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oashackelford's Reviews (351)
Lyn is the daughter of seven gladiators and a glad wife. She loses her last father, Tommy, in a glad fight to a new champion, Uber, and if that wasn't bad enough, he picked up her dowry bracelet. According to the GSA she now has to marry him or give up her glad status. However, Lyn never loved glad wife culture, she always saw herself in the arena.
Let's break it down
They make it very clear that the GSA is violating contracts with glads left and right but also making it very hard for the glads to do anything about it. That could have been a great avenue to explore. She could have been faking preparing her wedding so that she could spy more closely on the GSA.
They had a story line where she was clearly into Uber. They could have played that angle. They also could have actually made her fight Uber to the death. She could have fought for the right to not marry Uber and it been the GSAs idea.
Her brother was an oracle and that went absolutely nowhere, which seemed like a waste of good world building because that was actually interesting, and it could have built off of old world roman ideas.
She could have interviewed Jon Byers who started glad culture and found out some interesting tidbit that would help her break down the entire system.
It seemed like there were a lot of good ideas going into this book but the author was unsure how to end it and so in the end her brother accidentally gets into the ring and gets injured and then she declares the fight over, leaves and then hires a lawyer outside of the GSA and gets shunned by the glads. She has an appointment to talk to Jon Byers but we never find out what he thinks about what his sport has turned into. It ended in such a weird and abrupt way that I had to go back and read it again because I thought I missed something.
I wish it had been a better ending because it started so well and then I felt robbed of both a good ending and my time.
Spoiler
I was so mad at this book. It had so much promise. They made it clear that glad culture had gotten out of hand and that the GSA was clearly doing shady and underhanded things, and they made it seem like Lyn was going to find a way to blow up the whole system and then it felt like the book just ended abruptly and without a satisfying ending.Let's break it down
They make it very clear that the GSA is violating contracts with glads left and right but also making it very hard for the glads to do anything about it. That could have been a great avenue to explore. She could have been faking preparing her wedding so that she could spy more closely on the GSA.
They had a story line where she was clearly into Uber. They could have played that angle. They also could have actually made her fight Uber to the death. She could have fought for the right to not marry Uber and it been the GSAs idea.
Her brother was an oracle and that went absolutely nowhere, which seemed like a waste of good world building because that was actually interesting, and it could have built off of old world roman ideas.
She could have interviewed Jon Byers who started glad culture and found out some interesting tidbit that would help her break down the entire system.
It seemed like there were a lot of good ideas going into this book but the author was unsure how to end it and so in the end her brother accidentally gets into the ring and gets injured and then she declares the fight over, leaves and then hires a lawyer outside of the GSA and gets shunned by the glads. She has an appointment to talk to Jon Byers but we never find out what he thinks about what his sport has turned into. It ended in such a weird and abrupt way that I had to go back and read it again because I thought I missed something.
I wish it had been a better ending because it started so well and then I felt robbed of both a good ending and my time.
In the past no one dared attack a scythe. It was unheard of. Unfortunately, the freedom given to the scythedom has caused some of them to become corrupt, or show their bias. Scythes now fear the scythe-killer, Scythe Lucifer.
Scythe Anastasia and Scythe Curie are among the scythes that value each life that they take and who are working to try and restore the scythedom to its former glory by playing politics.
The new order will do anything to stop the old guard from making them obey their own laws. They want to kill as they please and be treated as minor gods whom the humans fear. They cannot be allowed to win any seats of power, because if they do scythedom will cease to exist as a force for good.
I am really enjoying this series. I think that it makes you think about the value of having death in your life. How it makes you feel. The passion it gives to the ordinary when any day could be your last. How it is best that no one is above the law and that governing bodies do need checks and balances to prevent the wrong kind of people from taking over and corrupting the system. These are the types of books that stay with you days after you finish them thinking about the themes and how they apply to life as we know it.
Scythe Anastasia and Scythe Curie are among the scythes that value each life that they take and who are working to try and restore the scythedom to its former glory by playing politics.
The new order will do anything to stop the old guard from making them obey their own laws. They want to kill as they please and be treated as minor gods whom the humans fear. They cannot be allowed to win any seats of power, because if they do scythedom will cease to exist as a force for good.
