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Wild and Wicked Things

Francesca May

DID NOT FINISH: 23%

A bunch of little things were making me uncomfortable, but the way the blood magic was used is the big one that made me stop. If the book engages with the way the blood magic is being used as something partly like a drug and explicitly as self harm then I'm not ready right now to read that book. If it doesn't end up engaging with those early themes then it's not a story I want to read at all. Either way, I'm stopping.

I like the way it uses three narrators for the audiobook, I'd happily listen to more of their work (singly or together). 

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Ariadne

Jennifer Saint

DID NOT FINISH: 9%

It begins with many descriptions of backstory, almost all of which involve events of sexual and misogynistic violence. They're all from various myths I'm familiar with, but it was too much at once for me.

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Sword in the Stars

Cory McCarthy, A.R. Capetta

DID NOT FINISH: 15%

Book one was fine when I read it a few years ago, but book two leans hard into the bits of the narrative style that I found annoying. If you liked ONCE AND FUTURE, know that SWORD IN THE STARS is that but more so, with extra Merlin, and has time travel. The other bit I didn't like was how Merlin was so "wrong" about the past, it feels like either intentionally misleading the reader in book one, or trying to fix a mistake in book two. It came off as a bit patronizing to me, though the overall aim of the correction was good.

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Everfair

Nisi Shawl

DID NOT FINISH: 5%

Too many characters, times, and locations for me to track.

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The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Holly Black

DID NOT FINISH: 45%

The introduction was engaging, and I like this version of vampirism. The worldbuilding around vampires and how the humans react is interesting and works pretty well. The story just moved too slowly to keep me engaged, and I couldn't stay interested in the main character with the decisions she was making. I don't have anything specifically negative to say about the book, it just wasn't working for me. 

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The Power of the Dog

Don Winslow

DID NOT FINISH: 0%

I was looking for a different book with the same title.

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The House of Mirth

Edith Wharton

DID NOT FINISH: 5%

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The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Patrick Ness

DID NOT FINISH: 30%

I wanted to like this, but I generally don't like YA contemporary, and once all the weird/magic/superhero stuff is confined to brief glimpses and chapter headings, it leaves an interestingly framed YA contemporary novel where crushes, school dances, and ongoing parental neglect are the big stakes. I'm not interested in those stakes, but if you are then this might work for you. The depiction of OCD was realistic in a way that might be triggering for anyone else who has it, including a lot of ideation. I haven't read anything else I can recall with such a realistic portrayal of this condition, so I liked that inclusion, but that wasn't enough to hold my interest (especially when that started getting stressful for me). It has a very irreverent tone which is used for everything from crush woes to discussions of current and past trauma, so please check the CWs before proceeding. 

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The Ones We're Meant to Find

Joan He

DID NOT FINISH: 27%

I don't like the feeling of being poised in suspense to find out whether the twist is obvious or strange. There are two main characters with two different understandings of what their reality is, and I got far enough to know I didn't care who was right, if one or both of them are actually dead, or if it's some additional permutation I didn't think of.

The island sequences were pretty cool, the world is an interesting dystopia, and I like the audiobook narrator. This just wasn't a story I like.

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The Family Trade

Charles Stross

DID NOT FINISH: 21%

I don’t like the modern-day parts of the setting, and the synopsis doesn’t make me think I’ll like the rest of the plot. It's a portal fantasy, which normally I like, but this one just didn't fit me.

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