overlysalted's reviews
47 reviews

Valour by John Gwynne

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A

5.0

anything john gwynne writes i will buy. this is a series written for me—found family, strong character development, really weird animal friends, and some of the best battle scenes i’ve ever read. 

i am not an audiobook girlie normally, but john gwynne’s writing style really benefits from being listened to and damian lynch’s narration is superb. i highly recommend listening to this series if you have that option. 

The Will of the Many by James Islington

5.0

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

Loved this. S.A. Chakraborty can WRITE. The worldbuilding is so vivid, you can tell there is lore on lore behind what you get on the page. This was a hot, sandy, magical traipse into one of the most beautiful worlds I’ve ever been fortunate enough to encounter. I really loved the political strife bc it was complex, nuanced, and felt very real and valid. All the characters are developed well and I really felt for all of them. Enjoyed this thoroughly.  

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

I didn’t enjoy reading this but I don’t regret reading it nor do I think it was a waste of time. It has beautiful writing and the character interactions were nice enough—it was just all a bit bleak and hard to connect to as a kind of slice of life under a totalitarian government story. Or maybe it was a little too easy to relate to and that made it all the more unsettling. Either way, decent book with pretty atmosphere work and appropriately dreary commentary, but I wouldn’t read it again. 

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

challenging informative slow-paced

5.0

I suppose I should start reviewing what I read as some kind of record of my thoughts. 

This was slow, dry, and incredibly academic and thus also thoroughly researched and objective as one might expect from a historian. Really glad I pushed through and finished it—it puts a lot in context to know the whole story. I think this should be a mandatory read for everyone. 

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.

the writing in this is just not hitting for me. i feel like i’m hanging over the story like a giant, really stupid bird or something. the worldbuilding is confusing and impersonal, making it hard to connect with the characters or care about what’s happening. lots of exposition. idk. this got super good reviews so i might try to pick it up again in the future when i’m potentially in the right mood, but my brain cant handle it right now. 

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

slow-paced

0.25

i don’t rate a ton of books on here but my god this book was utter garbage and the people need to know. they must be informed. 

this is, by far, one of the worst things i’ve ever read. the amateur writing alone was suffocating. so much punctuation. such weird word choices. why is the mc saying “holy fucking hot” or “for the win” or “smoking hot. flaming hot. gets you into trouble and you like it level hot” like be so serious right now. i could bitch until i’m cold in the ground about all the godawful things that happened in this book, but it is pride month and i deserve better. i need to sleep for a week to recover.

ZERO stars. hated it. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

just not into it at the moment. i was enjoying it but wasn’t compelled to pick it back up in comparison to the other books im reading rn. 

Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston

adventurous informative mysterious tense fast-paced

3.0

this reads like a movie you would see once for the hell of it and forget immediately afterward. fine, but unremarkable. there were so many POV’s and i didn’t care about most of them, not to mention one of them was from the POV of a really gross person and involved some slurs and implied SA, which i simply do not care to read. to put it shortly, this was mid and i’ll probably forget i read it by tomorrow. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual assault and Racial slurs

Malice by John Gwynne

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

5.0

this book is so slow for first 75% and then suddenly it rips the rug out from under you and leaves you gasping for air. im not going to recover for a good long while. consider me a john gwynne stan at this point. god what a story.