jasperdotpdf's reviews
140 reviews

For the first few poems I wasn't entirely convinced by atrophy. I struggled with the contrast of poetic language and the modern, the mundane. The inconsistency between lyricism and colloquialism. But the more I kept reading, the more this book had me hooked. Had me gripped by the spine and pulled me with it down the current of emotion, anguish and breathtaking writing that atrophy is.

The further along I got in the book, the more poems I found that had me needing to take a few breaths, a few moments to process; in a good way. 
I still occasionally felt frustrated with, what to me felt like, breaks and gaps in theme and immersion. And while there was annoyance with heavy repetition of events or stylistic devices, some eventually developed into a rich symbolism that was present throughout the book.

So many of these poems hit me hard, both in how beautifully they were written, and also how familiar they felt. Familiar in ways that made me recognise myself in the pages, that made me feel like Niziolek took a peek into the box stowed away somewhere in my mind, in which I keep my collection of things that fuck me up emotionally. 

I cherish the imprints reading atrophy has left on me and I will 100% return to it again in the future.

4.5⭐

Boo! Tomato, tomato, tomato!

A few years ago, I tried to pick up this book but dropped it after like 20 pages because I didn't love the first-person narration and how juvenile Jude felt. I kind of shoved into the same pile as ACOTAR, a series I strongly disliked despite so many people loving it.

A few weeks ago, however, I've been looking around for book recommendations based on a couple others I've read and loved, and The Cruel Prince came up a lot. People were talking about it as if it were some masterpiece of intrigue, fantasy and enemies to lovers. People also said they supposedly had a similar problem as me, but that the writing would get better the more the book went on. So I decided to give it ago, despite my previous conviction not to read this book.

Well, it never got better.

The entire book continues to feel incredibly underdeveloped, disjointed and frankly immature. So much of what happens in the beginning of the book feels like it's in need of a lot more exposition and explanation; it really felt like the entirety of it was rushed, and there were a lot of empty spaces between scenes that could have used more explanation. At the same time, the pacing also managed to be really slow? I got about 140 pages in and still barely anything interesting happened.

Yes, Jude got recruited as a spy for the "Shadow Court" (oooo mysterious name for a group of spies), but still, there was absolutely no tension at all.

Jude's entire characterisation felt off. Why is she so okay with Madoc (I have no idea if that's how you actually spell his name, but I don't care enough to check) basically becoming her father when he killed her parents right in front of her eyes? How is that not a household she wants to escape? How is she painting her sister as idiotic for wanting to escape? Their relationship is described as complicated multiple times in the book, but there's never really any follow up to that. It feels like their family dynamic was supposed to be complex and interesting, but it really just felt incredibly shallow. 
I also didn't really understand her desire to become 'powerful' and to prove herself. She just read as very ulikeable and, frankly, unrealistic. The whole thing around the turnament felt so... weird? Most of the scenes are just so, so anticlimactic. It feels like there's never any setup for scenes that are supposed to feel interesting or subversive.

You know how people talk about Cardan and Jude as the epitome of enemies to lovers, the best twisty romance they've ever read? Boy, was I interested to read about their dynamic. I was severely disappointed. He's literally just a high-school bully, and the only thing that adds any type of tension to their relationship is Jude being like "I won't back down, I'll show him who's boss!" Girl, shut up. He may be a temperamental, entitled teenager that clearly has never faced being told no but he is still a faerie prince who rips people's wings off when they don't greet him properly, and you're a human with an overgrown ego. Get over yourself and stop being a little shit.

Naturally, we find out that we're actually supposed to feel sympathy for him because his cruelty is just a result of his family being disappointed in him and abusing him.

Aren't you so sad? Cycle of violence bla bla? Isn't he so dark and charming and alluring? Also he has a tail. Give me a fucking break.

The entire thing feels so juvenile, and it's literally impossible to take the darker/more serious sides of the story seriously when they act like literal children.

I digress, I've decided that there's too many books I'd like to read to waste my time on something I don't like. Even if it supposedly gets better at the second book I'm not putting myself through 200 more pages of high-school bully to lovers. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I was really torn between 2 and 3 stars for this book. I absolutely adored the art; I felt like it really utilised the potential of the medium and did some really cool things. The premise and overall story was also super heartwarming, and I did like the feel it evoked. Unfortunately, the actual execution of the story and the character developments didn't work very well for me. Considering I'm rating this moreso as a book/story rather than an art collection, I had to err on the lower side of the rating.

The story felt not only very fast-paced, but also disjointed at times. The ups and downs of Victor and Marie-Jo's relationship felt very abrupt, and while I understand that the pacing needs to be fast for a comic of this length, I do wish there had been some more moderation.

