sarahdm's reviews
156 reviews

DNF at 27%

Can't stand the dialog, the writing, the internal monologuing. The two main characters are COMPLETELY unlikeable. And I agree with other reviewers, this is NOT how a restaurants works. Had to stop after Logan dragged Xavier into the office and yelling at him for answering his question. There is NO WAY I am I'm pushing through 32 chapters of this. 

I really wanted to like this.

Its weird that the author felt the need to attached this story to Gatsby. The characters, themes, and plot are so divorced from the original novel. Self-Made Boys more closely resembles a mid day melodrama than the source material. Its not even really written in the same spirit of The Great Gatsby. This book has absolutely nothing to say about America, the American dream, class, love, or marriage. It did set up some other themes of race and gender in the 20's but it also ended up not saying anything significant about those themes either. Which is really disappointing because it would have been really interesting.

Outside of Gatsby, just as a LGBT themed historical fiction, it also feels like its falling short. There is this convoluted plot about a necklace and debutante ball. Not to mention all the he said she said nonsense. I absolutely can not stand romance stories that fall victim to the "if they just talked to each other this would all be fixed" nonsense.

I will say that the prose in this book are really beautiful. I think I might pick up something else by this author. I'm sure outside the space of a remake they write perfectly fine. But Self-Made Boys belongs back on whatever fan fiction site it spawned from.

2 stars since I didn't absolutely hate it and liked the writing.

This is my first time reading any of K.J. Charles work so I wasn't exactly sure what I was expecting. But a 1920's queer mystery sounded like fun so I went in with almost no expectation.

I mean we sure are told its the 20's. But it doesn't really FEEL like it is. K.J. Charles spends maybe one chapter with set dressing and that's about it. The reason I picked up this book was because I was interested in a queer book in this particular setting. But honestly this story could have taken place anywhere or any time. You could have made Will a veteran of Afghanistan and you would barely have to change anything. If you are gonna make historical fiction, the choice of setting and time should have more impact I feel. I think out of everything, this is the thing I'm most disappointed about.

Will and Kim are likable enough but at times they feel one-dimensional. I'm kind of hoping we get to know their character's a little more intimately in the other two books but I'm also not holding my breath. I'm wildly thankful that Phoebe and Maisie are in the story. I think sometimes with MLM romance, authors tend to forget woman exist or just treat them terribly. Both Phoebe and Maisie are great characters. I'm honestly more excited about the possibility of learning more about them then Kim and Will.

The plot is interesting at first but the predicaments Will started finding himself in started to feel a bit reputative. I trust Kim, I don't trust Kim, I trust Kim, I don't trust Kim. Over and over. Around the 70% point it really started to drag. Often times it feels like we introduce ideas and then abandon them with out fully developing them which was incredible frustrating.

In fact, all of this all feels incredible undercooked. Its like the book needed 100 extra pages to explore setting, characters, and plot more in-depth. But then I finally figured it out.

Slippery Creature is romance first and everything else second. If the sex scenes were a little more detailed it would be a full blown bodice ripper. And let me tell you, this book is horny on main. Anyone who thinks this is a slow burn romance is off their rocker. Will and Kim's entire relationship is sexual and they are tearing off each other's clothes by chapter 6. Its all dirty talk and blow jobs. And you know for all that, the actual sex scenes are all described post-coitus.

It just really feels like Slippery Creatures is having an identity crisis. Does it want to be popcorn mystery historical fiction or does it want to be a passionate smutty friends to enemies to lovers spy thriller? The book is on the fence which makes what's presented feel half baked.

What we get is just kind of okay. Nothing really offensive but nothing awe inspiring either. 3/5 middle of the road light reading. Might pick up book two to see if it picks up a little bit.

I'm not a big fan of sexual violence as a means to horror. But with gender being a main theme in "The Spirit Bares Its Teeth" I knew it was going to be unavoidable. Knowing this I took the plunge and somehow made it out on the other side of this book. That being said, there is implied, attempted, and on-page rape/sexual assault. There is implied forced pregnancy. There are implied sexual acts on very young girls. There is the overwhelming feeling of being trapped in marriage and in sexual situations. This book is not for everyone. It is a VERY hard read. If you are a victim of sexual violence, I need to you to really think hard "Do I need to read this book" and "Am I in a place emotionally where I can read this book."

