turninpages_sippintea's reviews
241 reviews

Real Tigers by Mick Herron

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Didn't click with me as much as the other 2 in the series did. But then I also took a massive break at 70% and had forgotten what the book was about by them time I decided to pick it up again. Still, it was an enjoyable read. Despite how dysfunctional the Horses are, I like almost all of them anyway for some reason ;__;

Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-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? N/A

5.0

I'm not even going to go through the CAWPILE first, it's immediate 5 stars from me!

This book had everything: a diverse and very fun cast of characters, tasteful queer romance, a few mysteries to solve, humour, delightful writing, the faded elegance of a grand hotel that has seen better days but is still quite impressive, and MAN would it make an awesome TV series!! I can honestly say that, even though I had a list of 3 suspects for the role of the notorious Lamplighter and that one of them turned out to be right, I was still intrigued every chapter! Even if characters had nothing to do with the scandalous rebel, their stories before Abeona were very interesting to read! Even if I started reading about someone thinking, "I don't really care about them that much" or "Not a fan of this person", each respective chapter made me understand the character and empathise with them. 

Overall, an awesome book! If this is what cozy sci-fi is, sign me up, I'm a fan now! 

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Irish writers, man! They just have a way with words!

The only thing I was not captivated by was the love line, merely because "love" and "lust" are two different things - Cushla and Michael had absolutely nothing in common apart from raving sexual energy, and calling that "love" is a stretch. But that's just my personal ick, and it barely affected my final rating of the book.

The political backdrop added a lot to the story. In some part, it was the story. I kept thinking, "Good lord, will Davey's family catch a break??", but replace "Davey" (apologies for a possible misspelling, I listened to the audiobook) with any other name - and you've got Northern Ireland during those times.

The narration (Bríd Brennan) was stellar, too!

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

If I could rate The Wolf Den based on my enjoyment of it alone, I would give it 2.5 stars - the main character sets a goal for herself very late and achieves it remarkably fast, the death in the end feels completely unnecessary (I get it, the second book needs a reason to exist, but *read in over-exaggerated tone of a person voicing the trailer for some cheesy action film* "Amara the Relentless comes back... WITH REVENGE!!!" could be easily avoided or replaced by a different plot device. You don't have to kill a woman to move another woman's story forward), and I particularly didn't enjoy the narrator's (Antonia Beamish) choice for male voices. She had only 2 settings when it came to male characters: good men sound good, bad men sound bad. And it was quite frustrating! I would like to form my own opinion about the characters, thank you very much! Instead I could already guess the characters' motives just from the way they were voiced. Idk, wasn't a fan of that particular decision.

HOWEVER!! The main characters - the protagonist, the main antagonist, "the supporting cast" - were all quite full-fledged, I appreciated how each woman in the brothel made sense (I mean, every one of them was... a person, with their hopes and dreams, own tragedies and means of survival, they felt real). The atmosphere of Pompeii was quite vibrant, too! Admittedly, I know very little of the ancient city apart from the reason it stopped existing, but this book honestly made me want to do some research on it, the descriptions were quite intriguing!

Overall, I'm having a rather unusual experience with giving 4 stars to a book that I didn't enjoy all that much. Will I be reading the sequel?........... BEGRUDGINGLY, but... yes, probably.

Dune by Frank Herbert

adventurous dark informative sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

Listening to this on Audible was a huge mistake - the inconsistent voice acting took a lot away from my enjoyment of the book. I'll probably re-read it digitally at some point and reconsider the rating, but 3 stars it is for now.

Considering the book itself, I found myself fascinated learning about Arrakis and its ecosystem, but I honestly couldn't care less about its religion, or Bene Gesserit's plotting, or all the political backstabbing. (I blame the voiceover again, honestly, whoever decided that chopping chapters in pieces, and then giving them to different actors to narrate would be a good idea, didn't really think things through.)

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I'm glad I didn't DNF the book at 32%. After skimming through a few negative/neutral reviews, I was about to agree that the narrator was a bit too unreliable for my liking. To say that following the plot was extremely challenging at times would be a colossal understatement. 

However, at some point it all just... clicked. The more I was getting to know Tom Kettle, the more I realised that it made total sense for him to unfold the story the way he did. Sure, it was confusing for me as a reader to discern what was real in Tom's story and what wasn't, but then I thought how disorienting and even scary it must have been for him to go through moments like these, where he himself couldn't tell fantasy and reality apart. Tom Kettle is a very complicated character, and I believe no other way of narration would've done him and his story justice.

Iris Kelly Doesn't Date by Ashley Herring Blake

 DNFing books which I haven't touched in a while! Not because they were bad, but because my ADHD brain can't focus on them for long enough! Will definitely come back to this book later! 

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
Did not finish book. Stopped at 8%.

 DNFing books which I haven't touched in a while! Not because they were bad, but because my ADHD brain can't focus on them for long enough! Will definitely come back to this book later! 

Nevada by Imogen Binnie
Did not finish book. Stopped at 16%.

 DNFing books which I haven't touched in a while! Not because they were bad, but because my ADHD brain can't focus on them for long enough! Will definitely come back to this book later!