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thewomancalledsun's reviews
122 reviews
No Tomorrow by Carian Cole
5.0
I don't have any words. Just such a beautiful, wonderful, complicated book. The characters, the story, and the writing!? Absolutely immaculate. A new favorite book of all time.
10/10 HIGHLY recommend.
10/10 HIGHLY recommend.
Flock by Kate Stewart
3.0
Nothing like what I was expecting but ended up being AH-MAZING. finished it in half a day. . . It was THAT GOOD.
Edit:
Not sure how I feel in retrospect. Bumped from 5 to 3 stars.
Edit:
Not sure how I feel in retrospect. Bumped from 5 to 3 stars.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
2.0
READ TO THE END!!!!
ALL I WANT IS A BOOK WITH A WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL LOVE STORY BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE PROTAGONIST.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a book that I believed would top my greatest books of all time list. I expected to read a book about Adeline LaRue and her life, and her deal, and how she fell in love with the darkness itself. But instead what I got was a whole lot of crushing disappointment.
ADELINE & LUC
So let's begin with our main character Adeline. For someone who's supposedly lived for 300 years she is surprisingly naive, and you would think that in 300 years you would gain a lot of wisdom and knowledge on life, and love, and the nuances and complexities of love and human emotion and the universe itself. But apparently Adeline LaRue spent 300 years just doing f****** horseshit because she has no understanding of the complexities of the world that reflects 300 years of living and she has this painful to read mentality that the world is black and white. And honestly few things piss me off more than this mentality, in real life and in books. Because life as we know it is not black and white, it's full of technicolor and grey area. And you'd think that after living 300 years and seeing centuries of life and new inventions and technology and all these great and amazing things and bearing witness to the ficklety of human emotion compared to the vastness of the future; you'd THINK that you would understand that but apparently she's could not. How she viewed Luc ( the darkness) frustrated me to no end. Because Luc through her eyes is portrayed as the villain of the story and yet all his villainous acts are simply him doing his job. Because if you make a deal with the devil, and you sell your soul, and he comes to collect, YOU CAN'T TURN AROUND PAINT HIM AS EVIL BECAUSE YOU WILLINGLY SOLD YOUR SOUL TO HIM. The only other villainous act you could possibly point out was his deal with Adeline. But even that is a stretch because sorry to say (not really) it was completely her fault because she had no idea what she wanted when she called on Luc and it makes no sense to me how you can try and call on some unknown being to fulfill a wish when you don't even know what your wish is. Honestly, I fell in love with Luc and it's depressing because the author did him a great disservice. We never got to really know anything about Luc, we never got to understand his motivations, we never got to see anything from his point of view, we never got to understand his internal dialogue, we never understood why he did what he did we never understood how he looked the world and how he perceived the world, and most importantly, how he perceived Adeline.
V. E. Shwab had a wonderful chance to build a complex and interesting and nuanced character in Luc but she instead did a great disservice to him and greater disservice to the book.
HENRY
Even when I still had hope the book would be everything I wanted to be, I still didn't like Henry. He just didn't really matter to me in the grand scheme of things, because my mentality at the time was that I'm reading a book where the main character has been alive for 300 years and the other main character is a being who has been alive for as long as the world has existed.
Therefore, I just didn't see the need to invest in the character.
We never get to see Henry's motivations and how he related to his friends and his family and to the world. His mental health struggles and anxiety, were things that were never really explained or dealt with. What exactly drove some of his mental health issues, is a question that is never asked or answered but should have been both asked and answered. I never really got attached to Henry because I didn't understand his purpose in the story. His romance and love story with Adeline was unbelievable to me and I quite frankly didn't buy it. And frankly, I wanted him and Adeline to be friends because she
had had love we had seen her with love. But never friendship. And honestly? I think that would have been beautiful.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a book that promised me my long awaited love story with the devil. And it did not deliver. And not only did the romance disappoint but my protagonist with as gorgeous a name as Adeline disappointed as well. V. E. Shwab had the opportunity to create a masterpiece to capture my heart and give us a romance like none we've read before. Give us a protagonist that with her immortality discovered the secrets of the universe and shared them with us. Sadly she did the exact opposite. Great potential, disappointing reality.
NOTE:
All in all I think that a lot of my dislike with the book came from it not giving me what I wanted and expected. I will definitely come back to this book in a couple of years,because I believe if I'm not expecting to finally get my long awaited devil/protagonist love story this book could very easily become a favorite of mine. I do however stick to all my criticism and don't believe that will change.
