pedanther's reviews
486 reviews

Nobody's Home: An Anubis Gates Story by Tim Powers

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Addiction, Body horror, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Murder, Alcohol, Classism

A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde

challenging emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Classism

Minor: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racism, Death of parent

Diviner's Bow by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

adventurous emotional hopeful 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? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Grief

Minor: Hate crime, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol

The African Queen by C.S. Forester

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Alcohol, Colonisation, War

Minor: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Infidelity, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

The Purloined Poodle by Kevin Hearne

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

3.5

I may be at a disadvantage because I picked this book up without any prior knowledge of the series it's a spin-off from, or attachment to the characters. I found them reasonably entertaining, but not so much that I'm in a hurry to read more about them.
Also, when it comes to stories about complete amateurs playing detective, I prefer the ones where the character has to turn detective because they have a personal stake in the solution of the mystery over the ones where the character is just being a busybody, and the beginning of this falls too much toward the busybody end of the scale for my liking.
I enjoyed it more once they'd located the culprit and the story shifted from amateur mystery-solving to resolving the situation with guile and magic (which I suppose suggests I might like the main series more if I tried it).

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Violence

Minor: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail

Ceremony by Adam Goodes, Ellie Laing

informative lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

The mystery is moderately interesting, but my enjoyment was decreased by being stuck with Hastings as narrator, with his incorrigible knack of barking up every wrong tree and jumping to every wrong conclusion, which is made more annoying in his first outing by being coupled with a completely unjustified smug confidence in his own non-existent detective ability. (And then, after a while, I started being annoyed at the author on poor Hastings' behalf, because it began to feel like he was being repeatedly set up to be laughed at rather than laughed with.)

Oh, and then there's all the casual racism and sexism.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation

Minor: Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Alcohol, War, Classism

Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.25

It's possible that I'm just not the right audience for this, at least not at this point in my life. I might well have enjoyed it more if I'd got to it when I was younger. To me, it came off as an arbitrary collection of whimsical events - and there's nothing wrong with an arbitrary collection of whimsical events when it works, but this didn't work for me.

The Moomins and the Great Flood by Tove Jansson

adventurous hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.0

The Tolkien and Middle-Earth Handbook by Colin Duriez

informative medium-paced

3.75