aphrael's reviews
719 reviews

This book consists on 3 parts, the first a rather rough prison story

that ends with the titular character making a spacesuit out of skin, the weirdest thing I've ever heard, and also stupid because in-world there seems not to be a plausible tech for it either

. The next two stories take part some years later and pretty much follow each other. the book and the plot are interesting but the pace is pretty slow. The characters aren't quite likable or relatable but they are believable. There world building is pretty good. It's almost like a play, it has something theatrical about it, the way the characters interact on such a tiny scale. But I'm the second and third book we find out ||that the gate of the world is in the protagonists hands||. That premise of how human beings deal with advanced technology is super interesting. The book itself maybe was a bit less interesting than the ideas it's playing with. I don't dislike the book but I don't think I like the writing style.

Een vlot en vriendelijk boekje over rijangst. De auteur vertelt haar persoonlijke verhaal en ook verhalen van een aantal anderen, zodat meerdere redenen voor en aspecten van rijangst worden belicht. Het boekje is heel praktisch en aanmoedigend, maar het geeft vooral tips voor mensen die hun rijbewijs al hebben, niet voor mensen die moeite hebben om het rijbewijs te halen. Ik weet niet of het mij echt geholpen heeft of gaat helpen, maar het is wel fijn om op zo'n vriendelijke manier aangemoedigd te worden. Ook al herkende ik mezelf niet zo in de auteur, het verhaal van een van de andere mensen was wel heel herkenbaar, het was fijn om te lezen dat het haar ondanks dezelfde worsteling als ik heb wel gelukt is. 

I loved the mood of this book. Everyone has their own things to deal with, and they are all mostly just people doing their best. Hetta, the main character, cares a lot for her family even though she doesn't quite feel at home after being away for years. I wish we had seen more of her life before she went back, to get to know her a bit better, but on the other hand starting with the idea of a land-sense was very interesting. The prologue was much more dramatic than the rest of the book, but I kept wanting to read on. There was more mystery than drama, in fact a lot of drama was actively prevented by Hetta, for instance by actually talking about things. I find drama sure to misunderstanding a bit cheap sometimes, so I really appreciated that this book had very little of it. The romantic subplots were interesting without overshadowing the rest of the book, and I like how the playfulness with which Hetta approached romance fit very well with her character. 

Fairy tale inspired, but with some modern themes like

domestic violence

. At first I thought this would be one of those books that was macical and tried for beautiful and mysterious prose, but with characters that stay a bit superficial or distant. I was pleasantly surprised that it becamw more personal and relatable further into the book. While it still kept the simple heart of a fairy tale, the characters and scenes had a lot of life to them. The premisethat Marra started on a quest and gathered friends/compatriots around her just made the book more lovely and warm the further the story went. Bonedog was magical but also just a wonderful dog. Just such a really warm and lovely book, even if it's about

murder, something nobody seems to have a problem with

.

Pretty cool. I love the sense of family in this book.

Although I didn't expect it to turn romantic. Why is it that the romantic interests are always guys who are super powerful and seem to like the main character on first sight. That said, the way the main characters overcome their mistrust and feeling unsafe around each other is lovely.

I like how the main characters recognize and appreciate how much they each care for their family. It's a really short book but lovely.

Very interesting!

The main character is really capable but fucks up literally all the time, which is an interesting dynamic. Everyone seems to be a lesbian for some reason, it's statistically unlikely but ah well so is magic. 

I did relate to this book a lot, almost everyone means well but there's racism and colonialism and misunderstandings and just stuff happening that people don't have any way to change. It's messy, like real life, which means it's pretty relatable. 

It's very sweeping and intricate but the writer also knows how to make things very personal. It's reallhy well done. However, the story is so big that even though I do relate to the characters, I still have to think about who's who at times.

It's interesting that things got almost a bit religious, with a prophecy and a dragon death cult.

That might be my failing, but since it's so big and sweeping, I feel like it'll take a little time before I'm ready for another book in this series.

Ok I'm a bit over it now that Casteel seems so devoid of anything but worship for Poppy. The politics and the story about the gods and war between the two kingdoms is still interesting but the main characters aren't as interesting to me anymore.

Looking back over the whole series I really appreciate that feeling safe and things that seem weird are ok if it's what you want are such big parts of the book, even though the writer does seem to have to stress it a lot to make it actually like that. 

A vampire series that doesn't get gross in the second book, bravo! I do think there were some power imbalance things in this one but the story kept going and it's a very diverting read.