I am really enjoying this series. I think that it makes you think about the value of having death in your life. How it makes you feel. The passion it gives to the ordinary when any day could be your last. How it is best that no one is above the law and that governing bodies do need checks and balances to prevent the wrong kind of people from taking over and corrupting the system. These are the types of books that stay with you days after you finish them thinking about the themes and how they apply to life as we know it.
The Scythedom has been turned upside down by Scythe Goddard. Scythe Anastasia is missing, the Grandslayers have been murdered, and the thunderhead is no longer speaking to the people. Well, he is still speaking to one person. Greyson Tolliver has become the Toll, a quasi-prophet for the tonists, and at this point he is the only person in the world who can hear the Thunderhead. He is also the only person standing in the way of Scythe Goddard's quest for power. Can the scythedom ever return to normalcy? Will the world survive Scythe Goddard's cruelty?
I know a lot of people felt like this book did not answer every question they had about the futures of all of the characters in this book, but I thought it answered the questions that it initially set out to answer and reasonably left the future somewhat ambiguous so that the reader could come to their own conclusions.
I thought that it was a very satisfying end to the series. I thought that it was interesting to make the series more about humans and how morally gray we all are, rather than just focus on all of the gleanings. I feel like this book makes you take a look at yourself and think about how you conduct your life, and whether or not you would consider a change. One of the recurring themes of the book is that humans no longer have passion in their lives because no one gets desperately sad and death is no longer feared. It makes you think about whether or not you appreciate your own life and enjoy the highs and lows of it. It also makes you think about people's quests for power and how power corrupts even the most incorruptible.
If you don't like ambiguous endings, then you might not enjoy this book. However, if you do enjoy thinking about books for a long time after you have read them, and books that lead you to the right conclusions but not spelling them out for you, then I think it is a great ending to the series.
I really liked that the final decision of the founding scythes was to end the scythedom and to let death be random again. I don't think that the scythes were ever meant to govern the people and I was worried when Goddard started taking over that they were going to rule as minor gods and no longer pay attention to the people as people anymore. I do wish that they would have spelled out Goddard's crimes against humanity in greater detail, but I don't think that it was the point. I did think that it was very entertaining to have Anastasia do live broadcasts and talk to the people that way, but I didn't understand why Alighieri, even if he thought he was giving himself credit, would have told anyone on a live broadcast that he helped to end humanity's space colonization efforts.
I know a lot of people felt like this book did not answer every question they had about the futures of all of the characters in this book, but I thought it answered the questions that it initially set out to answer and reasonably left the future somewhat ambiguous so that the reader could come to their own conclusions.
I thought that it was a very satisfying end to the series. I thought that it was interesting to make the series more about humans and how morally gray we all are, rather than just focus on all of the gleanings. I feel like this book makes you take a look at yourself and think about how you conduct your life, and whether or not you would consider a change. One of the recurring themes of the book is that humans no longer have passion in their lives because no one gets desperately sad and death is no longer feared. It makes you think about whether or not you appreciate your own life and enjoy the highs and lows of it. It also makes you think about people's quests for power and how power corrupts even the most incorruptible.
If you don't like ambiguous endings, then you might not enjoy this book. However, if you do enjoy thinking about books for a long time after you have read them, and books that lead you to the right conclusions but not spelling them out for you, then I think it is a great ending to the series.
Spoiler
I really liked that the final decision of the founding scythes was to end the scythedom and to let death be random again. I don't think that the scythes were ever meant to govern the people and I was worried when Goddard started taking over that they were going to rule as minor gods and no longer pay attention to the people as people anymore. I do wish that they would have spelled out Goddard's crimes against humanity in greater detail, but I don't think that it was the point. I did think that it was very entertaining to have Anastasia do live broadcasts and talk to the people that way, but I didn't understand why Alighieri, even if he thought he was giving himself credit, would have told anyone on a live broadcast that he helped to end humanity's space colonization efforts.
