lenorayoder's reviews
138 reviews

Like the idea, love a gothic, don’t love the execution. The story is told from a future Cathy’s perspective in a way that doesn’t let us marinate in the siblings’ situation. There are both fantastical and realistic elements at play, but because neither are leaned into enough I felt trapped in an unsatisfying middle ground. 

The

incest

is interesting in concept but the weakness of both Cathy and Chris’ character writing makes the whole development of

their relationship from platonic to romantic

feel almost boring. The way Cathy is written in general when it comes to anything sexual or romantic is very frustrating. 

I won’t get into it more, but overall it just feels like the book doesn’t delve deep enough into the characters and their changing selves and relationships. Very cool premise, I’m compelled to read more of the series and want to know what happens. I just think it could be so much better. 

A book with a lot of promise that fell a little flat for me. I liked the setup of the book, and also really enjoyed the ending. The middle's a little muddy. Even the author seems to lose interest in the main plot of the scavenger hunt, and the only interesting B-plot (Georgia's) is, by nature, barely doing anything in the middle of the book. 

I think the big problem with this book is its side characters and plots, although Chloe's character isn't fabulously written either. Other than Georgia, they all feel very token. Everything we know about them is surface-level and/or vague, and everyone who isn't a straight up villain has some sort of queer identity by the end of the book. That wouldn't be a problem, except that even Chloe's other close friends feel like token characters. We know as much about Ash as we do the student body president, even though one is Chloe's close friend and the other is just a classmate she's friendly with. Ash's only significant dialogue is when they're talking about their queer identity, and that feels more like a pattern in this book than an isolated incident. That's a problem. 

My other big problem is Shara herself. Chloe and Shara have the bones of a really interesting dynamic

and relationship

, but the book only alludes to or tells us about the most interesting parts of it, instead of letting us see for ourselves.

They barely interact.

We get all this build up of

Shara as a villain

, and then it turns out she's never even

done anything mean

. The closest she gets is

turning on her dad

, and that's more

heroic than villainous

. Like the Chloe herself says,

the potential villain side of Shara is more interesting than her being nice and innocent

. Unfortunately, McQuiston teases and then refuses to deliver on exploring

a relationship between two people who are kind of mean but work romantically anyway

, and I think that's a shame. 

What a lovely little book! I think there's room here for more, but I still really liked it as is. Love the toad. Even with such a short space Miles manages to be such a real, tragic character. Summer itself feels like a character and really lends a certain something to the magical feel of the story. Wish I'd read this when I was a kid!

Read this online back in the day and decided to reread and help my library's stats at the same time. So nostalgic! I laughed, I kicked my feet! 

I'm perhaps one of the few who prefers the old style, so I really enjoyed rereading the first part of this book. I love all the hockey terminology interludes, and they're a big reason I understood anything that was happening when I first watched Letterkenny lol. I still got a rush of endorphins at that

first kiss between Bitty and Jack

. Ah! 

On reread the plotting is a little lacking, but I still really enjoyed this read and have Book 2 on hold. 4 stars! 

To get it out of the way, this is not the most well-written book. Gordeeva isn't a writer, and professes no interest in writing throughout this book. That must be where co-author E.M. Swift comes in... and let's just say dude should have stuck to sports writing. This is a memoir. 

But what's really interesting about this book is what peeks out at you from between the lines. Life during the Soviet Union, the dynamics of the Soviet-era sports club, Russian culture, how young athletes are treated, the isolation of being the youngest skater in a group, Gordeeva's naivete, the strange dynamic of her relationship with Sergei Grinkov... it's all fascinating and a better biographer would have expanded on these things but instead as the reader you just get little peeks at what seems like a deep underbelly. I hope someday someone takes a closer look at this story (and what comes after) and writes an amazing book. 

I know Little Women is a beloved classic so this will ruffle some feathers, but I was so disappointed in this read. I grew up on the 90's movie and loved it, I toured the house when I was a kid, and I've heard enough cool things about Alcott that her letters/journals are on my TBR. But this book was a slog. If I weren't accounting for the first part/book being essentially a children's book and the whole thing being written in the 1800's, this would have been 2 stars. 

The first part has the issue of feeling more like a collection of short stories than a book. It felt like the kind of book that you would read to your kid a chapter at a time before bed. The formula of one or more sisters doing something "wrong," experiencing consequences, and then getting a little religious/moral lecture from Marmee and promising to do better was tiring. It doesn't leave room for any subtlety or nuance, and often Alcott is just telling us stuff instead of showing us. One of the books supposed strengths is it's characters, but they behave in such formulaic ways for so much of this first part that they feel more like caricatures than people. Jo is somewhat the exception to this, I suppose because she's the character based on Alcott herself. 

