mynameismarines's reviews
1076 reviews

This is a hard star rating for me because it falls in that often cited category of, "I wanted to love this book more than I did." First, it is clear to me that Ksenia Anske is a talented author, and I'd definitely read more of her work. She's got an amazing imagination, and that is where this book never faltered. The world was vivid and the story had a very unique quality to it. I've seen comparisons to Tim Burton movies and that seems like the closest comparison.

I struggled with the characters. Lilith and Panther are both hard to swallow because of their quirks. There really wasn't anyone here for me to relate to or empathize with. Lilith does struggle with being believed, and part of me felt for her, but the other part of me doubted her as well. Was what we were reading real? I'll let you discover that for yourself.

Part of the problem with the characters, though, was the fault of some very repetitive writing. This story would've benefited greatly from being parsed down. They were so many long passages of Lilith trying to convince Panther to investigate with her, in nearly identical language. For being under the gun, these characters sure did stand around and talk a lot.

Another issue was that the action was quite literally in Lilith's backyard. It felt like Anske tried to trump up the tension, but what it produced was more of that repetition. We found Lilith trapped inside or with an adult or bound to some commitment, thus keeping her away from the action, over and over again. In that way, the pattern of Lilith sneaking out, being caught, facing off with her grandfather, and disturbing her parents developed early and kept on throughout the story. Within this work of great imagination, a formula developed and undermined the experience.

This problem of pacing made it hard to drag myself through the middle to end of this book. Even at the end, Lilith is surround on all sides and it's closing in around her... still closing in around her... no idea why it's closing in this slow but here it comes... etc.

It was an interesting read, and I don't regret dedicating time to it, but I felt it definitely could've benefited from some tightening up. I can't wait to read what Anske comes up with next.

Enjoyed the read and learned an interesting thing or two. I can't remember why I even picked this up when I did, but I read it slowly over the course of a week or two, which was perfect. I appreciated the humor, though I did find that it felt a little flat to me in a few places. It wasn't always the most easy read, but considering a large portion of this was educational, it managed the pacing and progression well enough.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. Primarily, this book simply suffers from "not my cup of tea." I felt about it the way I tend to feel about most collections; they begin to wear on me in a way that the short, repetitive narratives tend to, especially when read from cover to cover.

For the most part, I found the stories mildly amusing and not the laugh riot that I've seen people reference in reviews. The best essays to me came at the end, which is a shame, because at that point I was already worn out of the tone and structure of his short stories.

I loved hearing about Paris and his language struggles there. Truly, those were my favorite. The one time I went to Paris, I found myself having these same conversations about language, about being an American in another country, about finding myself loud and my tongue awkward, etc.

I think I may have enjoyed this if I had selected an essay or two to read once a week for a while. Something about cramming them all in made the novelty wear off quickly. What's more, I like my collections to have some sort of point or defining theme, and this seemed to lack that. I guess you could argue it was "funny things that (probably) happened to David," but that's counting on the reader finding most or all of it funny.

There were times when I think the humor was distracted because his characters and situations were just too much. It was like hearing a person tell a story you just know is exaggerating and following it up with a, "did you really say that?" I can imagine Sedaris saying, "well, I did in my head..." Whether or not that cheapens the story is up for you to decide. For me, sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't. Hence, the three stars.

Not a bad read over all, and I'd be curious to read more from Sedaris, but perhaps not right away. I'll give it some time.

I found myself in a bit of a reading funk and picked up this book as I knew it was be light and easy to read. Thankfully, I also found it entertaining and sweet. It perhaps wasn't the best middle grade series I've started, but it has a certain charm and humor I appreciated.

Most of that comes from the voice of Percy Jackson. I was pretty impressed with the narrative voice which seemed appropriately young. I like Percy a lot too. The characters in general weren't very well developed but they at least showed the type of bravery that I appreciate in characters.

This story is perhaps best enjoyed superficially. If you take more than a moment to consider the plot and characters, the holes are definitely there. I understand that this is middle grade, but there was still a bit of artlessness to the writing at points, especially as the story tried to feed us things in bits and pieces. There were too many instances of, "he started to tell me but then didn't because of reasons," and "She knew the answer but didn't want to tell me because of reasons," and etc.

But, as I said, I enjoyed it and will definitely add the rest of the series to my reading list.

I've been gathering my thoughts on this book for about a day now, and I don't think I'm any closer to pinpointing where it went wrong, or even, what it got right. The good and bad all sort of melt together and amble along.

For a while throughout the beginning of the story, I had to push myself to keep reading. The introduction on paper is intriguing, but in practice failed to fully hook me. Pacing got better and it was almost like this book kept wooing me back, only to disappoint me again with poor pacing, padded plot lines and repetition. But then, like, I wanted to know. I wanted to know why Amelia was shot.

Perhaps the above could've been forgiven if the characters were better developed. Again, it's hard to say how much was lack of development and how much was simply that I couldn't invest anything in the characters presented. None of them felt real enough to relate to or sensational enough to be entertained by.

I found the prose a bit hard to follow at times, especially when the author was describing action.

In the end, the big explanation was incredibly hard to buy into. It painted on character into a big time villain, and one whose motivation I just cannot comprehend. The confrontation in the penultimate scene is forced. I just kept about the 1001 ways that it could've been avoided or that the damage could've been lessened.

Still, the overall effect is confusing. The book was okay. In fact, I almost gave it three stars, but it wasn't until I started listing off everything I felt went wrong that it really hit me. So yes, it's two stars, but I wouldn't discourage someone from say, checking this out from the library the way I did. I wouldn't purchase it because I can't imagine reading this story again.

