jamgrl's Reviews (197)

I tend to be wary of historical fiction because when something feels anachronistic or weird, it takes me out of it. This book feels really consistent and was clearly written with strong attention to detail. The book is slow, but not predictable, or not entirely predictable (I think what is predictable helps the narrative) and everything fits together neatly by the end, which makes it a satisfying end to a puzzle.

This isn’t the type of book I would usually choose, and I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. I did become attached to and feel strongly towards the protagonist, Mary. I also learned about Puritan life, a lot of really interesting stuff, and information I can trust because it is clear the author did his history homework. I appreciate that he committed to having the characters perceptions be motivated by Puritan religious ideas and beliefs. Mary’s faith journey was a really interesting part of this book. 

This is a solid book I would recommend it to anyone interested in historical fiction or Puritan society. There are certainly some interesting conversations about gender and class to be had around this book as well.

I think this book would have hit harder had the characters from book 1 been better established, HOWEVER, I am still giving this 5 stars because I just really enjoy this series and this book gives us an arc conclusion while also leaving me wanting to see where Murderbot goes from here. The book also does enough to re-establish the characters (I think) to, well, make our care for them pasable. It’s more about us caring that Murderbot cares anyways. I loved that we got some insight into Murderbot’s media fixation in this one and I am so excited to keep digging in with the next books.

This was a cute romance! It wasn’t doing anything epicly mind-blowing, but it was sweet. I enjoyed all of the Cuban cooking and baking- it all felt very familiar! And the setting in England was sweet, as was Lila’s journey to finding herself and her dreams while there. 

It was nice to see her recover from a breakup and figure out what that relationship meant and what she wanted from the future. It was also nice to see her learning how to make new friends and rethink how she wants to interact with her old one. 

Lila is a strong teen protagonist who goes through a lot of growth and learns how to adapt her goals and dreams to changing circumstances- I think it is a good story for teens! The author perhaps doesn’t entirely know how Instagram works, but I can forgive her 😜.

My spouse and I listened to this together while road tripping and it was enjoyable mostly because it was so short. The mystery and the outcome are very bland- it goes through typical mystery story beats where multiple suspects give different story pieces and multiple people are suspicious, which is fine, but the reveal was disappointing. The journey itself was also sort of bland- the characters weren’t particularly interesting and neither of us like the writing style. 

If you are looking for a murder mystery that is safe- on that no one is really all that bad and the mystery is easy to follow, this could work for that. It has a hallmark feel. It and this author appear to be well liked, but when it comes to mystery, this was not our cup of cocoa (😅).

It was a fun thing to do while driving, but neither of us will be picking up another mystery by this author. 

This book is really well written, I just struggled to get into it. I’m not a huge Gatsby fan, so that is probably why. However, the magic system is really interesting and the book explores social and political issues.

This is a really fun Christmas rom com! Features an autistic demisexual protagonist and a (spoiler)

diabetic love interest

. Classic rivals/enemies to lovers and I love it.

This book is very complex in such a good way. It has multiple political and cultural systems that are fleshed out and which interact with each other seamlessly- I am amazed by the detail the author went into with the various groups and their relationships. This book feels to me like a masterclass of political commentary while also being rich in world building. The ecological commentary and general focus on how geography and ecology impact peoples and military strategy was fascinating. I am an environmental scientist with a focus in water and the ecological, social, and political importance of water in this book felt incredibly relevant and timely (despite age of the book!)

I expected this book to be slow paced because of how long it is, but it isn’t- it is pretty fast paced, it is just very long. It can also be dense in places where it gets deep into conversations about military strategy and I had a hard time keeping up with all of the characters and political factions/ got a bit bogged down at times, but I think this book would be served well by a reread.

The way the book handles gender is a bit odd and there are very few women in the book, but 1. the Lady Jessica and the Bene Gesserit are really interesting 2. the cultural roles of women are an interesting part of the world building, so I’m kind of okay with it. Feudalism and colonialism are prominent in this book, which gives in a feeling of the ancient coming back in a new way- like it feels familiar and foreign. It is hard to explain.

The only reason this isn’t a 5 star book is because I struggled to keep reading it- the length is intimidating and I didn’t latch onto any of the characters particularly. I wish there could have been more women for me to get excited about. However, for a book written in 1965, I am very impressed with both how much I enjoyed it and by how timeless it turned out to be.

As a (half) Puerto Rican who grew up in the states, I really connected with this book. It made me think directly about the women of my own family and how they each connect to their/our heritage and history in different ways. It also felt really good to read about a family that really felt like mine and to think about and learn a bit about Cuban history, which is not my own history, but still feels very significant because of the (cultural and physical) closeness of our islands.

This is a series of loosely connected vignettes and I liked some of them more than others and some of the connections between the stories were perhaps a bit tenuous, but I really enjoyed this read. It a was pretty quick read and it was emotional in all the right ways.