mynameismarines's reviews
1076 reviews

Book #1 of the #7in7readathon 2018.

I'm revisiting Agatha Christie because I don't remember ANYTHING about the books I read during my high school binge. And why would I do anything but start at the very beginning?

This was fun and quick and interesting. It also felt dated and Poirot is a lot of character. Additionally, the way this measured out clues and kept the reader in the dark wasn't my favorite. The end and reveal were interesting enough and I laughed at the bit about Poirot saving a marriage.

Read for the podcast! I'll have full feelings and a link after it's live but in short: long, really long, why so long?, much pain and suffering, my poor bbs, WAR, and finally Lady MF Stoneheart you guys I'M SO EXCITED.

Full review to come, probably!

I gotta sit with this for a bit. There were amazing parts and slow parts, footnotes that made me laugh out loud and ones that felt totally unnecessary, characters I loved and ones I hated...

Overall, it was a journey. AND I DID IT!

And we'll see how I feel about it.

I've tried to read this tome a few times before and kept getting hung up on how similar it was to the first season of the TV show. I'm not one to shy away from consuming material over and over again, but after watching the streamlined version on TV, the extra details in the book didn't add as much as it burdened the story for me.

That said, I also know that this was a difficult reading experience for in-story reasons. It was heartbreaking to revisit a lot of these characters at the beginning, and not only that, to be in their heads. It helped me experience the characters in a way I hadn't before.

This is definitely not a story for everyone. It is grim and bleak and lot of bad things happen to people. Obviously, that's okay if it's not for you. I also think, though, that there is no denying what a huge thing GRRM created. All of the details of his world are so thoughtful, all of the threads he lays out which you know will pay off later, the three dimensional characters... it's impressive, if not a story you necessarily "enjoy."

I'm glad I powered through (for the podcast!) and I'm very excited to head further into how this story diverges from the TV series.

Part of my romance/flu binge. Recommended on Twitter.

I appreciated that we start this book with a proposal and jump right into that without a so much of the set-up I'm quickly getting used to. I also liked that Jane and Garson are childhood friends, though to be honest, that isn't really featured in the story. I liked Jane a whole lot as a main character. Garson was OK. He was definitely less broody and less of an asshole than some others I've encountered, but also he's thickheaded man. The whole plot relies on him not ~*realizing*~, which fine, common, but still frustrating.

Part of the romance/flu binge.

I had asked on Twitter for recommendations of regency romances that weren't all about a man too traumatized to love. I believe this book, or at least this author, was a rec. I get why because I like the way Reid told this story but also... this is a book about a man too traumatized to love. By the time we reach the end of these kinds of stories, and the main character has made some kind of false assumption, and sent the woman away in pain and anger, I'm so #overit. That's exactly what happens here. I mean, I read the whole damn thing, but it just wasn't my favorite.

3.5 stars

I wasn't sure how much I liked this because I'm always very hesitant when it comes to hate-to-love romances. I ended up like this a lot, though, specifically because it was a prejudice and misunderstanding kind of "hate" versus a dickish and abusive hate. The story was deliciously smooth and easy to consume. It was very predictable, though. It's the kind of story you pick up because you know all the notes it will hit, and that's the satisfaction you want from it. It's feel good sexy romance with the added bonus of giving you the room to really get to know the characters. While reading, I was enjoying myself, but I was surprised by the end how much I felt like I wasn't ready to leave these characters behind.

Solid, though not mind-blowing, and it was great for me when I was in a funky reading mood and unsure what I wanted to pick up next.

As I was making my struggle updates, people kept telling me that it was SATIRE see and that maybe I wasn't understanding how SATIRE it was because get it? SATIRE.

Like, y'all. I get it. One of the things that I love about Austen is her humor, her wit and how she builds cutting commentary into her plots. It's funny that the assumption is that I'm missing the parody in Northanger Abbey because Austen isn't subtle here. I don't have to have read Udolpho in order to understand that Austen is riffing it and others like it. In reading this, I think I've just found that I more appreciate her irony and commentary when it is less exaggerated. I know that would make this story less like a parody, but alas...

Catherine sometimes came across, by virtue of what this story is, as more of a caricature than a character. I spent most of the story wanting to shake her. At her best, she's caring and kind if naive. At her worst (and most), she gave me such second hand embarrassment, this took me way longer than it should've to read. I appreciate her growth towards the end, and this idea of having a good-natured heroine who is bad at reading people, but there was materially less to endear me to Catherine than other of Austen's heroines. By design, too, for Austen is that mix of caring and slightly patronizing to Catherine that Henry arguably is.