Some of my favorite bits of the first part are exceptions to the above. Notably, John's story in the Camp Laurence chapter about the

knight wanting to free a captive princess

gives us insight into his character, shows us

how he feels about Meg, and feels quite romantic

without out-right telling us that

John wants to marry Meg

. I love that the

story gets wildly off-track as the "Rigmarole" game continues, but as the last story-teller Laurie brings the story back to the knight

. Alcott manages to convey his

support for John, his love for the Marches, and that he thinks John should be more active about his feelings.

Unfortunately this is somewhat ruined in a few chapters when Alcott feels the need to outright tell us these things, but I loved the subtlety while it lasted. 

The second part felt more like a cohesive novel and I started it with a lot of relief, but it soon fell back into the short-story pattern of the first part. The messages about marriage feel very outdated, and Meg feels like a shadow of herself after

the wedding chapter

. I found Beth's quiet struggle to

accept her fate compelling

, and the talk she has with Jo when she finally reveals that

struggle is very moving

. 

Throughout the book Amy's portrayal has felt off to me, and I finally came to the conclusion that Alcott just... doesn't like Amy.

Laurie's proposal to Jo

being written so beautifully and emotionally while

his marriage to Amy

happens off-screen, Amy's chapters about

falling for Laurie

alternating with the chapters about

Beth dying, Laurie writing a last letter to Jo seeing if she'll change her mind before he decides to pursue Amy, Laurie thinking of Amy as a replacement for Jo, and Amy's only child being named after Beth only to end up being sickly and unlikely to survive childhood

all just felt malicious. Jo and Amy are the most realized characters of the book, but there's just this constant undercurrent of dislike. As children (when Amy is eleven, mind you) they seem to clash equally, but by part two, it feels like

Amy has moved on and likes/admires Jo, but Jo (and Alcott) has this contempt for her that doesn't feel deserved

. I could talk about this more, but it's just kind of unpleasant to read in a book that's supposed to be about the bond these women have. 

I have more Thoughts but this is long enough. I'm glad I read this, but I wish it lived up to the hype. I'm going to go watch the adaptations and try to find fan fiction about Amy. 

I liked this and it was fairly engaging. Some very nice prose. I'm primarily interested in characters and this book is primarily interested in world-building, so it's 3 instead of 4 stars for me. My ratings are subjective and this just wasn't my cup of tea.

i still don't get 4 categories -> 5 bins

First of all: while I recommend reading this book, Orson Scott Card is a terrible person and who knows what terrible things he donates money to. If you read Ender's Game, please do it by buying it used or borrowing from someone, not anything (like buying new, borrowing ebooks and audiobooks from a library app, etc.) that could give that man royalty money.

There’s a lot to love about this book, but the author’s vibes are truly rancid and permeate the whole thing. I like what this book says about empathy, and some of the critiques of military culture and war. Despite some critiquing though, this book never manages to feel as anti-war/military as it seems like it should given the subject matter. The pervasive sexism clearly comes from the author instead of serving as another layer of the military critique. The portrayal of religion and its suppression is strange and doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the book. The way Card depicts and talks about young boys… really rubs me the wrong way.

Card was clearly enamored with the Battle Room and lingered on it a lot, and I think that’s to the detriment of what this story could have been, its themes, and the ideas I found a lot more interesting and nuanced. I would have liked to see a deeper exploration of the computers’ AI (that’s never called AI), and how it manifests in the game Ender plays on his desk. I also think the narrative doesn’t capture enough of Ender’s complexity and inner life. A lot of the characters just don’t feel as complex as it seems like they easily could be. The whole book feels more like a prequel than a standalone, and that’s a shame because there’s so much good material to work with.

Again, a lot to love and I loved this book when I was a kid. As an adult who can read between the lines though... oof.

I liked a lot of the themes and there were some really good lines that will stick with me. Even though I saw it coming the last chunk of the book still made me cry. Felt intensely 2012 and teenagery at times, which I'd consider a good thing given that's who this book is written about and for. 

Unfortunately, a lot of the characters didn't feel like real people to me. The narrative always felt like it was keeping too much distance for the characters to become fully realized. As a consequence I never really bought into the love story as much as I wanted to. That distance also made the timeline feel unclear unless explicitly stated, and as a result the pacing also felt off. 

I see why this was a sensation and I'm glad I read it, but I'm just a little too old (and too into character-focused stories) for it to hit me the way it might have ten years ago.