Reviews by takarakeireads | The StoryGraph

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takarakeireads

The Vampire Lestat

Anne Rice

3.0

dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Slightly better than book 1 cause Lestat is just quite the character. The middle is SOOO slow, but the ending is REALLY good. TBH I had to look up a chapter summary on reddit which gave me life and the ability to finish this. Only really stuck with it cause I was reading it with friends so that we can watch the Queen of the Damned movie together :')

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Right on Cue

Falon Ballard

2.0

lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is probably the most boring romance I've read. I've read one other book by this author and I also didn't care for that female MC in that book (but at least in that one the guy was interesting). These were just like the two blandest people with no personality. Truly do not understand what these people liked about each other. Insta-attraction, but it's also kind of second chance romance?? (they knew each other briefly as teenagers). They are “enemies” 🙄 (at least in her mind) based on a dumb teenager thing that happened and Emmy has held this grudge since then (like please get over yourself!). She just like decides things and jumps to conclusions which is why she “hates” this guy to begin with. Then they’re just f'ing (literally to get over how much she dislikes him, her solution is just to have sex with him) and all of a sudden are in love cause the sex is so good? I’ll be honest I skimmed the latter 50% of this. The third act break up was also incredibly infuriating, not even miscommunication because she just AGAIN overhears PART of a conversation bc she is dumb and just leaves without the full context and then ghosts him! Besides them being on a movie set together it's not even like a "celebrity romance" in any of the good way that trope usually allows either.

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The City We Became

N.K. Jemisin

4.5

adventurous mysterious 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: Complicated

First of all - I read this in combination with the audiobook - which is FANTASTIC! Absolutely phenomenal narration AND sound design/effects, it was almost like listening to a graphic audio dramatized version! So I can't recommend the audiobook enough (especially if you are someone who listens to SFF audio). Although I will note it was helpful to be reading along at parts due to the effects.

Now could I explain the dynamics of all that happens in this book? Absolutely not, it's one of those books where you just have to accept the concepts that are being presented to you without a lot of questioning. I mean, people becoming the embodiment of cities? weird concept. You just gotta go with it! Along the way you'll get discussions of race, art, and what it means to "belong" to a place.

If you're a NYC area person I def think this is an interesting read! Very NYC-prideful. I personally am NOT from NYC or know all that much about it, so I couldn't pick up on if there were any inaccuracies in any way, but Jemisin has lived there for a long time and did a lot of research so I trust that she got it right. I really enjoyed all the little history bits of information thrown in about the city.

There's no one out there really writing SFF like Jemisin, and I am very excited to continue with this series.

Content Warnings

This Wicked Fate

Kalynn Bayron

3.75

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Unfortunately I think I would have liked this sequel more if I was a mythology girlie. But I'm not, and I'm not really familiar with the base mythology so I was missing that connection.

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This Could Be Us

Kennedy Ryan

4.25

emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Going into this knowing nothing, but having read the first book in the series, I was quite surprised by the first part of the book being our MC Soledad dealing with a very dramatic ending to her marriage. The author makes you immediately dislike her husband and you're not at all sad with what happens to him. This is a big deal because it's a life-altering event for Soledad and their 3 kids, and she is left to pick up the pieces of their life. There is great emphasis on Soledad's relationships with both her best friends (cameo of Yasmen from book 1!) and her sisters who really hold her down. This was super relatable to read about the close bonds of women.

There aren’t enough sonnets for friendship. Not enough songs for the kind of love not born of blood or body but of time and care. They are the ones we choose to laugh and cry and live with. When lovers come and go, they are the ones who remain. We are each other’s constants.

Soledad spends most of the book then reforming her new life and working on deprogramming the BS her ex said to her. There were some beautiful quotes and I really enjoyed reading about the self-discovery journey Soledad goes on to find her true self. I already had 'all about love' by bell hooks on my TBR for this month and this book made me even more excited to read it! It's definitely Soledad's book, she has most of the pov chapters, but we do get some from the perspective of Judah...

& Judah is a dream of a partner, really the epitome of a supportive man who has no ego, and just wants the best for Soledad. This is a fairly slow burn (not the slowest I've ever read, but def slower than most romances I read) which I honestly appreciate! He's a divorced dad with two autistic sons (he is friends with his ex and they have split custody). The author notes that she has an autistic child and did lots of research on the many varied experience of people with autism, and their families. I think there's a lot of care given to this subject.

I think my only qualm with this book is while I understand why there's so much focus at the beginning on Soledad's ex - I wish there was slightly less, and that might have allowed for a bit snappier pace.

Thank you to netgalley and Forever books for this ARC!

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A Master of Djinn

P. Djèlí Clark

3.75

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Reading the novella 'A Dead Djinn in Cairo' is highly recommended before reading this. It was written before hand and does some introduction of character relationships and world-building which is helpful to know before reading A Master of Djinn.

