saifighter's Reviews (253)

I'm not a big fan of sexual violence as a means to horror. But with gender being a main theme in "The Spirit Bares Its Teeth" I knew it was going to be unavoidable. Knowing this I took the plunge and somehow made it out on the other side of this book. That being said, there is implied, attempted, and on-page rape/sexual assault. There is implied forced pregnancy. There are implied sexual acts on very young girls. There is the overwhelming feeling of being trapped in marriage and in sexual situations. This book is not for everyone. It is a VERY hard read. If you are a victim of sexual violence, I need to you to really think hard "Do I need to read this book" and "Am I in a place emotionally where I can read this book."

With that out of the way, I can not speak to the autistic or trans representation in this book. But I can say "The Spirit Bares Its Teeth" perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being a queer AFAB person existing in our fucked up patriarchal world. A main character sent to a sanatorium for female hysteria, with a supernatural twist on top. Its perfect and horrifying. I wanted it to be longer, I wanted more details. The characters are great, amazing, and feel so very alive. While there are a lot of characters here, no one ever felt like just a prop. The story was suspenseful and interesting. I honestly could not put it down.

Also you ya'll have to pick up the audiobook. Raphael Corkhill is amazing! Its unhinged.

My only complaint is that I think it could have been longer, especially the ending. Sometimes it just left a little rushed in places.

5/5 Honestly don't think I can recommend unless you are prepared for it. 

I'm absolute here because of the Lord Ravenscraft video essay on Animorphs. (link at the end) I highly recommend you check that out if you are at all interested in this series (and don't mind some light spoilers).

I will start by saying that I did not read these as a child even though I was in the correct age range for them. This is because 1) My school never had book one available and 2) My family did not have money to spend on the Scholastic book fair. So this is my first time interacting with this series at the age of 30.

This shit absolutely slaps. It is incredibly mature and dark for a series targeted at 3rd graders. It has themes about death, war, personal sacrifice, grief, escapism. All while still keeping it appropriate for the 5-8 year old audience. I recently read the first Percy Jackson book as well and in comparison, The Invasion kept my attention, was less repetitive, and had deeper emotional writing. This feels like Coraline meets Power Rangers. Its got the vibe of a weekly children's TV action show while still having the heavy themes of a psychological thriller.

I will say I'm not sure I'm in love with the entire cast yet. This book is in Jake's point of view, so we only really get to know him. He is very much the reluctant leader, Red Ranger type. And he is so emotionally mature and has incredible insight into the danger of the situation they are currently in. But he still feel like a child. He loves video games, as a crush on a girl, doesn't like math homework, is interested in sports, and idolizes his big brother. He isn't just some one dimensional "leader" character and I have a feeling once I get to other books, I will feel the same way about the rest of the cast.

The only negative is that the books have very dated references. Which makes sense given that Applegate has stated that she took a lot of inspiration for the characters from tween magazines of the time. So I guess Animorphs is just a 90's time capsule in that way.

I also wanna shout out the audiobook. MacLeod Andrews does an AMAZING job with all the voices and emotions. I might pick up Warrior Cats just to listen to him read.

I finally decided to take a dive into Animorphs as a pick me up between books. I do not regret it. I can not wait to get to book two. 10/10 would recommend to all ages. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPRKzwgqvAA&t=1906s

This book would be better if Gal wasn't absolutely insufferable.

This book takes place from Gal's POV while he is a prisoner. He is struggling with his love for Ettian and his duty as heir to the throne. On the surface this seems like a really great set up but it just didn't get executed well. Gal's motivations and ethics are never really explored to the depth that it could have. It was sometimes so poorly done, I was straight up confused about what the hell Gal was doing. On top of all this, it was hard to really care about Gal's struggle because he is just so insufferable. I never felt a drop of sympathy for Gal. He really was just an arrogant whiny little teenage boy who just oozed "My blood makes me better than everyone around me" kind of attitude. Not sure what Ettian sees in this absolute prick. Now if the book was actually in Ettian or even Wen POV, I feel like it would have been better. Ettian and Wen's characters are just more sympathetic, likeable characters. Their struggles make sense and I want to cheer for them. And honestly, this was Wen's book at the end of the day. It really should have been her POV.

The plot doesn't pick up until about the 60% point. Like absolutely NOTHING was happening until this point and all I could think was "finally some good fucking soup." The character's don't start TALKING TO EACH OTHER until the 90% point. This books suffers from the big "everything would be fixed if they just talked to each other" trope, just like in the first book. Also the last 30 mins of the book has a wild left of field plot point that lets everything end in a cliff hanger with no answers. Felt like Skrutskie had to rely on a cheap plot twist instead of having the narrative stand on its own merits (you know like, a good plot or likable characters).