With that out of the way, I can not speak to the autistic or trans representation in this book. But I can say "The Spirit Bares Its Teeth" perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being a queer AFAB person existing in our fucked up patriarchal world. A main character sent to a sanatorium for female hysteria, with a supernatural twist on top. Its perfect and horrifying. I wanted it to be longer, I wanted more details. The characters are great, amazing, and feel so very alive. While there are a lot of characters here, no one ever felt like just a prop. The story was suspenseful and interesting. I honestly could not put it down.

Also you ya'll have to pick up the audiobook. Raphael Corkhill is amazing! Its unhinged.

My only complaint is that I think it could have been longer, especially the ending. Sometimes it just left a little rushed in places.

5/5 Honestly don't think I can recommend unless you are prepared for it. 

I'm absolute here because of the Lord Ravenscraft video essay on Animorphs. (link at the end) I highly recommend you check that out if you are at all interested in this series (and don't mind some light spoilers).

I will start by saying that I did not read these as a child even though I was in the correct age range for them. This is because 1) My school never had book one available and 2) My family did not have money to spend on the Scholastic book fair. So this is my first time interacting with this series at the age of 30.

This shit absolutely slaps. It is incredibly mature and dark for a series targeted at 3rd graders. It has themes about death, war, personal sacrifice, grief, escapism. All while still keeping it appropriate for the 5-8 year old audience. I recently read the first Percy Jackson book as well and in comparison, The Invasion kept my attention, was less repetitive, and had deeper emotional writing. This feels like Coraline meets Power Rangers. Its got the vibe of a weekly children's TV action show while still having the heavy themes of a psychological thriller.

I will say I'm not sure I'm in love with the entire cast yet. This book is in Jake's point of view, so we only really get to know him. He is very much the reluctant leader, Red Ranger type. And he is so emotionally mature and has incredible insight into the danger of the situation they are currently in. But he still feel like a child. He loves video games, as a crush on a girl, doesn't like math homework, is interested in sports, and idolizes his big brother. He isn't just some one dimensional "leader" character and I have a feeling once I get to other books, I will feel the same way about the rest of the cast.

The only negative is that the books have very dated references. Which makes sense given that Applegate has stated that she took a lot of inspiration for the characters from tween magazines of the time. So I guess Animorphs is just a 90's time capsule in that way.

I also wanna shout out the audiobook. MacLeod Andrews does an AMAZING job with all the voices and emotions. I might pick up Warrior Cats just to listen to him read.

I finally decided to take a dive into Animorphs as a pick me up between books. I do not regret it. I can not wait to get to book two. 10/10 would recommend to all ages. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPRKzwgqvAA&t=1906s

This book would be better if Gal wasn't absolutely insufferable.

This book takes place from Gal's POV while he is a prisoner. He is struggling with his love for Ettian and his duty as heir to the throne. On the surface this seems like a really great set up but it just didn't get executed well. Gal's motivations and ethics are never really explored to the depth that it could have. It was sometimes so poorly done, I was straight up confused about what the hell Gal was doing. On top of all this, it was hard to really care about Gal's struggle because he is just so insufferable. I never felt a drop of sympathy for Gal. He really was just an arrogant whiny little teenage boy who just oozed "My blood makes me better than everyone around me" kind of attitude. Not sure what Ettian sees in this absolute prick. Now if the book was actually in Ettian or even Wen POV, I feel like it would have been better. Ettian and Wen's characters are just more sympathetic, likeable characters. Their struggles make sense and I want to cheer for them. And honestly, this was Wen's book at the end of the day. It really should have been her POV.

The plot doesn't pick up until about the 60% point. Like absolutely NOTHING was happening until this point and all I could think was "finally some good fucking soup." The character's don't start TALKING TO EACH OTHER until the 90% point. This books suffers from the big "everything would be fixed if they just talked to each other" trope, just like in the first book. Also the last 30 mins of the book has a wild left of field plot point that lets everything end in a cliff hanger with no answers. Felt like Skrutskie had to rely on a cheap plot twist instead of having the narrative stand on its own merits (you know like, a good plot or likable characters).

I'm sad that this isn't better. 2 stars because this isn't absolute trash and there is still a 3rd book that will hopefully save what's left of the scraps that was left behind.

I feel like most books that are in the "this used to be fanfic" category fall into the buttery genre of popcorn fiction. Bonds of Brass is no exception. It doesn't ask itself to be taken seriously so you will have to forgive me if my critic isn't as scolding as some would expect.

