kirbur's Reviews (304)

Thank you NetGalley & Macmillan Audio for the advanced listener copy!

The Sky on Fire by Jen Lyons is a fast paced heist story featuring a fun cast of characters. The chapters were all very short which helped keep the pace moving.

I really liked our main character Anahrod, she felt very real to me and I was very invested in learning about her past. The planning and execution of the heist was well done, nothing ever felt too convenient, there were plenty of times where plans fell through and we got to see the group brainstorming together on next steps. I especially like that we got to see everyone play a part in how the story played out, none of the side characters felt redundant.

The magic and the dragons were awesome and I’m left feeling like we’ve only just scratched the surface, there is definitely potential if Jenn Lyons ever decides to tell more stories in this setting.

Overall this book was fantastic and I could see myself rereading it in the future!

Thank you Netgalley & Tor for the eARC and audio ARC copies of this book!

This book is very gruesome, Buehlman does not shy away from gore and at times I found myself disgusted by some of the descriptions. There were lighter moments sprinkled in throughout but as our main character Galva is telling this story after already having lived through it, I found that there was usually still a tinge of melancholy about what is yet to come.

I loved following Galva, she was an amazing character in The Blacktongue Thief and I’m really glad to have a book from her point of view. I would 1000% read another that is just the events of The Blacktongue Thief but from her POV, or any other stories from her POV for that matter. I loved getting a closer look at her relationship with the war corvids, as well as with her brothers. She also has a surprisingly lovely romance.

The narrator Nikki García’s performance was amazing, she brought so much emotion to the story, the audiobook as a whole is very well done.

Overall, I think if you liked The Blacktongue Thief then you will probably also like this prequel. 

What happens when your "estranged best friend and former co-showrunner" shows up on the first day of filming, but this time as a contestant? Mess.

These characters are messy in the most fun way. They are selfish and manipulative and not always very good people, but I was rooting for them to figure their shit out from page 1.

I still need to read book 2 but I really like that all 3 books in this series can stand alone but also take place during the same time frame. Even though you know how the season will play out, McAlister did a great job making the romance in each book the focus so we aren’t completely treading the same path each time. It is also a lot of fun seeing how the same characters get perceived differently depending on who the main character is.

Overall book 1 worked better for me, but I still loved this book!

Another hit from TJ Alexander!! This book is a polyamorous romcom set in NYC and it was a lot of fun. 

I loved the MC, though I do wish we had gotten Bebe & Kade’s POVs. At times Bebe’s character felt a bit to manic pixie dream girl for me and I think getting her perspective would’ve helped make her read more like a real person. But I understand that that would have really bloated the page count and this book really is Mel’s story of learning to trust again and learning that love doesn’t have to look like what she grew up thinking it looked like (marriage, white picket fence, etc.).  I also really like how communication was handled here, it’s acknowledged many times that good communication is Hard and that it is something that the character’s will have to keep working on even when they feel like they are doing it “right”. 

Overall this is a “really like” not a “love” but I would highly recommend it!