sarah984's reviews
627 reviews

Upstairs at the Beresford by Will Carver

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dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Very weird book overall. It is a prequel but references a lot of current events that happened after publication of the previous book. Boring, flat characters bordering on stereotypes. Very preachy unpleasant tone. I don't think I'll bother with the third book.

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Zero Cool by John Lange

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adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This is a popcorn book for sure. Fast pace, characters flat as cardboard cutouts, wild but nonsensical plot twists. The second star is for the murder weapon, which was at least original.

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Now You See Us by Balli Kaur Jaswal

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emotional hopeful informative medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This got a little didactic in places (felt like each character was created to address a specific issue), I didn't really care for the murder mystery side plot, and everything got a little too fantastical for me at the end, but overall I enjoyed this book about Filipino domestic workers in Singapore a lot. How do you live as a human in these circumstances is a question that each character is trying to answer in her own way.

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The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This horror novel had an interesting concept but I don't think it was very well executed. There were a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes (multiple instances of mixing up Josh and Dale's names, missing words, homophones etc), characters' personalities sometimes felt inconsistent, way too many shopping lists, and I think the epilogue in this version made the story worse by wrapping things up a little too pat. The horror takes a little too long to get started considering that we know what's going on way before any of the victim characters do. I did really like some of the things it was aiming for though, especially around the solidarity between the female characters and some attempted realistic tension and support in Sarah and Josh's marriage.

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The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz

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challenging dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Darkly absurd story about life under a totalitarian regime after a failed political revolution. The translation is breezy and readable despite the dark subject matter. Really liked this.

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The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Decent enough family drama slash murder mystery marred by a terrible eleventh hour plot twist. Feels like it wasted my time.

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Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

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challenging dark 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? Yes

5.0

Time travel stories can be a bit hit or miss for me - I find that a lot of the time they get too caught up in either the mechanics or the power fantasy, so they don't feel like they have anything to say. Kindred knows what it wants to say and says it effectively. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.

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Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun by Sarah Ladipo Manyika

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emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This was a sweet little story and I loved the main character's voice, but I think it needed to be either shorter or longer. Near the end it felt like it was kind of losing focus because there are so many side characters  for a book of this length. Most of it is kind of cozy and charming and then there's a terrible event that gets maybe 3 pages devoted to it near the end. Left me feeling a little weird.

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Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee

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dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I loved the first two books in this series, but this one unfortunately disappointed me. The massive time skips made it feel like reading a summary a lot of the time, and the book's length felt unnecessary - a lot of things happened that didn't really seem to be that important and a lot of time was wasted restating the themes in case we missed them. A lot of the characters I liked in the earlier books (especially Shae and Wen) felt diminished, relegated into uninteresting roles and this book seemed way more invested in upholding the clan structure and nuclear family as solely positive forces than the previous books.

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Long Division by Kiese Laymon

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adventurous challenging funny 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

Fascinating time travel novel with great characters, use of place and language, and mind bending meta elements. Dark and sad and funny and hopeful all at once, and full of characters I'd love to meet. Some parts were a bit confusing to me (what was up with the cat??) but if you can handle that I highly recommend it.

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