squids_can_read's reviews
689 reviews

The Cradle of Ice by James Rollins

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

Nyx and her crew are now on their way to the City of Angels seeking the information that they need to get the world turning again. Kanthe is far trying to work his way to another sleeper, one that may have more information about the deadly Moonfall. Hopefully, this group of adventurers will be able to help to save the world even if that means destroying it first. 

There were a lot of characters in this book. And when I say a lot, I mean at the very least about thirty important characters and countless others that were mentioned or killed off quickly. The characters who are our protagonists are well developed and their motives are apparent. Their actions align with the characterization throughout the novel. Each of these characters is distinct and interesting. However, the rest of the characters bleed into the background. This isn't a bad thing for the characters that are unimportant but for characters that are antagonists but important to the story it is a little disappointing. The characters simply feel flat and the reasons behind their actions are often told to us instead of shown through characterization. Overall, the characterization is okay but I wish there was a list of characters at the front to be able to better keep track of them. 

The plot of this book was super interesting. Since we follow a great number of characters, there are a lot of plot points in the book. I liked how Rollins interweaved the different plot points and connected them in ways that I didn't expect. 

The world-building is I think where this book falls apart a little bit. I think that the world is there definitely and completely thought out. However, I don't think that Rollins is able to put all of that onto the page or the book would be thousands of pages long instead of just over 650. There are some instances, though, where we get pages of exposition from a new character simply explaining things to the other. It feels like there could have been a better way to introduce this information. Additionally, I think that the main magic system in the series falls apart a little bit in this book. It felt very well defined in the first book but then the characters seemed to use it in different ways in this book. I didn't totally understand how these feats were completed and wished that there was more explanation especially since one of the characters is suddenly a master of the magic with very little practice. 

Overall, this book was really enjoyable and I am excited to see where the story goes. I think that anyone who enjoys high fantasy or alternative Earth stories will enjoy this book.  

Death Valley by Melissa Broder

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I wish I could give this book four stars but I really just can't. The writing is beautiful and the discussion about grief was really interesting. However, I really didn't like how sexual the main character was. I don't know if it's just because I can't relate to that or if it was really just over the top but yeah. I didn't enjoy that part. Everything else was amazing. If you can look past the sexual parts it's an amazing book.

Gogmagog by Jeff Noon, Steve Beard

emotional tense slow-paced

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

2.0

This was a book. I'm not even going to start this review with a summary of this book because honestly, not a whole lot happens in this book. I loved the cast of characters. They were all wonderfully written and extremely deep. However, I didn't love the focus on reproduction. It just didn't make sense within the context of the story. The story also teeters back and forth between lore dump and what is lore. It just was a miss for me, especially with the actual story. 

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw, Richard Kadrey

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Julie Crews plans to go out with her liver. She's seen all the terror the world can throw at her and she really doesn't want to stick around. That is until her best friend shows up unannounced at her door asking her for help. How is Julie to say no? At the same time, Julie is still reeling from the affront of her ex-boyfriend taking credit for a job that could have gotten her killed. Now Julie is looking to get better, especially after her best friend comes around. 

This book started out with a bang. I loved the way that Julie's chapters were written especially how she talked about others taking advantage of other people. It was really evident to me that she cared a lot about other people. I even liked the chapters written from Tyler's point of view because I was ready to see him taken down because he was such a terrible person. But after Julie does her summoning(that's all I'll say about it for spoiler's sake), the book kind of goes downhill.

 Julie just seems to stop caring about her violence problem which was something she was intensely concerned with at the beginning of the book. Also how the thing that she summoned helped her really wasn't explained and I didn't really understand it especially after it stopped helping. I just didn't think that it was super-explained. I still like Tyler's chapters because he didn't super change but I really hated the ending of the book. It just all seemed so rushed and I don't think that the authors knew how they wanted the book to end. The writing was good overall but the book just stopped making a whole lot of sense after like the middle of the book. 

I so wanted to really love this book but I just didn't. This book is also really gross but I didn't mind it. Overall, it was really good to start then went down here after about halfway. 

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

dark emotional informative tense slow-paced

3.5

This book is about the many many women who were infected by radium while painting watch dials. It details their struggles with both their health and their lawsuits.

I thought this book was good but a little slow. The copy that I borrowed was about 200 pages more than the actual book which I thought was a little excessive. However, I thought that the detail given to the symptoms of the girls was really amazing if a little bit gross. I thought it was really important though especially to get the full depth of all that happened to these women. Honestly, the only reason that I didn't rate it higher was because it didn't super keep my attention. And I'm not always a nonfiction person so take my review with a grain of salt.

