I love this book so much. I found it a longer and much more satisfying read than Daddy Long-legs. While still done in the epistolary style, Jean Webster manages to convey much more of the romantic hero's personality, leading to a more satisfying romance.

Because of its time period, there are some dated and rather disgusting references to mental illness and eugenics. This may ruin some people's enjoyment.

Malinda Lo has a lovely writing style and does a brilliant job of world-building. She very successfully manages to capture the feel of a fairy tale. However, like in fairy tales, I felt distant from her characters. I cared about them, but not in a gut-wrenching way. Still a wonderful book by a new author and someone I have and will recommend to others.

I didn't like Brightly Woven as much as I was hoping to. It's a neat idea, well-written, and lord knows I love heroines who make things, but I never felt the chemistry between Syd and North. I was put off by some of North's early behavior, which I might have forgiven since he is supposed to be a "disagreeable young wizard", but there were too many times when he was perfectly charming (albeit a little too schmaltzy for my taste). The pacing seemed a little off, and at times I had trouble following the action.

Whether or not you like the characters, they are distinct, and Bracken's writing style is pleasantly visual. It's a fun, quick read - I started & finished it on the course of a 3 hour plane ride - it just wasn't what I was hoping for.

A nice concept and clear, readable prose, but I never really clicked with it. I didn't feel the chemistry between George and Beatrice/Marrit, nor did I ever really feel invested in either of their characters, though I can't pinpoint why. Sometimes books just don't click, I guess.

This is very much a case of sometimes books just don't click. It's a fascinating combination of fairy tale and science fiction... but I don't really care for fairy tales, nor am I much of a fan of science fiction these days. I admired it while reading, but I didn't enjoy it.

The writing style was engaging and the plot suspenseful, but as someone with a mental illness, it made me incredibly uncomfortable. I dislike the trope "supernatural powers mistaken for mental illness". It allows writers to take the "exotic" parts of mental illness while erasing the genuinely ill. I hated the fact that the one person who did seem to have a genuine mental illness was portrayed as an antagonist, practically a villain (I've also heard that she turns out to have supernatural powers too, but I don't plan on reading further to find out).

Does that make it a bad book? No. The entire premise hangs on that trope; it would pretty much fall apart otherwise. But I did not enjoy it and I cannot recommend it.

Right book, wrong audience. I don't feel right giving it any stars because that seems like a comment on the quality of the book. It's a very good book, funny, well-drawn characters, interesting plot. I just never connected with it. Partly, I think, because it doesn't have any female characters of note. It's rather akin to Good Omens, which is another excellent book I simply didn't like.

I nearly cried a lot reading this, recognizing things that had happened to me, to family, to friends. I didn't agree with the "lessons" of some of the stories, but most of them were simple, heartfelt remembrances. This is a book I think everyone should read.

This is the PERFECT addition to Avatar canon. While not all of the art appealed to me aesthetically, the stories and character voices were pitch-perfect, and I have never cackled so loudly in my life. If you love the series, you MUST read this.

I wish it was longer! The slightly-creepy premise is done quite charmingly, but romance gets resolved so quickly. It's like having a single cream puff instead of a slice of cake.

After some debate, I'm not giving this book any stars because I think I was the wrong audience for it. Seven out of the ten stories left me feeling: "...your point?" The overall effect was dark and moody but with nothing in particular to say. This works for some people. Just not for me.

I will say that, with some exceptions, I was really disappointed with the treatment of women. Most of the female characters were either flat or only ever seen through the eyes of male characters. The inclusion of queer romances would also have been appreciated.

Breaking it down by story:

THE FINE ART OF FORTUNE TELLING - I really enjoyed this one. While I didn't entirely understand what was going on, it left me intrigued and wanting to reread.

TIES - I felt like the writing was strong, but the concept was pretty slightly cliche, though with a few interesting twists. The world-building really bothered me, though. WHY is it different for necromancers to bring their loved ones back to life than it is to bring other people's loved ones back to life? Without some kind of explanation - even something as simple as "emotion pollutes the spell" - it felt to me like a pointless morality tale with an element of "Because I said so, that's why."

DEAR DIARY - I found this one just...odd. It felt more like a joke than a story. There's enough character and setting to lead up to a punchline, but not enough to build a world.

