frootlupo's reviews
250 reviews

Compared to its more well known Disney cousin, J.M. Barrie’s most popular work is a great deal more plucky, witty and thoughtful - however there are also a few moments that have aged just as poorly. 

A few tasteless moments aside, it’s easy to understand why this work is a classic. There is a droll wit suffused throughout a surprisingly thoughtful and sometimes biting examination of adolescence. Its eponymous character was perfectly insufferable and nearly as villainous as his famous adversary Hook. 

In the end - Peter Pan is a mostly enjoyable classic I’d easily recommend! 

A new take on a rollicking pirate adventure, sign me up for the crew of the Nakudha Amina Al-Sirafi!

I'm a sucker for anything pirate themed - especially the brand of moral, kind, loyal, barely-actually-pirates that this book leans into. So I was already expecting to like this book, and it fully delivered on my expectations. Focussing on the Indian Ocean, this does feel like a departure from classic carribean/european pirate adventures, while also retaining that swashbuckling charm we all know and love. 

The first-person narrative style was utilized very well and provided a funny and flavourful voice to our protagonist. The diversity and treatment of religion was surprisingly kind and grounded for a book that features sea monster pseudo-gods and different planes of existence. It provides an interesting context for character motivations and prejudice, and feels very realistic as it's ultimately done in an alternate historical context. 

Some plot developments make it so that there could be an easy followup into a mid-length series, and it's a testament to the quality and my enjoyment that I deeply hope they do. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi has been one of my favourite reads of the year so far!

If you like pirate media, this is the book for you - and if you don't this might be the book that changes your mind!

White Orchid was an enjoyable romp mildly hampered by some pacing issues in the first half. I'm left with an introduction to a series that feels like it has a lot of potential, but hasn't fully realized it yet.

I found myself caring for our motley cast of characters more than I thought I might, and I could see the characters having interesting depths to explore in future followups. 

The world building was decent as well. The magic system could work well as a soft magic system in the background that supports the plot and character development, and so I hope the author doesn't spend too much time trying to codify it too much, and instead just lets it sit a little mysterious. 

My largest grievance is that we spend an extended time with a single POV at the beginning of the book, and then confusingly jump into a new POV and then into a 10 year time skip in quick succession. It was a little disorienting. After that it settled in, but the large shift at the beginning was quite jarring. I did receive an eARC of White Orchid, so perhaps some formatting could be added which would help - but this was the biggest detractor of the book. 

Overall, I think the author and series have potential, and I'm interested enough to read the follow ups - so that's a win in of itself!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A deeply introspective and thoughtful book that I’d recommend to any Christian leader! 

Managing Leadership Anxiety does not focus on anxiety disorder, but rather the pervasive anxiety that manifests in virtually every leader - whether they are able to identify it or not. He thoughtful spends time helping readers identify leadership anxiety in themselves before briskly moving towards a plentitude of strategies to help manage said anxiety. 

Depending on the reader, this book could range from very helpful to completely transformational. Our leadership team has it as required reading, and for good reason! 

This ain’t your grandma’s run of the mill preaching book with well-meaning but vague advice. This book is DENSE. I’d liken it far more to a textbook or research paper than a preaching primer. This isn’t a bad thing in any sense - however it’s important to know what you’re getting. 
 
Peter Adam does an excellent job laying a groundwork for a solid and robust theology of preaching, and also is able to take that theology and extrapolate it into practice for the everyday preacher. I was more than pleased with the content of the book. 

 

My only slight critiques come more from a taste perspective. I sometimes find that academic writing can become a bit tedious - sometimes I want to be informed the author’s perspective rather than being led through 5 competing perspectives the author disagrees with and why before getting to his own ideas at the end. So that sometimes made reading a bit less enjoyable. Also, in an inverse of that issue, I would have preferred more examples of helpful preaching in chapter 6 rather than just an exhaustive look at Calvin. 
 
Despite my slight gripes - I was deeply impressed and satisfied with this book. The more I read preaching books the more they all start sounding the same. Adam aims to accomplish something quite different, and he quite succeeds in that venture. This makes Speaking God's Word stand apart in the best of ways. 

Gaiman’s characteristic wit and wry humour are on full display in his fantastic retelling of Norse Mythology. 

 

Truthfully, I came into this book without reading any reviews or much about the book as a whole, and so I was expecting a work of original fiction set in a Norse Mythological setting (perhaps with a Dirk Gently kind of vibe). 
 
I was wrong. Norse Mythology is a pretty straightforward retelling of its eponymous source material - albeit one infused with a droll British sensibility. This in no way reduced my enjoyment of the book - just came as a bit of a surprise. Gaiman works his way through some of the greatest Norse hits, and attempts to weave them into a semi-cohesive narrative. He succeeds as well as anyone could while attempting to stay true to the often contradictory source material that is basically any ancient mythology. 
 
Taken as a whole, Norse Mythology is a funny, enjoyable retelling of some classic stories whether or not you are familiar with them. 

