blewballoon's Reviews (763)

This was absolutely delightful. The art was beautiful, emotive, and funny. Loved the story, had a great time reading it.

I absolutely loved A Marvelous Light, so I was excited to read the next entry in this series. I was intrigued by the premise of a locked room murder mystery on board a Titanic style ship. It felt like more of the book was focused on the romance rather than the rest of the plot, and my experience suffered for it because I didn't like the romance aspect. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of either of the two leads or their relationship to each other. In the case of Violet, she was too much of a closed book to connect with. In the case of Maud, she said and did things that I found frustrating. The sex scenes felt more emotionally uncomfortable than steamy. I will still read the third book, but I hope it's more like the first book with a better balance of plot and romance and a romance that feels more natural and healthy. I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator did a good job, but I did listen to it at 1.3 speed. 

I liked the story well enough, but I wasn't a big fan of the writing. I would probably rate this a 4 if the writing didn't take me out of the story so often. There were a lot of repeated lines used for descriptions of what people were doing, to the point that it stood out, and the dialogue was often clunky. The humor didn't land for me, it didn't fit with the setting and was oddly placed sometimes. I would say that I recommend this to young teen/pre-teen girls who think boys are icky, but there a fair amount of violence and murder.

Having been exposed to the story since watching Arthur on PBS as a kid, this wasn't quite what I expected. The story is told from the perspective of a sort of friend of Jekyll who is just kind of worried about his friend and wondering why he associates with this really awful Hyde guy, until he finally gets the answer. I listened to this on audiobook, and I think that was the right move to get through the more antiquated language style.

This was just as good as The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, the first entry in this series. I know the cover is absolutely awful, but the book is really so good. The writing is clear and transporting. I loved having the protagonists both be a bit older. The friends to lovers romance is perfectly drawn out and satisfying, but there are also a lot of other topics discussed in the story that are handled with nuance and maturity such as the importance of easy access to divorce, the risks and rewards of standing up to authority and abuses of power, balancing personal principles with being practical and cautious, recognizing and responding to microaggressions and homophobia, and more. I also learned a lot about bees. I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was excellent.

Listened to this on audiobook with a friend when we'd drive together. Loved it just as much as the first book. Neither of us figured out the culprit, but the book is so fun and engaging I'm not sure how hard we were trying. 

I love the movie and wanted to finally read the source material. There are some common plot beats and characters, but the vibe is a little more humorous and playful than reflective and calm like the movie. I have disliked the writing style of Japanese translated books before, but it didn't bother me as much here, probably because the writing was more youthful in general. 

This was great! I think this is my favorite Book of the Month read so far this year. I will say that there are a lot of twists and reveals that I figured out very early, but it didn't detract from my reading experience. It was fun to see the characters put together what I'd already figured out. 

If you're in the mood for a basic fantasy story, this will suit. It's got a lot of different races of people and styles of magic. The story has some elements of being a political fantasy and a mystery. The main characters are pretty likable, and the villains are pretty easy to dislike. I never got super invested in the story, I never felt like I had a complete understanding of the world, and I never connected fully with the main characters, but I also didn't have any real issues and the reading experience was pleasant. Unrelated to the plot, it became a bit of an inside joke with myself how often the author described what people were wearing. The context is totally different, but I found it amusing because it reminded me of reading YA romance novels.