stuckinpermafrost's Reviews (146)

The Tombs of Atuan

Ursula K. Le Guin

5.0

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

A Natural History of Dragons

Marie Brennan

4.5

adventurous informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Driftwood

Marie Brennan

4.5

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

The Thief of Always

Clive Barker

4.0

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Didn’t realize this was middle grade when I bought it. Very fast read, managed to start and finish it on my ~1.5 hour flight lol

Enjoyed it for what it was but it’s definitely meant for a younger audience! I will add this to my list of evidence though that kids can handle darker/more mature content than people realize. I mean I grew up reading Warriors for god’s sake

The Maker of Swans

Paraic O'Donnell

3.0

mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters: No

Confusing. I still have lots of unanswered questions about things in this book but maybe I just missed things

Dragon Age: The Masked Empire Deluxe Edition

Patrick Weekes

4.0

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Really excited to replay Wicked Eyes & Wicked Hearts with all this background now. Oddly enough I like Gaspard a lot more now even though I know he’s a dick in the game. And honestly in this book as well. Also I don’t hate Celene as much as I thought I would? Everyone’s so conniving, they all deserve each other.

The Lark and the Wren

Mercedes Lackey

3.0

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

If I had a nickel for every book I really liked otherwise that then sprang a student-teacher relationship on me, I’d have two nickels… not exactly a student-teacher relationship, but a similar dynamic at first and a big age gap. Bleh. Didn’t like that.

Also, I know it wasn’t really seen as a slur in the 90s (at least it wasn’t common knowledge), but the gratuitous use of the g-slur for Romani people was a bit uncomfortable. I did like how it was quite sex worker positive overall, and very critical of corruption in the church.

It was very funny to me the couple of times that Rune would get frustrated that she couldn’t just evade taxes, and someone had to explain how government worked to her.

Content Warnings

Tevinter Nights

Patrick Weekes, Matthew Goldman, Christopher Morgan, Chris Bain

4.5

Last Flight

Liane Merciel

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

If this were a standalone book I’d maybe rate it slightly lower, but I really like how it fits into the world of Dragon Age. Easily my favorite of the DA novels! Isseya’s story is so tragic — she had to sacrifice so much of herself to end the blight, and I wanted things to be different for her the whole way through but I always knew her story had to end in tragedy. And yet she managed to keep some hope for future generations at the very end… the only DA book to make me tear up!

Edit: my biggest complaint about Veilguard is what they did to Isseya :’) the character assassination of it all… why they made that choice is beyond me

Dragon Age: The First Five Graphic Novels

Alexander Freed, David Gaider, Greg Rucka

3.0

adventurous fast-paced

Honestly don’t love any of the Dragon Age comics. I feel like very little actually happens in them, and some of the character choices feel odd. At least the art looks nice

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