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stormlightreader's Reviews (934)
This isn't a book that I expected to come off my shelf any time soon, but I found the audiobook in the Audible Plus catalogue, so I was prompted to pick this up and it didn't disappoint.
It was a generally well-paced mystery set in Baja California and it felt like a Mexican take on The Perfect Couple Netflix show (and presumably the book, I don't know, I haven't read it).
Once again, SMG writes a detestable female character, in Daisy who makes life difficult for our lead character, Viridiana. Daisy is a nasty piece of work and Gregory was a character that made me uncomfortable to read. Due to the actions of Daisy and Gregory, Viridiana comes into her own over the course of the book, which at points felt like very quick development, but I do find this to be the case with a few of SMG's books.
I've come to really appreciate the author's note in books written by Mexican authors and this one really added to the story. The audio for this book was also great, so I'd recommend it.
It was a generally well-paced mystery set in Baja California and it felt like a Mexican take on The Perfect Couple Netflix show (and presumably the book, I don't know, I haven't read it).
Once again, SMG writes a detestable female character, in Daisy who makes life difficult for our lead character, Viridiana. Daisy is a nasty piece of work and Gregory was a character that made me uncomfortable to read. Due to the actions of Daisy and Gregory, Viridiana comes into her own over the course of the book, which at points felt like very quick development, but I do find this to be the case with a few of SMG's books.
I've come to really appreciate the author's note in books written by Mexican authors and this one really added to the story. The audio for this book was also great, so I'd recommend it.
When I ran this through CAWPILE, it came out at a 2.5, which I don't feel reflects my experience reading these short stories, so I won't rate it . Yes, I could've DNF'd the collection, but it's short stories and any one of those could have redeemed the book...but they didn't. The quality in stories was inconsistent, but mostly not great and by that, I mean just not as eerie or unsettling as I'd hoped for. Maybe that's on me, I don't know. My favourite was Letters to a Fungus, but the vast majority of stories were a complete miss for me. I really hoped for more in a collection of short stories centred around fungi.
A pretty run-of-the-mill Reacher adventure. The opening scene had little impact because I have another two Reacher books to get to, and the planning for the opening scene still didn’t convince me, but I'm glad it didn’t go to plan . There's little to no intrigue in the Reacher books for me because they are so formulaic, but it's a favourite series of mine and I enjoy another Reacher outing because each book adds another piece to the puzzle of who Reacher is. Reacher seems to have gotten funnier since Lee & Andrew Child started collaborating on the Reacher books, which I greatly appreciate. What's more, this book made it really difficult to be appropriately wary of an antagonist with the name Dendoncker 😂 hilarious! I got a little feeling of what I used to get when I read the earlier books, which was nice.
I was very apprehensive going into this set of Dune novellas because I haven't read any Dune books not written by Frank Herbert. However, I found the quality of these novellas to be just as good and to me they feel as if they have a more accessible style of writing. But, I am basing that purely on 4 novellas, which can tend to be written differently to full length novels, so I withhold judgement until I've read a full length novel by Brian Herbert, which I will now be doing once I figure out where to start.
Details below for what each novella focuses on:
Details below for what each novella focuses on:
- Novella 1 (The Edge of a Crysknife) is set 56 years before the events of Dune. It is clear that this was written in hindsight, but having that as a prequel novella to the first Dune book was great. Furthermore, telling this novella from Shadout Mapes POV was a good choice in my opinion. Fleshing out her backstory and telling of her involvement in the fall of previous planetary governors was really good to read.
- The ending of that novella was great:
"This new planetary governor could not possibly be worse" - Shadout Mapes, as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen comes into power.
- The ending of that novella was great:
- Novella 2 (Blood of the Sardaukar) is set during the events of Dune, while Duke Leto Atreides is in power and told from the POV of a Sardaukar soldier
whose family was killed by Duke Leto Atreides' father, Paulus Atreides . This novella takes place when Leto, Jessica and Paul are captured by Harkonnens. An interesting POV.
