raenyreads's Reviews (345)

I wouldn't normally rate individual manga volumes but I don't think I'll continue this series so here we are. I think the concept here is an interesting one to bring into a manga. I like the premise this volume sets up and I think it could lead to an interesting story. However, things worked out just a bit too conveniently each time and the main characters intelligence was just a bit too convenient too. But my main gripe with this volume was I have never felt so beaten over the head as a reader by the message a manga is trying to portray and it really started to bug me. With the idea of 'show don't tell', this book really shows you and then tells you and then tells you again.

I really liked reading through this book and I read it quite quickly as i was invested throughout. I found the main character to be interesting and I enjoyed reading her development and the conversations she had with other people. I'm just not sure I fully got the book, I think some things must have gone over my head. I found the ending both satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time and maybe that was the point. Still glad I read it and I look forward to reading more from the author.

I found this so readable, I read through it in a day which is not the norm for me. The mystery is creatively written and defied my expectations of a typical thriller/mystery novel. The writing took a little while to get used to but once I did I was sucked in and needed to know what happened next. I really enjoyed the plot but did find the ending to be a bit quick and would have liked to see it drawn out a bit more. I highly recommend it and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Urgh Becky Chambers has done it again. It had everything I've come to love from her books and more. I loved the mix of characters in this one, especially with all the different species coming together and getting to learn so much about each of them. This was the perfect ending to the series.

An interesting little short story. Sally Rooney managed to make me feel like I knew the characters in such a short space of time.

I'm really struggling to write this review, and it's literally just because I don't think I'm smart enough to put into words how great this book is! So forgive me that this review maybe doesn't do the book justice, but just trust me and go read it.

So the basis of this story is that we follow two men as they try to help a god flee across a country from the royal family who kept her captive. But believe me, there is so much more to this story I obviously can't go into without ending up in spoiler territory. The story took a lot of turns I wasn't expecting and all the way until the end I was kept engaged and on the edge of my seat for how it would all turn out.

The most talked about thing I had heard of before I read this book was that the narrative style was different, and while some people loved it others didn't, or it at least took some getting used to. For me I was sucked straight in from the first few pages and I loved it, the narrative style used by the author to tell this story is so unique and really adds a lot of depth to the whole experience while bringing an extra layer to the storytelling that makes it feel so magical. 

A big focus of the book is storytelling. In itself, it is a story within a story within a story, but I also felt like each character was also trying to figure out how they wanted their own stories to go.

The characters are all very well written. I was attached to the two main characters early on because of how much detail they are given and how much emotion they convey so that by the end, I didn't want their story to finish. Conversely, the villains are awful and very easy to hate, but they are given a lot of depth as well, making them a more interesting aspect of the whole plot.

Overall, I just haven't read anything else like this, and I am so glad I finally picked it up. It's truly a great piece of work, and more people need to know about it!

I'm not a big poetry reader so I can't dissect the technical skill of these poems but I can say I enjoyed the collection and found some one them to be really impactful. I'm glad I picked this up, especially with its commentary on aspects of the world that are very relevant right now. I would recommend this.

I went in not sure whether I'd like this book or not and I was pleasantly surprised. Although the main character Andy is a bit insufferable I liked seeing the insight he provided and I was interested enough to keep reading to see his development. I enjoyed

the addition of Jens POV at the end

and honestly I think it really improved the book as a whole.
I'm still not 100% convinced I get the point of the whole thing but I read through it really quickly and had an good time along the way.

This book is very weird, the base of the story is that we follow a shape-shifting creature, who is regularly hunted by monster hunters, as she falls in love with a human woman. Plot wise I won't go further than that but trust me there is so much more to this than meets the eye. I flew through this book in two days, it is an excellent page turner and not too long, so in my opinion it was a great quick read.

The sapphic romance is adorable and I was invested from the get go. The two characters are so different from what I've encountered in other romance novels, it was refreshing to read. The cast of characters have sapphic rep, asexual rep, and fat rep, to name a few. The relationship builds such emotion and tenderness into a story that is otherwise about monsters and monster hunters. The author manages to weave tenderness and emotion in creatures you wouldn't expect it from.

There was much more to the plot than I expected going in. Twists and turns kept me invested the whole way through, with only short parts here and there where the pacing got a bit slow. There are some action scenes in this book and I think it was really well written (coming from someone who often struggles to follow action/fight scenes).

There is a body horror aspect in how the shape-shifting creature characters' actions are described and there is detailed descriptions of gore; but don't let this put you off entirely if it's not usually your thing. I do not usually get on with body horror and I was fine with this one, I found it added a great counterpart to the sweet romantic plotline.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's so unique to anything I've read before and managed to kept me interested in the plot while emotionally invested in the characters. It only misses out on a 5 star rating for me as I felt it got a little slow in places. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus books for the early eARC.

Another great book from Becky Chambers, she never misses. I love this series and in this installment Becky Chambers shows more of her skill to create very relatable and detailed characters in an environment that should be alien but feels more familiar than you'd assume. I was immediately drawn into this book from chapter 1 and I enjoyed it all the way through, I was always wanting to read more. The only reason this isn't a 5 star is that it had less of the alien societies I have loved in Becky Chambers other books as this one is much more human focused. But this isn't really a criticism, just my subjective opinion.