Hailed as the first English detective novel, Collins' work is a delightful, wild, crazy adventure with such wit that I used a highlighter as a bookmark because I wanted to highlight so many great lines. I loved that the story was told through narratives written by each of the main players; it added tension and color to the story. Would highly recommend to fans of mystery, the Victorian era, and spectacular butlers.

Pippi is the strongest girl in the world, a presumed orphan, a Thing-Finder, and totally out of her mind. This charming story is the first in her adventures.

A fascinating case for myth as a form of psychology and emotional growth as opposed to something that early man believed to be fact. She daringly compares this to that of Biblical literalists and points out that stories (be they myth, fiction, or holy book) are only as good as what you can learn from them, and a story that doesn't grow has no place in humanity's consciousness. I liked the way she built up her history chronologically and showed how myths changed as humanity and its place in the world changed. Would highly recommend to fans of stories and their effect on people.

Despite the fact that the cover and jacket clearly show this is a mermaid book, Hannah does not actually turn into a mermaid until the last act of the book. Instead, she spends her time as a scullery maid feeling isolated, feeling threatened by one of the daughters of the household, and falling in love with a painter for no reason except that he is probably a mermaid too. This book was impossibly boring because nothing ever happened -- even after the big reveal, Hannah does nothing except swim at night. The conversations are so stilted and awkward that I kept having to read them two or three times to try and make sense of the nonsense.

Rossi did the impossible, writing a trilogy whose conclusion was better than its introduction. Aria and Perry's relationship is touching, strong, and delightfully lacking in the normal YA dystopian tropes. Her friendship with Roar makes my heart melt. This book was action-packed, exciting, and full of heart.

Luckily I listened to the abridged version of this audio, or I would have died of boredom before finishing it. This story-within-a-story failed for me because the framing story was about the most boring woman on earth whose only interesting quality was that she was convinced her dead twin sister was haunting her, and the actual story had no substance and couldn't have stood up without the framing story (weak as that was). The twist ending was uninspired and undid all the work that the previous chapters had done. The language was appropriately flowery and the audiobook narrators were talented.

This book is even more action-packed and gut-wrenching than the last. Julian Blackthorn's willingness to do anything for his family is put to the test as Nazi-like Cohort members take over the LA Institute and demand harsher treatment of Downworlders. This book has it all: fight scenes, drama, romance, fear, lots of lgbtq characters, mystery, and hope.

Clare masterfully depicts the world of Shadowhunters four years after the War with Sebastian Morgenstern -- faeries are the enemy, the Law is harsher than ever, and families are still looking for ways to rebuild. This book follows Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn as they work to find who murdered Emma's parents and how to save their city and their makeshift family. The fight scenes are intense, the romance is heart-melting, and the world-building is impressive. Clare never disappoints.

Lorelei spends most of this book whining, and when Jared goes missing at the beginning leaving the reader bereft of the romance to move the story along, it drags quite a lot. I like Lorelei's friends, but her immaturity is exhausting, and the entire book is just a set up for the conclusion rather than being a story of its own. I still love Jones' writing, but this isn't one of her best.

Basically, nothing has changed or happened since the first chapter of the first book. Amy is still wildly indecisive, neither Amy nor the reader knows who to trust (which makes her romance really hard to get into), and there is no real end goal -- okay, we need to kill Dorothy, but then what?

This book involves a long and pointless jaunt back to Kansas where Amy whines about missing her mother and her worst enemy before finally heading back to Oz for a giant battle. The fight scene was exciting, and the ending was moderately more intriguing than the rest of the story, but that's about the nicest thing I can say.