caseythereader's reviews
1836 reviews

adventurous emotional fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Thanks to Penguin for the free copy of this book.

 - As you might be able to tell from the summary above THE NIGHT ENDS WITH FIRE is a Mulan retelling, expanded out to include warring ancient spirits and magical powers.
- The first half of the book is more or less the same as the Disney version of the story, just made a bit darker. The second half is where things really get cooking, with new truths coming to light and continual struggles to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
- One completely unimportant thing that I couldn’t figure out is why half the characters’ names are transliterated and half are translated, as in, our two main characters are Meilin and Sky. Her siblings are Rouha and Plum. I’m curious why that choice was made. 

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark emotional informative slow-paced

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous emotional funny fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional informative medium-paced

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Thanks to Macmillan for the free copy of this book.

 - OLLIE IN BETWEEN is a middle grade novel inspired by ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT’S ME MARGARET starring a kid discovering they might be trans.
- It’s by turns funny and heartbreaking, and you just want to squeeze Ollie and their friends so tightly.
- I think I’d put this on the upper end of middle grade, as it tackles some hard and complex topics like transphobia and misogyny. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Thanks to FSG Books for the free copy of this book.

 - Rivers Solomon brings their explorations of race and gender to the horror genre with MODEL HOME, and it is intensely chilling.
- It begins as a gothic tale of a perhaps-haunted house, and morphs into things ever larger and scarier as the book progresses.
- I particularly liked how the three Maxwell siblings all reacted to their childhood differently in how they lived as adults, and how they all remembered things slightly differently. 

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