andat's reviews
363 reviews

The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny mysterious fast-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

TJ Klune says in his author’s note how the original publisher of this novel called it weird. And I’d agree. But not weird-weird. Weird in the way that stunningly beautiful things can be weird, otherworldly and unknowable. 

This book was not what I was expecting. In fact, it’s the furthest thing from it. But it’s got all the trademarks of a work by TJ Klune. Cathartic, heartwarming, and human. And there’s nothing more human than a broken heart. By the end, your heart will be stomped on and patched back together, while you beg for more. 

This book is weird. This book is beautiful. This book is what it means to be human. 
Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective fast-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

5.0

I’m just going to say it. If I keep reading this series I am going to need a bigger budget for therapy. And tissues. 

McGuire once again dives in and shines a light on international adoption and the complex emotions that come with it. We get to see Nadya’s origin story begin in Russia, born to a teenage mother and abandoned at the hospital. It would be the first of many abandonments for her. 

From the orphanage to Colorado, we see and understand how she sees herself and how her adoptive parents felt the world see her. And really, her American parents don’t actually see her as a whole person. It’s partly due to the absence of her arm and partly because they don’t yet understand being a parent isn’t having a child as a possession. Nadya is now subject to complex interactions that are inflicted on her, not conversations with her in which she’s able to voice her needs and decisions. 

After having a prosthetic arm forced upon her, it isn’t long before she finds herself through a doorway into a drowned world. Nadya’s story is about strength. The strength to accept herself and her world as she is. 
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

Wow! This one started at Mach speed! The first chapter is an undeniable hook and from there you are launched into two POVs in alternating chapters, Laia and Elias. The story flows effortlessly between the two, eventually both of them occupying the same space in very different capacities. 

Sabaa Tahir does a masterful job of lighting up each and every page with rich visual descriptions. You can’t help but be swept into the world as it comes alive around you. The way she breathes life into the characters, you can see the difference their environments have in their personalities. You can also clearly see the golden string that’s going to tie them together. Usually with the swapping POVs I will find myself gravitating to my favorite character more than the other, this one has me 100% invested in both Elias and Laia. I was amazed to realized I’d read 200 pages in what felt like an hour or two. It’s addicting and captivating and all I want is more!

I can’t wait to read the next one!
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

Go to review page

adventurous funny hopeful reflective fast-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

5.0

Huge thank you to Tor Publishing Group for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

If you want your sci fi books to start with elementary school moon fact, boy have I got the book for you! All jokes aside, what can you expect when you crack open a John Scalzi book? In his latest novel he posits what would happen if the moon was actually turned into cheese. If you guessed you’d be laughing within the first few pages, you’d be right. 

The novel opens with Virgil Augustine who runs in a space and astronaut museum in Ohio. All seems normal until it’s discovered a slice of coveted moon rock has been stolen and a dupe left in its place. Or so he thinks. Not stolen exactly, but changed. Into cheese. In fact, every single lunar sample on Earth is now cheese, including the moon itself. What, you may ask yourself, does that mean for Earth? As it turns out, a lot. 

We follow a timeline rather than a set group of protagonists, each chapter marking the days since the moon was made cheese, or rather an organic matrix, I mean. As each day ticks by, we see the impacts unfold on society. We get to see a few characters more than once, which sounds like it would be exhausting. I can assure you it’s not. Each chapter lays bare exactly what Americans would be doing when the moon turns to cheese in the most authentic way. 

I zipped through this book. Even at the halfway point I couldn’t believe at how wrapped into this I was. I enjoyed the humor, the real people from all walks of life, and the cheese puns. You can’t be mad at the sheer scope of cheese puns, it’s truly a work of art.

Scalzi excels in writing laugh-out-loud dialogue with his characters. They are believable, human, and made for TV. I lost count of the times I would cackle out loud reading this. There were also more than a few times I found myself tearing up. Scalzi paints the full picture of being human in the face of an existential crisis, along with all the beautiful and ugly emotions that come with it. 