Wired for Story is an insightful and witty collection of very good writing advice, despite it getting a little repetitive at times. 
 
 I’d easily recommend Lisa Cron’s book to any aspiring writer. It brings a thorough and thoughtful approach to writing and making compelling stories. It gives helpful practical advice, and doesn’t shy away from hard truths. Each chapter builds skillfully on the previous to help communicate some very helpful concepts. However, because the chapters are so interrelated, it does feel at times that Cron is beating a very very dead horse. I can’t complain too much though, as I’ve seen writers resurrect those dead horses many a times - so perhaps the redundancy of some of the advice is actually needed. 
 
 The tone of the book is witty and confident which greatly helps with readability - it does have the occasional side-effect of Cron making grand sweeping statements that I’m not sure I fully agree with. However, as long as readers are able to exercise a modicum of critical thinking, they will find a wealth of gold amidst these pages. 

A satisfying conclusion to a solid and fun series, Waybound accomplished basically everything I wanted it to - though not much more than that. 

 

In a way it’s hard to separate Waybound from the series as a whole when reviewing it. So much of the story is spent on payoffs to setups from across the series. I don’t think this is a bad thing however - it’s the twelfth book in a series, it doesn’t really need to have a lot of it’s own narrative structure as basically the book is just a big long climax for the larger narrative arc of the series - and it feels that way. Probably the fastest paced and most jammed packed instalment of the series, Waybound quickly started running and never let up. At times I found myself wondering how Will Wight was going to fit everything he needed to in this one book - and he did so by just never giving our character a second to breathe or think. 

 

Being brutally honest, I did finish the series wishing a couple loose ends were tied up more cleanly or more satisfyingly - especially with how the two large narrative threads finally merged. I would have loved if the resolutions to both narratives hinged more on each other instead of just reflecting each other. However, despite some earnest wishing, this didn’t affect my enjoyment of Waybound, or Cradle as a whole. 
 
After 12 books, I look back fondly - I had a lot of fun with the characters, and would recommend Cradle easily!

This story’s predecessor (The Book that Wouldn’t Burn) was my favourite book I’ve read so far this year - so I had VERY high expectations and hopes for it’s sequel, and let me tell you, The Book that Broke the World certainly did not disappoint! 
 
 Mark Lawrence brought this story in a very different direction than I was expecting, but that wasn’t a bad thing at all. Like the first book, we are both drawn into the individual stories taking place, while also constantly wondering how these various plots are going to intersect. As mysteries are slowly revealed and we learn more and more about the world we are invited to make more and more guesses at how everything is interwoven even while caring more and more about the character and their journeys. 
 
 There is a budding romance that surprised me with how much I got invested in it. It also led me to care much more about character that truthfully I somewhat skimmed over in the last novel. By the end of the story I might have actually cared more about this new relationship that the one between our driving protagonists (but only a bit). 
 
 This is also one of the few stories in any media that revolves around time-travel that I actively enjoy and where I don’t get all caught up in quibbling with the logic of. You could squint at this, as the book basically claims “time-travel doesn’t make sense and that’s the problem” - but it’s not wrong! Truthfully it’s kinda satisfying that time-travel’s inherent paradoxical nature is one of the things causing a lot of the problems in this world. 
 
 The trilogy’s larger theme of tribalism, discrimination, and enmity was continued from the first book with the same deftness and nuance. I appreciate the gentle but decisive direction and tone that Lawrence takes. 
 
 Finally, I deeply appreciated how seamless the tone and story felt from the first book. You can really tell that the series was all written at the same time. The only tiny drawback is that The Book that Broke the World does feel like a middle novel - but the cohesiveness of the narrative is more than worth that tiny concession. 
 
 I am deeply looking forward to Book 3 - if it keeps up the same level of quality (or, dare I dream, exceeds it) The Library Trilogy is very heavily in contention for one of my favourite series of all time!

The penultimate novel of the cradle series raised the stakes effectively, set up the final book well, and also felt like a cohesive story in its own right. 
 
 I was impressed by the balance that Dreadgod struck - especially coming off of the last couple books, as at time it was beginning to feel like the scope of the narrative might have been outpacing Wight’s skill as an author. Book 11 certainly showed that that wasn’t the case. 
 
 I was genuinely scared and creeped out at times by what appeared to be our main threat - it brought a very different kind of danger than we are accustomed to. Then, the greatest threat turned out to be interpersonal, which both felt realistic and also like it was paying off book’s worth of setup. We now get to enter book 12 with literal world ending threats and conflict among the world’s mightiest heroes. 
 
 We also got to spend a lot more time with many of our side characters this time. While this was refreshing and needed, it probably led to my only quibble with Dreadgod - namely, that our main protagonist felt a little too perfect this time. He had a big goal and set out to do the main goal and basically succeeded at every step. However, this was forgivable in the larger scope of the series, especially as most of our other characters had their own character arcs this story.
 
 In the end, Dreadgod made me look forward to our series finale - and that’s basically all you can really ask for!