skudiklier's Reviews (647)

Good god that was incredible. Mary Oliver is truly one of the best poets of all time. I feel so lucky to read her work.

Some notes I took while reading:

i need to reread this one day and take more time with it. i need to read a mary oliver poem every morning while watching the sunrise

nothing fills me with life like mary oliver poetry. with appreciation and wonder and energy and awe. with the motivation to spend my time wisely and to do whatever makes me feel alive

god any time mary oliver says "listen" i sit the FUCK down and listen!!!!! 

I'm not sure what to say about this book. It took me a while to get through. I didn't actively dislike it but I didn't really like it either. I took a lot of notes for my book club, and it had lots of things to discuss, but I also was never super engaged. I don't think I would have DNFed it if I hadn't been reading it for a book club, but I might have.

The plot twist at the end was very predictable but also still interesting. The writing was good and there were definitely things I liked about it. Idk. I just feel mostly neutral about the book I guess. 

I loved this, both as its own book and as a sequel!! I wasn't expecting a lot of that but I love where it went. Definitely recommend it to fans of the first book, regardless of if you're more interested in the mystery or the romance, as this has a lot of both.

Wow this whole book felt like the end of a book. Wild.

I'm honestly writing this review weeks after finishing it so I don't have a lot to say. I'm glad I reread the series. It held up but I do think it's definitely written for kids. The books are better than the show (or the movie but that's a given). I love the things that make this ending different from the Harry Potter ending (iykyk). I'm looking forward to reading the other spinoffs and such soon. 

I read this based on Hank Green's recommendation and definitely liked it. It was an interesting perspective and I appreciated being able to hear it. I didn't read Land's first book so finding out at the end that this was a sequel of sorts was interesting. I feel like it holds up 100% as a standalone book. I don't think I'll read her other one but I think this was written well and I was engaged the whole time.

This was very cute! It's been a bit since I read Heartstopper so I'm a little confused tbh on where this fits into the story, but that didn't hinder my reading or anything. It just made me wonder at how big of a deal this was and the fact that it's not in the comics. But other than that I loved this. (Also commuuunniiiccattee but they're teenagers so they get a pass haha. Oh and double also, as someone who's now married to the first person they ever dated, who they met in high school, who then moved across the world and had to be long distance for a while still as teenagers, this was extra relatable. I love how they're handling it.)

I want everyone feeling climate anxiety to read this book. It helped so much. It felt so real in that it didn't shy away from the bad things or minimize the problems, but instead pointed in the direction we should be worrying/thinking about, so we can focus on solutions instead of give into despair. I love this book and the way it was written and I'm going to recommend it any chance I get.

Not gonna lie this was pretty dumb. I was really trying to give it the benefit of the doubt because Vanessa Zoltan recommended it and her recs have never disappointed me before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Leo was just....an asshole? Like, I don't understand why he's a dick in the beginning and then is supposedly great later and no explanation is given for why he's a dick. Like yes he's grieving but it never even seems to imply that he ever apologizes for how he treated Nora in the beginning, or acknowledged that he was treating her badly. Idk. He wasn't terrible the rest of the book but I just couldn't get past how he acted in the beginning. Like. Why would Nora even like him??? They just fall in love so suddenly. 

And then the breakup.........no spoilers but god. Sorry this just felt like a Hallmark movie in all the worst ways (which is funny given she writes Hallmark movies).

I still was engaged with it and wanted to know what happened, which is why I read it so quickly. But idk man. I just didn't like it. I expect more from romance.

I was prepared to accept an explanation for why the guy was being rude to her, but his best man toast completely turned me off. Even if he's not a dick in the way she thinks, he's still a dick in a way I don't want to read about. I looked at some reviews to make sure I wasn't DNFing too early, but yeah. This feels very gross basic straight people culture romance to me and I have zero interest in continuing it, regardless of how good the rest of it might be. 

This is probably the wildest series I've ever read. The first book was weird, and then the second book was weirder, and then the third book was weirder in a totally different way. I can't wait for the fourth one and I know I'll have no idea what to expect when I do read it.

I was honestly a little worried about this one because (premise/early on spoilers)

it doesn't have Harrow or Gideon and I'd have to get used to entirely new characters for a lot of it.

But I actually really enjoyed it. I can't tell if this one is my favorite or if I just

really liked Nona.

Regardless, I cried at the end, and have no idea what to say about this book. This series is so hard to review without spoiling it. Immediately after finishing it I looked up a summary of what happened because I knew that I probably missed at least something, and I did. But in some ways this third book was more readable than the others, imo.

(more intense spoilers)

And oh my god all the backstory stuff with John??? I love that we're three books in and finally finding out more world-building stuff. That was wild. It made all the internet meme references make more sense and seem sad tbh. Gosh this whole book was just wild. Also this was my favorite quote, I immediately wrote it down: "I say it and don't know what it means" 😭