nicobella's reviews
667 reviews

Od Magic by Patricia A. McKillip

4.0

This was a guilty pleasure and comfort read for me: the whimsical writing, the wonder, lightheartedness, and type of magic system. I was torn between 4 and 5 stars, but for for what it does in a short amount of pages it’s a 5-stars from me for now. I did highly enjoy the character work, the themes, the plot and worldbuilding.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

4.0

I highly recommend this book for the preteen age group. The world and mythology is super fun and from the start I thought this was going to be 5 stars for me. My personal enjoyment though was meh as I found the dialogue (and there was a lot of it) and plot to be very preteen - and sometimes even younger - and I wasn’t interested as someone who reads teen/YA and adult.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

4.0

This was a great non-fiction listen for me, as it had a solid mix of arguments with data/support I prefer in reads like this. My only issue is that it didn’t strongly enough lay out how to become grittier even though it sets out to do that for the second half of the book. Still, I felt seeds were planted and I recommend.

Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas

4.0

I had listened to “The Cemetery Boys” by the same author earlier this year and really enjoyed it. Though a Peter Pan retelling, it’s set in the modern day real world and as you can imagine with the topic of missing children in the real world, there was a lot of processing of loss in this book (which although sad is something I enjoy for my own grief processing). My only issue as an adult reader is I believe this is teen/YA and like Thomas’ other book, I felt the “teen-ness” in the dialogue of this one that slightly put me off from time to time. Overall I really liked it, I thought I was going to predict the ending but I was wrong and pleasantly surprised by it.

The Lightning-Struck Heart by TJ Klune

4.0

I’ve concluded this is like if Archer (the show) and Shrek (the movie) had a baby and this book is that baby but it’s a hormonal teenager. So it’s a mix of cute and sweet and raunchy in a dumb, silly, crude and lewd kinda way. So basically I dug the humor and thought it was hilarious. But this will certainly not be everyone’s cup of tea. For the romance, I went from annoyed to awww to annoyed to awww to annoyed to eh. But if you like the Archer sophomoric humor and enjoy or don’t mind A LOT of sex-talk, I highly suggest this for a good laugh and for it’s sweetness, solid friendships and loving family and found-family. Also, the audiobook narration is superb.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

3.0

For me this novella was not on the same level as the first and second of the series.

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

3.0

For me this novella was not on the same level as the first and second of the series.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

5.0

Until the halfway-ish mark, I was like, “this is fine,” but after that man-o-man my heart was won. This novella was exactly the fun comfort read I was looking fun.

Network Effect by Martha Wells

5.0

This is my favorite of the five I’ve consumed so far, particularly for its mystery plot, intricacy and dialogue. The second is still my favorite for friendships, then next up overall is the first one.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

3.0

In some ways this gives me Star Trek TNG vibes with a kiss of Voyager. If that makes no sense, for me I thought the species and culture exploration super cool, impressive and frankly brilliant. I’m not sure what it is about this book that leaves me confused about how I feel about it - like what are the gaps for me to prevent it from being 5-stars? - especially ‘cause I went straight to the sequel. Perhaps I was missing an enthralling plot? Idk, 3- or 4-stars for me.