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natreadthat's reviews
391 reviews
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
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? It's complicated
4.0
Okay, so the first two books were a whole lot of groundwork and world-building. Great world-building if you ask me, but still a little slow. Luckily, Heir of Fire picked up a bit.
We’re introduced to a few new characters, whose POVs are equally interesting to those of our old characters. The story itself is full of love, grief, growth, forgiveness, and slowly blooming friendships. I’m glad I kept with it and am eager to see where Celaena takes us next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Torture
From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Hannah and Gabe have been along for the ride for as long as they can remember as their mother moves them around the country. Now they’ve been settled down in one place for longer than they’ve been anywhere else and things are finally starting to feel a bit more normal.
But then Hannah wakes up on her seventeenth birthday with slits for pupils…then scales the next night… and something else the next night. Then their mother leaves to find a cure without coming back and they receive a letter about their estranged grandma’s funeral, they have no other choice but to go.
As they meet their extended family for the first time, Hannah and Gabe learn of their Jewish heritage and the long history of their family. Can the family secrets lead them to the cure for Hannah’s shape shifting and bring back their mom?
This book is rich with Jewish folklore, coming of age, and the struggles every family goes through. I think the audience was definitely the younger crowd but it was enduring enough to keep me reading through the end.
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Crown of Midnight started off slow and had me questioning if this series would live up to the hype I’ve heard from friends and the book community alike. And then somewhere around halfway through the book, a turn of events quickly changed everything for the better.
Celaena Sardothien is finally crowned the King’s Champion. All she has to do is kill whomever he wishes for a few years and she’ll get what she’s been after for far too long: freedom.
So off she goes, killing anyone the king has deemed an enemy. Or does she?
Celaena is back sassy as ever, along with her brooding love triangle, Dorian and Chaol. The three of them plus the mystical Princess Nehemiah from far off lands must untangle the mysteries laying beneath the glass castle and figure out what’s necessary to seek justice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Violence, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Confinement
Minor: Slavery
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.5
Psychological thriller, anyone?
Famous photographer Gabriel Berenson’s murder is a classic open-and-shut case: his wife and famous painter, Alicia, brutally shot him in the face five times and hasn’t spoken a word since.
Six years later, she is a patient at the Grove Mental Health Facility where a psychotherapist named Theo Faber hopes to help the still-silent Alicia. He isn’t completely altruistic though; Theo has been fascinated with Alicia, her work, and now, her silence for a long while. His desire to figure out her silence is nearly unbearable.
The Silent Patient is fast-paced, with twists, turns, and bumps along the way. I personally didn’t see the ending coming (I love when that happens!), but believe that even those savvy readers who may figure it out will still enjoy the ride.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Infidelity, Blood, and Suicide attempt
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
slow-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? It's complicated
3.5
I both liked and disliked this book.
A young girl meets a young boy at their Cape Cod summer homes and a friendship blossoms that lasts a lifetime.
It’s not until Elle is fifty that she admits to herself that she has loved Jonas for as long as she’s known him. And then they have sex — even though they both have been happily married for years on end.
Alternating between past and present, the story of Elle’s life, that has been speckled with harrowing abuse and trauma, comes to life. She must now decide between Peter, her beloved husband, and Jonas, her first and oldest love.
The Paper Palace is well-written, but contains many dark themes. There were a number of times that I had to put this one down to take a breather. Despite this, it was a good read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Rape, and Sexual assault
Minor: Cancer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
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? No
4.0
A science-y, high stakes, the-world-is-ending-but-this-book-is-mostly-fun read.
Our main character wakes up with no idea who he is, where he is, or what he’s doing. A robot on the ceiling has been taking care of him for… how long? He’s actually not sure. As he slowly regains his memory, gets strong enough to get out of bed, and fashions bedsheets into a toga, he finds out that he’s the sole survivor of a space mission to save planet Earth. No pressure whatsoever.
He remembers his name is Ryland Grace and despite being the world’s only hope at survival, he has the humor and wit to deal with such a profound realization. As his memory continues to defog, the narrative floats between past and present to tell the story of how he’s gotten to where he is now and how he’s going to try to save the planet.
Project Hail Mary is sci-fi enough to be entertaining, doesn’t require the reader to actually understand the science and math of it all, and is an enjoyable adventure through space. Amaze!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Medical content
Moderate: Confinement and Suicidal thoughts
Someone We Know by Shari Lapena
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
In an idyllic neighborhood where everyone seems to have something to hide, a teenage boy goes snooping. He isn’t up to much, just sneaking into people’s homes and hacking into their computers. No big deal right?
Everyone’s secrets are safe with him until his parents find out. Then his worried mother, against better judgement, writes two anonymous apologies and drops them on the doorstep of the houses he broke into… and it just so happens that one of those houses is the home of a recently murdered woman.
Someone We Know was a quick whodunit, laced with small-town secrets, nosy neighbors, skeletons in the closet, and plot twists along the way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Infidelity, and Mental illness
Moderate: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse
Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
If you could erase a bad memory, would you?
Nepenthe, a tech company, has unlocked the science of erasing memories and has opened it to the public. Patients have two options: they can knowingly erase a memory or they can erase a memory as well as the knowledge of doing so.
After running into legal trouble, Nepenthe is forced to alert former patients that they’ve unknowingly had a memory removed and give them the option to restore it. We follow Finn, Mei, William, and Oscar as they receive the grappling news as well as Noor, a psychologist that works there.
Tell Me An Ending does a good job of questioning life, love, morality, mental health, and trauma. The rippling effects of the situation are powerful throughout and begs you to figure out what happens next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, and Death of parent
Moderate: Addiction and Mental illness
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
After serving time in a juvenile detention center for involuntary manslaughter, Emmett is sent back home to Nebraska where his younger brother Billy awaits him. Eager to start afresh, Emmett’s plan is pack up the farm, pay off his father’s debts, and get the hell out of dodge. His plan goes sideways when two of his fellow detention center buddies show up after secretly hitching a ride in the warden’s trunk when Emmett was dropped off.
And so the four boys — Emmett, Billy, Duchess, and Woolly — set off on a roadtrip across the country. Emmett is keen on dropping Duchess and Woolly off at the train station so they can head to NYC in search of Woolly’s inheritance while himself and Billy head to California. And of course everything that can go bad, does go bad for Emmett.
Told from many different characters, The Lincoln Highway is the tale of four boys and the trouble they get into. While I didn’t connect with the story, the writing was still enjoyable and the ending was a surprise.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Suicide, and Death of parent
A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas
challenging
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Back at it again with the #acotar series! This little novella is the book between books and knowing that there was another whole book after this one is what kept me going.
Frost and Starlight was good, but it didn’t come anywhere close to Mist and Fury or Wings and Ruin. In another attempt to avoid series spoilers, I’ll be brief: the majority of this novella is spent with the Inner Circle as they recover from the war. SJM did a great job portraying past traumas, PTSD, losing a loved one, grieving, and trying to move forward from all of those things. And then there was a whole lot of good fluff.
While this novella didn’t do it for me like the others, it did leave me asking what comes next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Grief, Death of parent, and War
Moderate: Alcoholism and Mental illness