Overall, it was fine. Definitely not my favorite Austen, and I probably won't take any pains to reread this, but there is humor enough here to enjoy, especially for fans of Austen.

It was enjoyable to read something new from Taylor, something outside of Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and have it be new and yet familiar. That is how I would describe this read. New world, new characters, new problems and yet Taylors familiar style, her wordiness and lushness and her loves that cannot be and that exist on the same plane of other very big and important problems. If you struggled through Daughter of Smoke and Bone because of it's slow pace, that wordiness, or because of the intensity of the romance, this also will not be for you.

Even I struggled to get into the beginning because this is slow, in a way. It takes a while for the problem to be presented, then a while for us to get to the problem, and once we're in front of the problem, we stop for romance and dreams and kisses. Even while I was enjoying it, I could recognize that pacing wasn't great.

I really loved the world and the problems of this world. Trigger warning for sexual assault and rape. It was something that was also explored in the second book in the DOSAB trilogy, and it was just as raw and heartbreaking here.

I love Lazlo Strange. I love him so very much. He's good, even as he learns that good people do bad things, and he's smart and loves libraries and he's brave and he tries so hard and I love it. Even though we also spent time with Sarai, I don't feel like I got to know her the way I got to know Lazlo.

The ending was heartbreaking. I kind of hoped it would end the way that it did, but even as it did, I saw the way it could all go awry. So, it was both satisfying and horrible to have it be just so.

I should've probably know this was a series because duh, of course it is, but grumble grumble. A very cliffhanger cliffhanger means we all have to wait for a long time for satisfaction.

1.5 stars

It took me almost a month to read this, a book I would ultimately call easy to read. Whenever I psyched myself up to read it, I would definitely feel I was making easy progress through the story, and can see why some people would get lost in the whimsy contained in these relatively few pages and enjoy the experience.

I, ultimately, did not. I'm giving in 1.5 stars because I give everything I read at least a one star rating. Compared with the bottom of the barrel, this was better. It contained a level of skill that distinguished it from the worst things I read this year, so my 1.5 is comparative. 2 stars is "it was okay," but I'm not entirely sure that this was, in fact, okay.

I'll explore in more details in a video review what went wrong for me here. I'll admit that this was starting with a giant side-eye. As background, I really enjoyed Maggie as a speaker when I saw her at Nerdcon: Stories. I enjoyed most of the first couple of books in the Raven Cycle. Things started to go a little sour for me because of some of her comments on social media and then with the announcement of this book, often called "magical realism" (pfft) and about a town hilariously named Bicho Raro.

BICHO RARO.

But all that, you know. So, as I said, I went into this already having chalked up negative points against it. Whether fair or not, we all walk into works of fiction with our experiences and biases and that's the way the cookie crumbles. What I found in Maggie's tale of a Mexican family living in Colorado and performing miracles wasn't overtly offensive that I noticed (I am a Latina, but not Mexican) but it was hollow. It's difficult to explain the ways that this story lacked life in the details that comprised the family at the heart of it. From the translations of certain phrases, to the nicknames of some of the characters, to the way that the context of being a Mexican family in Colorado during that time period is all but missing, or else very briefly alluded to in an (to repeat myself) empty way. At the end of the day, Stiefvater has written a story about a Latino family as mystical minorities, performing miracles on mostly white people to rid them of darkness. She's written characters she can only know tangentially and to me, it showed. Whether or not she can or should write these character is not an argument for this review. My only point right now is that she created something that I think rang a little false to me.

And that's just kind of the out-of-the-gate representation, which everyone will have their own impassioned takes on. The worst thing to me is that this was a hollow approximation of "magical realism" (fabulism) in terms of plot, setting and characters. That is not to say that people will not enjoy this. It's just that I enjoy my fabulism when it's a little less spaghetti-throw-against-a-wall. I enjoy it when there is subtle meaning woven through the fantastical elements. I like it when you don't have to name the town (what is arguably) Oddball because GEDDIT?

Stiefvater gave a lot of style and very little substance. Everything felt half-formed. There was so little plot that it became work to drag myself through the random bits of descriptions and backstory and strange pieces of ~~~whimsy that litter an already short book. There are a few relationships that try to support the action and motivation, but they exist when we start the story and we don't get enough of a feeling of how or why they developed for me to feel invested.

Not for me in the least. There are so many other places you can find rich magical realism, meaningful fabulism, and even if what you wanted was twee whimsy, there is better of that out there as well.