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wisteriariaa's reviews
131 reviews
This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron
Did not finish book. Stopped at 23%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 23%.
This book is very boring! I'm not wasting my time with it! Sorry!
Babel by R.F. Kuang
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
While I still stand by my star rating for this book, I feel like the review I originally had here wasn't fair. I stand by many of my criticisms (such as how flat and uninteresting the characters are) but I don't think my review gave the book enough credit. Despite everything negative I can say about it, it is really an impressive book that clearly had a lot of thought put into it. So I don't feel like keeping my extremely childish review up for me to look back at and cringe anymore. Thats all.
The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
emotional
reflective
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? No
4.0
This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Ah yes. Another book that I seem to be in the minority of disliking. How fun.
I'm not going to beat around the bush- the pacing in this book is absolutely horrendous. I genuinely considered dnf-ing multiple times because of how much the terrible pacing made me feel like I was losing my mind. Things happen so quickly that I would have to go back and read things several times to understand what was happening. Things just keep happening one after the other so quickly that there is no time for anything to breathe. It felt like a constant onslaught of information, which makes for a thoroughly unenjoyable reading experience. And don't even get me started on the climax. Truly the worst part of the book pacing wise. Everything happens in literally a blink of an eye, as if the author rushed it out in order to meet a deadline. Literally the most important developments of the book happen in those last 15 pages, and the author just seems to want to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. Besides the pacing, the writing itself is nothing special. It feels very barebones, only describing things in the most simplest of terms. I get that it's YA and I shouldn't expect the greatest prose in the world, but it made for such a boring read.
Beyond writing problems, the characters are flat and uninteresting. Briseis isn't a very interesting protagonist, which is insane given that she literally has powers and isrelated to a goddess. I didn't feel a connection with her at all. Her love interest, Marie, is also extremely boring and uncharismatic. They have an insta-love romance, which is terrible and uninteresting and I hated it. And this is coming from someone DESPERATE for sapphic representation. I will accept literally anything, but I physically cringed at every single one of their interactions. Also, Marie falls into the category of being a super-old supernatural being that falls in love with a teenage girl despite being like 300. Fun! I liked Karter at first but then he became kind of an ass and then the big reveal happened, so he's obviously terrible. And the final villain, whose name I won't mention for spoiler purposes, is so cringey. She acts like an over the top supervillain, maniacal laughter and all. Its so stupid. There are a bunch of other side characters whose names I can't remember so I'm assuming they weren't important. The only characters in this entire book that I didn't actively dislike were Briseis's moms. They are AWESOME. They are funny, sweet, caring, and have a wonderful relationship. I would totally read a romcom story about them falling in love. They are truly the saving grace of this book and the only reason I am reading the next book (besides the fact that I already bought it) is to see them hopefully get reunited. I am greatly anticipating that scene.
The book isn't all bad. I like the use of Greek mythology and the plant stuff was neat. There are some genuinely good ideas here, but the pacing and writing absolutely ruin it. I will read the next book because I already own it and don't want to waste my money, but believe me my expectations are low. Maybe I'll like the next one! I doubt it, but never say never I guess.
I'm not going to beat around the bush- the pacing in this book is absolutely horrendous. I genuinely considered dnf-ing multiple times because of how much the terrible pacing made me feel like I was losing my mind. Things happen so quickly that I would have to go back and read things several times to understand what was happening. Things just keep happening one after the other so quickly that there is no time for anything to breathe. It felt like a constant onslaught of information, which makes for a thoroughly unenjoyable reading experience. And don't even get me started on the climax. Truly the worst part of the book pacing wise. Everything happens in literally a blink of an eye, as if the author rushed it out in order to meet a deadline. Literally the most important developments of the book happen in those last 15 pages, and the author just seems to want to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. Besides the pacing, the writing itself is nothing special. It feels very barebones, only describing things in the most simplest of terms. I get that it's YA and I shouldn't expect the greatest prose in the world, but it made for such a boring read.
Beyond writing problems, the characters are flat and uninteresting. Briseis isn't a very interesting protagonist, which is insane given that she literally has powers and is
The book isn't all bad. I like the use of Greek mythology and the plant stuff was neat. There are some genuinely good ideas here, but the pacing and writing absolutely ruin it. I will read the next book because I already own it and don't want to waste my money, but believe me my expectations are low. Maybe I'll like the next one! I doubt it, but never say never I guess.
