mcgbreads's reviews
1125 reviews

ALC review; thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the access to this audiobook. Pub date: Jan 14 2025. 

This one will be for you if you like a slow build, red herrings, an atmospheric, almost claustrophobic small island setting, unreliable narrators, and unlikable MCs. 

I'm honestly not sure how to feel about it. I liked some aspects of it, but overall, it didn't turn out to be my kind of mystery/thriller. I just don't enjoy the kind of twists that require a character who has to explain everything to you because, otherwise, things wouldn't actually make sense due to the plot holes, inconsistencies, etc. I prefer it when the pieces that I've been given throughout the entire novel come together, it's more satisfying to me. 

I enjoyed the setting and the premise and setup were very interesting, but we spend most of the book in this man's head and he's just awful, and kind of boring despite doubting his sanity, which always makes characters a bit more engaging. When we get to the twist and explanation, I was like "okay, cool" even though I didn't see some of the twists coming. That reaction is 100% because I don't like how the twists were set up and delivered. Also, I have to say I didn't get any thrills throughout the book, only in the end with those last few paragraphs, which I really liked. So I'd say this is more of a mystery. 

Overall, I see a lot of people raving about this, but I think it was just okay. If you don't mind any of the things that didn't work for me, you will really enjoy this one. 

I hated this from chapter 1 and wanted to DNF immediately, so I went ahead and read a bunch of reviews, both positive and negative. Yeah, I’m DNFing after chapter 3. 

I’m not interested in reading a book that seems to be mostly about a mom excusing her pedophile son’s behavior because she loves him, he’s her son, she hates to see him suffer due to the consequences of his actions, and she wants to help him, save him from himself, but she finally realizes she can’t because he was born that way and can’t help what he is and what he did. How tragic and sad… Give me a fucking break. 

If there’s one thing I don’t have and will never have is empathy for pedophiles no matter how fictional or how young they may be themselves. I’m aware they all have mothers and I don’t particularly care how much they love them, they’re still sick and I think they’re beyond help once they decide to act on their impulses in any way,

despite what this author maybe wants to make us believe by adding that twist about the father and how he was also a pedophile but he learned to control his impulses and never re-offended through the magic of… pinching his thigh when he felt like doing something? What the fuck? Just, no.

 

Based on everything I’ve read about the story and what happens, I don’t understand the intention of the book and I don’t think reading it in full will help me understand more than I do now. I think it will just make me angry (it already did after only 3 chapters) and I have better ways to spend my time, better books to get to. 

I will likely think twice about picking up another Lucinda Berry book. I’ve been on board with her deeply unlikable characters and taboo themes before, but she lost me with this one.

ARC review; thanks to NetGalley for the access to this ebook. Pub date: December 3, 2024. 

This story follows a half-deaf girl, Thea, whose life is upended by her parents, mainly her dad, who decides to take his children out of school and isolate them in every possible way because he wants to go back to a "simple life". It's called "Dust" because this world is ravaged by climate change and the family moves to a desolate town where it never rains, they only get dust storms that get progressively worse as the story goes along. 

I'm not a half-deaf person, but the author is, and I think the representation in this book is great. I understood Thea's struggles even though I've never lived through them, and felt her isolation and frustration with her parents, especially her dad, who actively deny she has a hearing problem and do nothing to help her thrive with her disability. I felt very protective of her and loved the way she found community despite the roadblocks. 

I don't think this book does a good job of representing homeschool and unschooling, though. I don't know much about these things, but I do know that they're not what was portrayed here.

Of course, Thea's father was using homeschooling and unschooling to isolate his children, so I believe it was a form of punishment whether he was aware of it or not. He clearly didn't care about them getting an actual education, so he never cared about providing a valid homeschooling and unschooling experience. I felt that that should've been addressed in the text the same way other things are addressed. It's not a big issue for me, just something I noted.

Overall, the story was engaging and compelling, my eyes watered a few times because Thea's situation was sometimes so rough, and it had a good flow to it. I read it very quickly because it's well-written and interesting. That said, my only issue is that I didn't like the resolution. It was too quick and it felt rushed. Thea's dad does a full 180 and it just doesn't feel earned. 

I understand that near-death situations lead to mindset changes, but the way he's left off the hook doesn't sit right with me. He was evil, in my opinion, for most of this book, and there's no atonement for the abuse he put his family through. Even if he thought he was doing the right thing, that doesn't excuse the abuse, and I don't appreciate that we just move on from that.

Other than that, I think this was great. It really worked for me.

This was pretty good. The premise and magic felt very creative to me, and I enjoyed that dreams become tangible in this world. Overall, it's a solid YA fantasy that follows the beats we've all come to expect. It's a good one to pick up if you want something easy to read with a dash of rivals to lovers romance. 