Long before the cousins were born their parents were disinherited by their wealthy grandmother. Now three cousins, Jonah, Millie, and Aubrey have received a mysterious invitation in the mail from their grandmother Mildred Story. None of the cousins is particularly interested in getting to know their grandmother, but their parents want their inheritance back, so the cousins are sent to meet Mildred. When they get there though it seems like there is a lot more to the story of their parents' disinheritance, and everybody seems to be keeping their secrets to themselves.
I usually struggle with Karen McManus. I always really like the premise of her books, and I think that she builds worlds really well, but usually I am disappointed with the execution of the mystery. I don't feel like the characters have enough to lose if they go to the cops and so I usually spend the whole of her book going, "why has no one told an adult what is going on?" This book however has been refreshingly different. None of the kids is the very circumstantial suspect for a murder that they didn't commit and all of them have appropriate stakes and motives that justify the actions that they take and make them feel more real as characters. This is the first time I have read one of her books and I wasn't thinking that the whole situation could have been avoided easily. This book really worked well and the mystery was intriguing and not too easy to guess.
A very good read.
I usually struggle with Karen McManus. I always really like the premise of her books, and I think that she builds worlds really well, but usually I am disappointed with the execution of the mystery. I don't feel like the characters have enough to lose if they go to the cops and so I usually spend the whole of her book going, "why has no one told an adult what is going on?" This book however has been refreshingly different. None of the kids is the very circumstantial suspect for a murder that they didn't commit and all of them have appropriate stakes and motives that justify the actions that they take and make them feel more real as characters. This is the first time I have read one of her books and I wasn't thinking that the whole situation could have been avoided easily. This book really worked well and the mystery was intriguing and not too easy to guess.
A very good read.
There is a clique at every school, but no clique is like the Ivies. Five girls all aiming to get into a different school in the Ivy league, and they are willing to play dirty to get what they want. Each girl is supposed to apply to a certain school in the ivy league so that they don't compete against each other to fill the quotas but when Emma applies to Harvard and gets in she steals Ally's spot. Then Emma turns up dead. Ally always said she would do anything to get into Harvard, did she mean it?
I thought that this book was really well executed. I thought the stakes felt high enough for the girls to have a good enough reason to not work with the police and I thought that the twist was really well done. You knew it was coming but it was difficult to work out who the killer was even up until the end. I think that my only critique of the book is that it might be too realistic because ...
All in all, a good read and worth your time.
I thought that this book was really well executed. I thought the stakes felt high enough for the girls to have a good enough reason to not work with the police and I thought that the twist was really well done. You knew it was coming but it was difficult to work out who the killer was even up until the end. I think that my only critique of the book is that it might be too realistic because ...
Spoiler
the rich girls still get to attend the ivies they applied to and the one kid with no money is the only one who gets screwed in the whole thing. Even the murderers step mom pays for his lawyer even though he tried to kill her daughter. That felt weird. But other than that a very good read.All in all, a good read and worth your time.
Kim, who was recently broken up with, finds herself trapped on a student trip with her ex. It's sort of her own fault, she booked the trip when she thought they might get back together, and then when they didn't start dating again her mom made her go on the trip anyways, since it was already paid for. Kim is dreading the rest of the trip when she meets a fascinating girl in the airport who will be on her flight. While on the flight, Kim tells her about her ex and the girl has a crazy idea, what if they each killed a person for the other person? The girl has a problem with her mom and she wants her gone. Kim thinks she is crazy, they can't really kill for each other, can they? Then her ex turns up dead and the girl is persistent about one thing, Kim owes her a murder.
I thought this was really well done. The pacing in the book was really good, even though the main character is pretty angsty and flighty at times.
I thought this was really well done. The pacing in the book was really good, even though the main character is pretty angsty and flighty at times.
On the Christmas Eve before her seventeenth birthday Holly Chase was visited by three ghosts. They told her that if she didn't change her Scroogey ways that she was doomed to walk the afterlife as the consequence for her actions, but she didn't believe them, she didn't change and then she died. They took pity on her however and made her their new Ghost of Christmas past. Her job is to sift through the memories of the new scrooges and find meaning in them so that the ghosts can put them back on the right path. This year, however, the new scrooge is a really cute teenage boy that Holly can't help but see herself in. Will she and the other ghosts be able to put him on the right path? They hope so, because every scrooge deserves a second chance.
