mynameismarines's reviews
1076 reviews

[December 31, 2016] - Marking for rearead

[December 14, 2015] - Marking for reread. I was amazed that on this, my third time reading this book, I was still biting my nails just as soon as Harry entered the maze at the end. I knew what was coming and it really gave me deep sads to think about where it all would lead.

I said in my last update that it was wonderful to watch the kids growing up and I'll only add to that that it comes together with the series growing up as well. We see it take a turn for the dark here. I know people give Harry a lot of flack for being angsty, but can you just imagine? I get so frustrated for him and how no one ever believes him, starting with not putting his name into the Goblet of Fire and ending with Voldemort's return. Plus, he now feels directly responsible for the return of Voldemort and the death of Cedric Diggory.

I have bad associations with Cedric and Robert Pattison, and that's unfortunate, because Cedric is a great character. When Dumbledore gives his "Remember Cedric" speech, there were definitely sniffles happening.

I LOVED Hermione in this book. In a lot of ways, she's super self-confident. She tends to be so above the teasing and prickling of the other students. When she gets it in for Rita Skeeter, she is just CONFIDENT that she's going to stop her and show her. And she does because Hermione is the best forever. Yes, she can be a bit rigid, but Harry and Ron are so lucky to have her as a friend. So much gets done because Hermione gets it done.

It's interesting, though, that it's in this same book that we get the scene with Hermione's teeth growing. This is a good a time as any to mention how much I HATE Snape. He made fun of a 14-year-old girl's appearance so much, it pushes her to permanently change her appearance. WHO DEFENDS THIS CREATURE? PLEASE STOP HE'S AWFUL. He also reads one of Rita's columns out loud in class so all the other students can laugh at Harry and Hermione. Also, when Harry goes running to fetch Dumbledore because Barty Crouch appeared from the forest, Snape just stops him because it pleases him to be mean to Harry. I hate him so much.

Whenever I think of Sirius, I think of how hard I fell in love with him in what seems a short amount of time. I saw a little more clearly why in this book, where his presence is pretty constant throughout. Sirius really cares for Harry and it's so nice that Harry has that. There is this whole scene at the beginning where Harry needs to tell someone about his scar and he can't think of who, but then it dawns on him that he has Sirius now. He's never had that kind of person to turn to and it's just... gah. Feelings. Feelings right up until Sirius has to leave at the end and Harry's like "WAIT! NO!" No, please Sirius. Don't leave.

Dear goodness, THE WEASLEYS. They are warmth and love and humor and caring and I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. From Mr. Weasley at the beginning, running off with his older sons to see about the dark mark, to Mrs. Weasley and Bill coming as Harry's family before the last task. I forgot they showed up and when Harry walks into that room and Mrs. Weasley is there and he just lights up... So good. And then at the end when Molly gives Harry a hug and it's the first time he can feel his feelings about everything that's happened. He says that no one has ever hugged him this way, like a mother. I might cry right now just typing this.

Finally, J.K. Rowling is so very specific about every element she introduces into the world. Every once in a while, it comes off a little convenient, but for the most part, I appreciate how intentional and connected and foreshadowed everything is. At the beginning of the story, she tells us about port keys for the first time as they are whisked away to the Quidditch World Cup. At the end of the story, it's a port key that takes Harry to face Voldemort. A couple of books ago, Dumbledore straight up told Harry that it's possible that some part of Voldemort is in Harry and this book, Voldemort talks about the measures he took to evade death. There are so many other things like this and I love it.

I'm hesitant to go on. Bad things happen, guys. Very bad things.

[December 25, 2013] - Marking for reread. I remember that the first time through, I marveled at how Rowling was growing these characters up before our eyes. Their first dance and the changing dynamics of their relationships. Bigger challenges and very real danger. Death. This time, I suffered for Harry more, knowing what is still ahead of him, and resenting Ron even while understanding him. Sirius, though. God I love that man.

Definitely a strong 3.5 stars.

I really enjoyed my reading experience during Serpentine. It was engaging, quick, it was centered around a female friendship and is for all intents and purposes a coming of age story. Tick, tick, tick, tick on the list of things I like to read.

I had the pleasure of hearing Pon speak at NerdCon and I just fell in love with the bright and personable way she comes across. However, it was how she described this book that made me want to read it. In Serpentine, she said she created a female character whose body changes and it makes her question everything. Pon said she wrote it for her growing daughter, though in her book, her MC is less going through puberty (I promise) and more turning into half a serpent. I will say that I really enjoyed that theme throughout the story. Everyone was telling Skybright who she was or who she was supposed to be, whether serpent or human. Her roles and lots in life were pre-determined and the more she asked the questions of who and what she was, the more voices joined the mix to provide answers she wasn't fully sold on. Zhen Ni's story underlines this in a super heartbreaking way. We don't learn a ton about the context of the world these two live in, though we know it is Chinese-folklore inspired, it has gods and monsters, and it seems to pretty old-school in terms of handmaidens and marrying off womenfolk. Zhen Ni falls in love with another girl and she gets a difficult lesson on duty and those pre-determined roles for women. Zhen Ni is a little spoiled and... squeaky?... for my tastes, but she is also loyal and full of fire and I felt for her a ton by the end of the book.

