millie's reviews
288 reviews

 sometime a family is a grumpy grave witch, a cringefail fairy godmother, a princess not-quite a nun, a reformed knight, a bonedog, a demon hen, all united in their quest to kill a king out of love for a sister stuck in abusive marriage. And that's perfectly fine.

Despite the non-linear timeline at the beginning that had me confused for a moment, i really enjoyed reading this book. As someone who enjoy fairy tales and studied fairy tales, it was a tremendous book, i loved the way Kingfisher write, how quickly and easily it captivate you. I love the characters, i love the ridiculousness of fairy tales being woven into dark fantasy (which is what they are originally), I love Bonedog. I wish the chicken being possessed by a demon had a more proeminent role but eh. 

You get it, i love a lot of thing about this book. Also, i would absolutely recommend the audiobook version, Amara Jasper is a tremendous narrator. 

une bande-dessiné envoûtante et inquiétante qui nous plonge dans le quotidien d'un père et de son fils qui ont hérité d'un immense manoir de campagne qui n'a pas été occupé par la famille depuis plusieurs années mais plutôt par des fantômes. 

si la BD est excellente, je reste un peu déçu de la fin qui, à mon sens, manque un peu de clarté mais je reste foncièrement sous le charme et j'irais avec joie, voir les autres ouvrages de Gaëlle Geniller

the audiobook narrator was just not working for me. her males voices were genuinely rough. the writing was also not my cup of tea. i might pick it up at a later date.

2.75 out of 5. 

It was ok.

This one is a disappointment and i hadn't even expected much from it to be honest. I can understand why people loved it but i did not. I'm not sure i'll be able to summarize my thoughts in a coherent manner but i'll try. 

In essence, i understand what the story want to say, i understand the main themes and i want to give the author this : first, this a well crafted world, the writing is good and Blood over bright Haven is a dark academia story exploring sexism, misogyny, bigotry and the moral ambiguity in the pursuit of knowledge and at time, goes into "mad scientist" territory but also ? this story is boring and hand you its themes in such a heavy handed manner that it felt as if the author thought i was stupid.

The pacing was troubling : months, weeks and day seems to passes in a matter of a few words. The technology itself was never explained and was contradictory : this world had high speed train but the main character is a at point surprised to see a carriage without horse ? but at no point is it demonstrated that carriages have horses. we don't see much animals and we don't see much carriages either.

sciona as a character is. oof. i generally am fine with unlikeable protagonist, i do like them but sciona isn't a unlikeable protagonist, she is properly insufferable and to me, she doesn't work as a protagonist. and i fully understand her character, she just ... does not work. if we were talking about a movie, i would describe sciona has a bad casting for the production she is in. and it's a bit funny because the book become sort of self-aware toward the end because everyone look at sciona like "why do you care? you never cared before. you only care about your ego." and that's just it. why does sciona cares ? her character arc is messy.

i don't mind magic as a science but it felt as if the story would lose itself in the intrisecacy of its science. i'll give M. L. Wang this because her worldbuilding and magic system was carefully crafted, maybe too much and rendering it at time incomprehensible. 

Also, this book had been recommended for people who liked FullMetal Alchemist and i'll say this as someone who love FMA, the comparison begin and stop at government conspiracy and

human sacrifice

  that's pretty much it. 

and the ending is... fine, i guess. i usually like open ending but towards the end, the character's goal became incomprehensible to me and i just wanted to close the book.

TL;DR : a dark academia with good ideas but a mediocre execution.

entertaining & smart & respect you as a ready (as in, let you pick throughout the book, sometime mislead you but not to make fun of you, let you resolve a part of the mystery then explain the other half) not for the dull narration at time & odd bigotry. 

the homophobia is still 😬 and mrs cowper is clearly implied to be a racist? and damian is also written as abusing grace, none of that is properly addressed throughout. ot'a either overexplained in an annoying way (horowitz going out of his way to explain he isn't homophobic like we get it, shut up omg) or underexplained also in an annoying way (domestic abuse, nah mate. her bf was just a bastard)

I may pick up the following books as time goes, but it will not be top of my tbr.

a strange and intriguing book to start 2025, I mostly like it. I liked the art (very very beautiful), I liked thinly veiled horror, I like the themes of repressed homosexuality (that's what it is right?). I was genuinely wrapped in the intrigue so I was puzzled by the abrupt ending and I'm not sure what to make of it but in any case, very enjoyable

for my week off, i decided to reread and catch up with kaiju #8, ultimately i think it's a good manga, it's an enjoyable read with interesting characters maybe too many of them?) with an intrigue going at break neck speed (which seems to be a standard for shonen nowaday). 

It's not doing anything extraordinary, it's pretty basic actually but it's fun and i want to see what happens next. 

P.s : maybe it's just me being anti-military but the action does take place within the military and i can't help but wriggle my nose because it does have rancid nationalistic/conservative  vibes at times lol