Alright so I may have forgotten to review this book for over a year IT'S FINE. I'm awful at this wow

ANYWAYS

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO SO SO MUCH! Monty and Percy are two of my favourite characters to ever exist and I swear I'll love them until the end of time.
This book is so important, there are a great number of topics that Lee discusses throughout the book and does so in a really beautiful way. My heart hurt for all three of the main characters for different reasons. Lee did a fantastic job of discussing issues that were relevant to the time but also making them relevant to the present.

There's not much else to say about this book other than how absolutely incredible it is, 100% recommend reading it. The only reason it got 4 stars was because I was expecting this to be a pirate book, so I was a little let down at the lack of pirates lmfao

This book was so odd that I'm not sure what to say about it. It was really easy to get into; Gaiman's style of writing is absolutely gorgeous. I found the boy pretty unrealistic, no seven year old that I've ever met behaves like that (although I wish they did...).

Gaiman is an incredible story teller. This was the first novel that I've read by him but it definitely won't be the last!


2015 Reading Challenge: A book that scares you

Changeling started out pretty good; I loved all the characters, the setting was great, the language and writing style were phenomenal. I had really high expectations for it. I'm highly disappointed. I still love all the characters and everything I just mentioned, but the plot was.. Boring. I think it could have been really good, but the way it was written it sounded really slow paced and dull.

I really do love the characters though <3 Freize is just fabulous and hilarious; I love him to death! Ishraq is a strong, independent woman who don't need no man! Isolde is a great friend. Brother Peter is definitely interesting XD And Luca... Dead God, bless his soul. Why can't he be real? XC

All in all, it wasn't a bad book, but I wouldn't read it again.

Actual rating ★★.5

If this book was longer I would have DNF'd within the first 10 pages to be perfectly honest, this was a mission to get through. As a disclaimer though, this is not a genre I typically enjoy. I picked this book up years ago at a used bookstore because it sounded mildly interesting and was also only $3. It has sat on my shelf ever since because I knew as soon as I got home that I probably wouldn't enjoy it, but I finally made myself read it because one of my reading goals for the year is to actually read the books I have on my shelf. If not for that, I would never have picked this one up.

So what's going on here?
Hermes and Apollo walk into a bar (which sounds like the beginning of a bad joke lmfao) in Toronto one night, and wonder "what it would be like if animals had human intelligence." By the end of their conversation, a bet has been made and the pair find themselves in a veterinary clinic where they give the fifteen dogs staying there for the night human intelligence. What follows are the stories of said fifteen dogs throughout the remainder of their lives.

What I loved
I'll be honest, I didn't love much here. It was interesting enough that I managed to get myself through it, and I did find this book to be thought provoking. The dogs are seeing the human world, our world, in a whole new way, but still from the perspective of a dog of course. I found it interesting the ways they described and saw our world, the customs we have that don't make sense from an outside perspective, etc. It's not something I would have any desire to read again or anything, but I didn't completely hate it at least. And I did actually really like the poems. For some reason I decided to read the "note on the text" in the back before I was very far along, and found the info about the type of poetry it is to be fascinating. I had never head of that kind of poetry and had fun trying to find the dogs names within them.

What I didn't love
I think my main issue with this was the plot and pacing. When people have asked me if I prefer books that are plot driven or character driven, I've never known which I like better. Fifteen Dogs made me realize that I definitely prefer plot driven novels. I do really enjoy heavy focus on characters, and need good character development in order to feel any kind of connection to them, but I found Fifteen Dogs to take it too far. Maybe it was how it was written or the nature of the characters, but I found it be extremely difficult to connect with anyone in this story. I just didn't care, except maybe a tiny bit for Majnoun and Prince at the very end. The writing and dialogue felt very disconnected from any sort of emotion, which again may just be the nature of the characters as they don't experience emotion the same way humans do. But regardless it was difficult to read and enjoy. I think I would have liked it more if there was a bit of dark humour thrown in here and there, it felt like the right setting for it. But instead it was very dry and stale.

Overall thoughts
Not horrible, but I doubt I'll feel inclined to pick up anything else from this author or genre. I'm just very underwhelmed, but at least it was a quick read and I can finally take this off my TBR shelf

★★★.5
Or maybe 2.5. OR maybe it's actually 3 stars. 3.5? I'm very conflicted by this book clearly

So what's going on here?
Alice and her mother, Ella, have lived their lives on the road, and on the run. Whenever they stay in one place for too long, bad luck seems too find them, occasionally even leading to the death of a loved one. Alice has never known why, and dreams of finding one place to call home. But mostly, she dreams of her elusive grandmother, author of a book of fairytales with a cult following, and the estate in the forest she lives in known as the Hazel Wood. Alice's mother, however, is adamant that Alice never meets her, and especially never reads her book. But when Ella is kidnapped by a character from the book, she must enlist the help of a friend and fan of the novel to find her, even if that means venturing into the dangerous world of fairytales that she never guessed was actually real, and finding out some hard truths about herself along the way.

