leahrosereads's Reviews (1.04k)

I really wish I had written a review for this in 2016 to see how my thoughts have changed. The rating hasn't, so I'm assuming that I enjoyed it quite a bit. I absolutely loved the format! For something who can't picture the worlds I read, having clever formats like this really help immerse me into stories.

Kady and Ezra are decent characters to follow, though with the awesome format, I do think we lose a bit of character development. Even so, what we get is good. I'm really digging the politics and mystery behind this book, and I'm looking forward to moving to Gemina soon.

Between Scully and Mulder, I was always more of a Mulder growing up...or so I thought. I loved getting Scully's backstory here and seeing the why behind her skepticism. And now I totally get why she's the way she is.

While I loved the MC (obviously), I felt like the pacing was a bit too slow in too many places. Might be because I'm so used to Maberry writing at 100 and going higher and higher and higher in the Ledger series. This definitely doesn't have those books' pacing.

Still, I loved it! And now I need to know Mulder's origin tale.

Soon.

This was a decent follow-up to the first book. I still really loved the format but couldn't seem to get behind these characters' actions the way I was able to in the first book. Illuminae's plot made sense. This one felt a tad more far fetched for me.

I'm being a bit generous with the 3 star rating. I absolutely loved Illuminae but didn't have the same love for Gemina, and this one was a bit more subpar than Gemina. Where I didn't enjoy the plot of Gemina, I couldn't get behind the characters here. It's always hard to follow characters that I've grown to love and then be introduced to new characters that I just don't care about. I think I would have enjoyed this series a lot more had the MCs been just Kady and the first book crew.

But that's not the case, and my enjoyment of these books suffered because of it.

This was good. Not great, but then, I haven't enjoyed Neil's MG as much as I'd hope. He's still a master storyteller, but it's obvious that I wasn't the target audience. Chris Riddell's art work is incredible here though, and I still like the concept of this quirky adventure.

This is the second book of Jason Reynolds that I read, but the first one that told a fictional story, and I loved it. I loved Ali, and his story, the setting, his friends, and honestly just everything about this book. I think Mr. Reynolds really allowed the reader to learn so much from these characters and what they went through in here.

Fuck, this was heartbreaking. I teared up multiple times following Will's story and the pain he was going through with losing his brother. It being written in verse added another layer to the whole story and the formatting on each page really enhanced the words on them.

This absolutely reeked of Reefer Madness propaganda. I do not believe that this is someone's actual diary word for word. I just don't buy it. The writing is abysmal in a way that an adult sometimes views kids as being dumb, ya know? It reads like someone wanted to scare kids about the dangers of drugs and what will happen if they smoke pot.

Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire) is officially one of my favorite authors. I loved the Wayward Children series, but this, holy crap is this something else entirely. I loved the setting and the chilling vibes that started at the very beginning. The author weaved this story so fantastically. I was on the edge of my seat and absolutely could not put it down!

Tory is a very likeable character in an amazing situation, and everyone we meet along the way has a story that we get a chance to glimpse and become more invested in their well-being.

I want more! Of this, of the author's horror filled stories in general, of just her stories in general. I plan to consume it all.

Re-read before moving onto volume 3 and just realized I forgot to review this.

I'm continuing to love these characters and the setting and the plot of this. Both this and volume 1 were such quick, light reads, while still keeping the story interesting. I loved the art here, and I know my next review (v3) is going to knock it a bit, so I just had to add that the art in this volume is wonderful! It enhances the storytelling!