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stormlightreader's Reviews (936)
adventurous
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Plot: so glad to be back in Fitz's (or Tom's) story. I loved the Liveship Traders trilogy, so I was worried I'd struggle to get back into the Farseer storyline. Nope! Things move really slowly at the start but Hobb is one of a small number of authors that can do this and keep me completely engaged. Fitz had set up an isolated life in a cottage (jealous) with an orphan boy, Hap. He gets some visitors and boom, he's back in Buckkeep to help find Queen Kettricken's son, Prince Dutiful. And because this is a Hobb novel, sad things happen to a dog.
Characters: it's so good to be back in this corner of the Six Duchies. Back with Fitz, Kettricken, Chade and the Fool. The Fool gets more and more interesting with every book, there's so much mystery surrounding him. I love it! Starling has not grown on me at all and a reveal has further cemented that stance. I also can't get on board with Thick either. But I really like Dutiful - his introduction and development was great!
Highlight: "Do all cats speak so rudely to strangers?" Fool's Errand introduced my favourite animal character, Fennel 😺 I adore Fennel. Hobb writes this cat so well and captures the feline sassiness so well! There needs to be more feline characters in this series.
Characters: it's so good to be back in this corner of the Six Duchies. Back with Fitz, Kettricken, Chade and the Fool. The Fool gets more and more interesting with every book, there's so much mystery surrounding him. I love it! Starling has not grown on me at all and a reveal has further cemented that stance. I also can't get on board with Thick either. But I really like Dutiful - his introduction and development was great!
Highlight: "Do all cats speak so rudely to strangers?" Fool's Errand introduced my favourite animal character, Fennel 😺 I adore Fennel. Hobb writes this cat so well and captures the feline sassiness so well! There needs to be more feline characters in this series.
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
This is definitely one of the strangest things I've read and I'd probably sum it up as a very strange love story, which was not what I expected going in.
I liked Kirie, she was a good character to follow, however, it was hard to get attached to any character as there is little/no character development.
The body horror is a little unsettling in places and I was actually quite impressed by how Ito was able to make spirals so menacing. It's a surface level story but it's worth it for a quick read.
The finale was a little underwhelming for me, and this is not factored into the rating, but the lost chapter at the end of my edition was jarring. It didn't fit following the ending and could've just been included as a main chapter, since the chapters pretty much stand alone within the story.
I'm sure the experience is likely to vary from person to person. The first 2 chapters were brilliant and other chapters were hit or miss, but for the most part were really good. The story is creepy and I enjoyed the it the further I got into it.
I liked Kirie, she was a good character to follow, however, it was hard to get attached to any character as there is little/no character development.
The body horror is a little unsettling in places and I was actually quite impressed by how Ito was able to make spirals so menacing. It's a surface level story but it's worth it for a quick read.
The finale was a little underwhelming for me, and this is not factored into the rating, but the lost chapter at the end of my edition was jarring. It didn't fit following the ending and could've just been included as a main chapter, since the chapters pretty much stand alone within the story.
I'm sure the experience is likely to vary from person to person. The first 2 chapters were brilliant and other chapters were hit or miss, but for the most part were really good. The story is creepy and I enjoyed the it the further I got into it.
Things that made me give up with this book:
- a really annoying protagonist who is constantly putting herself down (not in a way where I wanted her to realise how great she is) and this got to be really tedious to follow
- not one single character I cared about
- by the time I DNF'd, the plot felt like it had barely gone anywhere largely because Claire's POV felt repetitive with no suspense - I was bored
It's basically Titanic in space if we were to get a tour of the Titanic after it sank and the ghosts had hung around for a bit
I'll use a quote from the book to summarise my thoughts: "mind-numbingly uninteresting"
- a really annoying protagonist who is constantly putting herself down (not in a way where I wanted her to realise how great she is) and this got to be really tedious to follow
- not one single character I cared about
- by the time I DNF'd, the plot felt like it had barely gone anywhere largely because Claire's POV felt repetitive with no suspense - I was bored
It's basically Titanic in space if we were to get a tour of the Titanic after it sank and the ghosts had hung around for a bit
I'll use a quote from the book to summarise my thoughts: "mind-numbingly uninteresting"
A quick supernatural horror read. I've read other books by Coates and liked them more than Dead Lake. This book lacked the atmosphere Coates is usually good at developing.
