galacticvampire's Reviews (366)

While I really like the concept here, I must say again that the biggest flaw of the Green Creek series is the insistence on reserving a book for each couple. 

The result is that, by the time I'm invested in the relationship, the book is already over, because differently than contemporary romances there's a lot of plot to be solced here. 

Still, I really enjoyed the dynamic between Carter and Gavin. The progression felt very interesting and their communication and frustration with ine another was extremely funny. If they had time to develop they could've been easy favourites. 

(Oh, there was also this huge finale involving Ox and their father that really cemented that the overall plot didn't have to be so mitigated. Jt felt really out of place after three books)
 

I'm not a fan of the amnesia trope, so the fact that I loved this book so much speaks volumes of it. 

This is exactly what any romance should have: the couple has chemistry, makes you cheer for them, there's drama but not for stupid reasons, and they don't suddenly resolve their problems just by having sex. 

I said in my wolfsong review that I was more interested in the plot that the main couple, and that's still somewhat true. The fact that Kelly is ace opened up space for more conversations and development than just "man very sexy, must mate". 

Overall, Robbie was a great POV to follow, and I love how Klune lets friendships and family dynamics be just as prominent as the romantic ones.

The thing about exes to lovers is that you're supposed to know why they liked each other in the first place, and I still don't. We only see why they broke up, both of them being extreme assholes, and given little reason to cheer for them.

The only good part about this is the lovely dynamic Gordo and the mechanic shop guys have, they're probably my favourite part of the cast.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book, even if the pacing was a little off with how many years it covered. The second half.... I was throughly entertained but couldn't help feeling like it was way too much for a single 400 pages book.

I was more interested on the plot and the pack dynamics than the couple itself, but they did work very well together and how much the full cast was developed was impressed. Ox is lovely and seeing the story unfold through his eyes was super fun.

My main takeaway is that I'd like the whole thing better if the plot was more diluted through the books and we had the cast in full swing being worked on, instead of each book focusing on one couple and moving on.

(Yeah, it takes some suspension of disbelief to get over the enormous age gap. If this wasn't a werewolf romance it would be impossible to ignore.)

I really like the concept of the setting, but two books in, I'm not sure I love the execution. I enjoyed the experience of reading Vengeful - maybe even more than its predecessor- but didn't find myself thinking about it on the down time or necessarily excited to pick it back up. Its a book full of buts.

The heart of the story is the relationship between Victor and Eli. It was beautifully explored on the first book, and I loved that we finally got to see more of Eli's side of things. And it was sided: the two of them barely really interacted, save from fake conversations (the highlight of the story in my opinion), and it made me feel like watching a story just slightly to the left.

Too much of new characters I didn't care the least about, lack of progress to the known ones, and a big feeling of missed opportunities. But the pacing and plot were considerably more fun. Just a lot of buts.

As a big fan of sports romances, my main point about this one is the severe lack of actual sports. I think there are maybe three skate practicing scenes and not a single one hockey game!

That being said, I really like the cast. The boys on the hockey team are distinct and interesting and their dynamics with Anastasia were the highlight of this book.

As much as I liked the main couple and the characters individually, I really struggled with the jump from "I have terrible hots for you for no reason" to "you're the love of my life". Seems weird that a romance book wouldn't go into detail into how they actually fell in love, you know.

Overall, I feel that Icebreaker could've been more than the average-and-forgetful romance if the plot had been streamlined and cleaned up. 300 and something pages would have done just fine.

(This didn't impact the rating because I don't really expect every romance to break genre clichés, but I still dislike the current trend of making the male lead a feminism vitriol while having a very #GenderRoles plot)

I think there's nothing I can say here that hasn't already been said.

This is an Incredible memoir that not only sheds light on fucked up industry practices, but explores beautifully the complicated feelings regarding abuse and grief.

Jennette does incredibly at making a biography engaging, and getting the audiobook version where she herself is the one reading it makes it even better. I was horrified for her in multiple moments, and I'm glad that this book seems to be the result of processing and healing.

My most recurring thought while reading Howl's Moving Castle was "Ah. Yes, I can see exactly how this could become such a fantastic movie".

The cozy fantasy vibes are super fun and the author does a great job at setting an interesting atmosphere, with great descriptions and visuals.

Sophie, while mostly being taken along by the story with little agency, acts hilarious about it all. Her thought process is frequently "oh well this might as well happen".

The plot itself is very convoluted, which, while builds a charming adventure, felt like could've been trimmed down and resolved more neatly. On the same vein, the romance was kind of out of pocket considering the stage of their relationship with each other by the end.

"I think that if you love someone, you don't get to choose how they love you back."

Wow. Just.  I'm really at loss of what to say here because I feel a lot of my feelings are already in my two previous reviews of this trilogy.

To make it short: The Broken Earth has one of the most interesting voices I've ever read. It's gritty and, well, broken, but its message is kind and hopeful.

This is a story about motherhood and relationships, about what it means to be a person in contrast to what it is being a people. It's asking us how we interact with the world and with eachother.

The only reason this isn't a five stars like the other two previous instalments is because, while the addition of a Hoa pov was so so delicate and contrasting with the other two, I struggled a lot with Nassun's.

Maybe because of her age, maybe because the narrator didn't have the same connection to her as to Essun, her side of the story felt way more expositional and I didn't care as much.

Regardless, the ending wrapped up everything beautifully and the trilogy will really stick with me. (I recommended it to every single one of my friends)

Reading this series was like opening a Reddit comment section: you know the only thing there is dumpster-fire. You know you're going to get mad. You do it anyway.

The fact that this starts with a time-skip, quickly runs through a full month of  tangencial events, then ends with another time-skip should be enough to tell you everything from the pacing to the plot is completelly wrong.

Belly remains insufferable, but Jenny Han hit the Stephanie Mayer narrative wall that is making both romantic triangle options too good. The main character has no reason to dump the one that is meant to be the bump in the road to the one she's actually supposed to end up with. So Jenny Han once again borrows from Jacob Black's ultimate fate and gives Jeremiah a total 180 to justify Belly (Bella) choosing Conrad (Edward). (without implying that said main character was just wrong to mislead a boy she didn't actually like, obviously)

The premise here is that after years of dating, Jeremiah cheats on Belly and the answer they both find to that IS GETTING MARRIED AT NINETEEN. Jeremiah acts his age and is completely immature about the whole ordeal, while Belly is blowing the whole thing out of porpotion because she can't deal with the fact that thing aren't perfect. Oh, and this whole time she's been dreaming about her boyfriend's brother :)

Somehow the only reasonable adult here is painted as too rigid and most of the story isn't even about Belly realizing her mistakes. It's about being stressed about wedding planning. And we don't even get to see why and how things get resolved so there's that.