pastelhxrmony's reviews
11 reviews

dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.75

beautiful storytelling, love the Middle Eastern folklore basis, but it was kind of annoying that the mc didn’t face any consequences for her actions

Salem's Lot by Stephen King

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Picked this up because I watch Xiran Ray Zhao on YouTube. It took me a little bit to get through this. I don’t think this book is very bad but it’s not the best either

Things I liked

Loved the concept and story
Female rage
Insane ending with a great plot twist
I don’t know if I’ve read anything that made me feel so many emotions so strongly at once
Second half

Things I didn’t like

Poor writing; the writing is a big reason it took me so long to get through this book. The writing felt a bit childish at times and a little odd
I can tell the themes the author wanted to convey but again, because of poor writing, the execution didn’t quite make the landing
First half was kinda difficult to get through but things picked up in the second half

Most of my gripes stem from poor writing choices so I won’t list off everything. It’s also hard to remember some of the early parts because it had been a few months since I had started reading. I will most likely read Heavenly Tyrant when it comes out and I hope improvements can be made

Content Warnings

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense

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

Body horror and religious trauma. What more could you ask for? Never seen myself more in a book, definitely one of my favorite books

Content Warnings

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

4.25

I loved this story all the way through. I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me follows the story of Laure, a ballerina in Paris, as she sacrifices herself to the ballet and an eldritch god and slowly becomes a monster.

*SPOILERS*

The things I liked

Great prose
Absolutely feral main character
Lots of great elements that kept me intrigued
Very good attention to detail, I could visualize the story unfold in my head very vividly

Things I didn’t like

The pacing was a bit rough in some areas but not unbearable.
I found it weird how some details are brought up and never addressed again. For ex, it’s mentioned that Laure had talked to the police after finding Joséphine yet this is never brought up again although it seems important
I also feel like Joséphine died too early and I think she could have been utilized a little longer. It felt like she was set up to play a bigger role imo

Overall an awesome debut. I did enjoy reading very much and I will definitely read the sequel !

Content Warnings

A Silent Voice Complete Series Box Set by Yoshitoki Oima

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emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

Saw the movie first and then bought this box set. Beautiful series

Content Warnings

Another by Yukito Ayatsuji

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challenging dark mysterious tense

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

I saw the anime and was blown away so I decided to read the book. It still has great atmosphere and suspense but I found it a little slow at times although I’m not sure if it was because I already knew how it ended or if it really was just slow. Either way, I think the anime adaptation did it justice.

I found the later novels in this series to be more enjoyable

Content Warnings