Marie-Jo saying she's in love with Victor, then saying she never wants to see him again, then going back to saying she'll never love anyone as much as she loves him and that they're linked forever felt inorganic.

I also felt like the comic struggled to explain certain things correctly. Sometimes there was an overexplanation or overexposition, especially in the beginning. Other times, I was really lost in what was going on and had to go back over some scenes multiple times to really get what was going on. 

The comic is visually absolutely gorgeous and I did really enjoy this part of reading it, but the execution of the story could have used a lot more work.

i am inconsolable this is one of the best book series i‘ve ever read and i‘m not ready to say goodbye to these characters

what just happened like actually

It took me a while to really get into City of Brass but it really caught my attention toward the end and I loved it. 

The first half of this book especially is very slow, it‘s littered with worldbuilding that is, admittedly, pretty complicated. I was also so incredibly bored by Ali‘s POV until more than halfway through, mainly because it felt very isolated and it was hard to get a feel for where his part of the story was going - or at least why his POV needed to be there. 
Occasionally it felt like a bit of a chore because it‘s very densely written, but the book did a good enough job at leaving crumbs to keep me hooked until the end. 

Once I got to the end things ramped up and I think I‘ve actually lost my mind because I am dying to get to the sequel. I love how the book conveys the hardships of ruling, of dealing with a war and with rebellion, with court intrigue and the necessary sacrifices. All of the characters are wrapped up in so much shit and the fact they all have to make devastating choices to deal with it is such a strength of this book. It‘s nice to read something that doesn‘t equip its characters with copious amounts of plot-armour and arbitrarily backs them into narrative corners as a way of railroading them to the next plot point. 

I will say that this rating is probably a bit higher than it would be were I not very eager for Kingdom of Copper. City of Brass really felt like it was weighed down by the need for exposition, and I‘m hoping that that the sequel will pick off at a similar level of suspense and intrigue as this ended on and make all of the set-up worth it. 

I don't know what it is about the year of our lord 2023 but I keep reading books that completely rip my heart out with how seen they make me feel.

Little Thieves was so incredibly good and it had me hooked from the very first page. This book truly delivered on everything I could wish for. It had a compelling, slightly unhinged main character acompannied by a delightful cast (I would like it to be known that I would die for Ragne), an incredible romance, so many absolutely hilarious lines as well as moments that absolutely broke my heart.

This book has one of the best depictions of trauma I have ever read about, and I cried real tears at multiple times throughout reading this because it struck such a chord in me. Vanja is such an amazing protagonist, she's witty and competent, and it's just so fun to read about her. But she's also traumatized, and it is just as organically woven into her characterization as any other part of her. The way hear fears bubbled up, the way her internal monologue is so clearly influenced by her trauma and not what she actually wants to be thinking, the fact that she can't help but listen sometimes and self-sabotages, the way people keep showing up for her regardles... No one talk to me I'm not okay.

In conclusion, this has quickly become one of my new favourite books. I fell in love with the characters, the humour, the magic and the heartbreak in Little Thieves, and the time it'll take for me to get over how good this was should probably be measured on a geological scale. 

 After I finished Bloodmarked I almost immediately gave it 5 stars as a knee-jerk reaction, however now that a few days have passed I can't in good conscience give it 5 stars because there's a lot of things I found issue with. Despite this, I was so incredibly invested in Bloodmarked and the ending hat me mouth agape shaking this book at the sky. I was glued to the pages and had anyone seen my reactions to reading this they would've taken me for an insane person. So all of the things to follow retrospetively weigh down my opinion of Bloodmarked, especially from an objective standpoint. That doesn't mean I didn't love reading this.

Most of the gripes I had with the first book persisted if not worsened in this one, the biggest of which being the worldbuilding.
There is a lot going on, and the attempt to knit together Arthurian legend with a story about grief and the consequences of colonialism and slavery in America continued to not work for me. While both concepts on their own are really interesting, their combinated execution ended up being a bit bloated at best and far-fetched and convoluted at worst. While the presence of these themes is very distinctly a big part of this novel, it isn't always clear where they're pointing the reader, which was especially noticeable in how the magic system was set up.
Once again I felt like Rootcraft was supposed to be something for Bree to learn from. A practice intrinsically connected to balance, to giving and taking, to ancestral veneration. Yet the way Root manifested in Bree was basically the same concept as the way Aether is tied to the bloodlines of the Scions. It feels like Bree is constantly presented with opportunities to connect with her ancestry and her culture, but she consistently favours the Order, which is throughout both books basically colonizer magic. There's a review I read that describes Bree's relationships with other Black characters as transactional, and I have to agree. Her relationships with Mariah and Patricia are much more shallow than the ones she develops with characters from the Order, and oftentimes motivated by the desire to control her Root in order to become more powerful. (view spoiler)
It really isn't clear whether the story is supposed to be about Bree learning about the corruption of the Order and finding her way back to the type of magic her ancestors practiced, or whether it's about Bree learning to rid herself of generational trauma and refusing to be the "weapon" for the anger of her ancestors. Both themes are included in the books, but never sufficiently explored nor is the dichotomy between them addressed.

