yourenotacat's reviews
23 reviews

Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

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challenging mysterious medium-paced

4.0

Absolutely beautiful prose, but a little too abstract for my taste.
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton

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informative

2.5

There is some good advice in here, but man do you have to hunt for it. Super repetitive, lots of bad to mediocre examples that are hailed as great, plot summaries for movies and books seemingly just to pad the page count, and what at times felt like an advertisement for the author's own stories.

I'd recommend at least the beginning chapters that break down the ten components of an opening scene and the last few, which had much better examples and other agents/editors discussing what they like to see. 
The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow

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dark reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Near the Bone by Christina Henry

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2.0

Interesting at first, but gets so bogged down by redundant narration and awful pacing that I had to skim to the next lines of dialogue at the end just to finish it. The second half is a mess. So much so that I started wondering if everything that happened after
William abandoned Mattie in the wilderness
was hypothermia-induced delirium because it was just that cartoonishly goofy. The things I wanted (and expected) to be explained were left unanswered while everything I already knew was explained to death and back. None of the
secondary character injuries or deaths
mattered because the characters and story moved on immediately. Like, "How awful. Anyway, let's make grilled cheese!" If your characters don't even care, then why should I?

Would have worked better with less pages, less characters, and less over-explanation.
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 14%.
The cat was a Christian..... 🤢