Long story short, pick this book up and devour it. I promise you, it’s Gouda. 
Gallant by V.E. Schwab

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is the perfect book to read on a gloomy and cold day. It’s is spooky, haunting, dark and beautiful. Trademark V.E. Schwab prose is woven in every page of this YA novel about what happens when a shadow meets its source. Olivia, an orphan with only her mother’s journal to her name receives a mysterious letter inviting her to her home, Gallant. Once she’s there, the home’s true purpose and history comes to life, along with finding out what happened to her mother and father. 

I am always astounded at the depth Schwab brings to her narratives. It’s so immersive and lush, you can’t help but daydream yourself there between chapters. I know this one will live in my head rent-free forever. 
The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense fast-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

Paige Mahoney has her work cut out for her. In a stunning betrayal revealed in the last pages of The Mime Order, we get to zip right back in and see how that blow lands. It threatens to break her and the Order apart. Having to stay one step ahead of Scion and then the special forces puts Paige’s leadership and followers to the test. Any plot points from here out would be spoilers. The Song Rising is shorter than the others in the series but makes up for the page count in non-stop action. My heart was in my throat for the entire 350 pages. 

The fact that this book was published in 2017 is not lost on me. There are too many parallels to ignore to current events in the US to hand-wave it away. 

“…any organization that labeled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity.”

It’s why we (and they) must continue the fight. 
The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu

Go to review page

dark funny mysterious sad medium-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? Yes

3.5

Not gonna lie, I picked this one solely for the title and the cover art. There also seems to be a bit of a debate as to whether it’s YA or not. (My library did not but I can see the argument for it.) I almost gave up on this one. At about a third of the way in the story started to pick up and dig into the mystery of the missing child. Be prepared for a somewhat slow burn before it gets moving on the plot. 

It is set in a post-apocalyptic Scotland, but you only get hints at the big “catastrophe”. Huchu uses a lot of Scottish slang and a 14 year old protagonist that’s all fire and insolence. Ropa is crass but fiercely loyal to her family. As reluctant as she is to do favors for the dead for free, her sweet grandmother convinces her to do the right thing and search for little Ollie. 

I would classify this as a cozy paranormal mystery. The twists and reveals are par for the course in a cozy style narrative, as is the pacing. Overall, it’s a solid read, especially if you’re looking for something as a break between big/heavy topics (or reality). 
The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty by Valerie Bauerlein

Go to review page

dark emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

Taking place in South Carolina, the good old boy network is alive and kicking through four generations of fuckery, told through the downfall of Alex Murdaugh after killing his wife and son. It’s both fascinating and terrifying to see how much this man, his family, and his actions poisoned the community. Using his position as a lawyer, he was able to defraud millions of dollars from his clients who desperately needed the money paid to them for their injuries. He exploited his family’s ties to law enforcement to skirt consequences for himself and his sons, often giving up their friends as sacrifices for their own necks. 

Every twist and turn that’s revealed underlines that fiction has nothing on reality. The stranglehold the Murdaugh family held in Hampton County, South Carolina is evident. The lengths they would go to hold onto that power is staggering. 

It’s hard to say this book is a good one because with every page you are reminded this was real. These are people’s lives that hung in the balance. This book shone a light on a corrupt family dynasty that raged through South Carolina. How many more are lurking out there for us to find?
The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

From the title, I was fully expecting some very angry dragons. You are dropped into an incredibly written world, rich with history, punishing social castes, and a struggle for survival against an attacking group of “savages” that are threatening to burn everything down to the ground. Lots and lots of rage, not so many dragons. 

Underpinning all this is Tau. Tau is fueled by one thing only and that is revenge. He has a plan and is willing to do whatever it takes to cross names off his list. Including sacrificing his humanity. Bucking up against being a Lesser and fighting social traditions, he’s determined to prove “Less” is more. 

There is a ton of world-building and character development in this 500+ book. It’s beautifully written and has such rich, immersive story, I find myself lost in it for hours. I usually struggle with what’s considered high fantasy, but Evan Winter made this such an incredible world to get into that I may have to change my mind!
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Go to review page

Did not finish book. Stopped at 24%.
I… did not like it. I wanted to, I really did. Maybe because I play RPGs, but I was bored. The technical rundowns were fine but they were endless. I stopped playing games because the builds needed to advance were nigh impossible and that’s what this started to feel like. The talking cat helped but not enough to keep me interested. It’s a DNF for me at 25%.