I have to start this review by talking about the world-building in Court of Fives. It was perfection. I totally bought into this world, and I felt fully immersed in it. There were no “Huh? What? Why? That makes no sense” moments. The basis for and the rules of society were established early on, and it was accomplished without an info dump. This is a rigid, two class, patriarchal society – the Patrons and the Commoners. Jes comes from a… Read more »
This is my Twitter profile: “Anxiously awaiting an alien invasion. Or a zombie apocalypse. Either will do.” This is on page 4 of Armada: “I had spent hundreds of hours…silently yearning for the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse.” Zack, the MC, also expresses the desire for humanity to make contact with intelligent alien life sometime during his lifetime, which is a also a desire that I have often expressed. So I was certain from the beginning that I would feel a… Read more »
One of the things that caught my eye in the synopsis for “Tangled Webs” is the description of the protagonist as “the most notorious blackmailer” in eighteenth-century London. But after reading “Tangled Webs,” I have to say, “er, not so much.” Arista is a sympathetic and fairly complex character, but a notorious blackmailer? I think it would be more honest to call her a glamorous messenger. It’s impossible not to feel compassion for Arista who, along with other children, is… Read more »
After finishing “The Cage“, I’m questioning whether this story is actually “otherwordly,” as described in the synopsis, because I unfortunately never really had the sense that we were dealing with aliens on some distant planet. No, it wasn’t because the aliens intentionally created Earth-like environments in order to put their human captives at ease, as was explained numerous times in the story. (Yeah, good luck with that.) There was just no sense of “otherness”; it felt like this book could… Read more »
This poor book. It’s a mess. The first 20% of the book could have been an article in a women’s magazine titled, “My Rare and Potentially Fatal Illness,” by Penelope Landlow. I learned more than I cared to know about Penny’s illness which results in her bleeding internally at the slightest bump and requires regular monitoring and treatment. It goes on and on: Don’t touch Penny! Don’t let Penny go outside! Keep treating Penny like a helpless infant! When it… Read more »
I don’t usually pay much attention to titles, but “Delicate Monsters” intrigued me. What exactly is a “delicate monster?” After reading Stephanie Kuehn’s latest novel, I did some Googling and expected to find that the phrase is from a song or a poem or another book, and I wanted to see how it was originally used to get some additional insight into Kuehn’s ideas about her story. But it looks like it’s an original phrase that she created, so I will… Read more »
Here’s what I knew about the Lusitania prior to reading Dead Wake: Germany torpedoed and sunk a passenger ship in the Atlantic during WWI. Here’s what I know now: a whole lot more, thanks to Erik Larson’s meticulously researched and sourced book. It’s been a long time since my high school history classes, but I know that not a lot of attention was paid to WWI, and if the Lusitania was mentioned at all, it probably got a sentence in… Read more »
Confess! For those of you who have read this book, did you skip ahead to learn the identity of Blue? I was SO tempted to do this, but I refrained, and I’m glad. If you have not yet read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, (Come on! Read it!), Blue is the pseudonym of the mystery boy our MC, Simon, has been emailing. All Simon knows is that Blue is his high school classmate, and he has good grammar. (As… Read more »
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