patmeal's reviews
23 reviews

This is my 2nd fantasy novella in the last 7 days and I continue to be in awe of the amount of worldbuilding that writers can pack into so few pages. This one is so rich and engaging, shifting naturally from the slow, repetitive training scenes to action-packed hunts. I fell deeply in love with the main character and her beautiful monster and I wish I could read more about them.

2025 is the year of the short story/novella for me and this is my first Claire Keegan. My main takeaway from this: oof. Devastating. Sparse yet beautiful and evocative writing. It takes a special kind of talent to make you fall in love with the characters in so few words. 

“See, there’s three lights now where there was only two before.” 😭

THIS WAS AMAZING. Both characters are so vividly drawn and incredibly compelling from the go, each with their own neuroses, unique cadences, and complexities that make them feel like real people. The progression of their relationship and the big/little ways they misunderstood each other, gave the other grace, grieved, comforted, PINED - all delicious. The slightly freaky sex was also really fun and very unique to the genre (complimentary) lmao 

The HEA is so hard-won, rightly so, and wonderfully satisfying. I’ll always look forward to what Yulin Kuang comes up with next. 

This is so beautifully written and packs so much in so few pages. Really looking forward to the next novellas in the series.

Tremendous. Hits hard (womp womp) right out of the gate and doesn’t let up for even a second. 

I have to say that it’s a fascinating experience, reading this and Just Mercy so close together - the supposedly over-the-top, dystopian, fictional events here are natural extensions of the injustices and horrifying prison statistics outlined in Bryan Stevenson’s memoir. Like, we’re barely half a step behind, and as the weeks and months progress since this book was first published, it all feels closer to being real. 

Kevin R Free is such a talent and brought the characters to life in really fun and compelling ways. I’m kind of in love with Murderbot - I'm slowly parceling out the series over several months and I’m so excited to more in the near future.

I probably should've stopped reading at around 20% when the kindergarten poetry, em dashes, and "gray eyes" were already grating on me. (According to my Kindle search, "gray eyes" was used 49 times. "Captain of the Destiers" appeared a whopping 81 times). But I kept going and now at least I can say with my whole chest that this is a terrible, terrible book. I genuinely can't understand why so many people with otherwise good taste speak highly of it.

The main character is helpless and bumbling in a way that I thought we'd all left in 2010s YA, the Pokemon card magic system wasn't interesting at all, and the prose has "this needed multiple rounds of editing" flashing all over it. The author threw in so many romance tropes (meet ugly, rivals, fake courtship) - they were all paper-thin and fell completely flat. Writing out this review expended neurons and mental energy that this book absolutely does not deserve so I'll stop here.

My first Toni Morrison (I know) and oh. my god. Such skillful writing, so many amazing turns of phrase, and honest, stark storytelling. 

Rereading romance faves always feels like coming home - I haven’t gone back to this one in a long time but it’s still undeniably top tier. Lucy Parker is such a star.

Everything about this story is so dense and complicated - I reached the final page and still didn’t have any kind of grasp on the political/religious/magic system. The classic book 1 fantasy trope of Protagonist Doesn’t Know Stuff was even more frustrating because of this, the I’ll-tell-you-laters just kept piling up and kept me from rooting for any of the characters. 

I picked this up because the full story is supposed to be exciting and wonderful etc, but book 2 is 600+ pages and book 3 is almost 800 pages and I don’t think I have it in me to get through all of that, sadly.