howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

I'm terrified that if I slip, if I fail, everyone will stop loving me, and where will I be then?

I haven't hurt anyone. I shouldn't be ashamed. I shouldn't need to apologize. This is me.

"The only good thing this broken heart of mine can feel is love for you."

— PRE-REVIEW THOUGHTS —
april 5,2019: *chanting* We! Want! Quan! We! Want! Quan!

update, june 3, 2021: *chanting* We! Got! Quan! We! Got! Quan! ♥

#1 The Lightning Thief ★★★★☆
#2 The Sea of Monsters ★★★★☆
#3 The Titan’s Curse ★★★★☆
#4 The Battle of the Labyrinth ★★★★★
#5 The Last Olympian ★★★★★

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I somehow missed the Rick Riordan train entirely as a kid. I never read any of his books, never saw the Percy film(s), nothing – my first introduction to the world was last summer, when I picked up The Lightning Thief, and I thought it was cute enough, but I wasn’t super impressed, beyond totally loving the representation for dyslexia (which I’ve never seen in any other book) and ADHD (which I have, and never see rep for). This book, however, hooked me for good, and now I want to read every single piece of work that Riordan ever has released (or ever will).

I think it’s her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.

My favorite thing about the first book was Rick’s sense of humor and the ways it comes across through Percy’s narrative, and that was only further enhanced in this book. While the first one was cute, the second one actually made me laugh a few times – there’s so much more snark and sass, and it definitely feels like a slightly “older” sense of humor, despite Percy only being one year older. Percy’s outlook on the world is comical, a little cynical, and a bit self-deprecating, but never to the point of being a downer.

“You can’t give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it. It doesn’t matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don’t appreciate your genius for inventing the internet –”

I also thought the adult side characters were a lot more amusing and interesting in this installment, especially Hermes, who we get to spend a little bit of time with and who I really hope we see more of in the future. I loved his little snake sidekicks, and the fact that he talked to Percy like an equal, instead of being condescending or secretive like a lot of the adults in the first book were.

We only came close to dying six or seven times, which I thought was pretty good.

Of course, as always, there’s a lot of adventure, but I personally didn’t think the action sequences in this book were as harrowing as the first book’s, which was my only complaint – then again, this book was also a bit shorter (it’s the shortest in the series, at less than 300 pages), so there wasn’t as much room to fit in the extra monsters and fights. I still enjoyed the action scenes we did get, and we got to experience more of Percy’s natural ingenuity, as well as the cute “coincidences” in which his gifts from the gods assist him at just the right moments.

“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we’re related for better or for worse… and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”

If I had to pick just one favorite aspect of this book, though, I think it would be Tyson, and the family/sibling rep shown there. Tyson is a Cyclops, and as we learn very early on, related to Percy, and we see a lot of this struggle that Percy goes through between determining whether he should worry more about his own reputation, or bonding with his newfound sibling. Tyson is such a precious and sweet character, though, with a lot of his own skills and capabilities to bring to the table, and I loved watching Percy grow close to him and learn to love him despite the reputation that Cyclopes have.

All in all, this book was a total delight to read, and I can’t wait to continue the series!

A really fun, suspenseful take on the Wild Hunt mythology - and I loved the ending.

Oh my heart, this was SO FREAKING CUTE and I was so invested in these characters! Ben is absolutely the softest, most precious little bean, and I loved his friends, too. The entire cast of characters at the restaurant were delightful, whether it's Emi's weirdness or Liam's general perfection or Chef Davis' hilarious banter, yelling, and stories about Watson. And can we talk for a moment about how cute Watson the Taste-Testing Pig is?!

Seriously, this was one of the cutest, most wholesome graphic novels I've read in a while, and the characters and story sucked me in so fully that I was genuinely on the edge of my seat during the big "tense moment" near the end (will he/won't he? if you've read this, you know!). I'm going to need a finished copy of this cutie for my shelves because this strikes me as the kind of funny, feel-good queer rom-com I'm gonna reach for time and time again.

✨ Representation: Ben and Liam are both gay, there are multiple BIPOC side characters

✨ Content warnings for:

Spoiler

vague homophobia from parents, pressure & guilt trips from overbearing parents, stress about unemployment

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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I loved the original version of Long Way Down, so I was excited to check out this new rendition, and I have to say I'm really loving the way this story was re-imagined for this graphic novel. The watercolor artwork just functions so well to aid in the storytelling, especially since the story itself is a little wispy around the edges with the ghosts, the high emotions, and the lack of knowing what exactly is going on at times. I think this was a beautiful new take on a really important, incredible, heart-breaking novel in verse and I highly recommend picking up either version (or both!).

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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I won't say that I loved this first volume, but it definitely caught my interest enough that I'd like to continue the series. There were some really interesting characters here and I love the designs of a lot of them, especially Thorn/Ainsworth and the Ariels. I was a little iffy when I realized the whole "Magus' bride" bit in the title is referencing the fact that Thorn intends to eventually marry this teenage girl he's "bought" (though to be fair, he hasn't bought her as a slave at all — he essentially bought her freedom and offers her a home/family), but I decided to stick it out, and there is no romance at all at this point, so I'm going out on a 'benefit of the doubt' limb here and assuming that this is not a grooming story. (If I'm wrong in later volumes, I'll come back and update this with a warning

This was a really intriguing, cute, sometimes over-the-top introduction to a series that I feel like has a ton of potential and I can really foresee myself loving. There's a lot of lore at play here that I'm assuming we've barely scratched the surface on, and it doesn't hurt my excitement levels any to realize that my library's app has the next dozen-ish volumes, so I know I have a lot of story ahead of me! Oh, and the artwork is beautiful! ♥

I've been so excited for this, as someone who adores technology-themed horror, and it did not disappoint! The play format was so interesting — I've never read a play outside of classics, and it created such a rich atmosphere that I felt like I was watching a movie in my head (which isn't something I can say about many books, personally!).