ALL I WANT IS A BOOK WITH A WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL LOVE STORY BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE PROTAGONIST.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a book that I believed would top my greatest books of all time list. I expected to read a book about Adeline LaRue and her life, and her deal, and how she fell in love with the darkness itself. But instead what I got was a whole lot of crushing disappointment.
ADELINE & LUC
So let's begin with our main character Adeline. For someone who's supposedly lived for 300 years she is surprisingly naive, and you would think that in 300 years you would gain a lot of wisdom and knowledge on life, and love, and the nuances and complexities of love and human emotion and the universe itself. But apparently Adeline LaRue spent 300 years just doing f****** horseshit because she has no understanding of the complexities of the world that reflects 300 years of living and she has this painful to read mentality that the world is black and white. And honestly few things piss me off more than this mentality, in real life and in books. Because life as we know it is not black and white, it's full of technicolor and grey area. And you'd think that after living 300 years and seeing centuries of life and new inventions and technology and all these great and amazing things and bearing witness to the ficklety of human emotion compared to the vastness of the future; you'd THINK that you would understand that but apparently she's could not. How she viewed Luc ( the darkness) frustrated me to no end. Because Luc through her eyes is portrayed as the villain of the story and yet all his villainous acts are simply him doing his job. Because if you make a deal with the devil, and you sell your soul, and he comes to collect, YOU CAN'T TURN AROUND PAINT HIM AS EVIL BECAUSE YOU WILLINGLY SOLD YOUR SOUL TO HIM. The only other villainous act you could possibly point out was his deal with Adeline. But even that is a stretch because sorry to say (not really) it was completely her fault because she had no idea what she wanted when she called on Luc and it makes no sense to me how you can try and call on some unknown being to fulfill a wish when you don't even know what your wish is. Honestly, I fell in love with Luc and it's depressing because the author did him a great disservice. We never got to really know anything about Luc, we never got to understand his motivations, we never got to see anything from his point of view, we never got to understand his internal dialogue, we never understood why he did what he did we never understood how he looked the world and how he perceived the world, and most importantly, how he perceived Adeline.
V. E. Shwab had a wonderful chance to build a complex and interesting and nuanced character in Luc but she instead did a great disservice to him and greater disservice to the book.
HENRY
Even when I still had hope the book would be everything I wanted to be, I still didn't like Henry. He just didn't really matter to me in the grand scheme of things, because my mentality at the time was that I'm reading a book where the main character has been alive for 300 years and the other main character is a being who has been alive for as long as the world has existed.
Therefore, I just didn't see the need to invest in the character.
We never get to see Henry's motivations and how he related to his friends and his family and to the world. His mental health struggles and anxiety, were things that were never really explained or dealt with. What exactly drove some of his mental health issues, is a question that is never asked or answered but should have been both asked and answered. I never really got attached to Henry because I didn't understand his purpose in the story. His romance and love story with Adeline was unbelievable to me and I quite frankly didn't buy it. And frankly, I wanted him and Adeline to be friends because she
had had love we had seen her with love. But never friendship. And honestly? I think that would have been beautiful.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a book that promised me my long awaited love story with the devil. And it did not deliver. And not only did the romance disappoint but my protagonist with as gorgeous a name as Adeline disappointed as well. V. E. Shwab had the opportunity to create a masterpiece to capture my heart and give us a romance like none we've read before. Give us a protagonist that with her immortality discovered the secrets of the universe and shared them with us. Sadly she did the exact opposite. Great potential, disappointing reality.
NOTE:
All in all I think that a lot of my dislike with the book came from it not giving me what I wanted and expected. I will definitely come back to this book in a couple of years,because I believe if I'm not expecting to finally get my long awaited devil/protagonist love story this book could very easily become a favorite of mine. I do however stick to all my criticism and don't believe that will change.
The Secrets of Meadow Farmhouse by Katie Ginger
2.0
The Secrets of Meadow Farmhouse is an okay book. It wasn't necessarily good or bad just okay. The chapters seemed to drag on for ages and the book is around 600 pages when honestly it should be 300 pages. The setting seemed like it would be idyllic, and the book comforting, but the book fell very flat for me. It was a disappointing read overall.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
A Question of Holmes by Brittany Cavallaro
5.0
This series has stolen my heart and I hope I never get it back.
