galacticvampire's Reviews (366)

Reforged has a nice premise and interesting characters, but it doesn't seem sure what it wants to be.

Most of the plot revolves around the political turmoil and coup around the new king, but the conclusion and main pov is focused on the romance, so I ended up unsatisfied on both ends.

The romance could've been awesome, but they didn't have as much time developing together for me to care that much. I was actually invested on the plot, but then the conclusion was so rushed it got me wondering if it wasn't a standalone after all (it is).

It was fun, but really not memorable.

This book is so adorable and the atmosphere so whimsical that it made me crave read the original Pride and Prejudice. The romance is great and the writing was very natural without sounding out of place in a historical fiction.

I absolutely love the care with writing a trans character who's not out. Whenever Oliver had to present as Elisabeth you could really feel the wrongness of it all, and the narrative never treated the character any different than when he was his real self.

I have to say though, this Darcy is miles nicer than any other version of him lol. It didn't bother me much because that wasn't the point but it really took out the Pride part of the book.

As a dinosaur lover, this book was incredible!! It's a beautiful ode to the premise of Frankenstein, with the spin of an unexpected setting.

I felt anger along with Mary and fell in love with the creature. I was fascinated by the development and annoyed by her waste of space husband.

My only gripe is how much this book is marketed as sapphic when that's barely even there. The fact that it's such a strong story advocating for women in academia should be front and center, because it executes it beautifully.

I'm so concerned about this book that I can't even properly understand how this happened. How did Rick's editorial team let this be published like this is beyond me. 

First of all I need to get this out of the way: I know I'm not the target audience for this anymore. But I read the Apollo series just last year and enjoyed it fine so the blame can't only fall to that. 

The writing style is redundant and soppy, far from the charming voice the entire universe has. Even if the other structural problems stayed, I still think a decent prose could've saved this book to be at least fun instead of a total drag, since there are a lot of elements that had potential. 

There are also several pacing, characterization and plot problems:
 • Nico is completely another person.
 • I can barely understand why or how these two love eachother because in a full year they don't even know basic stuff about one another.
 • Will is extremely one note.
 • Nico is portrayed as the person who is grieving Jason the most besides Piper.
 • They're trying *really* hard to get cookie points for representation instead of just... letting the representation represent (although I can understand the importance of spelling it out these things in MG books because it might be the first contact with the idea, it was too heavy handed.)
 • It had warnings, in caps lock, about every DREAM SEQUENCE. Every. Time. It ruined the flow and the mistery vibe of the dreams. (Also. They dream so much??? Asleep all the time. Lazy ass way for exposition.)

 • There are way too many explicit pop culture references that will age like milk (NICO MAKES A JOKE ABOUT LIL NAS X GOING TO HELL)
 • and, somehow, they let, I swear to god, Nico say Percabeth on page. 

My annoyance aside, I still had a really hard time understanding the story here. Bringing Bob back is the most coward backtrack ever, as much as I love him. The villain has no motivation, not even taking over the world. This is character-focused while refusing to go deeper on issues, making it the most sanitized installment in the universe. The "plot-twist" in the end doesn't really explains anything. 

Overall, very disappointed, because Nico was easily the most interesting and complex character Rick Riordan ever created and he deserved better. 

(I have a strong inkling Mark Oshiro was part of the fandom, was a fanfic writer at some point, and did not reread the books to write this)
 

What to do when experiencing depression symptoms?
a) visit a therapist
b) perform a blood ritual

You'll never guess which was chosen.

The plot was fantastic, the characters super interesting, and I actually managed to like both of them on the same level, which is a challenge in dual povs.

The only downside was the cheesy endind. Not a great resolution for a murder mystery, leaning a lot on the #Girboss vibes to actually sell the conclusion.

This is a cutesy paranormal romance if I ever saw one. It's funny, endearing, the setting is unique and the main couple has loads of chemistry.

It would be on point if not for the plot structure. I felt like this decided it was going to turn into a duologu halfway through and had to fit in a plot for that, so all of sudden there's this story about curse going in and they have to fight it and another character to nake it a polycule and honestly... It would've worked very well if the two halfs fit better together.

I'm still curious about the next one, as this is a debut and I think Joy Demorra has lots of space to grow.

A really good way to see how the American system, specially the left, can find ways to justify brutality without hurting its sense of morality.

It's not the best crafted writing, as I found myself frequently getting lost in the tangents they took me before going back to the original point, and I thought they painted Hamas too much as simply a resistance group, but still was very informative.

I'll be honest: you have to survive the narrator in this one. The way he speaks just screams jackass and is hard to tolerate. I almost gave up on listening just because of that.

That being said, this is surprisingly heartwarming considering it's a military romance. The cast is fun and the plot is simple but engaging. The amount of humour was surprising, sometimes bordering stupid, but it was quite cool.

From the blurb to the advertising I was expecting a Inquisitor story, and I think spending more time in Iskat's years as one would've highly elevated the story, specially since everything we saw was already covered by the Vader comic.

I still found it very fun to follow such an impulsive and messy female character, even if she demanded an eye roll for her teenage-isms from time to time.

I wasn't expecting much of this book because, well, Hayley Kiyoko isn't a writer. But damn, what a surprise.

I think this has one of the best depictions of sapphic attraction I've ever seen. It's not (only) about the curves and the gaze or whatever else heteronormativity managed to contaminate into the queer experience. It pays attention to details, from the intimacy of touching hair to helping clasp a necklace. The tension!

My only point is that I really disagree with the choice to make the music video the climax, because everyone already knew what would happen and then it just. Ends. The scene could've easily be elsewhere, making the conclusion way more interesting.