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Minor spoilers throughout
For the most part, I liked this book. I enjoyed reading it, and never felt myself becoming bored with it even if the plot was pretty predictable. My favorite character was Luli herself (although Greta comes in a close second). Reading the description, I thought she was going to end up becoming a terrible person as she desperately chased the fame she craved. Looking back now, the whole "becoming a monster" thing was most likely a reference to her breakout role being a siren, so that's a mistake on my part. She only really does one thing I'd consider to be kind of evil and that is stealing her sister's name, and I'll forgive her for that since it was framed like she didn't do it on purpose. Luli from the beginning wants to do and have things her own way, and I really like that. She does have moments where she's afraid to rock the boat, but those moments are understandable given the fact that she is a Chinese girl in an especially racist time period. The whole time I wanted her to succeed, and I was glad she was able to on (mostly) her own terms. Besides Luli, the other characters were serviceable enough. The ones that were meant to be likable were, and the ones that were meant to be gross pieces of trash were gross pieces of trash. I don't really think I'll remember any of them, though. Except for Greta, I will always remember her. She is a badass and I was sad to see her leave so soon in the book.
I also like the way the queerness was implemented in this book. Luli is sapphic, and heavily implied to be a lesbian. She has three main love interests in this book. The first, Emmaline, a fellow actress and her first love, was my least favorite. Their entire relationship just felt like girls who fuck sometimes, and I never really bought that she liked Luli. It was a bit irritating how much Luli pined over Emmaline, especially considering that Emmaline dropped her the moment it wasn't convenient for her to be with her. I was really glad the book didn't end with them being together, I just couldn't stand her. The second, Tara, was thankfully more tolerable. She's an aspiring writer who wrote the screenplay for one of Luli's movies under a male pseudonym. They have chemistry and I like them well enough together, though they did feel like a couple that wouldn't last forever. Finally there is Jane, who Luli actually ends up with. There are brief interludes in parenthesis that show Luli and a woman named Jane commenting on something that happened in the story. Maybe these are meant to be Jane reacting to stories Luli is telling her about her life? I'm not sure. Jane isn't formally introduced until literally the last few pages. She is either a director or screenwriter who worked with Luli on some movies. I don't really mind that we don't know her much, though, because I don't feel its important for the book that they have some big romance. Aside from Luli's love interests, there is also a gay bar that Luli begins to frequent in the last third of the book, which is interesting. I think my favorite inclusion of queerness in the book has to be at the end where Luli mentions the aftermath years later of a kiss between her and Emmaline in one of her movies. She mentions debate and speculation about her and Emmaline's relationship, along with how much the movie and kiss meant to the sapphic community. It felt very similar to how implied queerness on and offscreen in old Hollywood is debated by the queer community now, and I can't really explain why but I liked it a lot.
My favorite thing about the book, and what ultimately pushed me to keep reading even when I started getting confused (more on that later), was the writing. My god, the prose in this book is beautiful. Every single time I thought I had read the best line in the book, another one just as good if not better would follow. The sentences all flowed from one to the next so beautifully, and I couldn't tear my eyes from the page. I think there could have been a chapter of Luli just watching paint dry and I would read it happily. I have another book from this author, "The Chosen and the Beautiful" right now, and if this book is anything to go off of I think I'm in for a real treat.
However, there was something about this book that I didn't like. Something that was so irritating and pervasive that it unfortunately keeps me from rating it higher. And that is the extremely confusing magic present in this world. It literally took me until the part where Luli's mom made those dolls to trick her father for it to register that magic existed in this book. Which is not a good thing since I know instances of magic had already happened before that. So much of my read through of this book was me playing this weird game of trying to parse if what I was reading was an instance of magic or just another one of the author's flowery metaphors. The worst offender of this is the fires. I think that they are supposed to represent the actors and actresses becoming stars? And they only burn as long as they still are one? I think that the ending scene was supposed to be Luli getting her own fire, which I'm also confused about. What was it exactly in that moment that made her a star? Was it just because she was a woman who kissed another woman? Or was it her acting??? I really hope it was the second one, because while Luli's queerness is important to the book, it doesn't take precedence over her desire to be an actor. So why would her fire light because she was kissing Emmaline? I don't know, the whole fire thing is confusing just like most of the magic. I think that this was a story that didn't really need magic, and that the beautiful writing and Luli's story of her rise to the top would carry it just fine. I struggle to think of a moment where magic is irremovable from the plot, but there really is nothing. It would have been fine without it.