Good Gone Bad by Giana Darling
5.0
Giana Darling has done it again. I am on a high only a really good book can give. The kind of book that gets on my favorite books of all time list. Which this one definitely did. Now I won't lie, I went into this book not expecting to like it at all but I definitely fell head over heels in love with it. The characters, the romance, the writing, the music all left me like
All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter
5.0
When I initially began my reading of All the Murmuring Bones I will admit I didn't think I would like it. But once the plot picked up I was actually incapable of putting it down.
As I already mentioned the book starts out a bit slow, and initially feels hard to get into. There's a lot of information and set up for the story happening so it might be tempting to give it up, DON'T. Stick with it and trust me it's worth it ( and important). Around 20% into the book the plot really starts to develop and the story begins to take off and it's genuinely SO GOOD. You really begin to understand the main character and get to know her. The author is wonderfully able to write her in such a way that through her the reader is able to figure things out in the story without it ever feeling like an info-dump or like you're being dictated to what was happening and why. The world building was exquisite and the mythology & folklore beautifully woven into the story is so believable and wonderfully done.
I think its needless to say this is definitely a new favorite of mine. If you're even remotely interested in this book ( and even if you're not) I highly recommend and encourage you to read All The Murmuring Bones. You won't regret it.
* I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
As I already mentioned the book starts out a bit slow, and initially feels hard to get into. There's a lot of information and set up for the story happening so it might be tempting to give it up, DON'T. Stick with it and trust me it's worth it ( and important). Around 20% into the book the plot really starts to develop and the story begins to take off and it's genuinely SO GOOD. You really begin to understand the main character and get to know her. The author is wonderfully able to write her in such a way that through her the reader is able to figure things out in the story without it ever feeling like an info-dump or like you're being dictated to what was happening and why. The world building was exquisite and the mythology & folklore beautifully woven into the story is so believable and wonderfully done.
I think its needless to say this is definitely a new favorite of mine. If you're even remotely interested in this book ( and even if you're not) I highly recommend and encourage you to read All The Murmuring Bones. You won't regret it.
* I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
This Savage Song by V.E. Schwab
4.0
This book is beautiful and heartbreaking and I love Kate & August so so so much. But I have a sinking feeling that the second book is going to wreck my soul in a very not so nice way.
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
5.0
I'm not very sure where to even begin with my review of this book.
So I suppose I'll begin by saying that this book was completely different from all my expectations for it. Where I was expecting a YA contemporary style retelling I instead got a literary fiction, in the best way possible. Despite the amount of greek mythology I have read, I wasn't very familiar with Ariadne. So reading the book was that much more impactful for me.
The story of Ariadne & in a lot of ways her sister was one of heartbreak, perseverance, frustration, and triumph.
The author does an incredible job of making you feel the frustrations of the characters. The frustration I and probably many women feel in mythology and in real life when history and the men in it attempt to shrink us down to minor antidotes in a man's story.
Though despite the obvious heartbreak & frustration present in Ariadne's and her sisters story, there is also triumph. Triumph from the fact that they finally get to tell their own stories on their own terms. That in this small but meaningful way they finally get the agency they deserved in the first
place. The ending of book was so unexpectedly poignant and impactful in a quiet sort of way that it will definitely stay with me for some time.
Jennifer Saint is definitely a phenomenal author and one to look out for. The way she was able to write Ariadne's story in such a unique and meaningful way is truly impressive and I am definitely looking forward to reading more of her work.
* I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion
So I suppose I'll begin by saying that this book was completely different from all my expectations for it. Where I was expecting a YA contemporary style retelling I instead got a literary fiction, in the best way possible. Despite the amount of greek mythology I have read, I wasn't very familiar with Ariadne. So reading the book was that much more impactful for me.
The story of Ariadne & in a lot of ways her sister was one of heartbreak, perseverance, frustration, and triumph.
The author does an incredible job of making you feel the frustrations of the characters. The frustration I and probably many women feel in mythology and in real life when history and the men in it attempt to shrink us down to minor antidotes in a man's story.
Though despite the obvious heartbreak & frustration present in Ariadne's and her sisters story, there is also triumph. Triumph from the fact that they finally get to tell their own stories on their own terms. That in this small but meaningful way they finally get the agency they deserved in the first
place. The ending of book was so unexpectedly poignant and impactful in a quiet sort of way that it will definitely stay with me for some time.
Jennifer Saint is definitely a phenomenal author and one to look out for. The way she was able to write Ariadne's story in such a unique and meaningful way is truly impressive and I am definitely looking forward to reading more of her work.
* I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion
The Maddest Obsession by Danielle Lori
4.0
Wonderful, exquisite, everything I could have ever wanted. Definitely a new favorite. 10/10 would recommend.