andat's Reviews (467)

Thank you to Hyperion Avenue for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I was psyched to get the chance to read this ARC. I was a huge fan of Jessica Jones and mystery/thriller is one of my favorite genres to tear through. The first few pages were a little rocky, just getting back into Jessica’s rough style of well, existing. Trying to slot myself back into her world, I needed a bit to adjust. 

Jessica’s client is a concerned mother that believes something or someone has replaced her children with look-alike that don’t behave entirely human. So yes, the mystery is some creepy ass rich kids who also happen to be British. Jessica, reluctant detective that she is, isn’t quite sold on it but agrees to dive deeper. 

My first impression is that this doesn’t have the usual polish and depth of a Lisa Jewell novel. It feels clunky and almost forced (and yes I realize she’s writing characters that don’t belong to her), but it feels like it’s relying on some tired tropes to move the main story line along. The flashbacks don’t feel mysterious, just flat and trite. 

It’s a DNF at 28% for me. The story just isn’t compelling, the Marvel name dropping feels awkward, even being in the MCU, and I am unable to connect with any of the characters enough to want to keep reading. 

Huge thank you to Second Sky for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I will admit, I was coming off two DNFs with some incredibly dense writing/political schemes when I cracked this open. The first page was like a breath of fresh air. The conversational tone as our narrator, Cetrik, begins to tell the life of the most deadliest man alive had me hook, line, and sinker. 

You get an inkling of what might be about to happen, but it doesn’t feel like a disappointment. The pace is so fast and the action is back to back. There isn’t much downtime or idleness for the characters even in the first quarter of the book. I love the begrudging ally relationship that develops with Cetrik and Locan (very Falcon and Winter Soldier-esque). 

Make no mistake this is straight fantasy, we have orc-like characters, clerics, elves, and everything else between. If you love D&D or the old DragonLance Chronicles this novel is going to hit the sweet spot of nostalgia for you. But the best part is the fight scenes. These are so well-crafted and detailed, you are holding your breath while you sweep through them. The vivid imagery is grisly, no doubt. But there is beauty to it, too. Really well done! (And I say this as someone who tends to skim fights because they tend to drag on and get boring/repetitive.)

Overall fantastic read, perfect for anyone that wants to get lost in an adventure! I’m very much looking forward to the next book in the series!

I’ll be entirely truthful, I picked this book because I kept seeing it in people’s read lists on Fable and Tome and I thought the cover was pretty. (I’m a sucker for a good masquerade mask design.) That being said, I’m not sorry I did! This is a sweeping series that covers a lot of ground. Ren the thief who is wiling her way into aristocracy, the mysterious Rook, and children who come back drained of life and vigor and are unable to sleep before dying. The strings of which are all laid in just the first 100 pages of this 600+ story!

And then… I’m sorry y’all. I got so bored. Dances (so many dances), clothing, food, gossip-y nobles, repeat ad nauseam. I couldn’t do it. I started to not care and just begged for things to happen. I gave myself until page 193 and I’m calling it. It’s a DNF. (Don’t judge a book by its very pretty cover?)

If you thought Iron Widow was action-packed, then this will not disappoint. You get a front row seat to the revolution, one that’s led by what should be a long dead emperor. The righteous anger for those with less is woven throughout. A firestorm of retaliation of the old regime and the hiccups and false starts of a new ruling class future. One that’s led empowers women in a way that didn’t before. 

The violence that was a constant with Iron Widow is just as strong in Heavenly Tyrant. It’s casual and brutal and not altogether unwelcome. The political intrigue is thick, double and triple crossings. You don’t know who to trust and what version of reality is being presented. You can’t help but like the emperor only for two pages later to hate him again. It’s masterful the world Zhao weaves into what it must be like living day to day with no one to truly trust. 

Whatever it is you think is going to happen, you’ll be wrong. Whatever you think you knew will be wrong. What you will be left with is a hell of a cliffhanger! 

TJ Klune says in his author’s note how the original publisher of this novel called it weird. And I’d agree. But not weird-weird. Weird in the way that stunningly beautiful things can be weird, otherworldly and unknowable. 

This book was not what I was expecting. In fact, it’s the furthest thing from it. But it’s got all the trademarks of a work by TJ Klune. Cathartic, heartwarming, and human. And there’s nothing more human than a broken heart. By the end, your heart will be stomped on and patched back together, while you beg for more. 

This book is weird. This book is beautiful. This book is what it means to be human. 

I’m just going to say it. If I keep reading this series I am going to need a bigger budget for therapy. And tissues. 

