sarah2438's reviews
1046 reviews

I think this is a good story for its audience, but I'm not that audience anymore. It's very melancholy and honestly not much happens with the plot. But I think it's refreshing to have a story about what came immediately after the end of the war because that's not as talked about and is worthy of conversation.

Completely unremarkable. The twist was underwhelming, the MC was too quirky for me-- it went past being relatable and into "uh okay, why are you like this?" There's MH representation but I think the way this was done made it harder for me to relate or sympathize.

My 5-star drought has finally ended! Holy shit this was amazing. Why aren't more people talking about this? When I say I like weird books, this is exactly what I mean because I don't even know how to summarize what I just read. The writing was gorgeous. The plot was unhinged. (Admittedly it started to lose me a bit at the end but by then I was all in.) There was a reluctant mother, a majorly oppositionally defiant and relatable MC, a dysfunctional dash of romance, an escape from a cult, GHOSTS, unsettling body horror, intense societal commentary, and sweet child characters that I DIDN'T want to dropkick. Honestly, what more could I want? Please read this.

This was just fun. It reminds me of the glory days of YA fantasy, when I was in high school and would just disappear into a fantasy novel for a whole day. It's not life-changing and I'm not even sure if I'll read the sequel (reviews are significantly worse so I may pass) but it was just a nice time. 4 stars for good vibes.

Well that was disappointing. But at least now I don't have to deal with the consequences of starting yet another series and having to wait for sequels... Faizal tried so hard to give us an FMC like Kaz Brekker. But this whole story just felt like a rip off of Six of Crows, done significantly worse.  The plot, the heist, the characters, were all just poor mimicries of my favorite crows.
Arthie didn't do a single thing to convince me she was a badass or morally gray. Kaz has the iconic line “When everyone knows you're a monster, you needn't waste time doing every monstrous thing.”-- this is why Leigh Bardugo was able to create such a perfect character, because she showed us enough that the reader knew as well as the side characters that he was capable of monstrous things. I didn't believe Arthie had that, so all her idle threats were just talk. And when your main character loses her bite, there's not much left.

I really wasn't a fan of this one. It was just really gorey without any suspense. There weren't any twists. The commentary on family and belonging was lacking. Not for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I'm glad that I read this because I enjoyed the writing and I feel like it's become a bit of a modern classic. The plot itself was a bit disappointing though (because there wasn't much of it) and I see what Sebold was trying to do with the ending, but I still think it's a bit weak.
My copy of this book was purchased used. I'm including this note because of the controversy surrounding Sebold. While I wasn't aware of that at the time of purchasing, I'm glad she won't be getting a cent from me.

I suspect Elin Hilderbrand just isn't the author for me and that's 100% okay. I picked this up from a free little library a couple years ago and it's time I set it free again.

I'm actually angry that I've never heard of Elizabeth before. Kate Moore's writing is phenomenal and she's now an auto-buy author for me. Keep these stories coming, Kate, because there are so many badass women that have been buried under mediocre men in our history.

I wanted to like this so bad but the writing just felt juvenile. There were some great concepts that were poorly executed and there wasn't any subtlety to the themes. I also think it's odd to have so many short stories that are between 1-10 pages and then end with a 60 page long, multi-chapter story (which was very predictable and my least favorite of the collection). I think this writer may still be finding her footing so while I'm curious to see what she does in the future, this one wasn't for me.