All in all, I would recommend "Siren Queen" As long as you can stand the weird magic system, but I think the book has enough good going on to keep you interested. Definitely don't go in expecting a magic filled experience, though because you'll be a bit disappointed.
For the most part, I liked this book. I enjoyed reading it, and never felt myself becoming bored with it even if the plot was pretty predictable. My favorite character was Luli herself (although Greta comes in a close second). Reading the description, I thought she was going to end up becoming a terrible person as she desperately chased the fame she craved. Looking back now, the whole "becoming a monster" thing was most likely a reference to her breakout role being a siren, so that's a mistake on my part. She only really does one thing I'd consider to be kind of evil and that is stealing her sister's name, and I'll forgive her for that since it was framed like she didn't do it on purpose. Luli from the beginning wants to do and have things her own way, and I really like that. She does have moments where she's afraid to rock the boat, but those moments are understandable given the fact that she is a Chinese girl in an especially racist time period. The whole time I wanted her to succeed, and I was glad she was able to on (mostly) her own terms. Besides Luli, the other characters were serviceable enough. The ones that were meant to be likable were, and the ones that were meant to be gross pieces of trash were gross pieces of trash. I don't really think I'll remember any of them, though. Except for Greta, I will always remember her. She is a badass and I was sad to see her leave so soon in the book.
I also like the way the queerness was implemented in this book. Luli is sapphic, and heavily implied to be a lesbian. She has three main love interests in this book. The first, Emmaline, a fellow actress and her first love, was my least favorite. Their entire relationship just felt like girls who fuck sometimes, and I never really bought that she liked Luli. It was a bit irritating how much Luli pined over Emmaline, especially considering that Emmaline dropped her the moment it wasn't convenient for her to be with her. I was really glad the book didn't end with them being together, I just couldn't stand her. The second, Tara, was thankfully more tolerable. She's an aspiring writer who wrote the screenplay for one of Luli's movies under a male pseudonym. They have chemistry and I like them well enough together, though they did feel like a couple that wouldn't last forever. Finally there is Jane, who Luli actually ends up with. There are brief interludes in parenthesis that show Luli and a woman named Jane commenting on something that happened in the story. Maybe these are meant to be Jane reacting to stories Luli is telling her about her life? I'm not sure. Jane isn't formally introduced until literally the last few pages. She is either a director or screenwriter who worked with Luli on some movies. I don't really mind that we don't know her much, though, because I don't feel its important for the book that they have some big romance. Aside from Luli's love interests, there is also a gay bar that Luli begins to frequent in the last third of the book, which is interesting. I think my favorite inclusion of queerness in the book has to be at the end where Luli mentions the aftermath years later of a kiss between her and Emmaline in one of her movies. She mentions debate and speculation about her and Emmaline's relationship, along with how much the movie and kiss meant to the sapphic community. It felt very similar to how implied queerness on and offscreen in old Hollywood is debated by the queer community now, and I can't really explain why but I liked it a lot.
My favorite thing about the book, and what ultimately pushed me to keep reading even when I started getting confused (more on that later), was the writing. My god, the prose in this book is beautiful. Every single time I thought I had read the best line in the book, another one just as good if not better would follow. The sentences all flowed from one to the next so beautifully, and I couldn't tear my eyes from the page. I think there could have been a chapter of Luli just watching paint dry and I would read it happily. I have another book from this author, "The Chosen and the Beautiful" right now, and if this book is anything to go off of I think I'm in for a real treat.
