poirots's reviews
53 reviews

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

adventurous emotional funny reflective sad medium-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

4.5

Reading this book as a person who loves video games and is also a programmer who's developed some games was tons of fun. I got the references and could see the reasoning behind mentions of certain games. Though, I would like to know how someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge on video games navigated through this book and if that had any effect on their reading.

As expected, a lot of people are commenting on how the cast was so unlikeable and I'd have to agree. Sam and Sadie's choices frustrated me to no end (Sam a little more so) but I think I'm so used to perfect characters that this was equally a nice read. They acted like real humans would. I cried a lot near the end too ngl, so warning on that.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

challenging emotional funny inspiring reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

I loved this book! I think I read it at the perfect point of my life. The only thing that irked me really was the style it was written (the lack of punctuation etc.) which was hard to get used to reading at first. I adored how despite the range of character entries, it all seemed to tie together in the end depicting the wonderful human connections we all have and make.

The Tattoo Murder by Akimitsu Takagi

dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

As a tattoo enthusiast, I loved learning about the tattoos of that time period and the tattooing process this book gave. On the other hand, I've read a lot of crime and mystery and while the killer was clear as day, I did really appreciate the mechanisms of the murder and the explanations of the choices the murderer purposefully made.

I was also pleased to find that the writing was very ahead of its time. Admittedly, while going into reading this book I was slightly expectant and a bit nervous of traces of misogyny, anti-tattoo, and possibly some pro-war narrative but there was none and if there was, it was reflective of the specific charcater's opinions. In fact, the book was very much the opposite.

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

dark mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

3.5

I read the version of Carmilla that was edited by Carmen Maria Machado and her introduction and footnotes really provided the historical context necessary.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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

3.75

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I got this book in the mail on a Friday afternoon and finished it on the Saturday evening. Reid had me hooked and I wanted to keep it like that. I love the writing—the pace, the structure of how everything unfolded, the placement of the sentences... It made me cry (so so many times) and I loved every character "with all the nuance and shades of grey". Everything was just so realistic and raw and I'm glad I read this book in this particular time of my life. I just know this is a book that I would not hesitate to read again.

Half Bad by Sally Green

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Hm, I think I've read too much of the trope of the main character being half of this side and half of the rival side and I don't find it interesting anymore. Same with the romance: the typical outcast and... the exact opposite of that. Maybe I've been reading too much fantasy lately. I don't know. It just didn't captivate me so much.

Towards the end, though, the pace started picking up and I appreciated the book a lot more. Throughout the book, the sole focus is on Nathan, our main character, which is understandable, sure but I like it when the other characters have some development or something put into them.

Like what happens to Celia afterwards?!

I feel like I didn't get to know them well and Rose especially was beginning to be one of my favourite characters.

Of course, she ended up dying... which was so out of the blue by the way!

I think there was a lot of things that happened out of the blue. Things like:

Gabriel liking Nathan (Not going to lie, I was like "Wait what?!" when I read it and then "Aww" straight after ahaha I just didn't expect it and I don't think there were many hints of it -- which is surprising because I like to think my gaydar is pretty good, Rose dying, Nathan killing Jessica even though he was so adamant that he wouldn't kill anyone apart from Keith and Clay... Hell, I forgot Nathan even had siblings.)

The last few pages felt rushed but I did like how it ended and the moment(s) it ended on.

The plot was too... slow? Not even slow, we just never got anywhere -- I think our protagonist spent the majority of the book in captivity doing fuck all. Other than that, it was an okay read. I'm probably going to read the next book in the series and I'd still recommend others to read this if they like fantasy and don't mind the occasional second person narrative.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-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

5.0

The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I read a few reviews after reading the book and most of them admitted to it being slow-paced which I disagree. Maybe it's because I usually read fantasy novels quickly (I finished this in two days) or maybe the story didn't have as much of a grip on them as it did on me. Who knows? In my opinion, it's not as slow as people say it is partly because of the short chapters and relatively spaced-out text. I'll go into more reasons later on as well.

This book is told from five different perspectives which may put others off but I can't see any better way of telling this story. One perspective wouldn't have been enough and would've probably left me bored out of my mind. However, there are faults because of the many POVs. I feel like I didn't get to know all the characters well enough and I only ever got attached to one of them - Catherine, whose POV I liked the most out of the five and who, I felt, showcased a lot of growth. It also meant that, in general, everything was a bit predictable. There was no wondering what could so and so mean because the answer was usually given in another character's POV.

The romance... Honestly, I don't really get Ambrose and Catherine's deal. There was no tension, no chemistry between the two in comparison to their queer romance counterparts, March and Edyon's. (Is this a spoiler??) The latter's constantly left me on the edge of my seat and the "push-and-pull" between them made me root for them (totally not because I, a lesbian woman, love seeing queer relationships flourish). Though the lack of chemistry in the former might be because Ambrose and Catherine were introduced into the story as already harbouring feelings for each other. I also don't think their romantic relationship was necessary but that's probably because I'm not a big fan of love triangles. I definitely appreciate the queer representation and I know the author doesn't have the best reputation with her queer audiences but I haven't read her other series so I won't comment on that.

The main thing I don't like about the book is that it tends to skip over certain parts. Again, this is probably because of the five perspectives crowding the story out. For example,

with Catherine and Tzsayn's (her betrothed) relationship, they were tentative at first but after one chat and five pages, Tzsayn seems jealous of Ambrose.

The gap in between was filled by the author telling us that relations between them had improved but there was no journey. Even with things like

Ambrose crossing the border to Pitoria, that only happened within a few pages and it felt like it had been easy for him to do that. There was no struggle and the readers didn't need to anticipate or worry whether or not he'd be safe because the answer was given to us straight away.

I guess it depends on the person and whether they like that type of story-telling but that was one of my reasons why I thought the book isn't so slow-paced.

All in all, I liked The Smoke Thieves (I did read it in two days after all) and would recommend if you like the kind of royalty/supernatural themes in fantasy.