All that said, I think there is definitely some room for improvement. I love description heavy writing, but if you don't, you may run into a couple problems here. I mean, when I was reading it, I didn't think, "wow! These are a lot of descriptions." If I'm honest, there were a couple times when I jumped a paragraph or two to get to the action. As I was reading through reviews on Goodreads, I saw "description heavy" come up a couple of times and went, "ooooh." If that helps at all. Basically, description level: I didn't notice it per se, but a few times I skimmed to get to the action.

Also, as much as I loved the main themes of the story, they got to a little bit repetitive toward the end. In general, the story told had lots of repetition. We find Skybright waking up as a snake a few times, she runs into the forrest a few times, she searches for Kai Sen a couple of times. What saves it all is that the story moves quickly and is relatively short so that repetition never got out of hand for me.

I really liked Skybright as a character. She's so mature and gathered and loyal. I wish we had seen a little more of her (in terms of getting to know her), but again, it was a relatively short book with a lot going on. And of course, Skybright is in flux when we meet her so we only get to know her as much as she's getting to know herself. As an aside, when I first started reading, I thought Skybright and Zhen Ni were a lot younger than they actually are. I think it might be some of the dialogue that made it seem that way. There were points I would've pegged them as young as 12 or 13. I wish I had been paying attention to if this seemed that way because 1- stilted dialogue or 2- sheltered characters or 3- me and some reading comprehension issues. Alas.

I finished this book last night and immediately bought the second book from my Kindle. Y'all know how terrible I am about series, so the fact that I even want to read the second book should convey that I'm invested in this story and these characters.

Solid, entertaining read made for a Saturday afternoon when you've got some hours to spare.

Full review to come

Another book for Hispanic Heritage Month! I used to watch the movie adaptation of this with my sisters when we were kids (appropriate or not....) Finally reading the book was like coming home, in a lot of ways. The prose is so beautiful, smooth, seamless all while being tragic and at times over-the-top. I think it's a must read for everyone, if only to experience.

Full review to come!

This is my first finished book for #HispanicHeritageReads and it was a great start. I thought the right was constantly sweet and nice, if not always very sophisticated. The story was pretty simple, but I loved the underlying feeling that beneath this story of scales and wings and family feuds, there was subtle commentary about prejudice and the blindness of hate. I enjoyed it a lot and the highest compliment I can pay it is that I already miss the characters. I love Lace and Luc and just want to hug them both. Look for them to be near the top of my end of year couple rankings.

Full review to come. In the meanwhile, here is this cool liveshow I did with some awesome people!

First I DNFed this book and then I skimmed the last 40% and read the ending. Truly, this is somewhere between a DNF and a one star because it is awful and when I wasn't dying laughing over the terrible writing, I was in actual pain over the terrible writing. Nothing that I could think of as a positive (there aren't many things...) hold much water because of the terrible writing.

Sarah J. Maas forces tone and plot. She forces her choice of love interest down our throats. She spoon feeds her audiences about everything and spells out every interaction, every conversation and every damn look that passes between characters.

I truly don't get how this is so highly rated.
Everything is awful.

[June 20, 2016] This was quite a strange rereading experience. Two years after my original read, I came back to discover that this story resonated so much with me originally because I read it at the right time. It is a story about grieving that found me after a time of personal grief and I loved it. Perhaps this idea is best summed up by a quote from this very book:

"People need other people to feel things for them," she said. "It gets lonely to feel things all by yourself."

I won't lower my rating to anything under five stars, but I think I walked away from this reread knowing that this book isn't for everyone and it isn't for every time. That said, I still truly appreciated it for it's disarmingly simplistic tale. It's so steeped in fairytale qualities and tropes that it's easy to be lulled into a sense that the story is doing less than it does. It's easy to see this story of a girl trapped in an attic by a cruel stepmother and take it at that face value instead of seeing that just one step deeper, it is really about a girl after the death of her father, trapped in a world without color and life, locked in a room of grief and inaction, spurred into action by the idea of putting her father to rest.

Perhaps now removed from that time of grief, I was also struck by how much the story also commented on the injustice of life. Certainly that is something one can dwell on after loss. There are many cartoonishly bad people in this story, but there is also a lot of commentary about how need sometimes pushes people to be blind if not bad. Plus, we get the sense of how unfair it is that this has all happened to Liesl, but also to Po and Will and Mo.

This story will always have a special place in my heart and I've confirmed that it is definitely one I can revisit across my life. Plus, I found out that Jim Dale is the narrator of the audiobook and he was as wonderful as he always is. He fit the story perfectly.

[July 28, 2014]

Gorgeous.