However, there was something about this book that I didn't like. Something that was so irritating and pervasive that it unfortunately keeps me from rating it higher. And that is the extremely confusing magic present in this world. It literally took me until the part where Luli's mom made those dolls to trick her father for it to register that magic existed in this book. Which is not a good thing since I know instances of magic had already happened before that. So much of my read through of this book was me playing this weird game of trying to parse if what I was reading was an instance of magic or just another one of the author's flowery metaphors. The worst offender of this is the fires. I think that they are supposed to represent the actors and actresses becoming stars? And they only burn as long as they still are one? I think that the ending scene was supposed to be Luli getting her own fire, which I'm also confused about. What was it exactly in that moment that made her a star? Was it just because she was a woman who kissed another woman? Or was it her acting??? I really hope it was the second one, because while Luli's queerness is important to the book, it doesn't take precedence over her desire to be an actor. So why would her fire light because she was kissing Emmaline? I don't know, the whole fire thing is confusing just like most of the magic. I think that this was a story that didn't really need magic, and that the beautiful writing and Luli's story of her rise to the top would carry it just fine. I struggle to think of a moment where magic is irremovable from the plot, but there really is nothing. It would have been fine without it.
All in all, I would recommend "Siren Queen" As long as you can stand the weird magic system, but I think the book has enough good going on to keep you interested. Definitely don't go in expecting a magic filled experience, though because you'll be a bit disappointed.
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Oh dear, where to start. Spoilers throughout this whole thing.
I am not going to lie- I am severely disappointed and underwhelmed by this book. The premise sounds awesome- a bunch of badass old ladies kicking ass and taking names? Sign me up! Unfortunately, this book wasn't really about sixty-year-olds getting caught up in thrilling, high stakes, action filled espionage as it was about sixty-year-olds making plans, engaging in less than exciting fights, and making bland quips at one another. Maybe I set my expectations too high with this one, but can you really blame me? This sounded like wonderfully campy fun, but it mostly just bored me to death.
Let's start with the bad and come back around for the good at the end. For starters, there is absolutely zero chemistry between any of the characters. Their interactions read less like a group of women who have bonded over their unusual job and became the best of friends, and more like frigid coworkers. I can't think of a single interaction between them that made me go "Oh wow what great friends! They have awesome chemistry!" because they don't. Their interactions are stiff and wooden, their conversations containing all the right words but with none of the emotion and heart to back it up. It feels hollow. Whenever the book tried to convince me they were the best of friends, I felt like I was being tricked. You can't fool me book, I am a real human being. I know how conversations work and this ain't it. Perhaps my favorite example of this book feverishly trying to convey to me that it understands the conventions of human speech is the constant use of the phrase "she said loyally." The amount of times a character will do something that most of the others think is dumb, followed by another character saying they like it with the words "she said loyally '' tacked on at the end is absolutely hilarious. The phrase truly gets a workout in this book.
There isn't very much in the way of romantic relationships in this book, which is nice. Natalie has been married and divorced a few times and decided to stay single, Helen's husband is dead, Mary Alice already has a wife (I'll talk about them more later) and Billie has never really invested in a relationship. Except that was a lie, and there is actually a guy she was sort of with who is brought up out of nowhere halfway into the book. And it is truly the worst, most cringey thing. Her and this guy, I think his name is Kit Taverner or something I really don't care, see each other for the first time on a mission and instantly fall in love. In case you are unaware, I hate this trope and think it is a lazy way to write a romance. But what is even worse is that they immediately start bantering like they have known each other forever, and make jokes about wanting to run away together OUT OF NOWHERE. They just met and are already in love and having cutesy banter? No, absolutely not. I do not accept this. The whole thing is so cringey. And the worst part is Taverner could be removed from the book entirely and literally nothing would change. He appears one more time in the last 60 pages just to have awkward boring conversations with Billie and help with the mission a little bit and it is a waste of everyone's time. He could have been replaced with someone else and saved me from the pointlessness of that whole crappy subplot.
