e_read_books's reviews
287 reviews

Loved the tea magic
Liked the trials
The romance was cute, I liked Kang and his whole story. I hope we get plenty of him in the sequel.
Women-centred story and the majority of supporting characters were women!

Me for 80% of this book: Viv, get a clue! Please listen to what people are telling/showing you! What are you doing!?

But also, where is that sequel? Cos I need it now!

Thank you to Solaris and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC copy.

Sephihalé ele Janan escaped life as a soldier working for the imperial Kattakans who colonised his people, but he left behind his love and partner Lilley, who we met in the first book.

We now follow Janan as a political refugee in a country where the people are descended from the same ancestors, but have so completely diverged from their origins to be nearly unrecognisable to Janan as a Ba'suon.

The themes of colonisation and imperialism are still heavily featured here, with an added exploration of exploitation for monetary gain via the dragon baron and his actions.


An exchange between the baron and Janan about midway through the book was something that stuck with me and only made me hate the baron more, even before finding out he was

torturing dragons and nailing their bodies tovthe walls of his barn.

"The dragon represents the power of the land, of nature, and our ability - even our birthright - to take hold of it. To ride it's back."
"You twist our history."
"You misread it, and so you've been stuck in your ways and overrun by foreign powers."

I liked Janan and his interactions with his sister and her son. It made the climax that much more emotional.

I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the first book, but I like where it ended off and am excited to see where it goes.

The 3rd and final book that adapts the Frank Herbert classic, covering the events after the two year time skip.

You can read me review for the previous two books for some of my general thoughts on the adaptation as a whole but there was a particular extra creative sense in this volume in terms of some of the page compositions. Mostly when it came to Paul’s inner thoughts and his becoming the Kwisatz Haderach.

Overall, I’m glad I’ve read this adaptation. I think it rightly respects the original source material (as expected when led by the son of the original author), and I think someone who a fan of the recent films but didn’t vibe with the book could try this and enjoy it. Or even if you love the book, you could still appreciate the creativity in this.

The 2nd part of the graphic novel adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. 

This begins immediately where book 1 left off, with Paul Atreides and his mother Jessica in the deserts of Arrakis after the sacking of their home.
Compared to book 1, I think this part of the adaptation generally felt more accurate to the book. I can't quite pinpoint why I think that, but everything I was expecting to find was included.

It doesn't matter which adaptation, I will always have shivers when the Baron is around talking about his "lovely Feyd" 🤮

There are several pages with quite dynamic composition where the speech bubbles don't have an entirely clear flow, but it wasn't too distracting.

I still really enjoy the use of minimal colours. A lot of this part takes place either underground or at night with a blues and black, or else in the desert in full sun, with the pages mostly reds and browns. The latter colours are also seen in the high tension battles.

Another pretty good part to this adaptation.

Having read the original Dune novel by Frank Herbet twice and also seen the film adaptation of Dune Part 1 (which covers much of the same events this volume does) twice, this graphic novel adaptation, also on reread, measures out as a fine adaptation of the source material, but maybe my least favourite of the three.

Some of the character panels can be a little flat, but the design and details, especially in the environments, costumes and machinery are pretty well done and are adapted accurately from the novel. I also liked the use of colour in both high contrast pages and entire sections using monochrome tones of red or blue in moments of high tension.

This adaptation does cover some scenes that were left out of the film, the dinner scene, the conversation between Jessica and Thufir Hawat, etc. However, much of Dune's brilliance is in the inner monologues of the various characters, the nuances of their thoughts especially when they are in conversation, that reveal both their characters and the machinations of the various political figures. This adaptation is just over 160 pages and leaves out a lot of those inner thoughts in favour of the dialogue, which just can't get everything across. It also doesn't have the same presence of scale and visual storytelling, or the benefit of excellent actors to bridge that gap the same way Denis Villeneuve's adaptation did.

Overall, if you want a quick and digestible version of Dune that summarises the major events of the first half of the original novel, this does a pretty good job. It comes from a great source, so it still delivers a great story worth reading. Also, that cover is great, so it'll look nice on your shelf!

Another entry into this series exploring grief and regrets, but also about healing and finding hope.

This time we aren't in the familiar Tokyo cafe of the previous two entries, but instead in the port town of Hakodate and Cafe Donna Donna. The setting is different, but the set up is the same. 
A specific chair in the cafe allows you to travel to the past, with a number of rules attached. The most important being, you must return before the coffee gets cold.

These books always make me happy just through the different circumstances the different time travellers come from and how their journey changes their attitudes, even if some of them stretch my limit of disbelief.

For instance, there are no less than 3 sets of dead parents and multiple young people die from obscure terminal illnesses.

I liked the plot device of the book of 100 questions that is pretty central to all 4 of the stories. The questions are sometimes a little ridiculous, but the author makes an effort to not paint either answers in a negative light.

As always, the characters are sweet as well, and everything is a mix of wholesome and emotional - the 1st story made me tear up a little.

The repetitive writing is what holds this series back for me. Thankfully the rules were only really explained once, which did drag down the 1st story a lot. However, beyond that, we still get events resummarised between stories constantly. Even within the same story, characters will repeat what someone said back to them, so sometimes you're reading the same thing said 2 or 3 different ways.

I keep not following my own advice, but I think this series is best consumed one story at a time, with at least a day or two between each one.

I'll admit that the speed I was reading this might have affected my overall enjoyment. Saying that, this final installment felt like all action, which makes sense with this being the climactic conclusion, but I felt like I missed out on the great character work that the previous installments had.

The action was still as great as always, Gwynne shines with the choreography. So overall, I still did really enjoy it.