I'm sad that this isn't better. 2 stars because this isn't absolute trash and there is still a 3rd book that will hopefully save what's left of the scraps that was left behind.

I feel like most books that are in the "this used to be fanfic" category fall into the buttery genre of popcorn fiction. Bonds of Brass is no exception. It doesn't ask itself to be taken seriously so you will have to forgive me if my critic isn't as scolding as some would expect.

I will say that I can't image getting your hooks into Bond of Brass unless you have an idea of the background it comes from. The author just doesn't give us enough details of the world and characters to justify NOT having the baseline understanding that "this is basically Star Wars." Starships, empires, revolutions, characters, motivations, relationships, and more are just no0t fleshed out enough to stand on its own. But I guess I don't really NEED it to be fleshed out to still have a good time.

This is in fact just some AU/roles reversed Storm-Pilot fan fictions. Its very tropey: friends to lovers, bodyguard AU, there's only one bed, pretend boyfriends. Its all here. Including the scorch mark that I feel dropped this title down to a 3 star for me: miscommunication trope. I honestly can not stand it when the whole base of a problem comes down to "this would all be fixed it they just talked to each other."

The twist was visible a mile away. The writing is passable. The characters are likable and the techno-babble isn't entirely off putting. Its a combination of enjoyable enough and short enough to justify picking up book 2. 

I’ll start by saying that I did not enjoy “She Who Became The Sun” mostly because it was advertised to me in the wrong way. I thought maybe if I had gone in blind I probably would have liked it. It was well written and I did like most of the characters. So knowing that a second book was coming and seeing potential I told myself I would give the second book a try when it came out.

Positives first:

In the last book, huge important events and choices would be skipped over. Those skipped scenes would be summed up with something like “this happened off screen but it happened, anyway.” Thats no longer happening which I am hugely thankful for.

I also feel like the character interactions in this book were super fun. Ouyang, Zhu, Xu Da, and Ma are all interacting with each other a lot in the first half of the book. Those interactions were honestly so fun to read and gave the book a completely different tone. Wang Baoxiang is also pretty heavily featured in this book. In the last book I felt like I barely knew his character, but he’s got main character status here. I really enjoyed his character here, and all of his weird plotting.

Okay Negatives:

I am not a huge fan of how this book explores gender and sexual identity. I’m part of the LGBT community though I am cis, so take my opinion however you want. I feel Zhu was suppose to be telling a specific type of queer narrative but I could not tell you what that was. This character’s use to tell a queer story feels very incomplete which is a shame because I feel like it would have been really awesome. I actually feel this way about a lot of the characters. There is a lot of queer narratives going on that never concluded or just feels incomplete. Is Zhu man, woman, non-binary, still figuring it out, or something else entirely? I have no fucking clue. I don’t think the reader is owed these conclusions but it just seems weird to start these conversations and not finish them. I think a lot of characters were honestly done dirty. Zhu, Ouyang, Wang, and Ma mostly.

I just don’t think these books are for me. There is a major character death around the 70% mark and I just wanted to stop reading. It was becoming clear to me that even going in with lowered expectations that I wasn’t going to enjoy the book anymore. This character death was done really well and I really felt it concluded their narrative neatly. I realized it was the only character that was going to get a narratively satisfying conclusion that I was gonna be happy with and I just wanted to stop. The rest of the book was a drag to me. Other characters died with little to no ceremony. The ending was anti-climactic.

Its clear to see why people love these books. They are all so well written with interesting characters. But this series just was not for me.

Holy shit. I just shot gunned all of this in one sitting.

I don’t know what to say. It was a delight. It felt like a Nightvale episode. It was weird, funny, horrifying, introspective. People feel in love. I laughed. I could not put it down.

5 Stars. Absolutely would recommend.

UPDATE:

Okay here is my not 2AM review.

This is a weird surrealistic comedy what is incredibly niche. I seriously think its only going to be funny to those that use Slack and have the type of work place culture that's presented here. I'm talking 3 hour long lunch breaks, Smash Bro Tournaments in the conference room, emojis being used as a form of communication/inside joke, work drama that's actually not that serious, corporate speak being so faking its like another language, the feeling of chronically online people having to congregate in an office setting and pretending to be serious. So you know, your normal IT company. I, fortunately, fall into this category.

If you are familiar with Nightvale then I think you are gonna find yourself at home in this book. Its wacky non-sense weirdness that sometimes touches on deep human feels of fear and joy. This is not a good to be taken seriously. Seeing so many reviews bombing this for not being "serious" fiction is wild to me. Ya'll don't pick up the occasional popcorn fiction? Live a little.

