kewlkat70's Reviews (250)

Right off the bat this book loses .25 of a rating because the author's music choices are atrocious. 

Each chapter has a terrible Emo song affiliated with it and it's like a terrible nightmare of shitty music.  

However the story itself is Ok as it reminds me of the UK show "Misfits" as well as the girl locked up in a mental asylum novels of the 70s and 80s.  

While the subject matter is dark and loads of triggers it doesn't grab me as hard as other dark trauma romances. The characters don't seem to have as much self awareness as the characters in the Forsythe Royals series. Those characters are also dark and traumatized but have some inner fight that the FMC does not have.  

The main MCs are vicious but it is hard to differentiate between two of them at least.  
The only thing that has me interested in continuing the series is that there is a storyline developing around the Blackwood institute beyond it being a juvenile mental health institute.  Unfortunately it takes until the last 10% to create the mystery. 

I have hopes the characters will develop as the story develops 

This is a book that proves that you don't need to waste pages and pages to explain every detail of a complicated world. 

This book deserves its 5⭐ rating for the political intrigue and machinations and the minute details of the world building.   The elves and goblins are at once both familiar and new creatures. 

The main character Maia is the reader as we are thrown into the middle of a court of intrigue and danger and spectacle and politics.  But as he weaves his way through the first year of his reign making friends and alliances just by being a good person, he finds his way and learns to live, not just survive 

The narrator of the audiobook deserves a special shoutout as this is a difficult book to follow because of the number of characters and naming conventions.  I think for the sequels I will read the books as I would like to be able to see the names but I will miss the voices that the narrator created.  

The novel seems like it is a complete story in and of itself but I am excited to return to the world and I hope the story of Maia becoming a man and an Emporer continues.

A cute romance  story with all the tropes I love.  

The writing is not bad but it has a young adult feel to it.  The characters are not very deep or emotional.  

I picked this book up in a stuff your Kindle day.   It doesn't try to be anything more than what it is and it's almost refreshing that way...

It's boring. 

A wonderful story!  A mystery that I didn't figure out before the final outcome!  A beautiful love story!  A protagonist who is brilliant and funny and sarcastic and feels like a fraud and of no value.  

5⭐ for anyone who has ever felt less than or of no value and needs to be reminded that loving others makes us worthy. 

It's a good thing I like these tropes and I will probably read the whole series because they read quickly and I don't want to really delve into anything too deeply.  

I think I prefer fantasy or SF to contemporary RH bully romance books just because there is a bit more creativity.  Plus the storylines require a serious suspension of belief so why not go all the way and throw in some magic, monsters and shifter fae shit as well? 

When I started the book I felt that it was going to be a 5⭐ read and for all the right technical reasons it should be.  It's a well written original and emotional story. 

But ultimately my rating system relies on my own feelings after all.  Completely subjective and I am not writing this so that someone else reads it or doesn't read it. 

Ultimately it's not going to stick with me over time. I'm not invested in the story.

There is a trend in contemporary "serious" literature that novels should be snippets of real life, a snapshot of events and leaving the ending open once the author has exhausted the point they wanted to make about society or humanity or whatever.  And this is powerful as it makes us want to think about what exactly it all means and how exactly do we reach the question of which the answer is 42. 

But I'm old and tired and don't care about these questions of meaning.  I just want a fun adventure and a happily ever after ending.  And in that way I am always walking away from from "serious" novels with a sense of sadness and incompleteness.  I already know that relationships are fleeting and that history repeats itself and it's hard to be an individual when you don't fit in the word that was created especially for your experience and others not understanding why you don't feel the way you are supposed to feel because that's how they feel and you have had the same experience. 

But it's a good novel and there is sex in it and everything 

This is the worst book I have had to finish due to a dare to read the popular books in the fantasy romance genre.

I love this genre and have read a lot of books good and terrible.  I DNF a lot of books and this should have been one of them. 

The writing is over the top with confusing metaphors and words used in confusing context.   The verb To Masticate has taken on some new meanings apparently. 

The MMC Kaan is built like a caveman and apparently thinks like one too. 

The FMC acts likes she's 12 who styles herself as an elite assassin with a heart of gold and is so good at what she does but is also not very smart.  But like all Mary Sue characters we find out she is an expert in everything including some card game called skibidi or something 

I am giving 1⭐ to this flaming garbage dumpster of a book because I have committed to reading more of these popular books and want to leave room for possibly worse scores. 

Only Stephenson can take a topic I find quite boring and uninspiring into an exciting geopolitical thriller. 

I had sat on this novel thinking that the topic of geo engineering and it's international effects would be either boring or lecturing.  

Instead it has all the pacing and political intrigue and global span as his other near future novels.  His characters are diverse and endearing and the story spans the world with settings as interesting as the China / India border, New Guinea, West Texas and the Hague.  

While Reamde and Cryptonimicon were better for adventure and depth of story,  I was still drawn in to the action and narrative of this story.  

My only real criticism is that the ending felt rushed and unsatisfactory.