aphrael's reviews
719 reviews

Pretty well written but the main character seems all over the place in what she's like. The romance is sort of cute but also seems somewhat toxic. I like reading these kinds of books to see their take on danger, violence and power in world-saving and romance. That stuff is hard to balance and it shows, but that's not unique to this book. Bonus points for the age difference between the main characters only being like 4 or 5 years though. Quite solid world building. This book ended on quite a cliff hanger though.

First book I was pretty much on the fence, I don't care for time travel mostly and the book was so trope heavy that at times I was wondering if I had read it before and forgot. Davina was a bit of an annoying and impulsive idiot at times. I liked it more when Kaden became a bigger part of the story. The books playing out there stories of a pantheon of immortals way really interesting and at times philosophical, although in the end

we never really find out who it what the big bad is

. It's very tragic, but grounded by the normal people dealing with more down to earth politics and survival. For such a long 3 books the pacing is pretty good, and the amount of characters and the different things they're doing is just right to be interesting. 

I enjoyed the writing but really disliked how the ending was more of an explanation of stuff that has been going on the entire book apparently than a climax. This book is very much a setup for the next. The story is very tense and the characters are interesting, but apart from maybe Niko none seemed all that likeable. It sort of reminded me of Gideon the ninth in that it has a similar setup of a competition and a mystery but that book had a proper climax and relatable characters (even if other than the main ones that were much thinner). I loved Gideon much more, this book was a bit of a let down.

Pretty cool book! I like the sarcasm of the main character and the way capitalism works out after cloning was invented. The way the female characters kept falling for the guy seemed a bit wishful thinking on the authors part, a lot of the 'romantic' stuff was superfluous at best. The nature of the aliens wasn't very novel, but overall I really enjoyed the tone of the book and would consider trading more by this autour. 

Quite a lovely book. A lot of literal deus (ex machina) but the characters were increasing and had interesting relationships to each other anyway. I like that the main character was sassy and careful and lonely all at the same time. 

Creepy but in a good way. Not as funny as I expected from reading other books by this author. The author does fall into the trap of writing a "strong woman" by making her responsible for pretty much everything. Also the common mystery trope of the Sherlock Holmes stand-in who keeps information from his own teammates because otherwise the mystery will be solved too soon. That said, there's some interesting world building and a fun fast paced story. I don't do great with horror-adjacent books so I think I'll watch the tv show instead. 

Very large scale conflict but also good character building. I do feel like the  one was at times a bit distant and slow, which I ascribed to the inspiration it took from Asian stories. While I kept wanting to read on, the book also felt a bit exhausting, maybe because it was somewhat bleak. I do think it's extremely well written and interesting, but I don't really feel the need to read any more of this series. 

Pretty good but also pretty forgettable and dark. I didn't really relate to the characters much and don't remember enough about it now a few months later.

Mainly read this for nostalgia reasons. It's pretty cute. 

This is one of those "chronicling a family" books, luckily mainly focused on the younger generation. I generally don't like books that span generations and different time periods, so this book was a bit out of my comfort zone. Overall I did like the book more than I expected of a book of this type. The way the time periods and type of writing (prose, poems, letters etc) kept switching broke my immersion in the story a lot thought. The book ends on mainly prose (and a few letters), which means the ending kept my attention better than the start.
Many of the characters just send to drift through life. This is realistic but doesn't make for a great story. A lot of the book, especially

the deaths

seem pointless. I get that it's a stort of "slice of life" book, but it feels very manipulative of the writer to include

the death of Digby

as a sort of climax. While I do appreciate the way the book gets into daily life, it's still a fiction book, which means that nothing happens without the writer wanting it to happen. I really don't know what the writer wanted me to take away from this book. I don't think I'll be taking away anything other than this book (and/or life) being rather pointless. It's fairly well written and the younger generation of characters are likeable, but even after reading all those pages I still don't know any reason to read this book.