)Spoiler for the second book)

Spoiler

This story makes Artemis' death in the books so much sadder now that you know it was her own dogs that killed her.

Spoiler

I like that it ends with you not knowing whether or not the vampires were real.

I love the premise of this, but Blake just leaves so much potential on the table. Stuff is happening, but it all seems disjointed and pointless. And the Athena/Odysseus thing is so frustrating. I get that it's supposed to be a forbidden love thing, but it just makes no sense to me why she won't just sleep with him.

This book is so insanely depressing. And pointless. I expected a fable and found a weird story that seems to be trying to tackle motherhood, infertility, adoption, bullying, bigotry, and the animal kingdom, but doesn't try that hard to explore any of them.

Finishing this story feels more like getting home from vacation with Jake and Brett than it does having read a novel about them. Eschewing the standard function of plot, Hemingway nevertheless pulls you in with his vivid prose and sparse language so your opinions of the characters are entirely your own, un-led by his opinion. This book is sad and very much alive.

Though it does feel like a textbook or a guide for fossil-nerds, I enjoyed this book despite being neither a student nor overly interested in paleontology. I liked that Fortey gave enough history that I felt I learned a lot without going into so much detail that I was bored. He covers a wide array of topics so it's a great book for learning more about the history of the earth.

I really wanted to like this because I love Cam, but it was too mediocre. Lilith was awful and I couldn't understand why he loved her. And while it was funny that her trope-like teenage-hell-existence actually was hell, it seemed unbelievable that everyone except Cam knew she was in hell.