I will say that I can't image getting your hooks into Bond of Brass unless you have an idea of the background it comes from. The author just doesn't give us enough details of the world and characters to justify NOT having the baseline understanding that "this is basically Star Wars." Starships, empires, revolutions, characters, motivations, relationships, and more are just no0t fleshed out enough to stand on its own. But I guess I don't really NEED it to be fleshed out to still have a good time.

This is in fact just some AU/roles reversed Storm-Pilot fan fictions. Its very tropey: friends to lovers, bodyguard AU, there's only one bed, pretend boyfriends. Its all here. Including the scorch mark that I feel dropped this title down to a 3 star for me: miscommunication trope. I honestly can not stand it when the whole base of a problem comes down to "this would all be fixed it they just talked to each other."

The twist was visible a mile away. The writing is passable. The characters are likable and the techno-babble isn't entirely off putting. Its a combination of enjoyable enough and short enough to justify picking up book 2. 

I’ll start by saying that I did not enjoy “She Who Became The Sun” mostly because it was advertised to me in the wrong way. I thought maybe if I had gone in blind I probably would have liked it. It was well written and I did like most of the characters. So knowing that a second book was coming and seeing potential I told myself I would give the second book a try when it came out.

Positives first:

In the last book, huge important events and choices would be skipped over. Those skipped scenes would be summed up with something like “this happened off screen but it happened, anyway.” Thats no longer happening which I am hugely thankful for.

I also feel like the character interactions in this book were super fun. Ouyang, Zhu, Xu Da, and Ma are all interacting with each other a lot in the first half of the book. Those interactions were honestly so fun to read and gave the book a completely different tone. Wang Baoxiang is also pretty heavily featured in this book. In the last book I felt like I barely knew his character, but he’s got main character status here. I really enjoyed his character here, and all of his weird plotting.

Okay Negatives:

I am not a huge fan of how this book explores gender and sexual identity. I’m part of the LGBT community though I am cis, so take my opinion however you want. I feel Zhu was suppose to be telling a specific type of queer narrative but I could not tell you what that was. This character’s use to tell a queer story feels very incomplete which is a shame because I feel like it would have been really awesome. I actually feel this way about a lot of the characters. There is a lot of queer narratives going on that never concluded or just feels incomplete. Is Zhu man, woman, non-binary, still figuring it out, or something else entirely? I have no fucking clue. I don’t think the reader is owed these conclusions but it just seems weird to start these conversations and not finish them. I think a lot of characters were honestly done dirty. Zhu, Ouyang, Wang, and Ma mostly.

I just don’t think these books are for me. There is a major character death around the 70% mark and I just wanted to stop reading. It was becoming clear to me that even going in with lowered expectations that I wasn’t going to enjoy the book anymore. This character death was done really well and I really felt it concluded their narrative neatly. I realized it was the only character that was going to get a narratively satisfying conclusion that I was gonna be happy with and I just wanted to stop. The rest of the book was a drag to me. Other characters died with little to no ceremony. The ending was anti-climactic.

Its clear to see why people love these books. They are all so well written with interesting characters. But this series just was not for me.

Holy shit. I just shot gunned all of this in one sitting.

I don’t know what to say. It was a delight. It felt like a Nightvale episode. It was weird, funny, horrifying, introspective. People feel in love. I laughed. I could not put it down.

5 Stars. Absolutely would recommend.

UPDATE:

Okay here is my not 2AM review.

This is a weird surrealistic comedy what is incredibly niche. I seriously think its only going to be funny to those that use Slack and have the type of work place culture that's presented here. I'm talking 3 hour long lunch breaks, Smash Bro Tournaments in the conference room, emojis being used as a form of communication/inside joke, work drama that's actually not that serious, corporate speak being so faking its like another language, the feeling of chronically online people having to congregate in an office setting and pretending to be serious. So you know, your normal IT company. I, fortunately, fall into this category.

If you are familiar with Nightvale then I think you are gonna find yourself at home in this book. Its wacky non-sense weirdness that sometimes touches on deep human feels of fear and joy. This is not a good to be taken seriously. Seeing so many reviews bombing this for not being "serious" fiction is wild to me. Ya'll don't pick up the occasional popcorn fiction? Live a little.