What I loved
I absolutely adore this world, this is for sure one of my favourite worlds that I've ever experienced in a book. It gave me major Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire vibes, which is probably a top 5 favourite series of all time, so I was over the top happy about that. I would love it if Albert did novellas exploring the other fairy tale worlds that were hinted at in this book like McGuire does (if that's what the next book is about then im going to straight up DIE), or even a book of short stories, OR published Tales from the Hinterland as a separate novel. That would be cool as fuck. (Edit: THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING I'M HYPED). The world of The Hazel Wood is the only reason that I'm so conflicted with my rating, because I love it so much while I dislike a lot of other stuff about this book

What I didn't love
As much as I love this world and would love more books about it, I DESPISED the majority of the characters. I didn't mind Finch, and I liked the side characters from Hinterland (Janet, the Story Spinner, and the dude from the cafe mostly). Ella was alright I guess but she didn't really have a major role and I found her character to be rather underdeveloped. But my main issues lies with Alice. WOW I did not like her AT ALL. She was angry, arrogant, stuck up, and so god damn privileged that I almost DNF'd after that scene with Finch and the cop. I literally only kept with this book because of the world, so I'm desperately hoping that she won't have as much of a role in the next book. Please for the love of all that is good in the world, let the next book not centre on her so much. There are SO MANY other characters that it could be about, ones that we already know from this book or new ones all together. In a world where so many other worlds exist, I'm sure there's gotta be someone, ANYONE else, that The Night Country could focus. PLEASE

Ok I'm done ranting about how much I hate Alice now lmfao

There are also a couple things that left me sort of confused and asking questions at the end, things that didn't quite make sense or that I maybe missed (I listened to the audiobook and there is a very good possibility that I zoned out for a couple seconds on the bus and missed some vital information. But whatever). I won't go into detail about it because nothing is overly importantly and didn't really make me lower my rating by too much, especially considering there are going to be more books and she might answer those questions later. But yeah some confusion with world building stuff is present!!

Overall thoughts
Overall I can say that I enjoyed this book. I didn't love it, but I definitely liked it and it will read the next one. Probably not right away, since The Night Country comes out the same day as like a million other books that I want to read and will probably like more, but I'll read it eventually lmfao.

This was good! Not great, not spectacularly amazing, but good enough that I’ll read the sequel (eventually). I’m not really sure what it was, but something about it just didn’t fully grab me, you know I mean? It was interesting, I love the world, the side characters are fantastic (main characters less so), and that premise! *chef kiss* I’m very much here for the premise, and the plot took some twists that I genuinely wasn’t expecting, but something was just a little off. Can’t put my finger on it, but regardless I’m very glad that I read it!

Before I start this review, I would just like to point out how beautiful those acknowledgements were. I never thought reading the acknowledgments of a book would make me cry but here we are.

Ok so. I don't even know where to possibly begin with this book. I don't really have much to say other than Once & Future is everything I could ever possibly want in a book, which is exactly what I said about the last Amy Rose Capetta book I read. Amy Rose Capetta, you are officially one of my top three favourite authors in the whole world, right up there with Maggie Stiefvater and Emily Skrutskie. And I'm now also forever in love with Cori McCarthy, I need to start reading their other books immediately. A huge, massive thank you to these two for giving me such wonderful queer characters that don't end in tragedy, found families, sci-fi AND fantasy mixed into the same book, the kind of humour that I love the most, a story about a universe of people revolting against capitalism, and so much more. I would very much like to find Excalibur and use it to blast my way to the future so I can read the sequel to this right now. Seriously though 2020 can't come fast enough.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sob into a pillow thinking about this beautiful world and the magical characters who inhabit it for the rest of my life.

Ok but there's going to be a third book right..? Please??

I'm horrible at remembering to review books in a timely manner but here we are, a year and a half later, finally getting around to it

All I have to say is

PLEASE READ THIS SERIES IT'S HANDS DOWN ONE OF MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITES OF ALL TIME AND I'LL NEVER GET OVER HOW MUCH I LOVE IT

Ok that's it bye