unlikelyplaces's Reviews (273)

Didn’t like as much as the first one but still a fun time. Although I feel like at this point Percy really should be able to work out when someone is a monster, like all the signs are there and he’s still surprised every time like dude seriously?

This book is kind of like a mix of How to Train Your Dragon and the Russian revolution and it works so well. 

I am not generally a YA reader and I don't usually like romance in my fantasy but I kind of loved this?? 

I picked this up to be like an easy, fun vacation read and it was both of those things but I actually can't remember the last time a book made me want to drop everything in my life and do nothing but read like this did. I was so invested in the characters, in the story and the politics and the world.

As someone who doesn't read a lot of YA there were some things that bothered me like the fact that they had teenagers in charge or their army and there's a lot of "faces flushing" and hands brushing against legs and things which grate on me a bit but that's just not my taste.

My main criticism though would be the world building. As someone who reads primarily adult fantasy, I love super luscious and intricate world building. I found that throughout this book I wasn't quite sure what type of world I was picturing. It felt sort of not quite as old as medieval-inspired but I'm not really sure. What's the weather like in this part of the world? What do their soldier uniforms look like? Again, this is entirely a me thing, I'm aware some people find things like that really tedious and it didn't ruin the book for me in any way.

But overall I loved this and I can't wait to pick up the next one.

I don't know how I feel about this honestly, on one hand, I love Anne. I relate to Anne a lot and I love seeing her character growth throughout the story. I love Austen's writing in general, I don't think I've disliked any of her books.

But at the same time I found with this one that if you've read any other Austen or even have watched adaptations then you kind of know how this story goes beat for beat and I just found that I was wanting something a bit more from this.

Still enjoyed it just wasn't blown away.

I picked this up to be a light, romance read for vacation and, in typical TJR fashion, I found that I was hit with quite a poignant and emotional story.

I found the themes in this quite touching and relatable as someone in their late 20s who is still very much figuring things out. 

If you're picking this up expecting it to focus primarily on the romance you might be disappointed but if you like the sound of the story that focuses on friendship, family and figuring out the important things in life this will be for you.

I'm conflicted about this one...

On one hand, I couldn't put it down because I really wanted to know what was happening and the way that the story unfolded was masterfully done. 

But on the other, I just felt nothing the whole time and at the end just felt a bit like "oh...". I am generally a character driven reader though which is not really the focus of this story. 

Also, this is an entirely personal thing but I really dislike feeling confused when I'm reading so I think I just felt a little disconnected.

So if you like unique stories that are really cleverly written you may like this but if you're super basic like I am then it may not be for you. However, it's so short that if you're not sure I'd recommend giving it a go anyway as it's definitely a unique experience.

I know this is a classic but I think it has confirmed that absurdism is not for me. I just had no idea what was going on the whole time and didn’t find it very funny and so it all just felt a bit pointless to me… entirely personal preference, I can see why people would love it I just didn’t understand