I suppose that beginning the review for a children's book by stating that it's perfect for when you're stuck outside your hotel room, waiting for your baby to wake up crying (again), and need something to distract you is not all that useful. Demographically speaking.
Although I will say that this is one of those kids books that is just as enjoyable for adults with its cleverness. And it's kind. I've said this about Ursula's work before, but her goal seems to be to fill the world with brave, kind and, above all, practical heroines who do what needs to be done. Usually with a sigh and a bit of sarcasm. I have never met a main character of hers I did not adore and Molly is no exception.
Also, Pins and the goldfish. I didn't get the reference to Ursula's art until the mention of Pins' backstory, but that was amazing!!!

I enjoyed this book, although I was a bit disappointed by its shallowness. It was cinematic and , despite being a book, easy to visualize and imagine. But it was also cinematic in that it required the presence of actors to make the characters feel real and like they all, but especially Watney, possessed interiority.

It's the fourth book in the series, it's still absolutely delightful to watch Brennan's mind at work and her world unfold. She's really good at writing to her dual audience of supposed early 20th century memoir readers and actual 21st century fantasy readers. And Isabella is still amazingly fun to follow around. I can't wait for the next book—there's all this information about dragons that is slowly adding up and, seriously, I can't have book 5 yet?

Ugh, I have got to remember to write reviews as soon as I finish the book because I honestly cannot remember what I thought of this.
I think I enjoyed it, but found that there was too much unenjoyable sex in it (well, I mean, other people were presumably enjoying the sex. I found it too...male gaze-y, I suppose. Like I was supposed to enjoy a spectacle, but it was not to my view. Bah! This must have been more coherent last week.)

Oh man, this was so good, I couldn't read fiction after it and had to go read Hofstadter for a while before I was willing to let go of the characters and invest myself in another narrative.
Also,

I ship Alucard and Rhy SO HARD you guys! Please don't kill the gay beta couple. The last thing this amazing series needs is to kill its gays. Please let them live and be happy at the end!

Love when the books in a series only get better.

I am sad at the degree of meh this book produced in me. I wanted to like it - I do like starship stories and I keep hoping for more Jews in space. And I can't be all that annoyed that the Jewishness felt like a thin veneer painted over particle board, because everything in this story felt like a thin veneer painted over particle board. I just...no one felt real to me. The characters felt like puppets in the author's hand with no sense of self, the society felt like someone had thrown tallit and tefilin over a wooden dummy and expects everyone to believe it's leading davening. Also, the plot didn't seem to evolve organically from the characters in their situation, but felt like everyone was following some script handed out without bothering to act their parts.
I can see the bones of a good story here. This wasn't it.

This series got good again! I mean, the second book was quite good too, but I definitely enjoyed this one more and spent less time trying to remember who the hell everyone was and just following what they were up to.
And Brown stuck the landing, which I always find impressive in a dystopian narrative.

I conceptually enjoy Chu's ideas in this book as well as in his other series. I like the settings and the high stakes adventure nature of his novels. The ideas are so good and they're absolutely worth reading to see what happens next.
His viewpoint characters do have a tendency to fall a bit flat for me. I might be bumping up against a gender thing-it's possible that his male characters just annoy me. I find them unrelatable since they seem to embody somewhat stereotypical geeks and they are meant to be sympathetic...but I have no sympathy for them. But I really want to know what happens next and Chu is a good enough story craftsman that I am absolutely along for the ride even if I spend missy of it thinking James is a bit of a jerk.

Despite my slight annoyance at finding another dystopia set in an roman analogue (although not in space this time around), I enjoyed this book. I just wasn't expecting this much Rome. Still, Tahir produced an interesting story that I think I would have appreciated more had I not been somewhat tired of books about overthrowing oppressive regimes. Which is my own fault for reading so many, but there you go.

What fascinated me the most about this story was how much Tolkien was already Tolkien even when just in University and right afterwards.