McGuire once again dives in and shines a light on international adoption and the complex emotions that come with it. We get to see Nadya’s origin story begin in Russia, born to a teenage mother and abandoned at the hospital. It would be the first of many abandonments for her. 

From the orphanage to Colorado, we see and understand how she sees herself and how her adoptive parents felt the world see her. And really, her American parents don’t actually see her as a whole person. It’s partly due to the absence of her arm and partly because they don’t yet understand being a parent isn’t having a child as a possession. Nadya is now subject to complex interactions that are inflicted on her, not conversations with her in which she’s able to voice her needs and decisions. 

After having a prosthetic arm forced upon her, it isn’t long before she finds herself through a doorway into a drowned world. Nadya’s story is about strength. The strength to accept herself and her world as she is. 

Wow! This one started at Mach speed! The first chapter is an undeniable hook and from there you are launched into two POVs in alternating chapters, Laia and Elias. The story flows effortlessly between the two, eventually both of them occupying the same space in very different capacities. 

Sabaa Tahir does a masterful job of lighting up each and every page with rich visual descriptions. You can’t help but be swept into the world as it comes alive around you. The way she breathes life into the characters, you can see the difference their environments have in their personalities. You can also clearly see the golden string that’s going to tie them together. Usually with the swapping POVs I will find myself gravitating to my favorite character more than the other, this one has me 100% invested in both Elias and Laia. I was amazed to realized I’d read 200 pages in what felt like an hour or two. It’s addicting and captivating and all I want is more!

I can’t wait to read the next one!

Huge thank you to Tor Publishing Group for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

If you want your sci fi books to start with elementary school moon fact, boy have I got the book for you! All jokes aside, what can you expect when you crack open a John Scalzi book? In his latest novel he posits what would happen if the moon was actually turned into cheese. If you guessed you’d be laughing within the first few pages, you’d be right. 

The novel opens with Virgil Augustine who runs in a space and astronaut museum in Ohio. All seems normal until it’s discovered a slice of coveted moon rock has been stolen and a dupe left in its place. Or so he thinks. Not stolen exactly, but changed. Into cheese. In fact, every single lunar sample on Earth is now cheese, including the moon itself. What, you may ask yourself, does that mean for Earth? As it turns out, a lot. 

We follow a timeline rather than a set group of protagonists, each chapter marking the days since the moon was made cheese, or rather an organic matrix, I mean. As each day ticks by, we see the impacts unfold on society. We get to see a few characters more than once, which sounds like it would be exhausting. I can assure you it’s not. Each chapter lays bare exactly what Americans would be doing when the moon turns to cheese in the most authentic way. 

I zipped through this book. Even at the halfway point I couldn’t believe at how wrapped into this I was. I enjoyed the humor, the real people from all walks of life, and the cheese puns. You can’t be mad at the sheer scope of cheese puns, it’s truly a work of art.

Scalzi excels in writing laugh-out-loud dialogue with his characters. They are believable, human, and made for TV. I lost count of the times I would cackle out loud reading this. There were also more than a few times I found myself tearing up. Scalzi paints the full picture of being human in the face of an existential crisis, along with all the beautiful and ugly emotions that come with it. 

Long story short, pick this book up and devour it. I promise you, it’s Gouda. 

This is the perfect book to read on a gloomy and cold day. It’s is spooky, haunting, dark and beautiful. Trademark V.E. Schwab prose is woven in every page of this YA novel about what happens when a shadow meets its source. Olivia, an orphan with only her mother’s journal to her name receives a mysterious letter inviting her to her home, Gallant. Once she’s there, the home’s true purpose and history comes to life, along with finding out what happened to her mother and father. 

I am always astounded at the depth Schwab brings to her narratives. It’s so immersive and lush, you can’t help but daydream yourself there between chapters. I know this one will live in my head rent-free forever. 

Paige Mahoney has her work cut out for her. In a stunning betrayal revealed in the last pages of The Mime Order, we get to zip right back in and see how that blow lands. It threatens to break her and the Order apart. Having to stay one step ahead of Scion and then the special forces puts Paige’s leadership and followers to the test. Any plot points from here out would be spoilers. The Song Rising is shorter than the others in the series but makes up for the page count in non-stop action. My heart was in my throat for the entire 350 pages. 

The fact that this book was published in 2017 is not lost on me. There are too many parallels to ignore to current events in the US to hand-wave it away. 

“…any organization that labeled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity.”

It’s why we (and they) must continue the fight.