aemryreads's reviews
29 reviews

I don't usually log short stories, but this one was on the longer side of the stories I'd been assigned in class and it is probably my favorite short I've ever read.

This was so engaging from the start. The narration and writing style had me hooked. Everything was laid out perfectly, making it super easy to read. The humor in this piece is amazing. It has some dark turns and extremely relevant themes, but throughout it all, Saunders is able to throw in a joke, which made this story so enjoyable. I was giggling to myself and smiling at my computer. People in the library probably thought I was nuts. 

This book is my Dune and I don’t mean that in the nice way you think I do. 

There are movies that look absolutely stunning, having an amazing score, and A-list actors that, while impressive and objectively great, are just not that entertaining. For me (and many others) this is Dune. Now don’t get me wrong, I think Dune is a really interesting movie. But interesting is not necessarily the same as entertaining. 

My favorite movies and books are the ones that can do both, “both” meaning “be both interesting conceptually/thematically and entertaining in its execution”. 

Blood Over Bright Haven was so so interesting. By all means, this novel is written spectacularly. I have little to no complaints about anything from a logistical perspective, whether that be writing, grammar-even plot points all made sense. However, I found that I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to reading this as I made my way through it, or rather I didn’t feel it drawing me to open it up. 

The main reason I think this is the case is because of the characters. They weren’t entirely relatable for me. This makes for a really interesting read as an outsider, but makes it super hard for me to become emotionally attached to either of our main protagonists. 

Speaking of, our main protagonist is kind of a selfish insane bitch! You give me an egotistical recluse who only gives a fuck about her work and her advances AND you make her discriminatory???? How am I supposed to root for someone like that? Regardless of her character development, I didn’t connect with her on any other level to begin with (aside from obviously being on board with the whole female in the male fields part but if you’re not on that train what are you even doing, you’re not on Storygraph be real) so how am I supposed to care for her later when she finally becomes a human?

Again, this makes for a very interesting conversation: are bad people redeemable? This was something I really enjoyed throughout the book; this book asks a lot of intriguing questions through the conversations/disagreements between our leads. These were fun to think about and I do believe the themes in this book are very important and great topics of conversation for book clubs. 

Overall, this was a good read, but I never found myself “needing” to get home to read this. 

I just deleted this entire review on accident and almost had a mental breakdown. Apparently if you delete what you typed on your iPhone, you can just shake it and it will ask if you want to undo your actions. The more you know. 

Mickey 7 is one of those books that objectively isn’t that great, but the characters are so good that you choose to ignore it. And by characters I mean Mickey. 

I’ll start with the positives. First and foremost, Mickey is such a fun character. The main reason I enjoyed this book to any capacity was the narration. It’s witty. It’s engaging. It feels like a friend is telling me a story. It helps that I related to the manner in which Mickey spoke, told stories, and thought. Basically all the witty lines and jokes landed for me. 

Mickey is an extremely likable character, which is why it’s a bit upsetting that most of the other characters fell a bit flat. I guess this is one of the cons of writing in first person for an entire book, especially when you write in the first person for such an engaging and entertaining character. 

In addition the this, the plot was super fun and interesting in concept. The execution was half there. As I neared the end of the book, I started to realize that barely anything happens plot wise, which is interesting because it feels like a lot more happens that in reality. The entire book takes place over around 3 or 4 days if I’m correct, which is something… I’m not sure if it helped or hurt the story because in the end, it doesn’t really matter how much time passed between the beginning and end of this story so…

The ending was underwhelming overall. When I finished the last page and turned to see the Acknowledgments, I said out loud, “oh that’s it?” Which is probably the one thing you don’t want to say when you finish a book. 

One aspect I really enjoyed was the difference six weeks can make in a person. 

I read this in anticipation for the movie adaptation and I’m so so curious and excited to see how they adapt this. I’m sure there will be some big changes, especially since half of the novel is Mickey retelling other beachhead expeditions and stories. I genuinely can’t wait. 

Overall, this was a fun read even if it wasn’t the best.

This review will be a mixed bag of emotions. Spoilers ahead, but not before some overview.

Crooked Kingdom takes place essentially immediately after the events in Six of Crows. We follow the crew we met last time as they attempt to earn back what was rightfully theirs from Van Eck and deal with the inevitable challenges that make it harder for them to do so. 

It’s worth the read, but I can’t promise it will be as good as the first. It definitely wasn’t for me.

What makes this book both intriguing and simultaneously infuriating is that there is no clear plan as there was in the last book. Simply put, we have a rather vague end goal—get the thirty million Van Eck owed them—and no plan to get there. On one hand, this makes for a fun read; we never know what to expect from our gang of far too young thieves. It keeps us on our toes and inclined to continue reading because how, oh how, will our beloved criminals make it out of their binds this time? Will they get their money? Will they live? All of these questions are ones that should keep me up at night figuratively. However, I slept like it was my job. Employee of the month. 

The trouble with this unset plan (for the entire book) is that there are no longer stakes. Sure we need to

rescue Inej.

. And yes, we need to

find a way out of the city after it has been locked down

. But, with our ever-changing plans, it is hard for me to maintain this sense of tension. This is funny because I’m sure the opposite effect was intended. 

Allow me to explain how I see it.

