reubenalbatross's Reviews (521)

I loved this book! It's so tender, emotional, and funny. Klune writes character relationships so well.

The ending was pretty predictable and there was something I can't quite place at the end that made it so I couldn't give it a full 5 stars. But I loved it all the same. 

This book was so real to me. The writing is amazingly vivid. 

I read almost all of it in the same day, and it wrecked me. I was an empty husk.

It powerfully emphasises how pointless modern life and its trivialities are - thoughts I already had, but this book really hammered them home. However, it also managed to bring me a level of peace as well. 

It unearths the best and worst of humanity. Humanity is cruel and senseless, but can also be selfless and deeply loving.

The quote on the back cover of my copy sums it up perfectly:

"By turns utopian and dystopian, an idyll and a nightmare... Every joint and sinew of the story is restless with a sense of threat."

This book is definitely going to stick with me for a long time. 

This book really showcases the pressure of being seen as 'Black enough' in modern society, and the pressure on prominent Black people to be a good example/representation of their own race and the weight of this on their shoulders.

I thought it was a really powerful read, especially the ending.

As people we're always told to stand up for ourselves and our beliefs, but sometimes it does just seem easier to give up and take the easy route.  I'm so sick of books having happy endings (even in thriller and horrors), so it was AMAZING to read one where the main character loses.

   

I'm honestly baffled by some of the negative reviews I've been seeing for this novel. It seems a lot of readers don't understand nuance or that authors don't necessarily agree with everything their characters do. I thought it was a powerful and effective read. 

I'm still not sure how I felt about this book, but I did have a good reading experience. 

It was enjoyable, if a little sedentary until

Wednesday's death

. It makes sense that quite a lot of it was cut from the initially published version, but after that it really ramped up and I was hooked.

Elliot is the true definition of an unreliable narrator.
 
At the beginning of the book the direct to reader narrative style really got on my nerves - 'Where was I?' etc. and so many references to the fact that the narrator is narrating. It's pretentious, embarrassing, and awkward. HOWEVER, it soon became very obvious that Michaelides did this to make us hate Elliot, and job well fucking done. 
 
It was so fucking disturbing how Elliot talked about Lana and put so many words into her mouth. I'm not sure I've ever been so disgusted by a character before, and read so many unravelling layers of deception and insanity. What a psychopathic, self-centred creep.

 
 
The ending of the book didn't quite live up to what I was hoping for

(it was obvious Elliot was going to murder Lara)

. But, it was a quick and disturbing read, and I did have a good reading experience.  

Hobb is such a great writer! I love this series. 

This was truly a book of two halves. 
 
On one hand, all of the actual horror elements in this book were really strong. The body horror scenes were so visceral - I doubt I'll ever think about my spine in the same way again. And the epilogue was truly disturbing. 
 
On the other hand, the 'bridge' sections did not really do anything for me. If there wasn't body horror going on, I was kinda bored. I think Payne was aiming for a feeling of suspense, but unfortunately it didn't quite work for me. 
 
I think if there had been more of the disturbingly disgusting horror elements and less 'filler' I'd have enjoyed this more. It's by no means a bad book, but it doesn't really hold up to Payne's other two books in my eyes. 

Reading this in 2024, I’m slightly concerned that Payne hasn’t published a book since 2020… I really hope something is in the works!

I went into this with high hopes after hearing people gush about it, but dear lawd no... I've tried to broaden my reading taste and try romances recently, but maybe the genre as a whole just isn't for me.
 