At every turn I got the feeling that the way the book is written consistently favours allowing Bree to be an epic "chosen one" protagonist and the Order. In Deonn's defense it is admittedly difficult to write about a character "choosing" the practice of magic that is so tied to balance—a give and take—over the one that lends itself much better to acquiring the type of power Bree would need in a novel as high stakes and action-packed as Legendborn. However, this is part of why I feel the way the worldbuilding, the magic system and Bree's connection to them just doesn't work. The needs of the epic fantasy novel Deonn tried to write play tug'o'war with the entire narrative premise of Rootcraft, leading to the latter to fall flat and the former to become contrivedly convoluted.

It feels like the magic systems served more as a means to the end of realising the story Deonn wanted to take, and their integrity as practices and the commentary they add on certain issues came second.

In general, there were a lot of times where I felt like the book/plot backed the Characters into a corner in order to justify certain reactions or storylines. (view spoiler) Parts of the book just didn't feel organic, which did impact my enjoyment of it.

But like I said in the beginning of this review and my review for Legendborn, Tracy Deonn did an amazing job of getting me to care about the characters, and I just had so much fun reading this, so this sits at a 3.5⭐ for me. 

 So I've let my thoughts on this book steep a bit and I'm still really torn on what to rate this book, but I think 4 stars is a good compromise. I read this and Bloodmarked back to back so a portion of my thoughts on this are influenced by my opinion on the sequel, just FYI.

On one hand, there's a lot of small-ish things in this book that I didn't love. The worldbuilding was really interesting but at certain points it felt contrived and convoluted. The idea of these two "types" of magic existing in the Order and Rootcraft was really cool, but the attempt to make them not only coexist in the same book, but converge in the same character didn't work too well for me.
The worldbuilding was confusing, info-dumpey and yet there were still so many terms that were never really explained that I just had to figure out on my own.
I especially struggled with the way Rootcraft was handled. It was oftentimes depicted as the more "ethical" form of magic when contrasted with the Order that is saturated with elitism, greed and racism/colonial history. And while Legendborn often critiques these things very clearly and distinctly, the way Bree interacts with magic and the world around her feels almost contradictory to this. It seems like she oftentimes chooses the Order over the community of Rootcrafters. The way her relationships with Nick, Sel and William are explored much more deeply than with Mariah and Patricia are one of the primary examples for this.

I also felt like the cast of characters was a little too big. I barely remember half of them and care about even less, as it was really easy to lose track. Especially when just being introduced to the way the Order is structured and the way the worldbuilding works, all the minor characters and the titles were really overwhelming. By the end of the book (and Bloodmarked, for that matter) the focus is on a much smaller group of characters, and I think the book could've benefitted from reducing the cast down a bit from the beginning.

This is a super small point of critique but it was super noticeable when I read the book so I did just want to mention it. Bree passes out so. many. times. There's a copious amount of chapters that end in her losing consciousness and then waking up in the next chapter, and it treads a very fine line between funny and annoyingly overused. I digress.

Despite all of this, I adored reading Legendborn. It does such a great job of taking a lot of the core elements of 2010s YA that was super popular back then, like secret magic orders and love triangles, but giving them a lot more depth.
The way the book deals with grief is so wonderfully heartwrenching and painfully realistic.
Bree is a delightful protagonist and the main cast of characters is wonderfully developed.
Furthermore I do love that the book addresses topics like racism and colonialism, even if the execution in the worldbuilding didn't 100% work for me, because they so desperately need to be talked about. Having these discussions in a YA book is gonna bring a lot of young readers closer to a topic that's so important to talk and think about, and Legendborn did a great job at this.

Deonn's writing style is engaging and easy to follow, and had me so invested in these characters so quickly. This book had me staying up all night cheering for and crying with these characters. It had me running to the bookstore on a Saturday to get book 2 without having to wait until after the weekend to get the delivery in had I ordered it online.

It's not a perfect book, and bloated at times, but I cared so much about the characters and what would happen to them. I was constantly on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happened next, so I can't bear to give it any less than 4 stars, even with all the things I didn't love.