CLOTHO - Again, odd. I feel like it's supposed to be mysterious, but mostly I was just show more confused. The rules of that particular world were incredibly important to the characters, but I could not figure out what they were.

POOF, JUST LIKE THAT - I loved the characters and the awkward awful complexity of their relationship. And then the story just...ended. It doesn't have any kind of arc; the ending is essentially "Well. That happened." It left me very disappointed.

STOP ERRORS: I LOVED this one. The sci-fi premise was eerie, with just enough world-building to hold everything together without bogging the story down, and I loved the ending. It was twisted and wistful.

QUASI-STELLAR: Mostly, this story just made me really uncomfortable, which was probably its intention, but that doesn't make me like it any better. The relationship creeped me out and the ending confused me.

THE PRISONER: This story came so close to working for me, but the ending just baffled me. Even if the ending hadn't, though, I feel like the premise deserves a novel to really explore the story.

ORACLE: I did not like this story at all. The concept is cliche and the characters felt very two dimensional. At no point did it do anything unexpected.

I PROMISE THE SUN SHALL RISE: I did really like this one. The dialogue can be painfully cheesy, but the story itself - the idea, the heart, the structure, and the narrative language - are just gorgeous. show less

It took me a shamefully long time to finish this book. Lucy Parsons is a fascinating, inspiring individual, and through her life, Carolyn Ashbaugh gives us a glimpse of an amazing period in American history.

As a reader, it did read strangely at times - there were moments of novel-like detail, in describing Lucy Parson's voice and charisma, interspersed in a book that many times seemed to be more of a history of the Chicago labor movement than a biography of Lucy Parsons. But this seems to me less a fault of the writer and more a problem of the genre and the subject matter. Lucy Parsons left very little information about her life outside of her involvement with the anarchist, community, and labor movements.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who enjoys biographies and powerful women.

It's an interesting world, great characters, beautifully written... But I never really clicked with it, and I can't put my finger on why.

I liked it less than it deserves. The writing is fantastic, strong characters and complex world-building, but it just didn't click with me in certain respects. Mostly the sex scenes. Mind-blowing, universe-expanding sex just makes me roll my eyes, which is very much a personal thing for me and not a judgement on the scenes themselves. But they did take me out of the story.

I loved this book. It takes all the strengths of Ash - the writing style and world-building - but adds in that intense emotional connection I felt missing. I loved these characters. I cried my heart out for them. The ending was beautiful and bittersweet. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Marking this as "do not finish" not because it's bad, but I lost my place in the book a few months ago and never found the motivation to find it again. I think it's just time to admit that I'm not invested enough in it to finish.

I found myself confused where I think I was supposed to feel intrigued and curious. Pretty immediately lost interest.

I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning rereading this book. Mel is a difficult heroine to like - she's painfully self-conscious, quick to judge, and extremely stubborn in holding onto those judgements, even when all the evidence around her proves otherwise.

But that's why I love her. I spend the entire book wanting to shake her because if she'd just let go of certain things, her life would be so much easier, but isn't that true of most people? It's certainly true of me.

I also love how Sherwood Smith plays with perception, as we're shown the contrast between how Mel perceives her rebellion and how the various members of the court perceived it.

This is a wonderful, engrossing, maddening book, and one of my favorite fantasy novels.

I could not put this book down. It is a beautiful, incredibly engrossing read.

The one thing I'll say - and this isn't a criticism, just my personal feeling - is that while many people accuse Bella of Twilight fame of being a stand-in for the reader, a character with little personality that you can easily put yourself in her place, I felt Aislinn was much more of a reader stand-in. All the other characters had far stronger personalities, in my opinion, and it's because of them rather than Aislinn that I loved the book so much. Donia especially and her dramatic arc engrossed me.

It's an intriguing concept, and Kostova has a lovely writing style, but I never found myself connecting with the never-named heroine. I also felt very detached from the conflict and the characters' feelings; why, for example, did her father get so upset simply relating a story that his mentor had related to him?

It's not a bad book by any means, but life is short and my stack of books to read is high.