Reasons I didn't enjoy this book (and eye-rolled every other minute) include:
 
 - I have read SO many books about publishing recently, so this just adds to that long ass list. Publishing is not THAT interesting.  
 - Clementine is such a stupid name 😭
 - At 18% I guessed that he's the chef from the beginning of the book. I can't be bothered to read it to find out if I'm right (for the love of me I can't find spoilers), but I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong.
 - Some guy is magically in her house, and within the space of him cooking her a meal she's already basically in love with him? 
 - If her favourite colour being yellow is 'one of the most surprising things' about her, dear lord she must be boring.
 - Not the horrifically cringy PET NAME he gives her within the first couple of hours of knowing her. Creep behaviour.
 - Fajitas were made to a 'secret family recipe' - which fucking part of them?? I can't believe it would be every single element. 
 - I hardly read romance books, but I'm already tired of 'work obsessed woman with no life gets shown how to have fun by quirky artsy man'. WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE TO GO THROUGH SELF DISCOVERY?? People can (and should) figure out who they are by themselves, before getting together with someone.
 
What's absolutely wild is that I do love a romantic movie on occasion (especially About Time, which got me excited about this book) AND romance in other book genres, but romance books (at least the popular ones) just don't seem to do anything for me. Then again, popular books are usually the worst out there...

June criticises Athena's work by saying she often 'Hits the reader over the head' with her ideas. This is a perfect description of how I find Kuang's work. Her points are pertinent and important, but are very often portrayed in a very heavy-handed way, in my opinion unnecessarily.
 
Unfortunately, this book is no different. I get it - racist people = bad. But after the first 50% or so, the delivery just gets old. It’s a book about a racist, overall horrible woman trying to find out who's calling her out for her actions and trying to get away with theft. I don't care about June, so why would I care about how her story progresses/ends? 
 
If the book had more plot than 'racist author scared she'll get found out' then I could see myself enjoying it more (I'm currently reading 'The Other Black Girl' by Zakiya Dalila Harris, which comments on many of the same issues within the publishing industry, but in a much more compelling and readable way), but as it is I'm just over this book.
 
There's no intrigue, nothing is new to me, it's just a barrage of racist ideology. Maybe it could be an important read for people who are completely oblivious to race issues, but I'm bored by it.
 
This is me officially giving up on Kuang. After loving the first two books in 'The Poppy War' trilogy, hating the last one, and finding 'Babel' so horribly pretentious, I won't be reading anything else by her.  

The start of this book was good, it definitely had the crack in it the other two books in this series had and was really compelling. 
 
However, unfortunately it dragged towards the middle when everyone was on their 'team quests', it felt repetitive and there wasn’t enough character work to bulk out the quest plotlines. 
 
And unfortunately, it kind of just got worse from there. Don't get me wrong, this was never awful, but I feel like it pales in comparison to the other two Crescent City books:
 - In the last battle characters over-explain plot points and motivations A LOT, often in an unnatural way that disrupts their usual speaking pattern/personality and really sticks out. It feels pretty juvenile, as if Maas doesn't trust us to understand the plot, or like she can't write that kind of thing naturally. 
 - The interweaving storylines towards the end felt disjointed at points, the timing felt really off between sections.
 -

Also no-one died??? Not one single main or even side character?? Pretty weak ending, I need at least one true sob. I'm sick of characters 'dying' then against all the odds being brought back to life. Not for one second did I think Bryce was going to actually stay dead.

 -

Tharion's PoV didn't wrap up AT ALL. It wasn't even an interesting cliff hanger. It was like Maas forgot to give him an ending...

 
Other issues I had:
 
 1.

I was disappointed there wasn't more time in Prythian and that we only really got to see Nesta and Azriel, not the full cast. The end of House of Sky and Breath did start to feel like a cheap cliff hanger trick...

 2. I felt like the twists weren't anywhere near as shocking as in previous books, and I saw many of them coming especially towards the end. I don't think I was properly shocked even once. 
 3.

They won EVERYTHING way too easily, where was the tension??

 4. The sex scenes felt really out of place and jarring in this one, way more than they had in the previous books. Maybe it was because this one is a lot more plot focused than character/romance focused? It honestly felt like a fantasy with two or three graphic sex scenes, which is not how the rest of the series has been. 
 
Overall, not a terrible book, but it really didn't stand up to the quality of the first two. The start was really strong and I was really hoping for greatness, but the ending just was not it.