Sapphic
Egypt in 1912
but make it steampunk
mystery
other worldly beings (Djinn, Angels, Ghuls)
a dapper main character obsessed with 'menswear'

This wasn't the best thing I've read, but the world is interesting. I could've used a glossary at parts because sometimes I felt the world-building relied a bit too much on prior knowledge of Egyptian history - particularly when it came to the political history of the more recent setting of early 1900s Cairo. I wish I could say I learned a bit more history, but for me it was hard to tell what was fantasized and what was not (besides the obvious Djinn). The mystery is a bit predictable. I liked Fatma as a main character, and her obsession with suits. I would probably read more in this world if the author wrote it, if the plot-line followed something a bit different.

Content Warnings

Homegoing

Yaa Gyasi

4.0

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

"We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask your self, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.”

This is not my typical kind of read, but I did think it was well done for the most part. Particularly the beginning stories were very lush and I think there's some extremely important perspectives to be gained by reading this book. As the quote says - there are many sides of history to be told and many perspectives are often left out. Towards the ending few stories I was a tad less engaged with, perhaps these were more familiar stories to me and that's why? Having the family tree at the front was very integral to be aware of how people were related. For sure an important read!!

Content Warnings

A Dead Djinn in Cairo

P. Djèlí Clark

4.0

dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I was told to read this first for some world-building before reading The Master of Djinn. It was a quick listen that is really packed with information about this world and follows the plot at a pretty quick pace. At it's core it's a mystery as you follow detective Fatma on a hunt to discover why some other worldly beings are being killed. Fatma is a cool main character to follow and I would've happily read more about her!

Content Warnings

Infinity Alchemist

Kacen Callender

3.0

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Fantastic queer cast of main characters: one is transmasc, one is genderfluid, one is pansexual(?). This is a world where those identities are not an issue. The use of alchemy (magic) is 'othered'. The magic was cool in concept and explored a bit more at the beginning when Ramsy was teaching Ash, but then once we got into the action there wasn't a lot of descriptive magic. I felt a lot of the action parts were barely described and were instead glossed over. Was a bit confused what time period this is set and it's not super clear based on context clues. The dialogue reads more YA, but some of the content was definitely more New Adult. There was a lot of potential here, but it ended up being very character focused and the plot was a bit slow moving. I got rather bored by about 50%. The character dynamic between the main 3 were well done especially regarding their poly relationship. I don't know if this is going to be a series or not because it felt semi-conclusive. All the action really happens in the last 10-15% and that felt a bit rushed with how slow the rest of the book moved.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Teen for an advanced copy.

Content Warnings

The Sword of Kaigen

M.L. Wang

2.75

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I had been looking forward to reading this book for so long because everyone raved about it... As I do with most books I read, I went in knowing very little: basically that it was loosely based on Japanese history/culture (apparently feudal Japan specifically). In my opinion, even if I had read the blurb for this book prior to reading I think I still would have had incorrect expectations going in.

Unfortunately I felt like I read 3 different books that felt a bit disjointed.

The first ~1/3 of this book is fantastic - good world building and character introductions, multiple povs to round out the perspective, very cool magic and I thought we were being set up for such a cool adventure.
The second ~1/3 was one long battle/war scene. This is maybe a "me" thing because typically battle scenes are really not my favorite thing to read, but this went on FOREVER. Even with the magic being super cool to read, at some point I was just really over reading about it and it felt rather repetitive.
The deaths in this section also felt mostly like for shock value to me
The last ~1/3 after this battle the book took a sudden turn into a super character driven not-plot where we just follow the aftermath of the battle where they are rebuilding this town and it was honestly boring. As my friend said "the culmination of this epic fantasy is….logging and building a school….."
ALSO I HATED the Takeru redemption "arc" cause it's not an arc, it was a complete 180 out of nowhere with no build up and sorry I do not sympathize with him! His character development was not nuanced enough for me to care, and in the end he was still doing dumb things. IMO if Takeru had been explained to be mainly just distant/cold but not outright abusive to Misaki/the children this change would have made more sense.

I guess I just didn't expect to literally not leave this one small town the entire book (Misaki's flashbacks do not count imo). The men in this book were all incredibly insufferable and useless. Misaki was also a bit frustrating to read at times because while I can understand why she entered into this marriage based on societal expectations, I cannot understand how she became a completely different person for 15 years.

After finishing I did some research and realized this book was written as a prequel to a YA series this author wrote that I guess holds the more conclusive ending to the empire etc??? But that made this read not like a completed standalone because at the end I still had a lot of questions about how things in this world would get resolved.

The audiobook narrator mispronounces words which was very irksome as someone who speaks some Japanese. These are not words that were made up by the author, but real Japanese words that were being used in their original context. I found actually the narration was inconsistent with some pronunciation.

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