fast-paced
Ryan Murphy's show, Dahmer, provided more detail than this book. From what I can gather, the book was released fairly soon after Dahmer's apprehension and consequent death, and this is reflected in the book's vagueness. There must have been an overwhelming desire to publish one of the earliest Dahmer books. The information on the victims was wrapped up by the halfway point, yet there was information on other killers, when this page space could've been dedicated to victims instead. There were a lot of discussions that were only vaguely addressed here and that's disappointing.
First read: no review again (shocker!) but I remember loving this book on my first read. (5*)
Re-read: I really liked this book first time around but I couldn't remember why. No surprise there. I liked the snippets of the killer's POV (I forgot about that and I liked it). I did forget who the killer is but it wasn't a surprise either. The dialogue, particularly with the FBI/law enforcement personnel, is a very repetitive in places. I get that it's part of reinforcing the way a certain character is, but it was so in your face and annoying. It did trip Reacher up (verbally), which is good to read because he is a taciturn man and when he does have a comeback it's usually great. I forgot how eerie the crimes were, even though I did have to Google whether is was possible to die this way. I forgot about the hypnosis angle too. The personal aspects of Reacher's lifestyle are very interesting and this element of my reread is probably my favourite. Reacher struggling with being anchored is interesting, especially with the 'hobo demon' in his head - another thing I forgot about. (4*)
Re-read: I really liked this book first time around but I couldn't remember why. No surprise there. I liked the snippets of the killer's POV (I forgot about that and I liked it). I did forget who the killer is but it wasn't a surprise either. The dialogue, particularly with the FBI/law enforcement personnel, is a very repetitive in places. I get that it's part of reinforcing the way a certain character is, but it was so in your face and annoying. It did trip Reacher up (verbally), which is good to read because he is a taciturn man and when he does have a comeback it's usually great. I forgot how eerie the crimes were, even though I did have to Google whether is was possible to die this way. I forgot about the hypnosis angle too. The personal aspects of Reacher's lifestyle are very interesting and this element of my reread is probably my favourite. Reacher struggling with being anchored is interesting, especially with the 'hobo demon' in his head - another thing I forgot about. (4*)
I need a physical copy of this. A lot of what I like about Jade City is here. A nice compact little story to prepare me for Jade War.
fast-paced
I had this in my unhaul pile but kept hold of it just in case...when will I learn?
No characters that I cared about. A barely intriguing plot. But it was a quick read and a solid reminder of why thrillers are no longer my go-to genre.
No characters that I cared about. A barely intriguing plot. But it was a quick read and a solid reminder of why thrillers are no longer my go-to genre.
slow-paced
Where to start. I downloaded this 801 page ebook in 2020 and didn't get around to it until this year, which I'm actually glad I did because I think it had more impact post-pandemic. That said, I have MANY thoughts and feelings about this book.
The thing that struck me early on in this book was that it was written pre-COVID and the story follows a global pandemic caused by bats. Quite surreal to read after the COVID pandemic and having experienced that pandemic, it made some of the character's reactions believable, because in real life, compliance with COVID rules was...interesting to say the least. It also made some character's actions completely unbelievable and farfetched!
Wendig ATTEMPTS to incorporate a lot of big topics (racism, homophobia, extremism, sexual assault, suicide) and in my opinion succeeds in nothing more than shoehorning subjects in just for the sake of it. Wendig does discuss depression via Autumn and it is one of the parts that I felt was done fairly well, albeit briefly and she seems to recover quickly. I feel like Wendig just saw opportunities to seem aware of big societal issues and took them but just to tick a box and it felt overdone. The book is quite political from the start. Any opportunity Wendig gets to mention anything political, he takes it and it becomes tedious. On the flip side, Wendig did well in writing about how a global pandemic would stoke these political fires.
