raenyreads's Reviews (345)

This is a great addition to the trilogy! I highly recommend picking it up if you loved Daevabad, not all the stories are ground breaking but for some I am absolutely glad the author shared them with us. I'm devastated this is the last addition to this series and these characters.

This book is amazing. It's centred around a mothers unconditional love for her children, which as someone who does not plan to have children made me a bit apprehensive that I wouldn't connect with the main character as much as I would like. I was wrong, Sunyi Dean's writing and characterisation made me feel like I was right there with Devon the whole time and I was really engaged with the story. The horror aspects did make me feel uncomfortable at times and so I think it hit the mark as a horror book there. I highly recommend this book.

This is a really fun book. It's fast paced, funny and an easy book to read. It's the definition of no plot, just vibes, which I think is intentional and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series. However, I was left feeling a bit underwhelmed at the end and so the rating dropped for that.

I really enjoyed this book. The eastern European and Russian folklore was really interesting and probably my favourite part of the book. The characters were engaging, if a little predictable. The plot took a little while to get going but once it did I was hooked. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy!

I'm a huge fan of the Ghibli film based on this book and so was highly anticipating reading it to see how it differed. I enjoyed the characters from start to finish and found the insight into Sophie's mind interesting. Though much of the book is the same as the film, the differences in the plot and characters do give a different vibe. It was definitely a fun, simple read and it never felt like a chore to get through. Although middle grade book are usually not for me, this may have convinced me to try some more. My only reason for not giving 5 stars is just for me personally it didn't have the wow factor I would need to give it that higher rating.

This is a really fun book. The concept and the execution are innovative and interesting. The text is set up in the form of slack conversations, so there's little description other than that given by context clues. This made for a very fast-paced read, I finished this whole book in just ~2hours, where a book of this many pages would usually take me ~5hours to read.

However, I am rating it 3.5 stars as although I had fun reading it, the short format meant a lot of the character and plot development was mostly surface level and I was left with too many questions unanswered by the end. One unanswered question seemed to me to be the whole point of the book and so I was a left a bit confused and underwhelmed.

Overall though, I highly commend the author for the ingenuity it required to write this book, however I just wanted a bit more from the content.

I really enjoyed this book, its both what I was expecting and not what I was expecting at the same time.

The general premise surrounds a woman who has no psychological or medical issues being placed in The Salpêtrière Asylum as her father wants nothing to do with her for various reasons, which was a common occurrence in the patriarchal society of the 19th century. It also explores the experiences of the nurses and other women in the asylum.

The 'mad women's' ball, in which the rich were invited to the asylum for an evening to essentially watch and mock the 'mad women' is an interesting and distressing centre for the plot. It is made even more so by the fact that it is not fiction but is a real event that took place for many years in the 19th century. The way the women are put on show for people who do not care for them or who would not interact with them under normal circumstances is demeaning to the 'mad' women but in being so isolated in the asylum many see it as a distraction or chance to return to society. At the back of the book, Mas makes an interesting comparison to the reality TV and documentaries of today's world, showing that society may not have grown as far from this idea than we think.

My only reason for not giving this 5 stars is that there is a character who's development we seem to skip over a bit quickly at the end. She goes through an awful lot throughout the book and it felt lacking to not understand more of what happened to her and how she regained her agency.

I really wasnt expecting the inclusion of some paranormal plot points but I think enjoyed the book more because of it. I highly recommend giving this book a go, it was a great read!

This book is a must read, it's so short and informative that I think everyone should make the time to read it!

I'm not going to put a rating on this review as I don't feel comfortable considering the content but I do want to say that this book is incredible and the author should be given high praise for the skill and bravery it takes to write a book like this! 

This is the second discworld book I've ever read and it has confirmed to me that I need to read many more. This is the first book in the City Watch series and it introduces you to a range of scruffy but loveable characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the banter in this book, it takes a lot for me to laugh while reading but this book managed it many times! The writing is great and easy to follow, though I'm not sure on the choice to not have chapters. The story was engaging and kept me hooked throughout. There were some twists I should have seen coming a lot sooner but somehow they managed to evade me! I can't wait to read the next one.