This is such a fun world to explore. As always, Meyer's writing is mesmerizing and her storytelling prowess is just magnificent. I was sucked in right away and I am total trash for her novels. The characters are interesting, grabbing some from fairy tale and some more modern and imaginative traits that made them both nostalgic and entertaining. This is not to say that her plot is in ANY way lacking. I mean, it's great to have an author who can spin a good yarn, great to have someone who can build interesting and full-fledged characters...but to have both paired together so well in a single book is just perfection. The pace in this series is good and fast and there is always something happening. I was not for a moment left in a lull, but nearly always on the edge of my seat and always rooting for the protagonists.

Speaking of the awesome, strong female characters that Meyer writes, I really appreciated the dual POV approach and how Cinder's story was able to weave around this one in a way that felt so natural. Yes, this series is sci-fi and futuristic, but it is also somehow super believable. The characters react in ways that make sense, the plot goes places that don't seem outlandish, but are at the same time nowhere near boring. This series is so much fun and I cannot wait to see where things continue to go.

Hi. I'm an idiot. I picked up this book thinking it was a standalone and didn't realize it was actually part of a duology until I was around 50 pages from the end. NOOOOOO! Ugh.

I've decided that Marissa Meyer is totally my jam. Her writing and storytelling reminds me a lot of Charlie N. Holmberg, an author I absolutely adore. Fairytale retelling style with a lot of atmosphere and lyrical language, mythical creatures and fabulously gothic locations...YES.

I was hooked on this from the start and devoured this book like my life depended on it. It was awesome and I had such a great time. The pacing was a little slow in the middle, but otherwise things moved magnificently and the characters were a lot of fun. There was a great construction of light and dark and there was great sacrifice of perfection and the happy ending style. I love my tales dark, so this was great.

The ending. Oh the ending. Such good writing and setup. The ending was solid, but dang it left a good cliffhanger. I need the second book yesterday!!

3.5 stars.

Entertaining and enjoyable, but not one to blow you away. There was a lot to like in this book, but there was also a lot of convenience plot that took away from the good parts. I really enjoyed the first half of the book and the intrigue level was pretty high. The plot was clever and moved at a good clip. Lucky is a great character and has some great introspection that I think makes her interesting.

But around the halfway mark, the flow slowed down and it felt like the plot stalled out a little bit. From that point, things went a little off the rails. It became a little too convenient and logic got thrown a bit out of the window. Lucky's actions and decisions didn't gel with who she had been earlier in the story and the people around her just turned into predictable shells. It was still good to read, but there were moments where I was rolling my eyes and moments of "WHAT?" because Lucky's choices just didn't make sense.

The ending was solid, but again too convenient. The pace suddenly picked up incredibly fast and there was a lot of the story that was just all too tidily tied up. Yes, there were no loose ends left hanging, but it just didn't feel realistic and that bothered me...a lot.

There was such promise in this book and I really was enjoying the writing and the tale. I'm bummed that it didn't carry through from beginning to end. Instead of being awesome like it truly had the potential for, it simply landed in the okay pile for me in the end.

4.5 stars.

Crying in H Mart is a beautiful, honest, and heartbreaking account of a not-quite-perfect relationship between a daughter and her now deceased mother. Zauner constructs memories of her mother around their mutual love of food, specifically the Korean cuisine of her mother's homeland.

This is a very humbling portrait of grief, sorrow, and survivor's guilt. It is introspective and deeply personal and I was moved by her ability to put her own failures on the page and be honest about how she felt about her mother, from childhood clear through struggling with her mother's illness and eventual death. The writing was very raw and, though it was nothing super flashy...just an ordinary relationship between a fairly ordinary mother and fairly ordinary daughter...it hit hard. Perhaps that is exactly why it hit hard, it was relatable. I struggled with reading through the pages where her mother was undergoing chemotherapy, drudging up my own feelings of guilt and sorrow from the time when my own mother was facing the same thing. Her grief and tribulations were not the same as mine, but there was a thread of commonality there that I think allowed me to be absorbed by her story.

A well-written chronicle of a parent-child relationship and a very comprehensive exploration of feelings surrounding heritage, coming-of-age, and grief. Well worth the read and best done via the audio, read by the author herself.

4.5 stars.

A Jack London feel with a strong female protagonist on a harsh and fairly violent planet. There was a bit of a slow start to this adventurous dystopian sci-fi, but once the ball got rolling, I was wholly engrossed. A tense narrative centered on an icy planet where an annual, deadly sled race takes place. Sena is basically alone to survive in an area that sees her as someone who doesn't belong. The skills taught to her by her mothers prior to their disappearance during a past race wind up serving her well, but she also has a knack for getting into serious trouble.

