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lbatch's reviews
294 reviews

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

I DNF’d this years ago and not sure why because it absolutely rips. Wow did it accelerate at the end.
The Winners by Fredrik Backman

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense 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? It's complicated

4.75

Oh my GOD this wrecked me I am a mess. A great/terrible/terribly great ending to the trilogy. Some copy issues with the translation that I’m not totally factoring in because, translation.
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

Castaways by Pablo Monforte, Laura Pérez

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? N/A

3.0

Meh! Sort of felt like it was trying to be more profound than it actually managed to be?
The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

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emotional hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

I have a hard time with romance novels where there’s a major lie that’s kept secret til the end, but that’s a personal preference and I liked this overall.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber

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adventurous emotional inspiring lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

This was really fun! The language was really pretty and the plot basically exactly what I want from a YA romantasy; at times I thought it was turning out to be predictable but I was *wrong*, so there.
Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

This was fun and filled in some gaps!
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

Hmmm people talk about this like it's the best book ever written, and I think it's rather overrated; it's pretty underedited (lots of odd grammar/uncorrected quotation mark placement moments, and I feel like a strong editor would had advised not using italics for so much of the dialogue) and the pacing is off, especially for a book that while technically standalone seems very much like setup for a series the author ultimately decided not to continue. However, the main characters here had a lot of depth and were well-written, and the magic/action sequences were great. This really starts to rip around the halfway point.
Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu

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inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.5

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

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

4.5

Like Beartown, incredibly real and heart wrenching. With a touch of populist political corruption so, y’know, timely.