ali_k0's reviews
159 reviews

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

After I finished the audiobook, I walked around my apartment for twenty minutes replaying it in my head. I've never read a book that felt so real.
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Collide by Bal Khabra

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Honestly, I thought this would be a shallow, no thoughts needed, questionable but fun hockey romance. I did not expect to love the characters, or relate to them, as much as I did. 

Summers relationship with her father was the emotional highlight of this book for me. Bal Khabra described their relationship in ways I had struggled for years to describe my own. 

I loved the evolution of their relationship, how much of an emphasis, from both the author and the male lead Aiden, placed on consent and respecting boundaries (we're sorely needing that in modern romances I fear). Due to this, it's probably the only friends with benefits romance books I've enjoyed. 

I think the third act dragged a little, but it was so nice to not have a third act breakup (they have a spat but honestly I don't think it counts, it's more like growing pains). 

Loved it, will recommend, and can't wait for her next read.
Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Mirror Girls was the first horror novel I've ever read, most certainly my first Southern Gothic (here's to new things in the new year!) and I'm certainly glad it was. 

Both sister had such clear voices, as I was reading I could here Charlie's Harlem accent, the stiff-backed  confidence that etched itself into her narrative. And for Magnolia, her Southern Belle Drawl poured off the page. There were several moments I laughed at the way her sister described it. 

Kelly McWilliams laces this book with a sense of unmooredness for the characters. Charlie returns to a home she's never known, deep in the Jim Crow South. Eureka is "a place where nothing ever changes and nothing ever dies", where her stiffed back confidence is the very thing that could get her killed. As for Magnolia, well she's a Southern Belle who's no Southern Belle at all. 

Mirror Girls is a testament to Racism, dark and powerful histories, and the challenges of identity and homes that don't want you. I cried so much during the final pages of this book, it's beautiful, it's painful, I loved it all. 

And I'll definitely be reading more Southern Gothics.

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Tarred and Feathered... Again by Darwin Ph. D. Fishman

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0.0

I didn't even read this book, I had him as a professor, and rate my professor was not enough. 
A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

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dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

First book of the year and I have a lot of mixed feelings. It was a good story, but I think it drowned (pardon the pin) in its own atmosphere. There were scenes I felt were missing from the book - ones meant to develop the characters and the romance at the center. Effy is a intriguing head to be in, but I think her arc suffered by the authors over commitment to the environment and under commitment to the characters development. I think the book she really wanted to write was Angharad, in which the excerpts we get are where the authors talent shines through.

There was so much in this book I wanted more of: the Drowning, The Sleepers and their museum, the war between the nations. I know a second book is coming and I hope she tells us more, but I feel she missed a lot of foundations here. To pull from the book, I think we'll find it filled with water come morning. 

Effy's trauma define her as a character, and how she responds to this trauma, not by taking up a sword but simply surviving, I think is very relatable to a lot of people. Although my version of survival and hers are very different, I still saw myself in her, and I think many others will too. I just wish she had been given more time to grow. Past her trauma, but also her prejudices. 

The mystery itself was timeless in its own way. Anyone who knows literary history can guess the true author of Angharad from the moment the question is posed, but I don't think the obviousness is what the mystery suffers from. The book is sold as "part historical fantasy part rival to lovers romance and part Gothic mystery" and although it was all of those things, I think breaking it into so many parts made all of them suffer. None really has the time to shine, as the authors commitments to written aesthetic seemed to be the most important thing here. 

Lastly, although the tale of stolen works is one that needs to be told, the starting evidence for the case Myrddin wasn't the author is, "a southerner is not smart enough to write this, so it must be a northerner" which then turns out to be true. Myrddin did write works, but they were bad middling poetry and one unsuccessful romance. In the end, it was the ingenious Northerner who wrote Angharad, only she was a women, which was the twist. I really think this book could have been better if the author went the route of, "it was a Southern girl, which everyone thought would be to much to believe, so it was given to a southern man." That the male lead Preston is so against how his people, the Argantians, are stereotyped, but is fine with the ones around southerners, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

In the end I still liked it. It's dark and dreary but also enchanting, a perfect book for cold nights by warm fires. I don't know if I'll pick up the second book, but I don't regret that I picked this one up. 

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Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

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This book is enrapturing. It is terrifying. It is a car crash you can't help but watch and a murder that freezes your blood while you cheer for the murderer. I would say I couldn't put it down, but that's untrue. I threw it on my couch and ran laps around my house from the adrenaline it caused me. I was screaming in the drive through for in-n-out beside my mom. I was reading every word between the fingers I covered my eyes with and pausing for breaths at every turned page. I was scared to start every chapter for fear of what lied before me. This was the most stressful inducing book with some of the most complex characters I ever read. 

But I was also cheering, whooping with joy, crying from relief. I swooned at certain romantic lines (even when I was aware I *really* should not be, but Wu Zetian the women you ARE) and reveled at the characters vengeance. 

The author stings along your hopes, crushing them in one hand while reviving them in the other. They twist your view of the world in so many knots your as unsure of every step as the characters. It was thrilling.

I hadn't realized how much I've missed books that make me feel this way until I read Heavenly Tyrant. They are rare and brilliant and this is at the height of them. We had to wait a long time for the sequel to Iron Widow because of the industry, but this book is a testament to how good things are worth waiting for, and how revolution relies not just on violence, but the voices of artists to carry it.

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The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 55%.
I'm tireddddddd. Why are their like seven books and the main characters aren't the POV in half of them??? I want to here about their adventures as the rulers some fucking random!!!
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

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adventurous funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Well this book certainly aged interestingly.