natreviews's Reviews (445)

Hell Followed with Us

Andrew Joseph White

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Holy shit, what an amazing read. If religious trauma and the end of the world is your thing, this is your read. I was shocked at how graphic it is for being a YA, it should fall in the New Adult category. I can't wait to read another one of his novels.

Stag Dance

Torrey Peters

4.5

adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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: Yes

A really good collection of short stories. I'd say Stag Dance is definitely the best of the four. Some really gripped me while others didn't and that's okay.

The Starving Saints

Caitlin Starling

4.75

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

An amazing read. I was hooked from page one. I will say, the last quarter did lose me. It felt a bit rushed and forced. The rest of the book felt like a natural progression, but that last 25% was like okay, a whole bunch of stuff needs to happen to get to the end we want.

Negative Space

B.R. Yeager

2.0

dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

So... Um... I don't know what I just read. Half of it I didn't get, a quarter time jumped too much to understand, and a quarter I could follow.

Into the Drowning Deep

Mira Grant

5.0

adventurous challenging 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: Complicated

Holy shit. This book is horror classic in the making. Starting off showing the danger, then cutting to our cast of humans, knowing they're all fucked. This was a bit of a slowburn, but once it got going, oh god it got going. An amazing horror take on the mermaid and siren legends.

Persephone Station

Stina Leicht

3.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I'm not going to lie, I really wish this book was better. The story ended up being a bit cliche, the writing was very much he said this, she said that, then this happened, then that happened. Throw in backfill that we could've seen in real time and unnecessary world building that adds nothing to the story and it turned out to be a boring read. If it was YA, I'd cut it some slack, but it isn't.