Reviews by lindentea | The StoryGraph

601 reviews by:

lindentea

Washington Black

Esi Edugyan

2.5

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The writing was good and the concept was there but at some point I felt it got bogged down by the sheer amount of like... kind of irrelevant stuff happening? By the end I was just reading to finish it tbh.

A Clash of Kings

George R.R. Martin

4.75

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Still a banger but i might be getting tired of Dotrice's narration... crusty dusty man reading sex scenes in my ear :(

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Akwaeke Emezi

1.5

emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

You know the tweet that's like "the most selfish person you know is currently in therapy being told that they're allowed to be selfish sometimes" its like that but for the whole book. Like its sooo telling that to make the audience take the protagonists' side, the author has to literally have one of her characters seemingly od on incel pills. wtf

Dune

Frank Herbert

1.5

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Very cool concept but I was so so booooored the whole time sorry. Like obviously I know this came first and also that it was revolutionary at the time but it was giving like A Song of Ice and Fire but if the only POV was Jon, you gave him all the orientalist Dany shit and dialed it to like 10000, and then made it super fucking boring. There were hints of really really cool moments where i was genuinely invested like

When Jessica did that weird ass thing that transformed the water that also gave Alia the Bene Gesserit powers which made her like a weird little adult 4 year old?? Kinda slay

the cool ass fight between Paul and Feyd-Rautha that was actually way too short imo

. On the plus side it made me super fucking excited for the movie because if the more boring 1st half was so compelling than like.... oh my god Timmy and the gang are gonna slay pt 2 so hard. Especially excited for Austin Butler (still possessed by Elvis) to be giving villainous Harkonnen cunt. Also bless the narrators they actually made it so much more bearable, tho idk why it was sometimes voiced by dif people and other times the main narrator doing voices.

Seven Days in June

Tia Williams

3.5

dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

You guys should be so proud of me for not bawling my eyes out at a SECOND CHANCE romance between two people who feel unloveable?? hello?? slay writing slay chemistry, i didn't think we needed the epilogue bc i liked where we had ended before it BUT obviously it was necessary for the genre.

however i def did have some problems (tws for

drug & alc abuse, gun violence, death):

everyone hyped this up as like a book full of joy and love and like yes it definitely was! but the flashbacks literally had every trigger under the sun in them, to the point where the tone shift between was SO jarring??
on that note: i feel like what hurt the second chance aspect of the book a bit was that like... the first chance was quite literally just one crazy trip? the drug and alc abuse etc? listen im not like oh stay dry dont have fun but they did every drug under the sun, carved each other's initials on their arms with a knife, and she OD'ed?? sorry but thats not romantic to me thats FUCKED. idk man when i read "they spent one crazy torrid week madly in love as teenagers" in MY head im like oh they were hanging out every day obsessed with each other being silly goofy teenagers, not a weeklong euphoria party/breakdown but thats on me ig
a 13 year old did not need to DIE for the THIRD ACT CONFLICT?? HELLO?? and in the epilogue she was still like "oh idk if i can trust him not to leave again" girliepop maybe his former student age 13 bleeding out in a hospital without family or anybody else to see him is more important than him missing brunch with you. like im so so sorry but he is valid for that

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

3.75

emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

its like cute. would be wayy better as a play which is how it was originally conceived afaik

The Jasmine Throne

Tasha Suri

5.0

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

im so incredibly feral right now. im foaming at the mouth. im screaming crying throwing up. inside you there are two wolves, one is an a song of ice and fire stan and another is an rrr stan and both of them are rejoicing at how amazing this is and tempting you to buy book 2 RIGHT NOWW