thecandlelightlibrary's Reviews (1.25k)

I do really want to read this book, and quite a few people have told me this was one of their favorite books of 2021. However, I haven't made much progress so far so I'm going to set it aside for another month.

A nice overview with themed recipes geared for beginner gardeners, but I was hoping for more detailed guidance.

Thank you to Minotaur Books/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. 

 

Finlay Donovan is back at it again! I picked up Finlay Donovan Is Killing It because of this ARC. This series hadn't made it onto my radar yet, but I'm so glad I started it! I was delighted with how humorous, surprising, and entertaining the first book was. It’s amazing what Finlay and Vero can get up to (and tangled up in) without even really trying: it’s ridiculous (in the best kind of way). 

 

This second book doesn’t hold the same level of charm I found in the first, but it’s still an entertaining story with many levels of twists that will keep you guessing until the end. I found this book to be much more serious and tense than the first, and I was hoping it would keep more with the lighthearted humor. According to the author’s website, this is planned to be a four book series and I’m hoping the lighthearted side returns for the third installment. Thank you again to the publisher for sending me a free ARC of this title. 

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

 

Mickey7 is a quick sci-fi adventure that explores the concept of identity, primarily, what aspects of yourself make you you? When we enter the story, Mickey Barnes is in his seventh iteration as an Expendable: everything about him is identical to the original Mickey Barnes who signed up for this job (from how he looks to his memories), but is he actually the same now that he’s been remade six times? 

 

Mickey’s troubles aside, I really enjoyed the concept of this story and the idea of a futuristic humanity that has colonized multiple other planets, but has struggled to do so and is still struggling when we’re introduced to the narrative. Few of the sci-fi books I read really explore humanity’s failures to get to the point they’re at for the story, so I was interested in all the failed colonies in Mickey’s world (even if it was a brief mention) and their drastic impacts on the worlds they colonized. 

 

However, I found most of the characters unlikeable, which meant their relationships didn’t feel natural to me and I struggled to see their connections (or sometimes, why they were even interacting). I also had difficulty with the pacing: every other chapter jumps back in time to focus on Mickey’s backstory or world building. It was nice to know some of this additional detail, but it left me wanting to see more conflict and I would have rather spent more time interacting with the planet and its current issues. 

 

Overall, I think this book either needed to be shorter (and the focus narrowed to building on the relationships and the final conflict) or slightly longer (with more time spent meshing the world building with the dangers the crew faces colonizing a new world). Thank you again to the publisher for sending me a free ARC of this title. 

DNF’d at 6% 

Well this is a hard pass. I don’t normally rate books I DNF (how could you give something an overall rating if you haven’t finished it?), but I’m making an exception. Obviously, I didn't make it very far into the audiobook version, but a couple of sentences were worded weird enough that they made me pause and research the book (and authors). Turns out, not only are they right-wing conspiracy theorists, they’re also sexist antivaxers who are aggressively transphobic online. Incredibly disappointed to have accidentally picked up a pseudoscience book, and from other reviews (on Goodreads and the StoryGraph), I’m glad I decided to set this aside early on.

I have now thoroughly enjoyed all three K. Eason books I've read! However, I would definitely recommend reading the Rory Thorne duology before picking up this book: the events in Nightwatch on the Hinterlands happen generations after the conclusion of Rory Thorne and build off of the terminology, species, and world building introduced in the first duology.