leahrosereads's Reviews (1.04k)

Oh, I thoroughly enjoyed this folk horror! There were some pacing issues and not everything was wrapped up, but the strangeness, characters, and creepiness were all fantastic. This may be a spoiler, but I won't mark it as such - Bongo is OK!  And that's really what matters here.

Need to be in the right mood for a historical fiction. This is absolutely a ME thing and not the book's fault at all.

This is one fast-paced horror novel!  I really liked atmosphere, writing and social commentary.  Those were all exceptionally well done. And of course Jake was such a great character to follow.  

I just wish his was the only POV, or I wish there weren't so many Sawyer chapters.  I didn't mind seeing some aspects of his life and how he came to be, but it was almost half the book, and I felt that took away from the character and world building. I'd have much rather seen more of Jake, his relationships with family, friends, and gift.

This one took me a moment to review.  On one hand, I liked the main POV more than the first book. Not sure what that says about me, but there it is.  On the other hand I didn't like the plot as much as Prosper's Demon.  It was slower and wasn't as interesting to me.  I kinda struggled through parts of this, to be honest.  

This will definitely be on my favorites of the year list!  It was absolutely phenomenal!  While I may not have been a fan of the original, the reimagining of The Great Gatsby has me wanting to re-read it.  I loved being in Jordan's mind throughout this, adored the magical elements, and enjoyed all of the other characters!

And then there's the writing.  Nghi Vo is a brilliant storyteller and has such a way at bringing stories to life!

I need the sequel!  Holy wow was this fantastic! The characters, the mythology, the magic.  I loved it all!  Kalynn Bayron created something truly spectacular, and I hope everyone reads this!

It's always a challenge to rate memoirs, because this is someone's life and stories and shouldn't that automatically make it 5 stars because they've lived their life so fully? 

This was an excellently written continuation from the first book, but I think there were several stories that I would have liked to see more fully.  A few of these just felt like they cut off too soon.

Even though I'm still not sure what was real and what was fiction, that didn't detract from the story to me.  What impacted me the most was how absolutely powerful these stories and poems were.  Both the prose and verse were incredibly lyrical and thought provoking.  The bits of art added a wonderful element as well.  

Off the Record started a bit slow before getting to the main plot, but that allowed for some excellent character introductions.  By the time the story really got going, I was completely invested in Josie, her writing and all of the folks she had met.  This was such a timely story with an incredibly important topic.

Reading this book felt like deja vu. It was so eerily similar to Final Girls, that I was able to correctly guess most twist and turns. Which of course makes for a thriller to be completely unthrilling. 

I just don't think this author is for me, and if I do read any more books by Sager, I'll be getting them from my library.