A lot of this book spends way too much time sexualizing the four women when they were younger. Especially poor Mary Alice, whose large breasts are constantly pointed out and grossly described. I get that they were chosen as assassins because pretty girls can seduce men and stuff, but it all just grossed me out. You could have told me this book was written by a man and I'd believe you. Going back to the sexualization of Mary Alice, it makes me especially uncomfortable that she is the most sexually appealing out of all of them considering she is the only queer woman in the group. I'm not saying that is intentional or anything, it's just a thing that I as a queer woman noticed and was made pretty uncomfortable by since sapphic women are often oversexualized by straight men. I'm honestly shocked that there was never a throwaway line about Mary Alice making out with another woman for the benefit of a mission. Oh and just in case you were wondering, men don't escape this either. Billie goes into a lot of detail describing to the audience the appearance of the man sent to kill them, specifically how tight his ass is. Barf
A few more small grievances I have before getting to the big thing wrong with this book. First, a lot of conclusions reached by Billie are very strange and nonsensical. Seriously, she just jumps to conclusions without a lick of evidence and it is somehow always right. There is literally no indication to the audience that Sweeny was going to kill Billie and the others, but Billie just gets "a feeling" he is and kills him. The audience is expected to just go with that even though it makes little sense. There is so much of that in this book that made me go "Wait, did I miss something?" and I would then flip back to see if I did and nope I didn't. This book is just weird. Second, there is a lot of stereotyping of people certain European nationalities in this book. A Finnish, Swiss, or Ukrainian person will do something weird and Billie will be like "Ah, the Finnish/Swiss/Ukrainians, they are so weird! Can't blame 'em thats just how they are." and I'm just like what? Why are you saying this, you strange, strange book? Third, the mystery of who put the hit on Billie and the others is BORING. It is not engaging at all, and I couldn't bring myself to be invested. Fourth, the climax was underwhelming as hell. I honestly was kind of glad it was so boring so I could just skim the last few pages and be done with this book forever!
Finally, time for the biggest issue with this book, and that is our dear protagonist Billie herself. I don't like to use the term "Mary Sue'' because that is a tired, childish term that feels quite misogynistic to me. But I feel it is appropriate to say that Billie is a Mary Sue. She is perfect at literally everything that comes with the assassination job. She kills the vast majority of the people in this book, comes up with the bulk of most of the plans, and is the only one out of the four that doesn't struggle with the morality of the job. There is a very annoying trend in this book that I picked up on about a quarter of the way through, and that is that the people around her will become unable to do something relating to the job, and Billie will have to step in, and she will then proceed to do it perfectly. Mary Alice is unable to subdue her target on their first mission? Don't worry, Billie's got it. Helen can't kill the guy sent to kill them on the cruise ship? Don't worry, Billie can step in. Billie makes all three important phone calls to gather intel in this book because the others don't want to for whatever reason. Billie is constantly having to step in and do the parts of jobs Helen is supposed to do for her, even shooting Sweeny after she freezes up (we never get an explanation for why she did that by the way) even though shooting people is literally supposed to be what she is good at. The climax of all this ridiculousness is a mission mentioned in a flashback chapter. The four girls are assisting a guy named Vance, a former board member, on a N*zi assassination mission. Their job is to recover stolen artwork before they blow the place up. They are given very specific instructions to only recover missing artwork, and leave the N*zi-killing to Vance. But who is Billie if not getting in people's way and stealing all the glory for herself, right? Claiming that the woman was trying to kill Vance, (she is literally 80 years old, but okay) Billie delivers such a good and perfect punch that the woman dies instantly. She insta-kills an old woman. Okay. All this just makes the people around Billie, including her friends who are also supposed to be elite assassins, seem really stupid and incompetent. The day can't be saved unless Billie steps in to help out! It's so, so frustrating.
Okay, so I've been pretty mean to this book, but I don't have nothing good to say about it. As mentioned, I like the premise. In fact, I liked the premise so much I started my Book of the Month subscription just to get it. After reading it, I really wished I had picked "Other Birds" by Sarah Addison Allen instead, but at least that book is available at my local library so I can still get to it. But back to the good things, I liked the chapters that were flashbacks to their prime as assassinations (except for the one when Billie met Taverner) They were interesting, even though they were filled with moments sexualizing the girls. I also appreciated the way Mary Alice's relationship with her wife, Akiko, was handled. Their arc is much less focused on the fact that they are queer and moreso that Mary Alice has been keeping her job a secret from Akiko, and Akiko's attempt to reconcile with that. There aren't any over-indulgent moments of characters snapping back at homophobes or Mary Alice and Akiko being worried about being seen together. They're just two wives going through a rough patch, and I can appreciate that. This is supposed to be a book about assassin shenanigans, not the ever-looming threat of homophobia. The best thing about this book for me was that it wasn't too holier-than-thou about younger generations. The blurb made me a bit worried that the book would spend a lot of time putting down young people, and a whole bunch of "Back in my day…" going on, but there really wasn't. There was a bit here and there, but not too much. There is a younger character named Minka who is never looked down upon too much by the older characters for being young, and is treated like an equal member of the team.