- Novella 3 (The Waters of Kanly) is set during the events of Dune, just after Leto, Jessica and Paul were taken by the Harkonnens. This novella is told from the POV of Gurney Halleck, but despite that, this is probably my least favourite of the collection. However, it was good to get a glimpse of what Gurney was doing when he was separated from Paul and Jessica.
- Novella 4 (Imperial Court) is set thousands of years before Dune. and I thought I was going to hate this novella because it was so far removed from the characters of the main series and even the other three novellas. Some of the new characters went over my head initially but then I was so intrigued by these 'new' Harkonnens 😂 The political manoeuvring was interesting to read and it's wild how far back the Atreides-Harkonnen rivalry goes. Gerhard Harkonnen and his bug collection gave him a very sinister vibe, which unfortunately was dampened by the use of the term 'poisonous' where venomous should have been used (3 times in 2 pages) 😂 Nevertheless, I enjoyed this novella a lot and I was surprised that Danvis didn’t see Gerhard's betrayal coming a mile off, because I sure did. Gerhard used a very Harkonnen strategy, making this novella one of my favourites in the collection.
Rhiannon Lewis is back for the fifth and final instalment in the Sweetpea series, picking up right where the last book left off.
I read Sweetpea about a year after it came out and I was hooked by Rhiannon's dark humour and the hilarious kill lists, and In Bloom hooked me the same way. Since book Dead Head, the series has changed and has a completely different feel, which isn't a negative but it took me some adjusting. Rhiannon starts out unhinged and unhappy, and her kill lists had me laughing out loud in public. Whereas, the Rhiannon in the final book is so mature and yes, she still has a bit of sass, but her tongue isn't as sharp as it used to be (and I miss that), but her priorities are now very different.
Full spoilers ahead
Rhiannon makes the decision toleave Raf (who has just been shot) to recuperate in hospital, to go to her little girl, Ivy, who Rhiannon has been told is critically ill . She flies to London, accompanied by Billy, an Irish, ex-army friend of Raf , which provides an interesting dynamic because Billy is funny and there is a bit of a 'will they, won't they?' feel to their journey (which I was confident would never come to anything). We see her sister, Seren and Detective Nnedi Géricault again, and Rhiannon's interactions with Nnedi are somewhat unexpected, and I was constantly expecting the other shoe to drop, yet it did play out in a satisfying way. I also loved the mention of the PICSOs again - that always made me chuckle.
I have to suspend disbelief a little bit whenever the Bad Seeds are mentioned, because I don't know if a serial killer would have such a dedicated following in real life...that said, TikTok can do very strange things for a person's reputation, so never say never. The ending feels fitting for the last book in the series, but you can't help but feel that Rhiannon and Raf may not be able to sustain the lifestyle they have chosen. The series has come full circle, giving me similar feels to when I read the first book, and I enjoyed the return to the dark humour.
I read Sweetpea about a year after it came out and I was hooked by Rhiannon's dark humour and the hilarious kill lists, and In Bloom hooked me the same way. Since book Dead Head, the series has changed and has a completely different feel, which isn't a negative but it took me some adjusting. Rhiannon starts out unhinged and unhappy, and her kill lists had me laughing out loud in public. Whereas, the Rhiannon in the final book is so mature and yes, she still has a bit of sass, but her tongue isn't as sharp as it used to be (and I miss that), but her priorities are now very different.
Full spoilers ahead
Rhiannon makes the decision to
I have to suspend disbelief a little bit whenever the Bad Seeds are mentioned, because I don't know if a serial killer would have such a dedicated following in real life...that said, TikTok can do very strange things for a person's reputation, so never say never. The ending feels fitting for the last book in the series, but you can't help but feel that Rhiannon and Raf may not be able to sustain the lifestyle they have chosen. The series has come full circle, giving me similar feels to when I read the first book, and I enjoyed the return to the dark humour.
