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themountaingoats's reviews
248 reviews
Regeneration by Pat Barker
5.0
OOOOOOHGHHH. OH. REMINDER TO FUTURE ME TO READ THIS BACK TO BACK W EQUUS
Real Easy by Marie Rutkoski
successfully moving from childrens to adult fiction or vice versa is a huge feat, and unsuccessful books (like this one) really make me appreciate that
The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard
i skipped so much it’s disingenuous to say i finished this. way way way way way too long, but the central idea is interesting and compelling in the exact blockbuster-y way it should be (the kid who was stolen has had a better time of it than the kids that were left, where do you go from there?). it doesn’t work for a lot of reasons but like. especially because it can’t decide what to do tonally, and it’s really conflicted on what it wants its goal to actually be. beth remains so unsympathetic that it’s hard to understand how the novel is pushing for the reunited family angle, but it refuses to have any lasting heft as a study of a bad mother who experienced something impossible. whatever, i’m bored on a train and writing too much about an oprah pick
Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore
:/ fine but underwhelming next to its predecessors. the multiple POVs, bringing back giddon and bitterblue as central characters for SOME reason (?), and the lack of focus on the central parent/child relationship (which is frequently the most compelling part of graceling books) made this feel a lot weaker comparatively. i probably would’ve liked it a lot more if we had stayed entirely w Lovisa and been introduced to everything through her. i can’t be “objective” or nuanced with this series because the first 3 meant so much to me when i was growing up. a departure from formula can be great, but it really didn’t work for me here. really disappointed, and kinda sad that i’m too old for even my favorite YA to feel the same anymore or to be impactful.