I have a feeling this is going to end up in my "do not finish" pile. The dialogue feels fake, and while the premise straddles the line between "creepy" and "charming", so far the execution has fallen heavily on the "creepy" side.

I'm finding the instant hornypants off-putting. There's a lot that I'm simply in love with about this novel - the three sisters and their dynamic and issues, Shalvis' humor, and Maddie's struggle to overcome her insecurities. I adore Maddie, really, and strongly identify with her character.

But Jax? I find Jax kind of creepy. Especially after the way they meet, his desire for Maddie and his pursuit of her unnerves me. He doesn't venture into creeper territory, but I wish he would back off a bit and be less "I respect your boundaries but I know you want me and I want you to know I know".

Maybe he'll grow on me by the end of the book, but I'm doubting it.

Charming and fun but not for fans of period accuracy! The characters all speak, act, and think in very modern ways. But even if the characters aren't particularly believable as Regency characters, they are very believable as human beings. Both Winn and Jason have interesting and nuanced internal conflicts, and watching their romance unfold was sweet. A solid, entertaining read.

If I could buy a copy for everyone I know, I would. Serano's theory of gender makes the most sense of everything I've read, and her account of the history of oppositional sexism and transmisogyny in the feminist and LGB movements is fascinating. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This is probably the scariest book I've ever read. Definitely NOT a book you want to read at night with a creepy jack-o-lantern light. Just saying.

As a romance, I didn't really care for it. I don't really like "We just had this connection!" romances; I would've preferred more interaction and development between Anna and Cas. I'm also really, really sick of the "Geek with a heart of gold has been pining after popular girl forever and she finally gives him a chance" trope. I liked Thomas; I loved Carmel, but this idea that she *should* go out with him because he's such a Nice Guy! And Likes Her So Much! pisses me off.

There were some other things that made me uncomfortable, but I don't know enough about the subjects to talk about them in this review.

Despite all this, it was a difficult book to put down. Exciting, terrifying, and engagingly written. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

I loved the first book so much, I bought this the day it came out - something I rarely do. Kade does a lot more with world-building in this book, definitely leading up to a series. This one didn't latch onto my heart the way the previous book did, but it's a solid, entertaining read and I am counting down the days until book 3! (Or would, if I had any idea when it was coming out.)

It's been awhile since I've read real hard science fiction. It was much more intellectual than emotional... I didn't really feel much of a connection with the characters, but the ideas were actually interesting enough to keep me reading. I was also pleasantly surprised by all the female characters.
It didn't have complete gender parity, as the military plays a large role in the story and there are no female military commanders, but that is actually a choice I can respect, since women have been traditionally closed out of the highest ranks of the military. And we did get numerous women in a wide variety of roles, from scientists to revolutionaries to village mothers. I wish representation this solid wasn't so surprising.

I stopped 14% of the way through because I was bored. This book gives you a huge cast of characters with absolutely no reason to care about any of them. I resent it because I went into this book expecting to like it.

A solid mystery with engaging characters. I guessed the twist fairly early on, and yet was surprised when it actually happened — it was extremely well-structured.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women in the story. It had almost complete gender parity, and the women are wonderfully varied in age and temperament. Considering I'd been expecting the typical sausagefest, this was wonderful and something I'd like to see more of.

Rape is a huge part of the story in this book — nothing that we "see on screen", fortunately, and I believe it's handled with a decent amount of respect and sensitivity. More than you see in a lot of fiction, but that's saying very little. There's also no escaping the fact that Melissa, the rape survivor, is barely a character, and the story is more about the effects on the perpetrators and the investigator. Melissa is treated with respect and sympathy by the narrative, but there is something inescapably uncomfortable about only seeing the impact this violent crime against an Indian woman has on white men.

Still, while that is somewhat problematic, it's far from an unforgivable sin, and I'm interested enough in the characters that I think I'll be checking out the rest of the series.

It's such an engaging series that I don't even realize I'm disappointed until after I've devoured it. Rape was yet again a factor in the mystery, except it was both not central to the plot AND explicitly shown in a wholly unnecessary fashion. Overall representation of women was also pretty disappointing ... still a large number of female characters, except they hardly get an opportunity to do anything.

And yet there's something there, because the instant I finished it I opened up my computer to check out the next book.