theteaisaddictive's reviews
318 reviews

The Last Girl Scout by Natalie Ironside

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

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

3.0

This book was . . . fine, I guess? I never really felt that engaged with the plot; things seemed to just happen, without much feeling of investment from the characters who all seemed to just go along with it (realistic, given they were almost all soldiers being given marching orders, but still). There was also a really distracting amount of small grammar errors, which you would think would have been caught at some point in the editing process and clearly hadn't been. 

Where the book shines, though, is the dialogue. Without resorting to phonetic spellings of accents, you can <i>read</i> the Kentucky in every single character's voice. Masterful character voice work. 

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.25

Fellas, is it gay to have a mutual unrecognised crush on your roommate you can only contextualise through the lens of bitter jealously and rivalry, and make an impulsive life-destroying mistake because it’s 1942 and neither of you know what homosexuality is yet? 

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is 472 pages of the most insufferable Victorian lesbians imaginable making the most chaotic decisions possible and generating enough relationship drama to demand a flowsheet. It completely and utterly slaps and I loved every pulpy, ridiculous minute. 

Gilded by Marissa Meyer

adventurous emotional mysterious relaxing slow-paced

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

3.0

As always, I had a rollicking good time with a Marissa Meyer fairytale retelling. That said, I do consider this one of her weaker works. Serilda, while obviously only trying to make the best of the numerous bad situations she ends up in, does act with varying levels of stupidity throughout the book. The love story is, while not insta-love (and has some interesting tension regarding the line between touch-starved people desperate for human contact of ANY kind, and genuine affection) only just sketched out, where I expected the length of the novel to be devoted to exploring their dynamic slightly more. However it must be said that Gild manic-pixie-dream-boy-ing his way through the plot did charm me utterly. The attempts at including queer themes via side characters and world building was a touch clumsy, but still appreciated. 

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that this really did not need to be 2 books long — you could have cut a good majority of the Adalheid characters (while still keeping the plot revelations) and trimmed the longer stretches between full moons and still kept the sense of slow, rising tension. That said, will I be reading the sequel? You bet your ass I will, I’m invested now!! 

The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan
Did not finish book. Stopped at 12%.

DNF by page 47. All I can say is if this was Waterstones’ Scottish book of the year, then 2022 must have been a really bad year for Scottish books. 

The characters are dull, with nothing to really encourage you to keep reading about them. The narration pings from present-tense action to flashbacks with little to motivate the transitions and muddled writing so that it’s difficult to notice the scene changes. 

I really wanted to like this book — not only female-centred historical fiction, but SCOTTISH historical fiction — but an intriguing premise was sadly let down by the poor writing and weak characters. 

True Love Bites by Joy Demorra

emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

Prose beautiful, lyrical and poetic. The lovers classic, and not star-crossed (at least, not at first). The plot hidden behind layers of the prose, beautifully revealed at the end. This is how we win. 

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I don’t think I even have words to describe how I feel after finishing this book, apart from — fittingly, given the themes — extremely human. Don’t mind me, I’m just going to be forever thinking about how beautiful it is that two people — any two people, not just Genly and Therem — from such vastly different cultures can gain true understanding of each other, while also forever being barred from really knowing one another in ways the other would understand. To make a meme about it — two aliens, chilling in a tent, one foot apart because otherwise they’ll freeze to death. 

The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo

adventurous dark emotional sad 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? Yes

4.0

The Man Who Laughs is a strange, wonderful little book — Romantic with a capital R, tragic on multiple levels (romance, familial, generational, sociological), with a whole host of vibrant characters who will stick around in my brain all the longer for being stuck in their own stories and unable to escape them. Not least of which are our two young lovers, Gwynplaine and Dea, whose adoration for each other is only topped by the way Gwynplaine’s very human moment of weakness sends everything crashing irrevocably downwards. GAH. THIS BOOK. 

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

lighthearted fast-paced

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

2.5

Picked this book up because I know some people who genuinely really enjoyed it, but all I can really say is that it’s not for me. Like, it was fine! But I was looking for a book with a little more depth to the characters, and which explored both the ‘murderbot’ and the world in which it finds itself a little bit more.