thecandlelightlibrary's Reviews (1.25k)

I’m not sure if the title was just wrong/misleading or if the author didn’t have a good grasp on the scope of his project, but this was a disappointing read. I found it very repetitive and basically learned that no one knows much about fungi - even mycologists. I wish the author had combined some repetitive chapters and added a chapter on what they do know about fungi ecology (such as types/number of species, growing habits, ranges, current research applications, etc.).

Not sure how I feel about this one. Was definitely engaged through most of it, but it was also just. . .???

This did not age well since it was published 13 years ago.

I think the most important thing about this book is how it reminds you to think of the stories everyone around you has & how people in positions of power shape a public narrative that's not necessarily true. Even though this is short, I've learned about so many people who history probably would not have remembered. 

I received this book through a StoryGraph giveaway, but that did not influence my review.

This was such a delight to read! I loved getting to know this cast of characters and particularly enjoyed the sentient house and magic system. I do wish the pacing had been a bit faster, but it certainly wouldn't prevent me from picking up the next book in this series.

Thank you to Macmillan/St. Martin’s Publishing Group for sending me an ARC of this title. I received this copy for free and this review contains my honest opinions. 

 

Have you ever read a book and thought the characters were right but the story they were in was not? That was The Second You’re Single for me. This could have been an incredibly fun meet-cute romance, but it unfortunately it didn’t meet my expectations. Ultimately, I felt Sora and Jack would have stood out more, and been better served, in a different story. I thought they were both likable, but they never quite meshed with the premise/conflict in a way that worked for me. 

 

I also had a major issue with how ‘Solo February’ was represented throughout the story. The ‘rules’ of the challenge were never actually described, but the feeling was this was a challenge for Sora to completely stop interacting with men for 28 days since she has a lot of unresolved issues and seeks validation by throwing herself into relationships without having the emotional maturity to actually make them work. So, for instance, if Sora was to get a coffee and catch up with a man she hadn’t seen since elementary school she considered herself a ‘failure’. To me there’s a big difference between meeting for coffee (or being someone’s plus one for a major life achievement as a random, nonspecific example) and being in a committed, steady relationship, so I found it frustrating that Sora immediately tried to commit to isolating herself. 

 

As other reviewers have already stated, Sora and Jack’s relationship was very insta-love (they had less than 5 interactions that lasted - at most - a total of 3 hours before jumping right into a physical relationship and the next day Jack immediately starts using that 4-letter L word), there is a third act break up, an uncomfortable amount of body shaming by most of the characters, and almost all of the female characters shared traits with cartoon villains and left A LOT to be desired. 

 

While this wasn’t the story for me, I did enjoy the author’s writing style and hope to see books with a different focus in the future. Thank you again to the publisher for sending me a free ARC. 

Thank you to Macmillan/TOR for sending me an ARC of this title. I received this copy for free and this review contains my honest opinions. 

 

The Terraformers is an environmental science fiction set on a futuristic Earth-like world. I was fascinated with the world building aspects and loved each of the characters. Some things were hard to visualize for me, and some things were never explained, but I thoroughly enjoyed spending time learning about Sask-E and the people that live there. Several aspects of this society were just SO COOL to read about. In fact, I would have been interested in a story just on the terraforming process of the world. 

 

While I did really enjoy this novel, there are two issues I need to bring up. First, I’m not sure this qualifies as a “hopeful” story to me (as promoted in the blurb and reinforced by the author’s acknowledgements in my copy). While it technically does end on a hopeful note, it’s a VERY slow build up that finally pays off in the last few chapters. The first two stories did have moments of hope, but neither really addressed the systemic flaws central to the overarching conflict. 

 

Second, I think it was a disservice to condense these three unique stories into a single novel instead of giving them each their own space to explore their world and its issues. Even though the stories as a whole were interconnected (prior events shaped future events), this novel read like three independent novellas collected together instead of a single, cohesive narrative. While this isn’t necessarily bad, the complexity of this futuristic world wasn’t able to be fully explored in the limited space and the reader was only given partial glimpses into how the world and society had evolved over the course of 1600 years. The short space and significant jumps forward in time between stories also left me frustrated with how some character arcs were treated. If the intent truly was a series of interconnected novellas, I do think a fourth was missing: the story of the original group of terraformers (the Archaeans) creating the version of Sask-E we’re introduced to with Destry. 

 

I am definitely interested in reading more science fiction by this author, and I look forward to exploring more of their work. Thank you again to the publisher for sending me a free ARC. 

Will pick up again in 2023, just too many obligations at the moment.