Read
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The Lies of Locke Lamora
Finished
Picked up this book at a friend’s recommendation years ago but put it down because it seemed grimdark. It isn’t! It’s not always totally light but it’s a lot more intrigue and adventure and heist kind of stuff once you get past the intro. Great fun overall. Did not know where the book was taking me until it was over, but in this case that wasn’t a bad thing. It wrapped up (mostly) well.
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Hyperion
Finished
I really enjoyed this book and then it … ended before it was over. I know there are sequels but it felt like all the POV stories that were told, each of which I really enjoyed and I loved how they were told so differently, were leading to something at the end that the book just doesn’t provide. That’s disappointing. I’ll probably read at least one of the sequels in a while, but like … it seems like at least the first sequel would just have to be a part of this book.
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A Conjuring of Light
Finished
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Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia
Finished
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Hild
Finished
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What She Did
Finished
Totally serviceable genre book. The resolution was pretty obvious from pretty early on, but I didn’t guess everything .
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Parasite
Finished
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The Burning God
Finished
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Fourth Wing
Finished
Someone would argue, and I’d agree, that this book isn’t “for” me, so whether or not I appreciate it is irrelevant. But I kind of wonder who it is for. For 70% of the book it’s a solidly formulaic YA novel and… then there’s explicit sex. And I don’t mean like, the characters have sex I mean it becomes an erotica novel, somewhat out of nowhere. Literary porn, although “literary” might give the wrong idea. It’s not written poorly but it’s also not written very well. Beyond the themes, the writing level of the whole novel feels very YA and the sex feels, to me, unnecessary, somewhat unexpected, and of an equal reading level except with more, you know, obscenity?
I definitely feel like I’m coming off a prude here and I don’t feel like I am one, but the sex scenes feel written simply but with adults in mind and I guess that clashed, for me, with the tone and level of the rest of the book.
The main plot is formulaic but interesting enough, but there’s not a lot else going on, and the weird horny stuff felt out of place and wasn’t for me and I’ve said that about plenty of books written by men (looking at you Terry Goodkind) so I’m gonna skip the rest of this series.
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The Wolf
Finished
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Infinity Gate
Finished
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The Dragon Reborn
Finished
I honestly couldn’t tell you what the overall plot arc of this book was. I know how it started and ended and I know several things that happened it it but the focus of many characters for the whole book had little to do with what could be called the climax.
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CribsheetA Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool
Finished
Oster’s stance on COVID matters has been disappointing to uncover after making it most of the way through this book; but the book in general is a pretty level-headed and un-opinionated overview of data that I found helpful. I’m not taking anything in it as gospel, but it was at least a good high-level overview of a lot of topics, including some I didn’t know I needed to know about.
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Zero Days
Finished
Love Ruth Ware and her storytelling kept me in this till the end but it was disappointing overall—predictable almost from the start.
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Morning Star
Finished
Really enjoyed this. Resolved the series well. Found that I had grown really attached to the characters by the end.
two spoiler things: First, dunno if it was this book or the last, but I wasn’t up for the redemption of Tactus the rapist. I did not feel sad when he got his comeuppance. And second, I feel like the twist near the end here could easily have come off as Deus Ex Machina but I believe it was pretty well-executed. My only gripe is that at no point in the trilogy before that point had we seen such an unreliable narrator. Yes, Sevrus had swooped in a few times without warning, but it seemed like we saw real emotion from the protagonist when he “died,” which is more than withholding information. But still, even with that, I liked it. It was set up well and was a big moment of joy when it was revealed.