The plot moves great once it gets going, with a lot of tense activity and an atmospheric feel to the gripping action. Great worldbuilding along with a stellar character arc for Sena. There is a lot of social commentary and climate discussion built into the plot that relates well to the modern world. It's a creative approach to current events built into a story that captured my attention quite well. And holy crap the atmosphere. I live in Minnesota, so the cold winter is something I'm very familiar with. This captured it fantastically as I sat in my house, bundled in blankets with temperatures well below zero outside.

There is some loss of logic in pieces of the plot in a way that makes the story feel a bit on the magical realism/fantastical side, but overall things make sense and follow in a way that keeps the tale moving well. There were points where I felt like every extreme was being taken, but I have to say...it worked. I'm a fan and I'm impressed by this debut.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

2.5 stars.

The largest issue with this for me was the writing style. There was a lot to enjoy in the plot and it works well as a short adventure story for children, but the writing style is overly dense, formal, & stylized. This makes it fairly inaccessible and I can't comprehend it being easy to follow for a young child. There is a choppy nature to the plot (constructed as a series of short stories) that leaves large gaps in a way that could have been explored to make it a much more full and sweeping story. I felt mostly underwhelmed by the flat nature of this approach and really just wanted it to feel more connected and flowing. I wanted to feel the world in its entirety and follow Mowgli through his development in the jungle rather than just being handed snippets. The characters are fun and work together well and there is a lot that is good about the premise and the character interactions, but things just ultimately fell flat for me.

4.5 stars

I love Ishiguro's writing. This felt so heartwarming at its core, though there were definite moments where things felt creepy, uncomfortable, and somewhat hostile. The premise was great and the development of Klara's character was magnificent. I loved that the entire book was viewed through her somewhat naive eyes. It made descriptions a little bit different and definitely created a new way of looking at the world.

I do wish that the plot was taken further. I feel like there was so much potential in this story and Ishiguro just grazed the surface. This is definitely more of a character study and a literary fiction approach than a sweeping sci-fi adventure. The atmosphere was well constructed and there was some great worldbuilding, but again...there was just a surface level exploration of these things. I didn't feel like I wholly grasped the world. The writing about it was great and I enjoyed those pieces, but the narrative made it clear that the intent is to focus almost solely on Klara.

There is a lot of societal commentary laced within the text and I can understand why there is such a dichotomy of ratings. This isn't a "something amazing happened" kind of book. There is plot activity and there is character development as a result, but things are constructed in kind of a steady, slow, removed kind of way. It has a quiet presence and something of a creeping pace. And yet, there is some kind of essence there that just impacted me strongly. There is an emotional component to the text and to the relationships between Klara and the humans that surround her. The study of human interactions and what it means to be human were so craftily teased out that i truly felt Klara's confusion and limited scope of understanding about the things occurring around her. There is a lot that remains vague, unknown, or unexplained, but the impact to Klara is clear. And that hit me right in the feels.

The ending wasn't quite what I wanted, but it worked once I sat on it for a bit. There was a lot that was present in this book to love and there is a lot absent that created some disappointment. I was left with a feeling that I wish things would have been explored in a more sweeping way and I would like to know more about the world, but I also felt like I was given a fantastically complete picture of Klara. My heart was a bit scarred by the journey, but I still very much enjoyed it.

I have yet to meet a Kate Quinn book that I haven't loved. Despite the fact that there is a LOT of WWII historical fiction out there, she always manages to write something unique and magnificent. The Huntress is no different. It hooked me from page one and, though I more or less understood where the ending would take me, I couldn't put it down.

I always learn something new in Quinn's books. In this case, it was about the Nachthexen (the Night Witches), and I loved every minute of it. Strong female protagonists are her strength and she always gets me wound up in their pasts and their futures. I am solidly rooting for her protagonists from the very beginning.

Like her other novels, the characters in The Huntress are rich and vibrant, with distinct personalities. The plot is done from multiple POVs and weaves the stories together incredibly well. There is even a cameo from one of her other books that put quite a big smile on my face.

This book does give more of a post-WWII focus than her other books, which was something interesting and gave something extra to the read. It was a nice commentary on how quickly the world can move on from an atrocity and try to forget what happened instead of trying to make full reparations for evil. I feel like there's always a good message in her books, and this one stuck in my craw a bit as I could definitely see this lesson applying to quite a few modern situations.

It is no surprise that I'm giving this book 5-stars. It's an intriguing read that kept me wanting more and that I devoured over the course of just a couple of days. Will I read anything that Kate Quinn writes as soon as I can get my greedy little hands on it? Yes. Yes I will.