When one plan goes wrong in Crooked Kingdom, one of two things happens. 1: It ends up working in the crew’s favor. 2: It was the crew’s/Kaz’s plan all along, therefore was intended. It’s not difficult to catch onto this, which in turn, takes the suspense out of reading the events in this book. In Six of Crows, we were in an unfamiliar environment with a crew we couldn’t fully trust, using plans that weren’t guaranteed to work. Makes for an action-packed, tension-filled story. In Crooked Kingdom, we face numerous enemies (all of whom outnumber our crew of six), new advanced Grisha (more on this later), and Pekka Rollins I guess (I was trying to think of a third thing to add to this list, which should say something about the antagonists and how that was all written). In addition to this, the whole city is against our cast. So, why didn’t I feel scared for them at all? Why was I certain that they would get their way at the end of this book? Maybe because they are back on their own turf. Sure, the city is against them, but we know for a fact that they know the city and its inhabitants in and out. They’ll use it to their advantage, surely. On top of this, our silly little crew trusts each other now. There is still tension between characters throughout the book, but the majority of the character relations in this novel revolve around flirting and navigating romantic relationships, which makes for a fun read, yes, but dissolves any sort of tension that made the first book so engaging. Granted, the romantic aspects in this novel create an entirely different tension, which I will discuss later. The point is, despite the seemingly stacked odds against our cast, the tension doesn’t even draw near what it should, which was a bit disappointing.

Now that my biggest gripe is out of the way, let’s clear some things up with a healthy amount of positivity, shall we?

Bardugo manages to write characters in such a dynamic way, I can’t help but enjoy my reading. And what is reading for, if not for enjoyment?  Her characters feel alive and I can envision each of them in my head thanks to her talent for writing unique character voices. 

Along with this, I am pleased with her writing of relationships, especially between

Kaz and Inej. I knew that if their relationship was rushed and ended on a certain note, I would have been extremely annoyed. Thankfully, Bardugo knows her characters and she knows them well. Their relationship progressed at its natural pace, and we ended on a high note, yes, but one that aligned with where her characters were mentally, allowing the tension between them and what’s to come to speak for itself.

I commend that.

In general, this was a fun read and, though I do like the first novel better, I will say this is a decent sequel.

Back to my gripes.

The pacing felt a little funny. In this novel, we get loads and loads of backstory. At one point, it felt like every other chapter I was getting pages of backstory from a new character. Though these were intriguing and well-written, I can’t help but feel it slows the pace, which is intriguing given that several plot points in this book rely heavily on a time constraint. 

Next:

The armed, winged soldiers. She really said, “BEHOLD! LOOK UPON THESE POWERFUL CREATURES OF UNNATURAL CREATION. SEE HOW THEY FIGHT RELENTLESSLY. FEEL AS YOU TAKE YOUR FINAL BREATHS - oh… oh, you fought them off? Oh, umm… okay, I guess I just won’t mention them again.” I exaggerate. Bardugo mentioned them once (maybe twice) hundreds of pages after those soldiers were introduced. They feel unnecessary. And given that they don’t appear again, I think Bardugo felt the same.

Several things felt underwhelming so, I guess I will categorize the next small complaints in a big title that says “underwhelming”.

UNDERWHELMING:

And last but not least, I still think the characters are too young to be planning and executing all this stuff, but there’s no changing that, and I guess I just have to accept that. 

It is a very different book from the first one, and to be honest, if not for the lovable characters and the want to see them succeed, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed this book to the point that I did. I feel that my rating reflects those feelings. 

In other news, we need to band together and stop whoever is putting those irremovable “stickers” on the covers of books. Throws off the whole cover. 

Hello storygraph users. it is time for my first review on this app since switching from goodreads. Get excited.

Six of Crows was the first book I've read in a while that had me actively longing to read throughout the day. It's like the opposite of a reading slump. This book was addicting. 

I read a fantasy heist book last year and was pretty neutral about it. Definitely had my complaints. I'm happy to say that Six of Crows is levels above that book. 

Six of Crows follows a young ass gang leader (basically) who is offered some big bucks in exchange for him pulling off an impossible heist. Boy forms crew. Crew forms plans. Crew attempts to pull off plan. There is action. There is banter. There is yearning (oh yuppp). There's character development (OH YUPP).

It's really difficult to make a heist not engaging in my opinion. The hard part is writing a heist in a smart, and simultaneously, unpredictable way. And I do bleieve Six of Crows accomplished this. While I wasn't completely flabbergasted at certain reveals along the way, I still enjoyed myself.

The characters in a heist story always make or break it. This ensemble of minots (more on this later) is fun to read, each member with a distinct personality and voice. They were likable, funny, smart, etc. This was a book where I throroughly enjoyed each perspective I read, which can be hard to come by sometimes. 

In terms of plot, I was very pleased with how Bardugo balanced out main heist with the character relationship subplots. I never felt the subplots were pushing the main plot out of the way or moving too fast. I am so so happy about the way Kaz's subplot ended. No further words your honor. 

I will be starting Crooked Kingdom tomorrow probably. I can't get enough of this. And I need to know what happens next.

Big recommendation for fans of heists and fantasy and also crwos. There's six crows in this book if you didn't realize. Apologies for this dumbass joke. It's past my bedtime :)

Oh omg I almost forgot. I know this is YA and the more YA fantasy books I read, the more often I come to this complaint: if your characters are going to act older than they are, just make them older. TWENTY IS STILL YOUNG, PEOPLE. DO WE NOT THINK TWENTY IS YOUNG? It's quite annoying from a logistics standpoint when I'm reading about a seventeen year old plan and create weapons and outsmart adults and even talk a certain way. I understand due to an environment, people can grow up quick. But it still is a bit unrealistic to me. If it walks like an older person and talks like an older person, it's probably not a seventeen year old. I'm just saying. Anyway, it doesn't make the book less enjoyable, but I will complain about this (when warranted) until the day I stop reading YA books forever.

This is why I need to get into high fantasy.