I don't think I have ever read a modern reinterpretation of the Christmas Carol before and I didn't really know what to expect from it, but I loved it. I think that the author did a really good job not spending too much time on what happened on Holly's night as the Scrooge, or what a brat she was, but on how she had changed and what her job as the ghost of Christmas past entailed and the mechanics of her new life. I think this is the perfect book to read leading up to Christmas if you love a Christmas Carol and if you enjoy reinterpretations of old book.
But seriously, I think this is one of my favorite books that I have read so far this year.
I don't think I have ever read a modern reinterpretation of the Christmas Carol before and I didn't really know what to expect from it, but I loved it. I think that the author did a really good job not spending too much time on what happened on Holly's night as the Scrooge, or what a brat she was, but on how she had changed and what her job as the ghost of Christmas past entailed and the mechanics of her new life. I think this is the perfect book to read leading up to Christmas if you love a Christmas Carol and if you enjoy reinterpretations of old book.
But seriously, I think this is one of my favorite books that I have read so far this year.
Hercule Poirot receives a mysterious letter in the mail asking him to come at once to France to investigate why a man is being targeted. In the letter he believes it might have something to do with his time in Santiago, Chile, and a secret he has about his time there. Unfortunately, by the time Poirot arrives the man is already dead, but the circumstances are incredible unusual. As always, only the incredible Inspector Poirot will be able to solve the case in its entirety.
I really enjoyed this one. Every time I read a Poirot mystery I think I have the right murderer but I am never right. But it is one of those circumstances where I love to be wrong. Something that I think that Christie does well is the timing of the twists and turns, each one affording you a little more information, but never enough for you to fully solve it yourself. Even when you get part of the plot right, it is never the plot in its entirety. I am excited to keep reading these to see the evolution of Poirot as she continued to write, and as a fan of mystery, I am reasonably sure I am going to keep loving it.
I really enjoyed this one. Every time I read a Poirot mystery I think I have the right murderer but I am never right. But it is one of those circumstances where I love to be wrong. Something that I think that Christie does well is the timing of the twists and turns, each one affording you a little more information, but never enough for you to fully solve it yourself. Even when you get part of the plot right, it is never the plot in its entirety. I am excited to keep reading these to see the evolution of Poirot as she continued to write, and as a fan of mystery, I am reasonably sure I am going to keep loving it.
This book is a collection of stories from Neal Shusterman about both Scythes and the people who live in the post mortal world. There are no more stories about Rowan or Citra, but if you enjoyed the Scythe politics and the ethics, morals, and problems of the Scythe universe, then you may really enjoy these stories.
I wanted more information about Rowan and Citra, but I really enjoyed the stories of the other scythes, their tactics, and the problems regarding finding satisfaction in a job well done under the rule of the Thunderhead.
I wanted more information about Rowan and Citra, but I really enjoyed the stories of the other scythes, their tactics, and the problems regarding finding satisfaction in a job well done under the rule of the Thunderhead.
Four years ago Brynn's favorite teacher was murdered and his murder was never solved. Brynn, a high schooler trying to break into journalism, has recently moved back to her hometown and wants to know why her teacher was murdered and wants to put the whole story on a true crime podcast, called Motive.
Four years ago Tripp found his teacher's body in the woods, and he knows something that he's not telling the police. Can he keep Brynn's nose out of it, or will he have to come clean about what he saw that day?
I think that the more books that Karen McManus writes, the better that she gets at creating scenarios where the people involved really wouldn't want to tell the Police because the consequences really could ruin their lives. I thought this whodunnit was written very well because I was struggling to figure out who did it the entire time, and I thought that the explanation of who did it and why worked, but I didn't agree with the full execution of everything.
Four years ago Tripp found his teacher's body in the woods, and he knows something that he's not telling the police. Can he keep Brynn's nose out of it, or will he have to come clean about what he saw that day?
I think that the more books that Karen McManus writes, the better that she gets at creating scenarios where the people involved really wouldn't want to tell the Police because the consequences really could ruin their lives. I thought this whodunnit was written very well because I was struggling to figure out who did it the entire time, and I thought that the explanation of who did it and why worked, but I didn't agree with the full execution of everything.