annegoodreads's reviews
75 reviews

Herrick's End by T.M. Blanchet

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

5.0

Herrick’s End was quite the dark adventure. A lot of the story takes place in the Neath, a dark underworld where a prison tortures people for justice for crimes they have committed. It has stalactites and stalagmites and all the wonder of caves. In Herrick’s End Ollie goes into the Neath to rescue his friend Nell. Ollie has anxiety, body image, and security issues. He is so bold and strong but so naive at the same time which is quite fitting for a lot of 19-year-olds. One of the first lessons he learns is about needing the help of others and who to trust. Also, someone may be the perfect person to advise you in some situations but not others. This story is so dark but hopeful too. I want to say it’s a moral dystopian fantasy story. It is so unique and is a masterpiece example of storytelling to impart an important lesson about having to answer for how your actions and inactions affect other people.
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The Cicada Tree by Robert Gwaltney

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

The Cicada Tree is pure southern gothic!  The Cicada Tree like watching a scary movie while rocking in your Great Grandma’s rocking chair covered up with your Grandma’s hand stitched quilt while eating homemade popcorn smothered with real butter.  (In this picture is my Great Grandma’s rocking chair and my Grandma’s “Nana” quilt.) The Cicada Tree takes place in 1950s Georgia.  I loved the duo of Analeise and Etta May.  The girls are raised like sisters but racial issues of that time mean they are separated at school, church, and in society.  Etta Mae’s Grandma, Miss Wessie was my favorite character.  She warns Analeise of the Mayfield family.  While accompanying her Mama to clean the Mayfield’s mansion, Analeise meets Marlissa Mayfield, a girl her own age.  The Mayfields have quite the secrets, but they aren’t really secrets because others know deep down what can happen.  I loved the incorporation of vocal and piano music with the development of the story.  Analeise plays the piano and Etta Mae sings, both of them with otherworldly talent.  Most of all I loved the use of “I love you a bushel and a peck”.  This story was perfect, especially when it comes to the comfy yet eerie feeling of southern gothic fiction.  
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Happy for You by Claire Stanford

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

In Happy For You by Claire Stanford, an app asks you whether you are happy.  You answer, Yes, No, or I Don’t Know.  The main character Evelyn works on the development of the app as a beta user.  She’s going through big life changes as she quits her PHD program to work at the company developing the app.  When I first started reading the book, it felt a bit superficial and slow.  The middle picked up and then the end kind of surprised me.  It isn’t that the book goes out on a limb, because the things encountered by Evelyn are things a lot of people deal with.  The writing about the things we encounter in life really made me think about how we define our lives.  I began to understand without sorrow, challenges, and regret can we truly understand happiness not just for ourselves but for others.  Happy For You really made me think about how we decide whether we are happy and whether those around us are happy.  
Rouge Street: Three Novellas by Shuang Xuetao

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adventurous challenging dark reflective 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

It was interesting reading the translator’s notes on calling the book Rouge Street. Although the three stories are novellas, it took me a bit more time to read them. It is hard for me to imagine pronouncing the names. My favorite of the three was Bright Hall. Don’t let the title fool you, it starts with a sculptor getting his middle fingers chopped off for a sculpture of his the Red Guard didn’t approve of. Yikes. These stories are dark and gritty. They made me thankful for living in my nice little quiet neighborhood.
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Hope, A History of the Future by G.G. Kellner

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

In the story the Denzell family has a cantankerous cat named Plato.  The mother Joyce is searching for her hidden cigarettes when she finds a book.  The irony of the Mom searching for something harmful to her body (cigarettes) while finding a book about harm to the environment was genius writing by GG Kellner.  Anyways, the book appears and the cat makes sure the family reads the book, The History of the World.  The book is from the future. In it Grandmother tells a lyrical tale of warning and sadness as to how a slow apocalypse occurs in nature.   The Denzell’s follow the story and become more and more spooked when they realize it is referring to actual events.  I would describe Hope, A History of the Future to be realistic, hopeful speculative fiction.  The story is like a scary, apocalyptic climate warning hurricane brewing outside paired with you sitting inside safe with the warm, comforting feeling of holding a purring cat.
The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

In The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton, teenager Laura is obsessed with an author named Sebastian Webster.  Laura decides to go to St. Dunstan’s prep school because that’s where Webster went.  It is a religious school and not all the students are happy to be there.  Laura’s roommate, Bonnie cracked me up with her Instagram posts and prep school clothing influencer status.  During one of the opening ceremonies with beautiful choral music renegade Isobel Zhao pipes in the song Black Sabbath.  It’s hilarious.  Laura is a meek and mild girl who gets sucked in by power-hungry Virginia.  It’s an interesting how others are trying to gain their own power which has disastrous consequences for all really.  Tara Isabella Burton has written an insightful character study of a teen mind/soul progressing through self-doubt to self-awareness to self-assurance.  As a Mom of teens, it really had me take a step back and remember how difficult the teen years can be. 
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Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s so fun to hate the characters so much you can’t stop reading the book.  The ending was so good in this one.
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When the Corn is Waist High by Jeremy Scott

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dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

The dry wit of a cursing priest who sleeps with women was great.  The twist in the middle and end got me.  
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The Vietri Project by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye

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

5.0

The Vietri Project by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye is the story of Gabriele’s search for a new lease on life.  At the age of 25 she’s worried about the onset of schizophrenia due to the disease debilitating her mother at the same age.  She travels aimlessly trying to outrun the disease.  After the demoralising travel she seeks to find herself.  In order to claim her own identity she sets on a quest to uncover the identity of a citizen in Rome named Vietri.  There’s another reason she unconsciously winds up in Rome,it is the homeland of her mother before schizophrenia stole her life.   She avoids her mother’s family while there by concentrating on the quest to learn Vietri’s story.  The quest helps her learn the history of many things.  I loved the ode to Mary Shelley who was also on the move like Gabriele.  She learns from Mary Shelley’s fear that slowing down would bring about death—“at what point movement for movement’s sake was no longer worth the sacrifice” p. 89.  The storytelling writing style lends itself to the reader fully understanding what it’s like to possibly have a debilitating disease in your future.  The understanding reminded me of the quote from To Kill A Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”  I feel as though I crawled around insideGabriele’s beautifully flawed mind.   A journey may not allow us to avoid the unfortunate parts of our future but it may give us the strength we need to continue the quest to live.  
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Reputation by Lex Croucher

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funny lighthearted slow-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

When Reputation was advertised as being similar so I was excited.  I thought Reputation would be a thoughtless escape to an easier time period.  It was a little deeper and darker than I expected.  Georgiana is the cheeky naive teen ditched by her parents.  Her Aunt, Mrs. Burton, is a sweet character that I liked more as the book moved on.  Georgiana befriends Francis who introduces her to other greedy, selfish jerks.  They drink cognac, partake of snuff plus” aka “peasant drugs” aka opium.  They are not just  snarky but real elitist looking down on “peasants”.  The story did have BIPOC characters in the same way Bridgerton does which was great. The story also has Francis and Jane rolling around in the hay 50 feet from a church in fun LGBTQ  incorporation.  Georgiana starts acting like a jerk to not just try to fit in but also to deal with the abandonment by her parents.  I started crying when Georgiana’s father finally send a letter to her.  So it’s hard to hate.  I did like that her romantic trist with Thomas plays as a side story.  The writing is beautiful with lots of adjective I’d forgotten existed.
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