There is some office romance/situation-ships happening. It contains some dub-con/non-con mattering on how you wanna look at it. Its not graphic. It only happens to his body and not his actual self (I don't know how to explain it without spoilers). And he ends up being okay with it and its a little bit played for laughs (this is a comedy at the end of the day). I can see this scene being a huge red flag for a lot of people (see all the one star reviews). But I honestly didn't mind it. I feel like with the sci-fi elements happening it was easy to let it slide. I enjoyed it and I thought it was played off really well. Sue me I guess.

I think my biggest critic is that I wish it was actually illustrated inside of Slack instead of being just plain text. But I get that plain text would be easier to read for people not familiar with the platform. 

10/10 Would recommend.

TL;DR: Holy shit this was slow. And so boring. I listened at 2x speed just so I could finish it. I did not give a shit about any of these plots. But I still really like these characters. I just wish each character had its own book that focused on just them. Cool metal magic and loveable characters can not carry this book alone. 2.5 stars.

The Negatives

1) Politics/The Armies Clashing:

Most of the time this was so boring. I just did not care enough to be invested in the out come of who is gonna rule what. I get that the politics are here so we can reach this 3 way army show down at the climax but it took so long to get there that I just didn't care. We got to the fighting, what, around part 4 or 5, about 60-80% way through the book. And then the battle was all over so quickly.

2) Romance

Sanderson does not know how to write romance or relationships. Stick to the cool metal magic fight scenes my guy.

Vin and Elond's relationship suffers from "Everything would be fixed if they just talked to each other" types of tropes. There is also an attempted (?) love triangle with a new character. Its so completely out of left field, I didn't even know it was happening until someone was confessing their feelings. I laughed out loud. It was really bad.

There is also the relationship between Allrianne and Breeze. She is 18 and yes it is states explicitly that that is her age in the book. He is twice her age and has "been in the business for over 30 years." Dude is anywhere between the ages of 36-40+. Breeze is ashamed of their age gap and is constantly resisting his lustful thought about her. But don't worry reader you get to read all about Allrianne's shapely 18 year old body and how hot Breeze thinks she is (gag me). Oh but you know what, lets flip this trope on its head and make HER the aggressor. Cause guess what? She's been manipulating his emotions with her own metal magic super powers. So its NOT a toxic age gap with a power imbalance and dating a barely-adult girl is totally normally cries the fandom who will completely justify this relationship and call you prejudice for even bringing it up (looking at you r/mistborn). Listen, I like these two characters. Allrianne isn't put into these weird female boxes like Vin is. Breeze's powers and his emotional introspectives are super interesting. A relationship between two emotional manipulative magic people would be interesting, if she was like idk 5 years older. There is absolutely no reason Sanderson couldn't age up Allrianne. He has chosen to justify this type of relationship and it honestly fucking disgusting.

Sazed and Tindwyl are fine actually. I'm not gonna dive into gender dysphoria that Sazed experiences cause the book only has the passing comment on it and this relationship isn't really explored a lot. Go read She Who Became the Sun to read an actually interesting take on a eunuch character.

3) The Mystery of wtf The Well of Ascension is

Reading about character researching this wasn't interesting.  And the thrown together climax at the end was so left of field that I couldn't be bothered. God I am so glad I can finally stop reading this book.

The Positives

I love all these characters. Vin, Elend, Dockson, Ham, Breeze, Allrianne, Clubs, Spook, Sazed, Tindwyl, OreSeur, TenSoon, hell, even fucking Jastes. I love all of these bastards. And Zane. ZANE. What a great fucking character. WASTED ON THIS BOOK WTF. Also the Kandra characters and plot lines are fucking great. I got to the plot twist for this part and I was like "finally some good fucking soup." Honestly all of these characters could have their own stand alone book that just focus on them and not this whole politics killing god none sense and I would EAT THAT UP. Give me a book just about Elond and Vin navigating Elond's politics and Vin trying to find her place in his world. Give me Dockson struggling to come to terms that his revolution isn't going as planned and trying to be the new leader of the team. Give me a whole book about Breeze and Allrianne struggling to figure out wtf is up with their relationship since they are both emotional magic people. Give me a whole book on Zane being hateful towards Elond and him trying to take everything he ever wanted from him. Give me a whole book on Sazed and Tindwyl trying to understand history and themselves and their people. The sad part is that we just get little snippets of these stories, but unfortunately, characters are not the center piece for Sanderson. Give me the CHARACTER driven novels these amazing people deserve, not the PLOT driven disaster that was Well of Ascension.

