mothumn's Reviews (377)

Im not even reading this rn will come back in like a week maybe

ARC REVIEW
They Drown Our Daughters is a story about a curse that is passed down from mother to daughters that fans of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor may enjoy. 

While reading this I really enjoyed the setting of a foggy, small, east coast fishing town and I thought the concept of a curse that could be a more literal manifestation of the difficult relationship between mothers and their daughters and the experience of women was very interesting. The idea that only the daughters were impacted by this and not the sons felt very familiar in the way that daughters in real life often have to shoulder a lot that sons never will.

Unfortunately though, the story didn’t delve into this idea very deeply which I found disappointing because that was the main thing I found interesting. The focus was more on the characters and the different timelines which for me just didn’t work. I found that all the generations of mothers and daughters felt very similar and therefore had the unfortunate effect of being very repetitive and blended together. None of the women seemed to have any distinct personality to distinguish one from the other and I often would forget which timeline I was reading from because of this. I found it very difficult to continue due to me not being able to care about any of the characters. Not only were they all very similar, but I felt that they were all very flat and did not feel real to me at all, often the dialogue felt forced and robotic.

Despite this, I still was interested to find out the mystery of what was really happening and so I continued on. I found it dragged quite a bit and was extremely slow paced and could definitely do with being cut down a bit. Many of the timelines because the same thing was happening over and over again just got very repetitive and just felt like I was rereading the same thing with only slight variations. I found it slow and there were many parts that didn’t work for me but it was still okay until I got to the climax of the story. This part just came out of nowhere, to me it just felt like a completely different book all of a sudden. There wasn’t really any foreshadowing to explain or anything that made this make any sense. It just didn’t work for me at all, which was really disappointing. I had hoped the ending would bring everything together and make me like it but it just didn’t do that at all. 

I can’t say I’d recommend this but if you’re interested in a horror book that is not really scary and more atmospheric then you might enjoy this.

ARC REVIEW
Nura and The Immortal Palace is an imaginative story that blends culture and myths with important world issues in a unique way, perfect for fans of Rick Riordan and Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away. Reading this is like “plunging into a strange folktale”.

The story explores important issues such as child labour, exploitation, and class in a way that is understandable to a younger audience without undermining their intelligence. Nura and The Immortal Palace is great for educating young audiences on these issues as well as expanding their worldview. The story takes place in a setting and culture that is often overlooked in popular childrens and middle grade fantasy. Information to help the reader understand the culture is blended in with the fantastical plot in a clever way.

The characters are complex and very human, they make mistakes and have many faults, particularly Nura, but they learn from these mistakes and work to fix them. Nura and The Immortal Palace is a great story for people of all ages to learn about important issues in a fun and magical story.