I added this to be TBR list right after I finished the Hunger Games Trilogy, and there it's been ever since. I've recently had a string of amazing middle-grade reads and decided to continue in that same vein with this book.

I loved it. I'm also admittedly a sucker for well done middle grade books. There is something to be said about the level of talent it takes to make a nuanced story like this come to life in such a simplistic way.

Gregor was a fantastic main character and he carries this story of life, loss, uncertainty and courage in the face of adversity. Gregor isn't special (in this book, at least). He's just a regular boy who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances, and uses pieces of himself that were previously untapped. I loved that grounding element in an otherwise fantastical world.

Most of all, I loved Gregor's relationship with Boots. He's so loving and protective, and yet, their relationship is heartbreaking in and of itself. Gregor has had to grow up quickly and assume a lot of responsibility and we see that painted so clearly as he carries his little sister with him, everywhere he goes.

Woven throughout the story are wonderful themes of war and classes and equality and prejudice, using creatures that make nearly everyone run. Perhaps the most sympathetic characters in this story are a pair of cockroaches. It's hilarious and smart.

Being a middle grade book, the story is short, fast paced and to the point. It's a total one-day-read and something I'm bookmarking for my hypothetical future children, for sure. They can learn a lot from Gregor.

I both knew what to expect at the end (ahem-sequel-ahem) but... I don't know what I was expecting.

First: it was a good book and one that got an emotional reaction out of me. There were a few particular scenes that were done very well by Forman (the accident, for instance, had this creepy detached surrealism going on) and she wrote a few relationships that crushed my heart (Kim, the grandpa).

Second, though: It was one big concept that drove the story, but there just wasn't much else, plot wise. That may not matter to some readers, because it's so short and does pack that emotional punch. It left something wanting for me, though, as I read it and felt like we were bouncing around the same handful of scenes.

Third: Despite having this big underlying concept, and this is my biggest complaint, it was still a little it tropey. Even with this huge tragedy surrounding them, it all felt to clean and too perfect. The characters leaned toward one dimensional. The love interest, HAD A CROOKED SMILE. That kind of stuff. It just took a very good story down a couple of notches.

I really liked this. As I always do, I went through lots of other reviews and most people who fangirled over Fangirl seem to think this a lesser book. For me, I think Rainbow Rowell is beautifully consistent in her story telling. All four of her books have gotten four stars from me, and I'd be hard pressed to rank them as they all share the same strengths and weaknesses.

Rowell knows how to craft beautiful characters. They are flawed and relatable but with that touch of something special that elevates them into the realm of fiction. In this case, I think it made Georgie read a bit younger than her 30-something years, but on the other hand, Geogie's immaturity was also an issue within the greater story.

I loved Neal from the very beginning. Maybe because I related to his hatred of questions and the way he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. I loved the way he quietly filled so much of the story with so few lines and so few smiles.

As always with Rowell, the supporting characters were all well done, feeling like full separate entities.

I'm not sure if the way Rowell describes marriage is "realistic," being unmarried myself, but it's kind of invalid logic anyway. A marriage can be as unique as the two people it is between. I feel like Rowell did an excellent job telling us about Georgie and Neal's marriage, and ultimately trying to answer the question of, "is there love enough?"

I was happy while reading this book. Even when things were up in the air, reading about these people made me feel warm and fuzzy.

I'm so happy I knew pretty much nothing when I went into this book. It isn't very hard to figure out where we are or what's happening when we join Melanie in the story, but it's revealed piece by thought-provoking piece and that aspect of the story was probably my favorite.

And it's weird to call it my favorite too, because it made me super uncomfortable.

I will admit that I struggled some through the middle portion of this story. For some reason, I had to read this one slowly. I've tried to pin point that reason (was it a pacing problem? Was the plot plodding? Unrelateable characters?) but came up with nothing. I think it may just have been a ME and my reading mood thing, which is why I can't deduct points from what is a well crafted story.

And a fresh one. I wouldn't call myself an expert in this genre, but I've read my fair share of this kind of book and I can't say I've ever come across something quite like this.

I loved Melanie. She was such a great protagonist and because of her, I loved Helen as well. Helen wasn't a character I would've gravitated towards regularly, but Melanie loved her, so it was hard not to.

Seriously, I just don't want to give anything away so I'll just simply state that Caldwwell as an antagonist (and ultimately someone who may have saved Melanie...) and the ENDING! were also well done.

Can't wait until I bully a friend into reading it so I can discuss it some more... :)

I'm... I'm not sure what I was expecting.

And this was not good. There wasn't enough wrong with it technically to grade it at one star, and there were parts of it that kept me curious. I mean, I at least liked it enough to read all the way through and it got like 1/3 of an extra star for being set in Florida, which I'm a sucker for. For the most part it was just kind of fluffy and cheesy, with all these weird exterior dark and edgy details.

The narration went from bad to not great and that was at least an improvement after about 20% of the book.

Just about every YA romance trope is hit on here, from the smirking and lopsided grin to the main character who doesn't know just how pretty she is. She melts and sputters and sutters around him and descriptions of the electric shocks she feels through her body when she sees him take about a healthy 50% of the entire book. (I made that number up, but it felt that way...) There were deeply, deeply problematic aspects to the Trent/Kacey relationship and it ALMOST seemed like they were acknowledging that it was awful, weird and gross, but then at the end it was a big, fat LOL. NOPE. TRU LUV.

I picked this book next off of my to-read shelf because it had one of the highest average star ratings.

WHAT.

Does not compute.