Okay I am done. this was so boring. I hated it. See you in book three I fucking guess.

Misogynistic at its worst and boring at its best, Blood of Elves fit in with the other books of this mediocre series just fine.

The first half of the book is just "Four Witchers and a Baby" which I feel like could be really fun if we weren't constantly bombarded with reminders of how weak woman are because of their periods and the none stop sexualization of a 13 year old child. Not to mention the other 2 women in the book being jealous of said 13 year old. Both Triss and Yen are just being horrible caricatures of a bitchy, overly sexualized woman. They don't have any character trait passed "Down bad for Geralt and will scratch out the eyes of anyone who gets in my way." Sapkowski is completely incapable of writing a good female character or creating an environment where a potentially interesting female character could thrive. But I think I have complained enough about this in my review for Sword of Destiny.

The other half is fantasy racism and politics. It was so incredible boring. I could not get invested at all. At least in The Last Wish, the action and story was interesting enough to at least pay attention. 

Also what the hell happened to the writing? Sapkowski is relying very heavily on dialog in this one, its a miracle when we get a description of anything (besides breasts of course, we get PLENTY of descriptions for that). We are also constantly jumping around from different characters and different time line. Like this is so obviously Ciri's book but we kept being all over the place. And the ending being "but little did they know of the dark times ahead. Anyway, the end!" Lazy. I know Sapkowski can do better than this.

 Lambert and Dandelion's bits were great. These are characters I actually really enjoyed. Ciri was also great, I just wish she wasn't put though Sapkowski's writing.

2-2.5 stars.

I have mixed feelings.

IWTV felt like it had direction and purpose, driven by its singular voice. While “The Vampire Lestat” feels like its all over the place. At one point Lestat is telling a story he heard from a vampire, who heard it from another vampire, who heard it from another vampire, and it’s like “What, who is talking right now?” Honestly some of these characters feel like they should have just had their own book (Marius, Magnus, Nicolas, Gabrielle, Armand) and Lestat is just tacked on so they have something tying them (loosely) together. Rice seems so much more interested in telling her own vampire lore and OCs backstories then anything else. I really liked IWTV because it used the lense of the vampire to muse on humanities great questions, that gothic, moody tone that Lestat attributes to “Oh that’s just Louis’s character/voice.” Which I guess is fine but tt kind of only makes me interested in books that are going to be in Louis’s “voice.” I liked the beginning and Lestat’s origins because it felt more like IWTV but after that (right around we get to the Children of Darkness) this book absolutely goes off the rails. I absolutely lost my shit when Marius was like “Yeah my good friend Jesus is a vampire. In fact, ALL GODS are actually vampires.” LMAO, I could not take anything serious after that, not to mention the rock star portions.

I am also absolutely devastated that Louis went back to Lestat in the end. It feels like the very faint theme of loneliness was just thrown out the door. I also feel like the ending should have us asking how reliable of a narrator are Lestat and Louis. I don't trust any of these queens.

Not sure if I will continue this series. I have read that Rice stopped using an editor after Queen of the Damned, so I might give this series one more chance with the next book.

TL;DR Its an okay written summary of Jennette’s childhood and womanhood traumas. This book is not about her journey to healing but more of a declaration to start healing.

Honestly, this book was a slog for about the first 100 pages. While Jennette is young, her writing is simple. Its hard to engage with. As you read on she gets angrier, her thoughts are more complex. Its like her writing is aging with her, maturing as you turn the page. I really struggle with those first 100 pages. I felt disconnected from the trauma, kept at arms length. Then as we enter the teens and young adult phases of her life, I’m actually enjoying the book as she really dives deep into what shes feeling. Her writing isn’t groundbreaking buts its tolerable enough to no longer distract me from the actual content of the book.

There is a lot of emotions on display. Mostly anger, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, grief, emptiness. Something in Jennette’s story will be relatable to you as she goes through the universal and unique hardships of womanhood and childhood abuse. But at the end of the day those emotions are all thats here. This isn’t the journey of healing you think it is, but the declaration of the attempt to start healing.

There were times this book was down right boring. The trauma is not hard to read or harrowing like some reviewers say. But I also don’t see this as an entitles celebrity who’s just complaining as other reviewers think. It just kind of feels like life’s normal bullshit that happens to a lot of us. The abusive parent, the OCD, the body issues, the alcohol problems, issues with relationships and sex. These are not uniquely celebrity problems. Which is either gonna pull you in or bore you to tears.

The title and blurb really give you the whole picture all by itself. I think I could have skipped this one.