highleyginger's reviews
60 reviews

Firstly, thank you to S&G for the book giveaway that I received my copy from. It was a very pleasant surprise.

As the story begins, you get a strong feeling that Will has spent much of his time in this apocalyptic world, by living quiet, simply, and by reading. His mind is always running, which seems uncharacteristic of a monk type man who's been living at a Gonpa for what seems like before the mass chaos of this world, but more indicative of someone who's anxiously trying to hold onto humanity, to language, and to sense of self by holding on to every word like a walking thesaurus.

Writing letters for ghosts of his past, his loyal corvid friend Peau, and the quite persnickety Cassie the cat, are his lifelines to sanity when he often is alone on this quest to potentially give humanity hope again. Peau often "chatters" at him, leaving Will to interpret much of the communications his feathered friend. Cassie is the typical cat, most of the interactions are much like that of a cat and the owner sassing each other. He comes across the rare settlement on occasion, and manages to still find kindness in what seems to be a continually cruel world.

However, the pack of men at his heels reminds him that it's not always easy to fight the conundrum of his position, to choose between his principles or his life. Without principles, we are much like animals. (Which doesn't seem like such a bad thing considering his chosen company.) Without life, it's pretty hard to maintain your principles

The book starts on a hugh adventurous note, takes a dip in the middle but once on the road again it picks up. The ending is left up to interpretation, but it seems to show that things larger than the immediate world can guide our actions but in the end, it takes action to see reaction. This book does have the rare apocalyptic happy ending. Will gets his answers, and to some degree Sophie will get agency in choice of what answers she wants.


CONS: Half way through the book he gets Sophie and it is way too much of in common with The Last of Us plot, the sass, the love of older pop culture magazines, even down to not being able to swim, that started sapping the joy from the book. Will is a great character but Sofie is way to much like Ellie to actually soak in their interactions. It knocked me out of the book towards the middle.

She does have different aspects to her but nothing specifically sticks out but the similarities really knocked it out of a 5 star book for me.

When I read the title, scary book of Christmas lore, I expected there to be the tales that were told in times of yore, but it reads more like an encyclopedia of lore, much of it bleeding into other stories, which is to be expected with old lore if you are looking at origins but it gets repetitive.

It's very informative but not as entertaining as I had hoped. I was looking for more of a collection of lore stories, with a small historical context portion for each story.

If you enjoy the historical aspects and roots of the lore, this is perfect for you. It is not much of a story book as it is an encyclopedia of Christmas lore.

There are a lot of intriguing possibilities that this book could have taken and didn't. Travel to alternate worlds, the Oracle, so much could have been done and in the end we are left with a majorly disappointing portrayal of women, which felt like he was playing into the trope of women using men or just straight up being too dumb to notice what's happening. Which is so disappointing. 

The other characters seemed either obsessive or flat, so for the plot to end in a nothing sandwich after bringing forth such amazing scifi topics is a big let down.

Especially when thinking of his other works that he's done. Maybe shorter stories are where PKD really shines? This is low on my enjoyment of his works though.

I'd say this one is the better of the two books. Both need to be read to get the full feel of the two but this one actually plays with the lore in a way that feels right. My chief complaint is that the author is repetitive and spells things out for the readers as if they aren't smart enough to see the parallels of the two sisters. Could just be me but it felt like it took away from the story by pointing it out so frequently.

This book is fire. I can't really put it to words but Celaena's growth, Chaol's growth. 

My heart breaks for Dorian book after book but he sees things for what they are even if they aren't spoken. I can't praise him enough and I love that knowing everything he knows, he chooses Celaena as an ally and hope.

Rowan, his character intro & growth, I really like him. It was a rough start but he grew on me chapter after chapter till the end of the book hit me in the feels.

This book hits all of the emotions and I am loving it, even if I teared up more than once.

This book is written from a standpoint that the reader is not familiar with any of the contents of the book. While I do believe that some may be in that position, it repeats established information from previous chapters in just about every chapter and becomes a bit mind numbing after a while, especially since this book will most likely appeal to those already familiar with the topics in the book, like UFOs, spook lights, mysterious large cats, bigfoot etc.

The author does a good job of referencing sources and his research, but with that, it felt like a lot of his explanations had excessive examples that were not from Oklahoma. It helps establish that it isn't JUST Oklahoma but it doesn't make Oklahoma feel special either.

Absolutely loved this book. It's a great murder mystery fantasy book with a very self depreciative lead however, his sense of humor is fantastic.

'My father always says: ' you can't run from your responsibilities,' but he lacks imagination. Besides, I'm not running. I'm side stepping. Crossing the road so me and my responsibilities don't make eye contact and aren't forced into awkward small talk both of us know isn't going anywhere.''

'We can get murdered tomorrow. Tonight, we party!'

Plus many other gems.