In conclusion, I don't know. I seem to be in the minority of not liking this book, so that's nice I guess. Maybe I'm just too young to fully appreciate what this book has to offer. There isn't anything explicitly offensive about this book (except for maybe the sexualization and the European stereotypes) so I don't wish ill and failure upon it. It's just not for me. Perhaps one day I will get the campy, thrilling, elderly espionage I am seeking. But today was clearly not that day.
I am not going to lie- I am severely disappointed and underwhelmed by this book. The premise sounds awesome- a bunch of badass old ladies kicking ass and taking names? Sign me up! Unfortunately, this book wasn't really about sixty-year-olds getting caught up in thrilling, high stakes, action filled espionage as it was about sixty-year-olds making plans, engaging in less than exciting fights, and making bland quips at one another. Maybe I set my expectations too high with this one, but can you really blame me? This sounded like wonderfully campy fun, but it mostly just bored me to death.
Let's start with the bad and come back around for the good at the end. For starters, there is absolutely zero chemistry between any of the characters. Their interactions read less like a group of women who have bonded over their unusual job and became the best of friends, and more like frigid coworkers. I can't think of a single interaction between them that made me go "Oh wow what great friends! They have awesome chemistry!" because they don't. Their interactions are stiff and wooden, their conversations containing all the right words but with none of the emotion and heart to back it up. It feels hollow. Whenever the book tried to convince me they were the best of friends, I felt like I was being tricked. You can't fool me book, I am a real human being. I know how conversations work and this ain't it. Perhaps my favorite example of this book feverishly trying to convey to me that it understands the conventions of human speech is the constant use of the phrase "she said loyally." The amount of times a character will do something that most of the others think is dumb, followed by another character saying they like it with the words "she said loyally '' tacked on at the end is absolutely hilarious. The phrase truly gets a workout in this book.
There isn't very much in the way of romantic relationships in this book, which is nice. Natalie has been married and divorced a few times and decided to stay single, Helen's husband is dead, Mary Alice already has a wife (I'll talk about them more later) and Billie has never really invested in a relationship. Except that was a lie, and there is actually a guy she was sort of with who is brought up out of nowhere halfway into the book. And it is truly the worst, most cringey thing. Her and this guy, I think his name is Kit Taverner or something I really don't care, see each other for the first time on a mission and instantly fall in love. In case you are unaware, I hate this trope and think it is a lazy way to write a romance. But what is even worse is that they immediately start bantering like they have known each other forever, and make jokes about wanting to run away together OUT OF NOWHERE. They just met and are already in love and having cutesy banter? No, absolutely not. I do not accept this. The whole thing is so cringey. And the worst part is Taverner could be removed from the book entirely and literally nothing would change. He appears one more time in the last 60 pages just to have awkward boring conversations with Billie and help with the mission a little bit and it is a waste of everyone's time. He could have been replaced with someone else and saved me from the pointlessness of that whole crappy subplot.
A lot of this book spends way too much time sexualizing the four women when they were younger. Especially poor Mary Alice, whose large breasts are constantly pointed out and grossly described. I get that they were chosen as assassins because pretty girls can seduce men and stuff, but it all just grossed me out. You could have told me this book was written by a man and I'd believe you. Going back to the sexualization of Mary Alice, it makes me especially uncomfortable that she is the most sexually appealing out of all of them considering she is the only queer woman in the group. I'm not saying that is intentional or anything, it's just a thing that I as a queer woman noticed and was made pretty uncomfortable by since sapphic women are often oversexualized by straight men. I'm honestly shocked that there was never a throwaway line about Mary Alice making out with another woman for the benefit of a mission. Oh and just in case you were wondering, men don't escape this either. Billie goes into a lot of detail describing to the audience the appearance of the man sent to kill them, specifically how tight his ass is. Barf
A few more small grievances I have before getting to the big thing wrong with this book. First, a lot of conclusions reached by Billie are very strange and nonsensical. Seriously, she just jumps to conclusions without a lick of evidence and it is somehow always right. There is literally no indication to the audience that Sweeny was going to kill Billie and the others, but Billie just gets "a feeling" he is and kills him. The audience is expected to just go with that even though it makes little sense. There is so much of that in this book that made me go "Wait, did I miss something?" and I would then flip back to see if I did and nope I didn't. This book is just weird. Second, there is a lot of stereotyping of people certain European nationalities in this book. A Finnish, Swiss, or Ukrainian person will do something weird and Billie will be like "Ah, the Finnish/Swiss/Ukrainians, they are so weird! Can't blame 'em thats just how they are." and I'm just like what? Why are you saying this, you strange, strange book? Third, the mystery of who put the hit on Billie and the others is BORING. It is not engaging at all, and I couldn't bring myself to be invested. Fourth, the climax was underwhelming as hell. I honestly was kind of glad it was so boring so I could just skim the last few pages and be done with this book forever!
