bella613's Reviews (551)

I liked this. It was not the book I expected. I LOVED the beginning but my excitement petered off a bit. 

I guess I expected a little more about crosswords? 

It was less "feminist history of the crossword puzzle" and more "feminist history through the eyes of a crossword puzzle enthusiast" 

But I liked that it was an intense, part memoir part history book. I like the intellectual feel of books written by journalists and she does a great job being both personal and educational. 

I love this 😂
I kinda wish it was longer and had more about Bob's growth and adaptation, but at the same time the vagueness and fast pace are part of the charm. 
The main character, Vi, is not likeable but has some character growth. I hate pretty much all of her gut instincts, and therefore her decisions since she doesn't think anything through at all ever. Yet her inner dialogue is super funny and relatable, which makes me root for her. 
I love Bob and I am slightly scared of Rachel. 
This was delightful and I smiled through the whole audiobook.

PS: Eunice Wong never disappoints as a narrator. Very well done!

PPS: idk why the description says "in the vein of bunny and convenience store woman". It is not remotely similar to either of those, nor would put the two in the same vein in the first place. 

I get that it's probably trying to reach for the fact that she "made" Bob like they "make" people from animals in Bunny?? But that's way too surface level. Its a completely different basis and trajectory, with very explicit horror, and such a different purpose/takeaway, so I wouldn't compare the two. There's even less similarity to CSW unless we're actually going with "first person, character driven, female narrative" which is a low bar for calling something the same vein. 
Are we drawing the comparison because these books are recently published, popular, "weird" stories written by women?

Anyway, I never like the publisher blurbs. I have a strong suspicion that they're written by someone who does not read the books. Rant about that over.

It was a cool concept but just felt kind of boring. 
I didn't really feel like rooting for the characters. 
I liked chapter 30

I love Ryuzaki so much. 
And who knew that Shinigami love apples? 

I knew going into it that I'd love it, and I've been excited to start this manga for a long time. 
I have a weakness for morally blurry-lined protagonists and competition of wits tropes, and I lovee weird mysterious characters. So between Light and L this one is amazing. Ryuk is Light's new puppy and I love the way his face looks like bad 3D animation. 
I'm excited to see where this goes! It seems like it would wrap up rather quickly at this pace so there must be a lot of unexpected things coming. 
Will immediately start vol 2 but I had to request that my library buy several volumes (how did they not have the full series already??) So it might take a while to finish the series. 

This made me very sad. 
Many times I found myself asking "does she hear herself?"

Not my favorite Shel Silverstein but still fun. My first time reading it, and it's similar but different than his other stuff. 
I think it's easier to read in your head than it would be aloud. 
I found that my brain automatically/unconsciously switched the letters back to normal half the time so I'd have to reread a bit. I think kids would find it funny but at the same time I don't think I would have found it funny when I was a kid. 

I love a good slow burn and Cara Bastone writes adorable romance.

I will say the premise of the initial relationship was a little bit of a stretch but once you accept the trope it's really cute. Sometimes you need someone to make you go out and do things, and it's a beautiful thing to find a person like Miles who will actually commit to doing it. Even family and close friends have a hard time meeting each other in grief, so if you find someone who's willing and able to do it, hold onto them. 
I haven't lost someone super close but I have definitely grieved and I think this book does a good job handling it. Obviously, grief looks different on everyone. But Lenny's symptoms and struggles felt extremely accurate and relatable, and I appreciated how it depicted the life impacts grief has besides just ~being sad~.
I also love that they take their time and she gets healed before jumping into a relationship. 

I don't even have to say that I love the k-pop concert cameo, if you follow me and read my reviews you already know this bumped my rating up at least half a star. Being a fan and finding community in fandom got me through the hardest times of my life, so I'm glad we got a kpop girly moment added into Lenny's list. 

This book starts very slow and isn't set up to make a whole lot of sense. The world building isn't great. The history, magic, and terminology isn't well explained, to the reader or to the main character. I felt pretty meh about the book for at least the first third of it. 
However, it gets better as it goes. From the beginning, Sel was the only character I liked / felt interested in, but the friendships develop with time, and I got used to the slightly confused feeling lol. It took a while, but the main character grew on me a lot. 

The audio narration is pretty good, but reinforces the fact that the narrative is coming from a teen. There's lots of cliche stuff thrown in for drama and the immaturity of the reactive characters bleeds into the writing style since you're getting into their heads.  I saw reviews saying this book is less YA and handles more as PG-13 adult fantasy, but it really does not. It's YA in writing style, topic broaching, and depth. That being said, I do like to sprinkle YA into my reading and I probably enjoyed it more because of that aspect of it. I get sick of adult romantasy if I read too much of it. Reading innocent books can be a relief.

I simultaneously loved the excalibur part and got very confused at the same time. After that long book I still don't understand the magic systems, or when or how we got to reincarnated Arthur and Lancelot (as well as a long-term possesion by grandma at the same time??). I definitely got to the point of just accepting whatever came at me with this one. Is the main character now supposed to be three spirits inhabiting the same body? Guess we'll hope for clarity and maybe a reason why in the next book.

I'll keep going with the series :) 
^if there's any SEVENTEEN fans out there, appreciate that I could only think of DK ⚔️

This was a lot wilder than I expected! I liked it more than I thought I would.