A very forgettable thriller that wants to be dark academia. The author doesn't do well with the dark academia vibe, the reveal was not great and the subsequent 'twists' felt more and more ridiculous. The characters were flat and/or unlikeable, which made the story had to get invested in. I have one other Ashley Winstead book on my shelf to try.
A solid and well researched book, but the writing style wasn't for me and didn't really engage me.
The British government have brought in the Sanctity of Marriage Act and that means married people will receive better NHS care, better homes and cars...as long as you're happy to be spied on by AI software.
Marrs comes up with such wild and unsettling concepts! The prospect of this being real is terrifying because it would be incredibly invasive. The pacing is really good, drip-feeding information to keep you intrigued. It wasn't full of twists but I think the plot was unnerving enough that it didn't need twists. The characters were not particularly likeable, but that added to the story.
As with The Family Experiment, I read this via audiobook, so this made the ads so realistic ("we put the 'you' in euthanasia " 😂).
This book was mentioned in The Family Experiment and this book had matched that one, so Marrs is two-for-two right now.
Marrs comes up with such wild and unsettling concepts! The prospect of this being real is terrifying because it would be incredibly invasive. The pacing is really good, drip-feeding information to keep you intrigued. It wasn't full of twists but I think the plot was unnerving enough that it didn't need twists. The characters were not particularly likeable, but that added to the story.
As with The Family Experiment, I read this via audiobook, so this made the ads so realistic ("
This book was mentioned in The Family Experiment and this book had matched that one, so Marrs is two-for-two right now.
Certain Dark things is a short, almost novella length, urban fantasy set in a Mexico City that is tainted by the existence of vampires, and the gang wars among the different subspecies of vampire. The world is amazing and vivid but, I didn't find myself caring too much about the characters. It's not that this was a boring story, it's more that the characters felt one-dimensional and the atmosphere was really lacking, which took me by surprise.
I like Moreno-Garcia's take on vampires and the lore was really interesting, making them more animalistic and less glamorous than other popular vampires in pop culture. She painted such a beautiful backdrop. I just wish I had had more of a reaction to the characters. That said, I read somewhere that this is a reprinting of a book she originally published in 2016, so I'm going to put these complaints down to that and move on, because she has produced some great books since then.
Overall, this was a quick and engaging exploration of vampire lore and I really liked the relationship between Domingo and Atl.
I like Moreno-Garcia's take on vampires and the lore was really interesting, making them more animalistic and less glamorous than other popular vampires in pop culture. She painted such a beautiful backdrop. I just wish I had had more of a reaction to the characters. That said, I read somewhere that this is a reprinting of a book she originally published in 2016, so I'm going to put these complaints down to that and move on, because she has produced some great books since then.
Overall, this was a quick and engaging exploration of vampire lore and I really liked the relationship between Domingo and Atl.
Piñata centres around Carmen and her daughters, Luna & Izel, who come to Mexico for Carmen's job, as a lead architect. During her current renovation project, an ancient tomb is uncovered, and from then on, things get gradually worse for Carmen.
At it's core, Piñata is a story about possession but Gout integrates Mexican culture and historical elements, which worked so well. It is a slow burn, but this allowed for great character development and builds tension, especially in the first half of the book. It took a while to really get to the core story, but I felt like the pacing really got me more invested in the characters, but I would say it may require patience. The Mexican mythology was so fascinating to learn about and I would love to see either artwork of scenes in this novel or to see it adapted, because I think it would be really creepy (I'll never see moths the same way again).
At it's core, Piñata is a story about possession but Gout integrates Mexican culture and historical elements, which worked so well. It is a slow burn, but this allowed for great character development and builds tension, especially in the first half of the book. It took a while to really get to the core story, but I felt like the pacing really got me more invested in the characters, but I would say it may require patience. The Mexican mythology was so fascinating to learn about and I would love to see either artwork of scenes in this novel or to see it adapted, because I think it would be really creepy (I'll never see moths the same way again).