librarymouse's reviews
417 reviews

Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

As a snapshot of the lives, deaths, and aspirations of the men in the early introduction of aviation into industry, post-world war 1, this was an insightful read. Much of the intrigue happens within the characters. The sincere unpreparedness and loneliness of the inspector, Robineau, abuts against Rivière's love for his men, kept intentionally under wraps beneath layers of harsh discipline, high expectations, and high hopes for the future of aviation. All the while their interpersonal interactions are surface level and lack the insights allowed by the vulnerability readers are able to see and explore as the novel progresses and a nig t flight pilot, navigator, and their plane are lost to a cyclone.
At points, it took a few rereads of sentences to parse their meaning, but I think that makes sense, as the book was originally published in French.
I probably should not have read the last half of this while on a plane.

Content Warnings

The Strange Garden and Other Weird Tales by Alex Kingsley

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adventurous dark funny reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

This book is all bangers! Every story is great! If I could read it again for the first time, five times over, it wouldn't be enough. Each one of these stories is so well written; crafted with skill and intention. I genuinely loved them all, and I'm looking forward to everything else Alex Kingsley writes!

Content Warnings

Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 3 by James Tynion IV

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dark funny mysterious sad 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

This addition to the series adds quite a lot of context to the house of Slaughter, the lore for how monsters are made, and gave space for James's character development as he he takes steps towards learning to forgive himself.

This would be a satisfying point at which to finish the series, so I'm looking forward to what comes next and how things change for Erica, James, and Bian. I'm curious if Tommy's storyline continues. The cover art with Tommy holding a shadow of Sophie, makes it look like he either has or will capture his own monster and turn it into a kind face with which to grieve.

Content Warnings

Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 2 by James Tynion IV

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

This is a great continuation of volume 1. More of the internal logic of the monsters is revealed, we see more of the organization that made Erica what she is, and we get to see how the Bian nd James are handling the aftermath of their respective rescues.

I thought Aaron would play a larger role in the series. It was wild to see him die so soon after being properly introduced. I hope Tommy sticks around as a himbo side kick and not as a prospective love interest for Erica. Not that I think she's seeking one out, but that I don't trust the authors (sorry)

Content Warnings

Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 1 by James Tynion IV

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

This is a great start to the series. I liked the 5 comic collection for the ease of reading. The storytelling is engaging and well done. The level of gore is quite high, but stylize into a bright neon. I'm looking forward to seeing how Bian plays into the latter parts of the story, if at all

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Once Upon a Thriller by Carolyn Keene

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I picked this book up on a whim, at Dollar Tree. I was honestly pleasantly surprised by it. I have a few critiques about the pacing and characterization, but overall, most of those critiques stem from me not being the book's target audience. Readers are told a lot more than they're shown and the characters ages feel inconsistent. It's like they grow to suit the needs of the scene. At the start of the book, I thought they were preteens, until Nancy started driving. Then I thought they were older teens until the young police intern, Ian, starts flirting with Bess. I think some of those expectations may have come from the meta knowledge that this is a middle grade novel and from how young Nancy looks in the book cover illustration, as opposed to how kids could/would come into it without preconceived notions. With the target age range of their audience, what I perceive as pacing issues and being told instead of shown is a fantastic stepping stone for kids as they age out of story books and into novels. Same thing goes for what I perceive to be inconsistent characterization, in terms of age. Their lines of logic and conversation have to be both kid appropriate and fit within standard American English grammar conventions in ways that characters in novels written for older people do not. Overall, I'm looking forward to passing this along to some of the kids in my life.

Content Warnings

It Devours! by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

Night Vale, despite its status as horror, is something I find deeply comforting. It's consistently a story about people trapped within a world run by actively malignant corporations and governments finding joy and love within their community. I really enjoyed It Devours! both as entertainment in its own right, as well as a book whose content reflects the state of our world as it is in 2025, to a startling degree. It shows in intimate detail how religions can suck in people who believe the teachings to be parables, and find peace within them, while the organization as a whole acts in bad faith, with strict alignment with the letter of professed doctrine. The exploration of interpersonal relationships, in which success is not defined by the longevity of the relationship, but by the ability to understand and navigate boundaries as people grow and change and the bravery to end things when needed, was very refreshing. I really appreciated the variety of types of faith and devotion the characters experience, and the active discussion on how to make reparations when one's faith/devotion- driven actions cause harm. You do need to have some background understanding of Night Vale to understand this book, but overall, worth it!

Content Warnings

Midnight at the Houdini by Delilah S. Dawson

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Midnight at the Houdini. It is definitely a book that tells a lot about its characters, rather than showing, and at points, the genre-defining subtext is written into text, but partially because of that, I found the book charming. While the reader is told that Anna is type-A and a control freak, when she is dropped into the world of the Houdini, she is flexible and open to learning how the world works with a few breaks for panicking when she can't figure out the logic system behind the magic. I had read a few critiques about how the book read more as middle grade with the antagonists being one-dimensional and greedy. While that was true to an extent, I think Phoebe was well characterized as a scorned person, harmed by the people she should have been able to trust, and then warped by a decade and a half of living in a magical world under her control, she oscillates pretty hard between dictator lite and victim at the end of the book. I took Tony and Sebastian's seeming insanity and descent into villainy, when paired with Daniel's spike in concern for his daughter to be the intoxication of hotel (plus sleep deprivation) playing up the most prominent characteristic of each man. While he's described as someone who only cares about business by Anna, she's 16 and has already been proven to be an unreliable narrator. The ending did, however, feel very middle grade, but that's not a bad thing. I find middle grade novels to require a level of creativity when forced to build stories that don't contain the level of romance allowed and/or expected in young adult novels. I thought the ending as it related to Anna and Max's relationship was satisfying. The redemption of Anna's father and the rekindling of their relationship beyond the perfunctory one she'd perceived and allowed was heartwarming.

My main critique of the ending is Anna's near complete lack of panic for the possibility that she killed three men with her wish. Sure, they were nasty, but most of the book was about showing the dynamic and round nature of humanity in forcing Anna, her father, Max, and Phoebe out of their comfortable roles. In the context of her perfectionism, it feels odd that she would be okay with three men, two of whom she knew her whole life, dying because of her.

Content Warnings

Limetown by Cote Smith

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adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

I know why so many people hate this book as a canonical addition to the world of the Limetown podcast. However, I went into Limetown fresh off the tails of Archive 81, fully expecting horrifyingly magical fuckery, and that's exactly the route the second season took in it's hard left turn out of the NPR format. I'm still mad that we don't really know what happened to Lia at the end of the podcast, after this story. I'm somewhat confused whether or not Emile can read Lia's thoughts. It seemed at first that was why he took a shine to Sylvia - as her replacement, but the final scene of the novel confuses that. Still, this was an enjoyable read, removed from the fact it retcons most of the podcast's first season. I genuinely enjoyed exploring more of this world as long as I was able to suspend my disbelief.

Content Warnings

The Suitcase Clone by Robin Sloan

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

The Suitcase Clone is a very trippy addition to the Penumbra verse. I wasn't expecting the narrator. I enjoyed the leaning into the magical element of magical realism, though I'm not sure I fully understand the basement scene. I did enjoy seeing how deep the roots of the culture reach, connecting together the people readers meet in Sourdough beyond what was on the page. I would like to go on an adventure like that which is explored in this novella.

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librarymouse's reviews 417 reviews

librarymouse's reviews
417 reviews