bijou3owl's reviews
167 reviews

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

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dark emotional slow-paced

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

2.0

Arcadia by Iain Pears

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 4%.

DNF @ 43min (audiobook)

Hate all the characters so far:
- pastoral child boy
- the professor dude who is walking male nerd entitlement ("I'm special because I have encyclopedic knowledge of these sci-fi books, and I'm going to do fantasy *better* than Tolkien et al, and I'm going to pat myself in the back for "recognizing" a local teen girl as smart, meanwhile I can't be bothered with domestic tasks like picking up packages or feeding my cat)
- "not like other girls" teenager who feeds the above's cat and dotes on him for who knows why

The latest in my recent string of run-ins with male authors attempting to write "strong female character" and instead generating a flat, trope-laden stereotype

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Piñata by Leopoldo Gout

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.

DNF @ 46%

I was promised Aztec gods getting their bloody, gory revenge against colonizers. Instead I got poorly executed, on-the-nose social commentary (did you know that people hate women, and that's bad????), pages and pages and pages of stilted exposition that destroy any tension, a main character I hated, and mayyyybeeee a dozen pages of weird supernatural stuff.

Cool concept, but the cover is the best part of this book.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced