sarah984's reviews
628 reviews

Detonation Boulevard by Alastair Reynolds

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adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Interesting setting and fun concept, but the ending felt really abrupt, like after a certain point the author didn't know what to do with the story anymore. I was looking forward to something explosive but it just kind of ends.
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Curios: The Winners of the 1KWHC 2023 by TL;DR Press

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3.0

This is a book of short stories entered in a competition where all stories are 1,000 words and must adhere to a two-word prompt: a character and an object/situation. It was interesting to see what people did with their prompts (especially people who got a bit of an odd one like "TV psychic") and the array of genres was really wide. 

However, most of the stories felt pretty forgettable and there were a few embarrassing copy errors, including a story that appears to have been printed with the wrong prompt.

Top favourites: And One Hard One by Ezra Fox, A Hook Called Starlight by Bryan Arneson
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I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

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dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I really liked the beginning of this book, about the viciousness and infighting at a prestigious ballet academy, but as more and more plots were added it kind of fell apart for me. 

Laure has a lot of pre-existing relationships that are described (the strained relationship with dad, the best friendship with Coralie) that don't really manifest on the page, and the new relationships are also really shallow. She also makes a bunch of ridiculous decisions that feel like they're supposed to make her seem cool (stealing a man's watch in public as both a scholarship student who needs to keep her rep and the only Black girl in the room? Come on) and the antagonist reveal comes with some cool imagery but no surprises.

We are told the whole time that magic has consequences but it's all pretty vague and we don't really see any. The language is overwrought and ridiculous. Terrible romance.
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Breaking In by Tyler Schwanke

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.
This book was so bigoted and mean spirited toward homeless people that I couldn't take it anymore.
Goddess of Filth by V. Castro

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dark hopeful slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This book was okay and I really liked the message of it, but the writing style wasn't very interesting and it used the word "females" way too much.
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The Long Game by Ann Leckie

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reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This was a cute little sci-fi short about an alien learning to plan for the future. Really fun voice. Themes of colonization.
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Romancing the Gorgon by Tallie Rose

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emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

This is a sweet, frothy little romance novel about two women who are enemies for about 28 seconds who have to run a hotel together for various legal reasons. The inciting incident for why they don't like each other is always vaguely alluded to but never really described for some reason and most of the character voices sound really similar.

The actual antagonist is poorly realized and feels like wish fulfilment in a way that did not work for me. Chandler knew how to get out of the contract but they both refused to do it for some reason and put on this weird charade instead
that didn't even really work.
Also number one pet peeve is when white authors use "white" as a pejorative describing antagonist characters and of course that happens here too. Lettie babe you're white too!

I think this book definitely has its audience but that doesn't include me.
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Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I really liked about the first third of this book - Erin's story has some interpersonal drama, compelling pandemic fiction, and an interesting point of view character. Unfortunately once the POV switches the book just fell apart for me. I get that Savannah is a bad person but she uses such cringy language and a lot of the narrative choices felt a little iffy to me (using the full first and last name of a real child victim of a sex crime, the bizarre scene where a ghost castigates her for killing the only Black woman in the book). While Mareva's story at least felt like it had a point, the King in Yellow stuff felt very silly, the thee/thou dialogue was terrible, and I felt like it just didn't match up to the expectations that Erin's chapters had set for me.
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Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I get the concept that this book was going for, but I just didn't like it. I think part of it is that the Squid Game comp gave me an idea what the book was like and then the actual book was not like that.
All this over a man??
Most of the characters' motivations are obscured by the first person pov so I didn't really care either way what happened to them, characters made decisions when it was convenient for the narrative and not in a way that felt like it was following a character arc, and the writing for Saint, the only Asian character, felt really suspect to me (why was she wearing bondage gear??)

The ending felt very silly to me as well
, I would have liked the book better if she had made that decision earlier during Simon Says.
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Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns

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dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This modern-day reimagining of Taxi Driver blisters right along Damani's wild, self-destructive path, but I felt like it pulled back a little too much in what should have been its biggest moment. Loved the ending, though.
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