Finally, time for the biggest issue with this book, and that is our dear protagonist Billie herself. I don't like to use the term "Mary Sue'' because that is a tired, childish term that feels quite misogynistic to me. But I feel it is appropriate to say that Billie is a Mary Sue. She is perfect at literally everything that comes with the assassination job. She kills the vast majority of the people in this book, comes up with the bulk of most of the plans, and is the only one out of the four that doesn't struggle with the morality of the job. There is a very annoying trend in this book that I picked up on about a quarter of the way through, and that is that the people around her will become unable to do something relating to the job, and Billie will have to step in, and she will then proceed to do it perfectly. Mary Alice is unable to subdue her target on their first mission? Don't worry, Billie's got it. Helen can't kill the guy sent to kill them on the cruise ship? Don't worry, Billie can step in. Billie makes all three important phone calls to gather intel in this book because the others don't want to for whatever reason. Billie is constantly having to step in and do the parts of jobs Helen is supposed to do for her, even shooting Sweeny after she freezes up (we never get an explanation for why she did that by the way) even though shooting people is literally supposed to be what she is good at. The climax of all this ridiculousness is a mission mentioned in a flashback chapter. The four girls are assisting a guy named Vance, a former board member, on a N*zi assassination mission. Their job is to recover stolen artwork before they blow the place up. They are given very specific instructions to only recover missing artwork, and leave the N*zi-killing to Vance. But who is Billie if not getting in people's way and stealing all the glory for herself, right? Claiming that the woman was trying to kill Vance, (she is literally 80 years old, but okay) Billie delivers such a good and perfect punch that the woman dies instantly. She insta-kills an old woman. Okay. All this just makes the people around Billie, including her friends who are also supposed to be elite assassins, seem really stupid and incompetent. The day can't be saved unless Billie steps in to help out! It's so, so frustrating.
Okay, so I've been pretty mean to this book, but I don't have nothing good to say about it. As mentioned, I like the premise. In fact, I liked the premise so much I started my Book of the Month subscription just to get it. After reading it, I really wished I had picked "Other Birds" by Sarah Addison Allen instead, but at least that book is available at my local library so I can still get to it. But back to the good things, I liked the chapters that were flashbacks to their prime as assassinations (except for the one when Billie met Taverner) They were interesting, even though they were filled with moments sexualizing the girls. I also appreciated the way Mary Alice's relationship with her wife, Akiko, was handled. Their arc is much less focused on the fact that they are queer and moreso that Mary Alice has been keeping her job a secret from Akiko, and Akiko's attempt to reconcile with that. There aren't any over-indulgent moments of characters snapping back at homophobes or Mary Alice and Akiko being worried about being seen together. They're just two wives going through a rough patch, and I can appreciate that. This is supposed to be a book about assassin shenanigans, not the ever-looming threat of homophobia. The best thing about this book for me was that it wasn't too holier-than-thou about younger generations. The blurb made me a bit worried that the book would spend a lot of time putting down young people, and a whole bunch of "Back in my day…" going on, but there really wasn't. There was a bit here and there, but not too much. There is a younger character named Minka who is never looked down upon too much by the older characters for being young, and is treated like an equal member of the team.
In conclusion, I don't know. I seem to be in the minority of not liking this book, so that's nice I guess. Maybe I'm just too young to fully appreciate what this book has to offer. There isn't anything explicitly offensive about this book (except for maybe the sexualization and the European stereotypes) so I don't wish ill and failure upon it. It's just not for me. Perhaps one day I will get the campy, thrilling, elderly espionage I am seeking. But today was clearly not that day.
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White
dark
hopeful
tense
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? Yes
4.5
My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
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? Yes
5.0