There is some office romance/situation-ships happening. It contains some dub-con/non-con mattering on how you wanna look at it. Its not graphic. It only happens to his body and not his actual self (I don't know how to explain it without spoilers). And he ends up being okay with it and its a little bit played for laughs (this is a comedy at the end of the day). I can see this scene being a huge red flag for a lot of people (see all the one star reviews). But I honestly didn't mind it. I feel like with the sci-fi elements happening it was easy to let it slide. I enjoyed it and I thought it was played off really well. Sue me I guess.

I think my biggest critic is that I wish it was actually illustrated inside of Slack instead of being just plain text. But I get that plain text would be easier to read for people not familiar with the platform. 

10/10 Would recommend.

TL;DR: Holy shit this was slow. And so boring. I listened at 2x speed just so I could finish it. I did not give a shit about any of these plots. But I still really like these characters. I just wish each character had its own book that focused on just them. Cool metal magic and loveable characters can not carry this book alone. 2.5 stars.

The Negatives

1) Politics/The Armies Clashing:

Most of the time this was so boring. I just did not care enough to be invested in the out come of who is gonna rule what. I get that the politics are here so we can reach this 3 way army show down at the climax but it took so long to get there that I just didn't care. We got to the fighting, what, around part 4 or 5, about 60-80% way through the book. And then the battle was all over so quickly.

2) Romance

Sanderson does not know how to write romance or relationships. Stick to the cool metal magic fight scenes my guy.

Vin and Elond's relationship suffers from "Everything would be fixed if they just talked to each other" types of tropes. There is also an attempted (?) love triangle with a new character. Its so completely out of left field, I didn't even know it was happening until someone was confessing their feelings. I laughed out loud. It was really bad.

There is also the relationship between Allrianne and Breeze. She is 18 and yes it is states explicitly that that is her age in the book. He is twice her age and has "been in the business for over 30 years." Dude is anywhere between the ages of 36-40+. Breeze is ashamed of their age gap and is constantly resisting his lustful thought about her. But don't worry reader you get to read all about Allrianne's shapely 18 year old body and how hot Breeze thinks she is (gag me). Oh but you know what, lets flip this trope on its head and make HER the aggressor. Cause guess what? She's been manipulating his emotions with her own metal magic super powers. So its NOT a toxic age gap with a power imbalance and dating a barely-adult girl is totally normally cries the fandom who will completely justify this relationship and call you prejudice for even bringing it up (looking at you r/mistborn). Listen, I like these two characters. Allrianne isn't put into these weird female boxes like Vin is. Breeze's powers and his emotional introspectives are super interesting. A relationship between two emotional manipulative magic people would be interesting, if she was like idk 5 years older. There is absolutely no reason Sanderson couldn't age up Allrianne. He has chosen to justify this type of relationship and it honestly fucking disgusting.

Sazed and Tindwyl are fine actually. I'm not gonna dive into gender dysphoria that Sazed experiences cause the book only has the passing comment on it and this relationship isn't really explored a lot. Go read She Who Became the Sun to read an actually interesting take on a eunuch character.

3) The Mystery of wtf The Well of Ascension is

Reading about character researching this wasn't interesting.  And the thrown together climax at the end was so left of field that I couldn't be bothered. God I am so glad I can finally stop reading this book.

The Positives

I love all these characters. Vin, Elend, Dockson, Ham, Breeze, Allrianne, Clubs, Spook, Sazed, Tindwyl, OreSeur, TenSoon, hell, even fucking Jastes. I love all of these bastards. And Zane. ZANE. What a great fucking character. WASTED ON THIS BOOK WTF. Also the Kandra characters and plot lines are fucking great. I got to the plot twist for this part and I was like "finally some good fucking soup." Honestly all of these characters could have their own stand alone book that just focus on them and not this whole politics killing god none sense and I would EAT THAT UP. Give me a book just about Elond and Vin navigating Elond's politics and Vin trying to find her place in his world. Give me Dockson struggling to come to terms that his revolution isn't going as planned and trying to be the new leader of the team. Give me a whole book about Breeze and Allrianne struggling to figure out wtf is up with their relationship since they are both emotional magic people. Give me a whole book on Zane being hateful towards Elond and him trying to take everything he ever wanted from him. Give me a whole book on Sazed and Tindwyl trying to understand history and themselves and their people. The sad part is that we just get little snippets of these stories, but unfortunately, characters are not the center piece for Sanderson. Give me the CHARACTER driven novels these amazing people deserve, not the PLOT driven disaster that was Well of Ascension.

Okay I am done. this was so boring. I hated it. See you in book three I fucking guess.