octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

The end to the series, where the kids confront the Landlady and find their missing friends. The character arcs are nicely wrapped up - Cora's, I think, is my favourite - but the climax didn't work for me so much. It seemed far too easy, and while I realise the message of cooperation and loyalty trumps all works in some regards, here it just makes the big villain seem a little bit lame. At least it does to me, anyway. 

The hyena things are still the scariest part of this to me, so good on Cora for taking them out. She's my favourite, so I'm glad it was her. 

I'm still enjoying this series, although I think this issue made one thing clearer for me. The horror elements, increasingly, have become far less interesting to me. At this point, there are so many of them that the effect seems very much like the throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach. I don't actually care any more about the mystery of Proctor Valley Road. What I am interested in is the relationship between the protagonists. The most compelling thing about this issue was the fight between the girls at the end, and it was all about the everyday stressors - fighting over boys, keeping shared spaces tidy, who always ends up paying for petrol. Admittedly, these are all very low stakes compared to the whole horrific death aspects of the plot, but that low stakes has character work, and that's primarily what's keeping me reading here. 

Call it victim-blaming if you like, but if you're foolish enough to marry a gold-digger, and foolish enough to stick your loaded gun in your mouth to demonstrate to her how easily you could die (and leave her with a fortune), then you cannot honestly be surprised when madam pulls the trigger. 

Poirot is very, very clever, but the victim here is surpassingly stupid. This is why idiots should not have access to firearms. 

Another pleasant volume from the Smithsonian's Backyard series - as always, the illustrations here hold the real appeal. The text is pretty basic, as is of course appropriate for young children, but I feel as if there wasn't as much natural and scientific detail given here as there is in some of the other books in this series. Still, the baby foxes are very cute. 

Look, as much as Captain Hastings reminds me of a Labrador - good-natured, but not very bright - it does seem a bit off when his purported friend constructs a trap around his dimwittedness. I wonder, sometimes, if Poirot's popularity has maintained itself over the years because he's a bit mean as well as being a lot clever. It does make him entertaining, but if I'm honest, I think that as a friend he'd be simply unbearable. 

I've read and reviewed these separately over the last several years, so this is just for my own records, really. All four books got three stars from me. I like them, which is why I keep reading them, but I don't like them so much that I'm in a hurry to read more, if that makes sense. Months can pass between volumes as far as I'm concerned. That's not necessarily a bad thing - sometimes I just don't want to keep endless plot details straight over multiple books, so series like this, where the books are essentially standalone, are honestly quite relaxing.

Even though I rated them the same, I like them more as they go along. Not enough to jump a star, but as Kinsey's fleshed out I appreciate her more. I like her sense of pragmatism, and I like the shift from mystery/thriller (as the first two books were) to straight mystery... Kinsey doesn't seem to get any enjoyment whatsoever from endangering herself, and that is frankly relatable. 

Romance, for me, lives or dies by the two protagonists. I need them both to be decent people or I simply don't care if they get a happy ending. A surprising number of romances that I've read fail this basic condition, but luckily for me, Esme and Khai are good people who deserve to be happy. Even better, they're surrounded by people who are also likeable - Khai's brother Quân gets a special mention for his kind, no-bullshit approach to supporting both parties. I like everyone. 

I read this, honestly, because it was the first library book I found that would allow me to tick off the romance-with-a-neurodivergent character task from this year's Read Harder. My local library is small but mighty, so it was good to be able to find something there to fit the bill, and I'm glad it was this. Khai has autism, and is not perhaps the best at interpreting his own emotions (let alone anyone else's), but there were plenty of heartwarming and honestly funny moments. His tendency to interpret Esme's behaviour through a natural history lens was especially endearing - I think the funniest moment for me was his determination not to upset the poisonous octopus!

I do think the end got wrapped up a bit too quickly, with a somewhat wobbly turn into melodrama, but everyone ended up happy and they all deserved to so I can't really complain. 

I've heard a lot of good things about this book, so when I saw it in the library I grabbed it. I'm glad I've finally read it, but I liked it. I didn't love it. A lot of the (very short) stories collected here feel a lot like vignettes to me. They're appealing, but even appealing vignettes are a hard sell with me, I'm afraid. The language has got to be really amazing to round out the lack of plot, and while there were some effective lines here, I wasn't dazzled enough by the language to forget about what wasn't there. I'm sorry, but I like plot. 

I did think it was an effective snapshot of a neighbourhood, though. Sort of a characterisation of place, which was interesting. 

Quick supernatural read about a brother and sister pair who are partially turned into vampires and have to kill the head vampire to go back to being human. The influence of The Lost Boys is clear - the book is perhaps a little too reminiscent - but it's been years since I've seen the film so I can't really give a play by play of any similarities. 

The relationship between the siblings was the most convincing thing about the book, I think; certainly more convincing than the vampires themselves. There seems no real reason for Derek to try to form a family with these two and their mother (why does it have to be them?) and the underlying romantic relationship between Callie and Maeve was distracting, and not in a good way. When you've only got three days or so to safeguard your humanity, perhaps it's time to prioritise your actual life over your social life, yeah? It's hard for me to feel for Callie when she comes across so scatterbrained. 

I begin to think that these girls can't make a good decision to save their lives. Maybe it's just me, but if I end up on a road with monstrous supernatural creatures trying to kill me, I'm not going to keep going back to it. I like them - although a little less with each dumb decision, stupidity is not much to admire - but if they end up dead it will be no one's fault but their own.