I loved the idea of this dark web mystery box unboxing because it's something I could so easily see becoming an IRL trend, and I enjoyed how authentic the vlogger celeb aspects felt — Zipper's relationship suffering, doing everything for the views, and needing to find a balance or make a decision between his career and his life.

The only thing I would have changed is that I wish this story had been longer so we could have had more back story on the Boxer, because I was so intrigued by his presence in the story and think he would've been a really creepy villain with more screen time! That said, I still really enjoyed this short and highly recommend it.

Yikes. Yikes. I had such high hopes that I would enjoy this more than, um, almost everyone I know who has reviewed this, but sadly, those hopes were unfounded.

I won't name any characters, but I am going to talk about the plot a bit here, so if you do not want to risk feeling spoiled in any way at all, let me just say one quick non-spoiler-y thing: the plot arc of this book did not know what it wanted to do with itself and the writing struggled. And now, you should probably stop reading if you really don't want to risk any vague spoilers.

The book started strong and was fairly captivating for the first half, but around the midway point, everything hit the fan — and by "everything", I mainly just mean some of the worst mental illness rep I've ever seen in my life. I know mental illness is a common enough theme in thrillers and it's not like that's a surprising fact or a rarity by any means, but I'm not sure I've ever felt this uncomfortable with the way it's written!

Not only did it make me cringe a lot, but the representation is also incredibly self-contradicting. The character in question constantly alternates between having hallucinations and delusions, to recognizing the truth of what actually happened after only a literal moment's thought. Even if I weren't looking at this from my viewpoint (which is that of someone who has watched multiple loved ones experience delusions and hallucinations for years on end), even from a writing standpoint, it makes no sense. Every time a plot point is built up in this story, it's immediately torn back down.

Finally, I understand that many reviewers probably didn't feel comfortable mentioning this because I could see some readers seeing this as a spoiler, but as someone who genuinely wishes I had known beforehand, I'm saying it anyways: this book focuses very heavily on miscarriages and infertility as both plot points and singular defining traits of characters. There are characters in this book who I felt like I hardly even knew outside of their infertility, and some of the commentary and the ways in which the entire discussion was handled felt so callous and uncaring to me. As someone who has lived through a lot of heartache RE: miscarriages and infertility, maybe I'm just exceptionally picky about the way I see it discussed in stories, but this was not it.

On top of everything else... I hated this main character. She is horribly cruel to every single other woman in this book (except one, I guess, who she's nice to outwardly but thinking horrible things about constantly). She has no personality whatsoever outside of wanting to be her husband's favorite sex partner. She spends unnecessary amounts of time bragging about how she wants to sexually please her husband better than anyone else because she doesn't necessarily mind him loving other women, as long as he only thinks of her when he's having sex with them. The entire experience of being inside her brain was disgusting and wholly un-enjoyable.

I intended to write a one- or two-paragraph mini review discussing the major issues I saw in this story and instead it's turned into a full page of ranting, and I haven't even touched on all of the problems (like the way mental health hospitals and doctors are depicted — don't get me started, but my friend and buddy read partner Malliumpkin wrote an INCREDIBLE review here that you should check out). And finally — I swear I'll shut up after this — there are HUGE plot points that get brought up and NEVER explained or tidied up. We're left with such a massive amount of loose ends at the end of the book, and it's all just swept under the all-encompassing rug of "but, mental illness!"

In case you couldn't tell, I hated this book. I actually started this review at 2 stars and the more I think on it, it feels generous to even give it 1. I regret spending my time on this, and despite having loved the first book of Tarryn's I read, I loathed so much about this story that I'm hesitant to ever pick up another of her works at all.

✨ Content warnings for:

Spoiler

miscarriages (described in graphic detail and discussed many times), domestic violence, ableism, slut-shaming, internalized misogyny, mental health hospitalization, alcoholism, mentions of child abuse, mentions of murder/suicide, infidelity

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review.

ALL HAIL THE SUNFLOWER GOD.

The author note at the end of this book says it's already been optioned for a film, and HOLY SHIT I AM SCREAMING because this would make SUCH a good film!

Now, if that wasn't enough to convince you to pick up this absolutely delightful little novella, let me go on. The House on Abigail Lane follows the story of the titular house and all of its assorted hauntings and tragedies over a 60-year span, presented as nonfiction — which immediately sold me, as I love any sort of horror presentation that blurs the lines between reality and fiction. Kealan pulled this off magnificently and I was wholly sucked in from cover to cover.

Houses are empty shells of wood and brick and plaster, devoid of souls, or intent. It's us, the creatures that are installed within them, that ultimately define their character.

Throughout the story, we catch glimpses of life for different victims of the house, and it's so intriguing to watch it all come together, while I constantly wondered how they would connect in the end. The finale wasn't anything I could have predicted, but it fit perfectly. I absolutely loved how bizarre of a story it all boiled down to be in the end.

One last thing: as a strong believer in the idea that fiction can and often should offer perspective on real life issues, I loved the brief but effective message on racism and how cases of missing Black people don't receive the same attention and investigative power as those of missing white people do. It's a harsh and unhappy truth that we need to face more often, especially in the horror and thriller genres, I think.

All in all, The House on Abigail Lane was such a fun, twisted little story and I absolutely hope the adaptation comes to pass, because I think it's going to make for one hell of a film!

Buddy read with Bex! ♥