The sci-fi aspect is why I persevered, even though I thought it was quite subtle. I really enjoyed the POV (which made up a huge part of the book) of the CDC trying to get ahead of the outbreak and trying to find a cure. However, I didn't find myself attached to any character in this book. Not one. After 801 pages, you'd think I'd be hoping at least person would survive. Nope. Couldn't care less. My interest was maintained until about the halfway mark. Then it fell down. This 100% fatal disease was conveniently dealt with and a method of managing it came up just towards the book's conclusion. Of course! How disappointing. I find it really hard to believe that people would willingly sacrifice their own survival for someone they barely know, in the name of science. I wouldn't.
Black Swan was one of my biggest issues with this book. Black Swan's introduction was what made me have to work hard to stick with the story, despite my suspicion that it would be a big problem. It was! I just could not force myself to believe how Black Swan featured in this story. Another aspect that just didn't seem to fit into the story was the far right stuff. It seemed completely unnecessary and very out of place. There was a graphic rape scene that completely shocked me. It didn't even suit the perpetrator's character and it didn't do anything other than start to distance me from the story after the amount of work it took to keep myself invested. I got to the point where it started to feel like if you skipped the preacher/far right POV, you would still understand the story. Same goes for the annoying rockstar. There was one Interlude that I loved, called Ten Photographs (I think) - I just loved how that was done.
The disease plot of this book was good and I had high hopes but the ending was disappointing, which is sad because the initial impact of reading this book post-pandemic was surreal, and that feeling alone was what kept me with this story.
The thing that struck me early on in this book was that it was written pre-COVID and the story follows a global pandemic caused by bats. Quite surreal to read after the COVID pandemic and having experienced that pandemic, it made some of the character's reactions believable, because in real life, compliance with COVID rules was...interesting to say the least. It also made some character's actions completely unbelievable and farfetched!
Wendig ATTEMPTS to incorporate a lot of big topics (racism, homophobia, extremism, sexual assault, suicide) and in my opinion succeeds in nothing more than shoehorning subjects in just for the sake of it. Wendig does discuss depression via Autumn and it is one of the parts that I felt was done fairly well, albeit briefly and she seems to recover quickly. I feel like Wendig just saw opportunities to seem aware of big societal issues and took them but just to tick a box and it felt overdone. The book is quite political from the start. Any opportunity Wendig gets to mention anything political, he takes it and it becomes tedious. On the flip side, Wendig did well in writing about how a global pandemic would stoke these political fires.
The sci-fi aspect is why I persevered, even though I thought it was quite subtle. I really enjoyed the POV (which made up a huge part of the book) of the CDC trying to get ahead of the outbreak and trying to find a cure. However, I didn't find myself attached to any character in this book. Not one. After 801 pages, you'd think I'd be hoping at least person would survive. Nope. Couldn't care less. My interest was maintained until about the halfway mark. Then it fell down. This 100% fatal disease was conveniently dealt with and a method of managing it came up just towards the book's conclusion. Of course! How disappointing. I find it really hard to believe that people would willingly sacrifice their own survival for someone they barely know, in the name of science. I wouldn't.
Black Swan was one of my biggest issues with this book. Black Swan's introduction was what made me have to work hard to stick with the story, despite my suspicion that it would be a big problem. It was! I just could not force myself to believe how Black Swan featured in this story. Another aspect that just didn't seem to fit into the story was the far right stuff. It seemed completely unnecessary and very out of place. There was a graphic rape scene that completely shocked me. It didn't even suit the perpetrator's character and it didn't do anything other than start to distance me from the story after the amount of work it took to keep myself invested. I got to the point where it started to feel like if you skipped the preacher/far right POV, you would still understand the story. Same goes for the annoying rockstar. There was one Interlude that I loved, called Ten Photographs (I think) - I just loved how that was done.
The disease plot of this book was good and I had high hopes but the ending was disappointing, which is sad because the initial impact of reading this book post-pandemic was surreal, and that feeling alone was what kept me with this story.