grade novels and comics and pray for me if he ever writes one of the adult novels lol
Vicious by V.E. Schwab
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
I’m so obsessed with this book oh my god. the short chapters were so captivating for me. every character was so interesting, although victor was undoubtedly my favourite. there wasn’t a ton of plot in this book, but for once I didn’t care. and there was still a plot overall, it’s not like nothing happened, it was just less important than the characters shown. I’m so obsessed with this book and I am so glad, seeing how I bought the boxed set of the series. I knew it’d be something I’d love, and I’m very happy that I’m starting to find those books that were just written for me. my previous experience with v.e. schwab had left me a tad skeptical (I dnf-ed addie larue) but clearly that just wasn’t the book for me, story-wise, and now I’ve found something much more my style. so basically, this was great, 10/10, slayed very much
Last Violent Call by Chloe Gong
4.0
this was (as expected) very sweet, and I loved how the two stories actually ended up being linked! it did get a little sappy at times, but that wasn’t too much of a bother for me. it’s a great set-up for FHH, and I’m so excited for September 😭
Babel by R.F. Kuang
4.0
I’ll admit, I almost dnf-ed at the beginning; it took 100 pages to really get going, and all the actual translation/educational stuff was very boring for me. but I pushed on, and the middle was amazing. it lagged towards the end, and this book sort of feels unfinished to me which isn’t great, but I still really liked it, and it carries a very profound and important message about colonisation with it, so I’m giving it 4 stars.