sarah984's reviews
628 reviews

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

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dark tense 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 was looking forward to this one but unfortunately it was just not good. Boring clinical writing style, goofy plot twists, dull characters. The ending did not feel earned to me. The aliens were kind of cool though.
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The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book was fine, but overall it was disappointing to me. The characters all felt very one note and unrealistic (Julia's actions were at least interesting but her reasons for doing them were pretty stupid), aside from
Julia's murders
the gore almost all takes place off-page or is barely described (why else am I reading this?) and the prose was so overwrought and goofy.
There is a part near the end where Barker wants to convey that a dead character is possessed by one of the cenobites so that character turns to Kirsty and essentially just says, "I'm a cenobite!"
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Just Out of Jupiter's Reach by Nnedi Okorafor

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reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I thought the concept was kind of neat but the story was just not good. If the ships are limited to imprinting on one person based on DNA then why are animals permitted on board in the first place? The ships were kind of cool but I think there were too many characters for a short story to sustain. There was one character who just announces that she's trans and then doesn't do anything else, there's a character the pov character is really judgmental of because she has allergies (??), a guy whose only character trait is old, a guy who had pet crabs, a guy I forgot about
until he committed suicide,
a guy who
ATE SOMEONE'S PET and
has tattoos or whatever and the main character, who has a comically stupid backstory and makes the worst decisions imaginable. What was the point of this?
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Shadow Magic by Patricia C. Wrede

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adventurous slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I picked this up because I loved this author's middle grade series as a kid, and I remember liking Daughter of Witches, but this just was not that good. Very generic heroic fantasy, lots of wandering around (not surprised to find out parts of this were based on a tabletop campaign), too many deus ex machina to shake a stick at, and an out of nowhere romance. Blindingly goofy political system.

Had that annoying thing I hate in fantasy where there's a badguy race where they're all just evil for no reason.
At one point it looks like you're going to get a point of view from a Lithmern character but it turns out he's a slave from a goodguy race who gets a big deal made over him and then pretty much immediately dies.
Huh.
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The September House by Carissa Orlando

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

4.5

This book dragged a little bit in the middle but overall I really enjoyed it. The voice was fun, there were some surprisingly effective scares, and it managed to surprise me a few times.
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The Changeling by Victor LaValle

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adventurous dark emotional medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

I really liked this book. The writing is really charming (which feels weird to say with this type of content) and the fairy tale atmosphere worked really well for the most part. New York and its history were well utilized. There is one plot point in the middle of the book that I thought was kind of silly
(the part at Rikers - considering later discussions that was all absurdly easy and felt kind of pointless)
but overall fantastic.
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Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

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

4.0

This was a beautiful little story about grief, change and growth - coming home to a place and people that have changed, ways to handle grief and what you carry with you. I thought the ending was a little too convenient but overall I loved this.
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You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo

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adventurous dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I feel like there's a sort of tone you expect from a novel titled "You Sexy Thing" in a series titled "Disco Space Opera" that has a GBBO comp on the cover, and this book does not have that tone. It is extremely dark and graphic, as well as staggeringly cruel to one of the characters for seemingly no reason. Most of the characters feel like cardboard cutouts (the Firefly references are a mile a minute) and traits seem to spring up as required by the narrative. Most of the characters have no initiative at all and are simply shunted here and there by the plot. It's only getting 2 stars because I thought the cooking stuff was fun and the ship at least had a personality.
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Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto

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

3.0

I really liked that sort of listless feeling of being in your twenties that this book evokes: you're an adult but still really learning what that means, you're having this new sort of adult to adult relationship to your parents, and I feel like that feeling was captured really well. I also loved the sense of place, and the nostalgia and love for a place that was changing.

Unfortunately I felt like the relationship stuff was overall really boring, especially right at the end. All that seemed like it came out of nowhere.
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Fever House by Keith Rosson

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

4.0

I thought this was a super fun horror novel overall. It was kind of a mixture of a noir crime thriller and a more traditional horror story, and it was really at its best when it was more focused on the crime and human drama with the horror in the background. The characters and their points of view were really well done, where you could see what one character knew that others didn't and how that influenced their actions. When it really hits the fan, unfortunately, it became more unfocused and felt a little boring. 

I found the writing style could get a little precious and overly stylistic at times and it was sort of weird how few characters of colour there were considering how heavily racial justice protests play into the plot, but overall I liked it and I'm looking forward to the next one.
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