skylacine's reviews
1049 reviews

It didn't really grab me at first but gradually got more interesting as I got further along the pages. Pretty good book about this subject.

What a fucking terrible book. Worst and most offensive one I've read in years.

First of all, it's falsely advertised as being primarily about animals (which is why I picked it up in the first place). It's not. The animals are THERE, but the book is just primarily the author traumadumping about her terrible life. The animals feel like an afterthought.

Secondly, the author couldn't even be arsed to give content warnings. This book contains a shitton of child abuse, animal abuse, racism, incest, rape, pedophilia, pretty much every issue you can think of needs a content warning. And it's not like the author is only describing other people's behavior here: she is guilty of a few of these things herself as well (e.g. using racial slurs).

Thirdly, the author's writing voice is dreadful to have to read. She is fucking obsessed with using adjectives (sometimes five to six in a row) and refuses to italicize the titles of media (movies, books, etc.).

Skip this one

H O N S E

Bullet review:
+Interesting and overall pretty likable main characters, especially Duchess and Susie
+Good world-building of the fantasy elements
+I like that the characters both are captive and wild for a while, yet neither is seen as a perfect (or terrible) option. A lot of animal xenofiction tends to demonize captivity under humans, which this book thankfully never does. Humans are seen as a pretty neutral aspect here, oftentimes even positive.
+Despite a few loredumps, it thankfully never goes too overboard with it.
-While I'm not calling this book sexist (I've seen xenofiction that is FAR worse in that regard, don't get me wrong) and it does have capable and well-written female characters, I am not entirely comfortable with how pretty much every female character of note in this book is quite literally a broodmare there to put foals into this world. It just feels like it falls into the "every woman wants to be a mother" stereotype. It really couldn't have hurt to have one or two major female characters who just don't bear foals.

Full review at: https://skybookcorner.blogspot.com/2025/02/book-review-heavenly-horse-from.html

This is a book that exists. I feel like I got nothing out of it. 

It's mostly boring, some characters are mischaracterized, very little of note happens except for setting up a plot, and Tawnypelt's romantic feelings for [SPOILER CHARACTER] feel horribly out of left field and forced. Moonpaw's chapters were mildly interesting but that's kinda it for this book. It has very little going for it.

I've certainly read worse Warriors books but gosh this was just, well, dull. Anyways back to reading better horse xenofiction.

Full review at: https://skybookcorner.blogspot.com/2025/01/book-review-elders-quest-by-erin-hunter.html

Actual rating 3.25/5

+Well-written character relationships, particularly between Ranger and his best friend, and his mentor.
+The wolf wizards are a pretty neat concept to add a fantasy touch to this book.
+I loved Morpheus, of course.
-Scenes and dialogue sometimes feels repetitious.
-The female characters (the few there are) aren't very well-written; there is only one major female character of note and she's pretty flat. Also there's a bit of fridging female characters for male character's development. The writing of the female characters feels kinda lowkey sexist imo.
-The villains are very bland and one-note.

Full review at: https://skybookcorner.blogspot.com/2025/02/book-review-ranger-by-michael-hoyt.html#more