nerdyprettythings's Reviews (515)

All Systems Red

Martha Wells

4.0

adventurous funny tense fast-paced

Eep I enjoyed this, I’m definitely going to read more of this series.

Nightcrawling

Leila Mottley

4.0

challenging dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Our Wives Under The Sea

Julia Armfield

4.5

challenging dark reflective

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

This book was so good. Through to the very end, the pasts and personalities of the two MCs unfold. The way they love each other, their relationship and its tragic end, are revealed in between a mysterious body horror, sci-fi situation also happening. It's hard to explain but it's so good!

The It Girl

Ruth Ware

3.5

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

We got another Ruth Ware! I love her books even when I don't actually love her books. I don't know how to explain it. I did like this book, its mystery (though it felt pretty low stakes) was a good one - it truly had a locked room mystery happening, which I really enjoyed. I think my favorite thing about Ware's books is their sense of place - this one is partially set in Edinburgh, partly in Oxford at a fictional old-timey university, Pelham College, which felt so real and alive, it gave me all the dark academia vibes. My main issues with the book come from the inclusion (I think for the first time in Ware's books) of the MC's husband as a suspect. Spoiler-ish below.

The thing was, I never once believed that the MC's husband was a real suspect, and she didn't seem to either. So as I'm reading, anyone who points to him as a suspect looks very guilty. In order to make him seem more suspicious, the MC even says a line like "I sometimes feel I don't know him any better than I did the night we met," which was enough to make me feel basically nothing any time they fought or reconciled. As his possible villain turn, he becomes patronizing and angry with the pregnant MC, making me spend a lot of the book saying "he doesn't have to be a killer for you to leave him, girl."