I feel like I always start reviews of books by Lauren Oliver this way, but Lauren Oliver and I have an ongoing love/hate relationship. No, she doesn't know that. And it's more love than hate.

For all of the probelms I've ever had with her stories, I typically cannot speak ill of her writing style. She's good at the writing thing, and you can arguably say that here, she is at her best.

Liesl & Po is a middle grade book, but dismissing it as just that is a disservice to the story. Oliver talks about dealing with a personal loss and using this tale to explore that, and to me, it's apparent in every carefully crafted page. There are big themes of love and life and death here, of friendship and moving on, that were perfectly paired with the simplicity of the story and innocence of the main character.

In fact, one of the biggest issues I've had with Oliver in the past was world building, but I think here she gets it right. She created a lovely vehicle for her story and it resonnated deeply with me.

I've always been a sucker for stories with fairytale qualities, and perhaps if that is not true for you, you won't enjoy this. However, don't write it off simply because it is middle grade.

Check out my review and discussion of Americana.

I started this book at the beginning of this year and put it aside after a single chapter because I wasn't convinced I would enjoy it. This is why I come back to books, because sometimes I'm wrong and sometimes it takes a second look.

I'm so glad I gave Americanah another chance because it is one of just a few 5 star books I've read this year. It is smart, funny, well written, sincere and overall something to be experienced. I want to use the word important, because it feels that way, but that gives the false impression that there is something to learn here or that Americanah will try to teach you something. I don't think that it does. I think this is the story of one woman's experiences, one man's experiences, steeped in class and race politics, perhaps looking at places, sections of society and people you've seen little of or never been exposed to. And if you have, if you know people like Ifemelu or know the places she's walked, seeing it reflected in this story I think becomes such an experience, in and of itself.

Ifemelu is a flawed character, one that I was invested in but not necessarily rooting for. I didn't always agree with her decisions, but I still felt for how they complicated her life. I think her voice is so well-defined and sharp and smart.

One of my highest praises is saying that I would reread a book and I would certainly reread this one. I think there must be so much more that I missed in the blog posts and in the commentary and in the interactions and I'd love to pick it all up during a second (or third or fourth) reread.

I talk about rereading this book in this reading wrap-up!

This is such a brilliant collection, filled with heart and meaning, all in such a limited amount of words. I'm amazed at how much Waheed can communicate on a couple of lines and in a handful of words. She captures entire experiences and complicated emotions with a sentence and a title. It left me in awe on a number of occasions.

I didn't always understand the formatting choices. Sometimes, she breaks up lines in such a way to emphasize specific words or add some rhythm to her words. Other times it felt too choppy and it disturbed the meaning of the poems for me. Clearly, though, I still gave this five stars because it deserves it. I also have a feeling that the format things I didn't like would feel better upon reread and this is certainly a collection I mean to reread.

i don't pay attention to the
world ending.
it has ended for me
many times
and began again in the morning.

we lay
in our country.
love makes us a homeland
- bed

if someone
does not want me
it is not the end of the world.
but
if I do not want me.
the world is nothing but endings

i think one
of the most pathological
things i have ever seen
is
stabbing
someone
and
then telling them that
their
pain and anger
over being stabbed
is
making you sad.
- white guilt

Check out this full video review.


At the core of this book is an action-adventure story with some charm and packed with nostalgia. There are fun descriptions of game-play elements and a scavenger hunt with high stakes and complex clues. If there is anything to recommend this story, it's that core of action and adventure. I think that those who love this book must lock on to this portion and hold on tight. Unfortunately for me, I just couldn't look beyond the sloppy surrounding bits of Cline's story, especially has they had to do with some problematic messaging and lazy character building.

This is one giant wish fulfillment story. The geeky boy is the start and he works from the beginning of the story to the ultimate end game of large, in charge and with the girl. We can start the listing of problems with the fact that he starts fat and ends skinny because of course.

The love interest is one of 2 (ish) named female characters and both of those serve the function of love interest. Cline hits a lot of the low points of cheap ways to use women in your story, including if she's not a love interest, she's a lesbian, a woman came between us and now we are enemies, and you are good girl, but not as good as me a man.

While some people really enjoyed the cultural references, I found it hit or miss. At some points I thought it was cool and added to the story. At others, it felt pointless to simply LIST THINGS, basically to prove that our MC (and by extension Cline) knew them. Amazingly, I felt like if Cline somehow made these references condescending. There was certainly a gate-keepery vibe going, for me at least. Also, it didn't work for me at the very beginning of the story, where the exposition was so heavy, the story couldn't take off until about the 75 page mark.

While I enjoyed the scavenger hunt in general, I thought in the end it was kind of a JUST BECAUSE thing. There really was no reason why it existed, why it was created other than JUST BECAUSE. That left me super disappointed.

In general, this book disappointed me, and that's not even touching on the spoilery bits that were probably the worst of all.

Full review to follow.