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stormlightreader's Reviews (934)
The Sweetpea books are still an auto read for me. Rhiannon's bluntness is still there but I remember her being more blunt in the earlier books. Rhiannon is a lot softer ( since she got pregnant ), which is a bit of a shame, but she still has a such great, dark humour and I'd love to see this as it was in earlier books. Minor complaints aside, I still enjoy her as a character and I'm looking forward to seeing what the TV adaptation looks like!
I just wasn't feeling the pull to pick it back up.
"I feel like a hamster in space"
The plot is intriguing and easy to follow but just as it gets interesting it starts to become more about the
"I'm not in any hurry to get back to Earth. Earth is frozen"
The 2 main characters are likeable enough
"The sun is setting on our time on Earth"
Winter World is a book I'd recommend to someone who is looking to get into a series like The Expanse but hasn't read a lot of hard sci-fi.
First read: My curiosity of wondering 'what is a Reacher novel written by Lee and Andrew Child going to look like'? has been put to rest. The writing doesn’t feel too different and if I didn’t know that his brother was co-authoring the book, I probably would’ve been none the wiser. However, the book does feel tonally different but the only thing I can put my finger on is that Reacher is more talkative than usual. In some ways this felt like classic Reacher but despite being on the shorter side for a Reacher book, it still felt drawn out. Reacher novels centred around technological plots are very hit or miss for me and this is in the latter camp. It wasn’t a high-stakes plot but there were some little nuggets of background information on Reacher. The Reacher books are very formulaic and that’s fine for me but I would like a higher stakes book thrown in every now and then. That said, I have a feeling that if this had just been written by Lee, it probably would’ve been about 100 pages longer, so there’s that I guess 😂
MS-13: The Making of America's Most Notorious Gang is an account of Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1980s.
"There's no way out of the gangs, especially the MS-13."
Dudley provides such an informative and fascinating insight into the creation and expansion of the MS-13. This book touches on a number of things that played a role in the shaping of the international criminal gang. Dudley illustrates really well reasons why someone may join a gang, why gangs exist, and why they continue and strengthen. Dudley also discusses the violence perpetuated by MS-13 and the lives of the gang members, which is scary, yet so interesting.
"There's no such thing as an ex gang member."
What Dudley also illustrates well is how complex these types of gangs are and how this has enabled the MS-13 to expand it's territory into many parts of the world (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, United States, Canada and Spain).
"The power of the Mexican Mafia is vast"
MS-13: The Making of America's Most Notorious Gang is an informative read but does include graphic descriptions of murder and executions. But if you can deal with that, it's definitely worth a read.
This plot had so much promise, mainly because of the interesting information about marine ecology and the marine environment. It was a decent novella, but it has now put to rest any temptation I had to read Grant's full length novel, Into The Drowning Deep. I saw a review on Booktube a few years ago for Into The Drowning Deep and thought that killer mermaids could be interesting to read about; and while, I still maintain that killer mermaids would be a plot I would enjoy, Grant's writing just didn't do it for me and unfortunately the atmosphere wasn't there.
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
As someone who has worked with animals for a long time and has a deep interest in the state of the planet, I have often wondered what life would be like after humans have disappeared.
"I pity animals and I pity people because they're thrown into this life without being consulted"
This woman was so relatable in her solitude. The Wall is a slow burn book about ordinary daily life for one woman. It felt like a pure form of dystopia, with a calm and engaging writing style. The main (human) character is very relatable and the non-human characters add so much emotion to the story; Lynx, the cats, Bella and Bull are all equally deserving of main character status.
"You can never laugh at cats, they take it very badly"
I grew to love these animals and when she lost them, I felt her devastation. The Wall deals with isolation and adapting to life without the outside noise of relationships and society.
I can't wait to watch the movie.
The first half is slow and then in stark contrast, the second half moves at breakneck speed. Or at least that's how it felt to me. Despite the slow pace of the first half, the characters feel underdeveloped and I struggled to care about any of them (except the cat, him I liked). In the second half (where the romance really kicks off) the writing becomes so cringey and Weaver's various names for male and female genitalia were various and eye-roll inducing to say the least. This book kind of reminded me of the Mindf*ck series, but with way cringier writing and a female lead who goes from badass to submissive and boring in the blink of an eye. At least Mindf*ck kept me intrigued for 5 instalments.
Major gripes:
- they and were obsessed with each other instantly purely because they have the same hobby. Unbelievable.
- the book spans a number of years and two very sexual people are abstaining from sex. Unbelievable. There's a theme here.
- I finished the book knowing barely anything about Sloane and Rowan except that they enjoy murder and sex and are so intensely (unhealthily) obsessed with each other.
- on the subject of the murders - why do they do it? Rowan had a bad dad, so he murders now? Ok. How do they find their 'prey' (besides the intel from Rowan's brother for the annual hunt)? (at least with Mindf*ck we are clued in on the backstory, just saying). There are some very brief mentions made to cleaning up their kill sites, but are these murders seriously going unnoticed/unreported?? Again, un-be-lie-va-ble.
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Firstly, it's great that the audiobook is narrated by Emilly herself. Funeral for Flaca is a series of essays exploring the author's life. Prado narrates her experiences from when she was a child through to her adult life. The memoir felt appropriately paced and wasn't over-explained. Her references to things I enjoy (Linkin Park) made her even more relatable and took me back to my younger years.
My favourite quote: “I am realising my twenties have been about surviving. I am starting to realise my thirties can be about healing.”
It feels very difficult to write reviews for memoirs but it was an interesting read. At one point during the memoir, I actually thought that Prado would be great at writing fiction because she can tell a really good story.
I have come to realise that extreme horror is not for me. I have a strong stomach but this book is needlessly gross. What's worse, is that there is no real plot (in the 33% that I read).