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American Csi by Kate Winkler Dawson

challenging dark tense medium-paced

3.0

I listened to this as an audiobook. The author was the narrator. It was fairly well narrated.

I really enjoyed learning about all of the cases that Edward did and how he figured out what happened. However, I thought that it focused a lot on his life, the courts, and on other stuff that I didn't think really mattered to the book. The overall focus of the novel seemed split in a way that I didn't think helped the novel. It was extremely interesting and I was glad to learn about some of the initial techniques of forensics and a forensic student myself. It was just kind of fragmented to me.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.0

Mary Jekyll recently lost her mother and now is struggling to make ends meet. After a meeting with a solicitor, Mary finds out that her mother has been paying for boarding for a Hyde. Now Mary is on an adventure trying to find the mysterious Mr. Hyde and collect the reward. She might just find a new family on the way.

This book is really difficult to describe. It's written in a really interesting way that I really enjoyed. It made all of the characters jump off the page. However, I think that there were too many characters that were main characters to really get a feel for any of them. It was definitely a fun read and the plot was really entertaining, but I thought that it was really confusing at times. The science was also not extremely well thought out. I will say that I have not read all of the referenced stories but it still didn't make a whole lot of sense. Science fiction doesn't always have to make sense but I wanted at least some explanation besides they just did it.

Also I wasn't sure about the age that this novel was directed toward. The novel is written as if for older teenagers but their is a lot of talk about having children and women's bodies in a way that felt as if it was more directed at adults. It just felt very weird at times especially when we learn the back story of some of the other characters.

Overall, it was a fun quick read and if you love classic science fiction then I would give this a try.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

challenging emotional informative fast-paced

4.0

Mary Roach does it again!

I'm working my way, slowly, through all of Mary Roach's books. They are all informative and written with a distinct hilarious tone. But in every book she is extremely respectful of every topic that she is discussing. This one is not my favorite of the Mary Roach books as it seemed slightly disjointed but I enjoyed it none the less. If you aren't super into non fiction but are trying to get into it, give Mary Roach a try.

I listened to this as an audiobook.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

Opal's life could be going better. She's working a dead end job trying to make ends meet and keep her brother in school. The one thing that Opal shouldn't be doing is looking at the Starling House with it's mysterious caretaker. Now she has a new job, one that pays infinitely better but may bring some unwanted feelings to the surface.

The characters in this book were literally amazing. They were so rich and they were all extremely flawed people. I really enjoyed learning more about the characters and watching them grow. The actual plot of the book was really interesting and incredibly written. I literally think that this book owns my soul.

However, I also am going to fight Alix for how this book was written. The actual story is literally amazing. No notes. Absolute perfection. It was the addition of the footnotes that first put me off. Having a book written in first person with footnotes also written in first person but the people taking be different was a really terrible move. I actually stopped reading the footnotes because it was taking me out of the story so much. Moving to the end of the story, I didn't love the epilogue. It was slightly weirdly written but I was going to let it go and then I got to the fake bibliography. That's right a fake bibliography. With the epilogue it was obvious that this book was written as part of a history of the area book but the bibliography was fake. As someone who has had to make a bibliography for almost every single paper that I have written for school, it annoys me to no end that Alix wrote a fake bibliography. It just didn't make any sense with how the book was actually written.

If you can get over the parts detailed above(skip them), then this book is a beautiful read and I would definitely give it a read.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

challenging dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

5.0

When the Osage moved off of their ancestral land, they believed that America would leave their land alone for at least a little while. But when the Osage found oil on their new land, they decided that they would rent out the land to the people who wanted to mine for the oil. Now several of these business men are looking to cut out the middle man in the most serious sense of the phrase.

I listened to this book as an audiobook. The narrator switched based on the part within the book. I liked the first two narrators but I thought the last narrator was okay. The overall production was done well.

This book was honestly really well written. I loved that the whole first part of the book focused on the Osage and the actual people who were being affected by the murders. I don't typically read a lot of nonfiction but when I do, especially in true crime, it focuses a lot on the criminal and the people who found them rather than the victim. This book doesn't do that at all. The victims are the prime focus of this book with the incredible impact that these murders had on the community being intimately described. The book did also look into the main investigator of the murders. I thought that this was interesting as it related to the aspect of the birth of the FBI being discussed. I think that the third part of my book is my favorite. It talks about the lasting impact of these murders along with the fact that there wasn't a truly simple answer to who murdered the vast amount of Osage that died during this time.

I really recommend this book as it was really interesting and I thought that it was done extremely well.