wanderlustlover's reviews
3763 reviews

Mmmmm. My favorite out of the gate for January was my first book read even, which is not surprising entirely given it's sort of habit but I was blown away by this book. Blown away, and blown away, and blown away. It's a YA book, but the central topic of the book is not the YA Romance. There is a boy and a girl (and even another boy and another girl, and several couples in different directions) but none of these is the story of the book.

The book is about Morgan and Interment, and Morgan & Morgan's Family & Interment. It doesn't pull its punches. Its true to the things it starts and ends with, and I actually only have one argument with a happening in the book I found a little too convenient, but I'd really only dock that one half a star at the most because it's not as thought the cast isn't already large enough at that point as it is.

I almost don't even want to talk about it. Because it's that good and I don't want to spoil anything for people, the way it slowly opens, while you're chasing the world into the fog and oh, oh, oh, over the edge. I am not surprised in the slightest given this it the lovely lady who gave me The Chemical Garden trilogy, but I am on pins and needles already to see where this book will go.

2018 Birthday present:

This was an adorable quick-flip read of all sorts of tea party goodies, given to me by my best friend, and I had SO MANY things with little-tabbed ideas in my head. Small sandwiches and 1-2 types of cookies that I might have at my birthday party next year, and maybe even a tea party or two during this year if there're time and people amenable.

2015: Part of my massive Barbara Gordon Re-read which I had a glorious amazing time with. Birds of Prey, under the hands of Gail Simone, was a gorgeous thing and It made me super happy to have all my amazing women back together doing amazing things!

2013: Even a few weeks late I can remember how refreshing it was diving back into this universe after taking 2 weeks to read the newest volume of Captain Marvel. I had some issue there, that opening this up reminded me every page that there are people out there doing it right. Able to blend the real life and the super life, like a hand in a glove. Able to blend horror and snark, with love and affection. Who have men, women, and trans people. Father, Mothers, Daughter, Brothers. All together all at once, and it's still a kick ass Girl Power Title.

Yes. Yes. More of this. So much more of this I need and want and love all of it.

Spring 2021 (March);
Grishaverse Full Read April/March in preparation for Shadow & Bone TV Series

Always a delight and such a warm wrap-around love. I always madly adore getting to drop into Russian retellings, with their own deep histories and new magical systems.


2016;
This whole series is going to be rated in fives. I hope you are ready.

I love this character so very much and I feel like she was done so much justice, both by the series and by this small side piece. I feel like it's greatly flushed out, for what she has been through, what she found herself caught in, how her heart pulled to both directions, and where she ended up in the end. I want to hug her and shake her shoulders and it's so perfect.

I love and follow this website, so I had this book on order from somewhere before Christmas, and I loved when it came in. This book is another one of those things that makes me life easier and more color, with amazing recipes done on very little in the way of expensive, hard to find ingredients. If you don't know about Budget Bytes, I definitely think you should check out her website and this book. It's amazng!

Spring 2022 (March);
~ The Sanderson Sisyphean Challenge

I did not read anything about this one, but turned it on and let the new world just steal me away with itself as it unfurled line by line. Another rustic, rough hands, and harder work story, this one crawled into my heart ruthlessly and was already well-roosted at the point to which I had noticed it was happening while I was reading.

I love this tavern of the 'neutral' midway spot tavern that Silence runs right at the edge of the creepy woods, where shades come out to kill you so often that there are three rules everyone has memorized. Things you don't do unless you want the shades to come for you. There is so much in here, but most of all, you should come for hard-as-nails 'Madam' Silence Montane: middle-aged mother, generationally passed down tavern owner, traumatized child adopter, and all-around badass.

With a big secret or two hidden in her apron pockets.

Jim Dale Audio's 2011:

If Book 5 had too much going on, I felt like this one was suddenly missing more than it had. I loved listening to it. The loyalties continue to be tested. The students, as well as the adults are pulled in every direction.

The mystery of Draco is handled so much less than I remember it being. And the pensive more. The importance of understanding beginnings grows from Book 5, where we were more immersed in Harry's and we transition seriously into needing to understand all of Voldermort's past as a human.

And yet the most important deciding scene for me on just what kind of people Snape and Dumbledore both are happened for me in this book, the first time it came out and again in here. Where I realized just how grey both their characters are, how right that is, and how much they would sacrifice themselves for the children each time.

I have so many million feelings about this book I feel like it's impossible hold them entirely still, and that's why when I finally got to talk to a friend about it after finished the last pages a few weeks ago, we ended up talking about the book, series, direction, choices for almost two hours straight after a party had cleared from her house.

I love the direction this book is headed, and I love that a lot of it feels like it's all natural progression. Revelations about the far past, and about the current goings on everywhere. I love the romances, and how they are noble, tangled in duty, family, character growth, gain, and loss, well fitting to all the positions all the people are in. I love the new sides of the Elt and magical creatures we got.

I feel like there are so many things I want to say and too many of them are spoilers that were just *So Well Done* in the book. I can't stop recommending this series more and more, especially the further on in it gets and how beautiful this woman's writing continues to grow.

Like the rest of this series, this book turned out fabulous. I continue to agree with the tenant that The Exapanse is to Science Fiction Lit what The Song of Ice and Fire is the Fantasy. Though this series does have one thing going for it that those books usually don't (which is probably the only contrast I'll tell about between them, as I love every sentence of SOIAF the same way with this) is that these novels are self-contained, meaning you could pick them up anywhere and still get a full story with each open and close.

I could not stop flailing about the awesome of getting to be in the crew's heads this time. Every single character got a whole plethora of screen time as plots diverged for the book and then remerged for the ending (which was, admittedly, a little too fast, given it and everyone all came together in less than 5-10% of the book's ending). But I was so happy with being inside every single characters head. Seeing how different there are, how far they've come and changed in becoming the Roci's Unit, and how much they need each other -- all of these things expressed so completely differently/uniquely but all coming back to the same truths.

The main plot was good as always, but I never felt truly gripped with an inability to read enough (perhaps, because I did read from 15% to the end in one very slow, leisurely evening), but I was very satisfied with it. The plot. The guest appearances. The things that have been left unanswered/unsolved. (I think the only thing that made me sad in my 1% sadness place was the lack of Miller or the proto-Miller. But given the end, who knows, we may be seeing him again in the future, and that makes me happy.)

OH. Which means I have to point out how often I laughed and smiled like a loon everytime Holden said, "Doors and Corners."