If appreciating Murakami's books is an acquired taste, something you develop by exploring his work book by book rather than something that can happen with any of his books, then it was a mistake for me to request this. I was interested in the premise and I've never read a book by the author, so it seemed like the perfect way to start, but maybe I was wrong. 

I like magical realism and absurdity, I do, but not when it's meandering and doesn't seem to have a point. And if I have to drag myself through the rest of this book to understand the point of all this nonsense, like it's a chore, then I'm not interested. There are many things in life that I do simply because I have to, even if they're unpleasant, but I refuse to let reading become one of those things. That's why I DNF as soon as thinking about reading a book makes my eyes roll, and that's what happened with this one. Maybe I'll give any other of his books a try at some other point in life, but this was not it for me. 

ARC review; thanks to NetGalley and Indie/Self for the access to this book. This isn't a new release though. 

I think this is a good book to read in between dense or more challenging books. On its own, it's a decent story. The strongest thing it has going for it, in my opinion, is the FMC's character development from a selfish, self-centered, casually cruel, spoilt brat, to someone who manages to care about people. That kind of change is always fun to see play out. The way that it happened, with the scheme, felt a little melodramatic, but overall it was fine. The writing style also makes the book very easy to get through. 

The story is nothing new, so if you've read a similar story before where an unlikable, privileged character changes when put in the place of the people they look down on and with the help of a counterpart character who challenges them to make them better, then you know how this will go. The beats it follows are very expected. That predictability doesn't make it a bad book, it just makes it an average one. 

Also, I want to say I hated the spice. It felt very out of place and I don't think it was at all necessary for the relationship development. Moreover, this has an epilogue that makes it seem like the story will continue in a sequel or something, and that also feels unnecessary. It should've stayed as a standalone and I don't think there's anything here to expand on at all. I certainly wouldn't be interested in continuing, so this is a standalone to me. 

ARC review; thanks to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton, and Hodderscape for the access to this ebook. 

This is my second book by Rose Black and I enjoyed Til Death Do Us Bard when I read it even if a few things about the execution didn't work for me. This time, I had a similar experience, except I liked this one a little less. So it feels like a 2.5 to 2.75-star book for me. 

The main difference between the two books is the coziness. Til Death Do Us Bard is, indeed, cozy. It felt like a side quest in a game, so it was engaging enough, and I liked the characters and their relationship. 

Fated Winds and Promising Seas isn't cozy. At least I don't think that a story where the characters go through so much trauma and pain could be considered cozy, and I think that's something readers should know beforehand. The description also says this provides mental health rep, and it does, but it also explores those mental health issues at kind of a surface level. 

It didn't feel to me that the characters had a proper healing journey. Things happened to them and while they did help each other, and I think the relationship between the MMCs is sweet, they change kind of drastically from one part of the book to the other, and we don't really see the process. 

I liked a lot of aspects of the story; the characters were likable, the setting was cool, the romance and found family aspects were lovely, and the premise was interesting. But the execution fell short for me, especially when it comes to depth and worldbuilding (the foundations are there, it was just a little surface-level and I think the ideas were cool enough to explore a little more). The writing was also a bit repetitive around certain issues. 

The words "wasted potential" feel a little harsh, but they did cross my mind at some points of the story, so I have to mention that. Overall, it wasn't a great book but it also wasn't awful. I see a lot of people enjoying this more than I did, so it's one of those books that you just have to check out for yourself if anything about it calls to you. 

A rare case where I feel like the movie is better, though I think I've only watched it once. I like the story and the themes it explores, and I think it does it well in a short length, I just wasn't particularly engaged or scared overall. Good audiobook to listen to while working, that's pretty much it. 

I have a love/hate relationship with Stephen King's books and stories. It's not always a given that I'll enjoy them, but it's always exciting to explore them. This one might just be my favorite book of his so far. Like, wow. 

I expected it to be good, but I didn't expect it to be this good. I already knew the story because I've watched a couple of movie adaptations, but the reading experience is its own thing and it's unbeatable. 

This is elite Stephen King, in my opinion, and it's a book I definitely want in my library. The writing, the characterizations, the plot, the horror elements, the emotions... it all has so much depth. Just wonderful; it's a wonderful story. Very heartbreaking. 

I did a bit of a tandem read with the audiobook and the ebook when I could pick my Kindle up because there's so much to highlight, so I will definitely be doing a reread when I get a copy. The audiobook was great, I highly recommend it. It's narrated by Michael C. Hall, a.k.a Dexter, and he was fantastic with it.