cdonegan's reviews
125 reviews

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

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adventurous funny mysterious 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

3.5

I have mixed feelings. I didn’t really like Robert Jackson Bennett’s writing style that much. Chapters are split up into fairly short chunks, often a page or less, in a way that feels unnecessary and a bit choppy. I love the magic system though, very unique and very detailed! The characters are also fairly interesting, although a lot of them feel a bit one-note to me. Enjoyed overall but the concept is definitely stronger than the execution in my opinion.
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This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar

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emotional 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

3.0

Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki

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adventurous mysterious fast-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

Absolutely gorgeous art, as one would expect from Miyazaki
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The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring tense 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

4.5

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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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

5.0

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

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

4.0

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective 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

Your Inner Fish: a Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin

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informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

5.0

The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington

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

2.0

I really wanted to like this book. The lore was interesting but the execution lost me. The writing of the female characters wasn’t great—not “she breasted boobily down the stairs” level of badness, but I can only think of two times in this entire book that two women spoke to each other in a significant way. I swear every single woman was described as “attractive” when introduced, usually with that exact word. It made me want to scream every time!

I barely understood the motivation of most of the characters because it just wasn’t shown to us. They seemed to just react to things happening around them for most of the book, rather than taking real action themselves. Minor characters also didn’t stand out to me, making it hard to remember who people were. The book also kept a lot of things hidden from the reader, not in a way that would be satisfying to figure out later on in the book, but rather in a way that just left me lost and confused many times.

Overall, I guess enjoyed it enough to read 700 pages of it, but not enough to continue on with the trilogy. It had the potential to be great but it was a miss for me.
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The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective slow-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

4.5