eloise_bradbooks's Reviews (801)

I AM FINALLY ON BOARD.

For some reason I enjoyed this way more than book 1. I think it came down to the fact that this book made realise how great Magnus is.
He's not a goofy loveable-idiot like Percy is. He's an open-minded educated and respectful kid - and that actually makes him loveable in a deeper way.
He speaks ASL, he is SO respectful of people practising other religions, SO respectful of people defying the gender binary. If he doesn't know, he asks, and he understands, and he respects. And he loves his found-family like no other...

The secondary characters I had loved in book 1 are still great. And the addition of Alex Fierro made the dynamics even better. She fit into the story perfectly! Her (female pronouns unless she says otherwise) identity is brilliantly handled - especially for a middle grade novel.

I can't wait to read book 3 and fall even more in love with them all... If that's even possible.

To my socially anxious tired heart, Steffi was incredibly relatable.
Honestly the anxiety elements are brilliantly portrayed. And I'm not an expert on sign language, especially not BSL, but as someone who is interested in that language I believe that it was portrayed pretty well too.

I very much enjoyed the first half of this book. Seeing a selective mute and a deaf person interact and trying to find their place in a social-interaction thriving society was very interesting. And relatable.
Have I mentioned I found this book relatable? I had to put it down a few times and pick it back up a couple days later because it was physically painful to read someone's anxious thoughts and manners, which I know I feel quite often too.

The second half of the book was less the kind of thing that I enjoy in books in general. it doesn't mean it wasn't good it's just not my thing. I found that Steffi was becoming a little annoying to me, making irresponsible choices. But then again, she is a teenager with intrusively bad thoughts.

Altogether, even though the plot wasn't exactly my kind of thing, the characters were extremely relatable and some of the quotes struck me pretty hard.
I would highly recommend to any anxious or severely shy person or someone with sensory disability. Check for trigger warnings before you read it though.

These books have been absolutely incredible. One of my all-time favourite series.

I have never found myself saying "Well ████" more often than when reading The Illuminae Files. There are so many gut-wrenching moments, followed by light and funny moments, all intertwined with so many emotions.
The phrase "You're gonna suffer, but you'll be happy about it" is a very good summary of the trilogy.

As amazing as the action is, it is the characters who make this whole story really quite remarkable.
I won't go into detail as to how much I care for each and every one of them (I could go on about Kady and Ezra all day) but I'll simply note how amazed I am that I care SO MUCH about SO MANY HUMANS AT ONCE. Even characters who got introduced quickly and died two pages later, I CARED. Too much.
EVEN A ████ING SPACESHIP!!!

However, the best thing to come out of this book is undoubtedly AIDAN. Every single one of those black pages wripped my heart out.
Jay and Amie definitely weren't merciful...

Now, the ending.
I can't believe I'm only giving this 4stars but I honestly have to with this one because I felt like it was all a little too... quick? to end.
Everything was going down, things exploding everywhere, cats hanging on by a thread... And it just stopped. And they quickly told us an ending...
That is not satisfying enough for me.
I expected more.

And gosh, yes, my expectations were incredibly high because the previous books were outstanding and mind blowing so of course I wanted an ending to blow my mind too.

A couple of other things helped me deduct that final star for my review: lack of Ella, characters on Kerenza IV didn't interest me as much as the others (although I cared for them more than I'd exepected before starting the book), saw a couple things coming

Spoiler

parachute

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The book as a whole was great.
The series as a whole was absolutely fantastic.
The way it is told is refreshing, there is action all throughout and the characters are so damn loveable. For that it will always remain one of my favourite book series of all time.

Song to not listen to when reading Obsidio: Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story, from Hamilton.

The Illuminae files are explosively sensational.

I'll admit I didn't care about these characters as much as I did the characters in the first book, but it still remains a fast-paced incredible read where it is impossible to put the book down because holy s*** everything is going down!!!!

I really am a astound at how unique and clever this whole story is. The people who put it together are very clever but also so so cruel.

I am ready to die in Obsidio. Gimme that book NOW.

3.5 /5 ~ Finally finished this after deciding it would be better to audiobook it.

I couldn't seem to get into it and I think that's because I didn't feel a connexion to Magnus. As the story went on, I found myself loving Samira and Hearthstone and Blitz. Loved seeing a deaf character using sign language and also a muslim kickass girl. Those three characters are great and I hope we see them again in the next book.
It's just a shame I didn't feel that much appreciation for the narrator and main character.

As a Riordan book, it's no surprise it was funny and full of sass (although not as much as his other series imo...). I now hope to be more into the next book.

This was a joy to read.

The plot was interesting and developped quite well, but the heart of this story is the characters.
They are all so loveable in their own way. All different, all flawed in some way but well rounded enough that you can't help but feel part of their family. They all love each other and want to protect each other and that is so beautiful.
It was also great to see an asexual dragon-scale-skinned guy filled with anxiety as the main character, along side a brilliant cast of polyamorous married women who love each other and their child to bits, with agender and transgender rep too. These representations aren't forced or explained to the other characters, they just ARE. Many of the characters are disabled in a certain way but all heroes nonetheless.

I got a little confused at times reading it because there isn"t one POV per chapter - it's an all-seeing type of narration where one phrase could be one character's feelings and the phrase after is another's. Sometimes my mind struggled to juggle that, but that is one tiny detail in the grand scheme of things.
I am one of those readers who seems to be more interested in the characters than world-building or plot. So based on that, I enjoyed it so much, and can't wait to get book 2.

What can I say ? I love these characters so much I can't even understand it myself.
I will now lay in bed and won't get up until the brilliant Leigh Bardugo writes another book with these characters.

THIS REVIEW IS IN FRENCH AND IN ENGLISH.

FR : Je suis tombée amoureuse.
Une histoire très originale et des personnages que tout le monde peut adorer !
J'ai rencontré mes nouveaux personnages préférés de tous les temps avec Six of Crows et je ne suis pas prête de les oublier.
DONNEZ MOI LA SUITE MAINTENANT.

EN : I have fallen in love.
The story is new, and the characters so loveable.
I met some of my favourite characters of all time with Six Of Crows so I am not ready to forget about them.
GIVE ME CROOKED KINGDOM NOW.

AAAAAAH. That's all I did throughout most of this book. Scream.

At first I didn't think I liked the characters as much as I did in Illuminae, and the plot didn't seem as good, but I got proven wrong about half way in: I was fully invested. How can I care this much about them ?????
The story is just full of twists and turns you do NOT see coming and just ... UGH. So good.

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Now, I have to say this because it's something I notice when reading and it does bug me.
It's the year 2575, there are thousand of planets - of universes even - we follow a whole bunch of characters, with quite a few romantic stories going on, AND YET, NO LGBT REPRESENTATION? I don't understand how this is still a thing. You've got loads of characters flirting with each other, would it really cost you that much for two of them at least to be the same gender?

2.5 I'm sure some people will find this entertaining. Especially as there's good rep on many accounts, including a deaf boy and sign language.
There was just way too much dumb teenage-drama for me.