hanrutous16's reviews
17 reviews

Goddess Crown by Shade Lapite

adventurous lighthearted 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? It's complicated

3.0

This is a solid young person’s fantasy novel. It has a strong female lead who predictably grows and discovers her own strength as she faces adversity. It has intrigue without much depth, no big surprises and looks ahead to a brighter future.

The world building is quite flat - very traditional gender roles, typical coming of age story and a court full of stereotypes.

I feel this would be a nice gateway to fantasy novel for a young girl looking for her place, but as an adult, it did not have much to make it stand out. Enjoyed whole read but easily forgotten.

The Choice by Edith Eva Eger

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

‘My precious, you can choose to be free’.

What a beautiful way to end a book that starts with imprisonment in Auschwitz. From physical imprisonment to emotional freedom, Eger shares her experiences and those of her patients over the years to highlight that one important message - in whatever way works for you, doing whatever you need to do, it is possible to be freed from your past. 

I’ve read a few reviews of this book that complain that it is not really about the Holocaust and that the time in camps itself only takes up a third, if that, of the book. Eger spent a year in Auschwitz. She then spent 60 years building a life and recovery away from it. The journey she undertakes to reclaim herself - the Jewish Hungarian dancer - takes up far more space in her life than Auschwitz ever could. 

Supplemented by stories of the people she has helped, and the people who weren’t ready for help, as well as her sisters, husband and children, Eger shows the reasons for living and growing with grace and fortitude many do not have to show. 

Whilst perhaps the latter content wasn’t so much for me, this book is still worth a read due to its hopefulness, passion for life and joy. At one point Eger suggests she has success as a speaker because ‘if I can survive, if I can do it, so can you’. This selfless reason for sharing her past is beautiful, kind and true.

Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell

informative lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

My biggest issue with this book probably comes from the blurb. It paints the picture of someone going through London’s seediest sides to find a lost manuscript. But this is not what he book is about at all. It takes maybe 15 pages for the manuscript to be stolen, Richard to be accused and for

it to be returned

. For an over 300 page book, there’s a lot else that this book is about. Unfortunately, it wasn’t purchased for what it is actually about but for the missing tale that I am so frustrated I didn’t get.

Bernard Cornwall is not a household name for nothing. His writing is flawless and the picture he paints of Elizabethan England and the play houses and their rivalry is vivid and clearly much researched. But the story did not flow as I wanted it to. It did not have the subterfuge I wanted it to. It didn’t have the plot I wanted it to. It felt like a history lesson of the theatre wrapped in the frills of putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And the main character is too unlikeable to make than tenable.

It’s not quite enough to put me off Cornwall himself as an author and I would give another book of his a try, but I won’t be recommending this one.

Murder on the menu by Alex Coombs

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

This was an incredibly frustrating novel.

Firstly, the title is clearly very over done and there are a lot of books with the same name. I know names and titles aren’t copyrighted but it wasn’t an auspicious start.

Next was the portrayal of the woman protagonist. The good looking by normal standards protagonist. The chef who does yoga and goes running and has a flat stomach and bakes and works 18 hour days. With no personally beyond her job and who

who accepts a £7000 oven as payment for doing an amateur investigation into a murder from the brains behind it.

Charlie was two dimensional and disinteresting as a character - even when she was beaten up it was hard to feel sorry for her.

The book was filled with other characters who were caricatures. The rich, disinterested earl, the annoyed, loyal policeman, the village idiot (harsh phrasing but if Francis was compared to a dog one more time I probably wouldn’t have made it through the book), the awesome young university waitress

who manages to hack into the phone of the main bad guy in order to save the protagonist’s life - what a coincidence!

There was nothing redeeming about the way a single character was written. The village didn’t receive much better treatment. I have no idea how big the village was, but getting 30 people on a January Tuesday for lunch feels unrealistic.

The author is also a chef and wow did you know that whilst reading this novel. Food isn’t used cleverly to foreshadow or to enhance the plot or the mystery. It’s just described in painstaking detail. 

Oh and the ‘big reveal’? Called it within the first two chapters. Not really a mystery.

In case I’m being too subtle, this was not a book for me. Would definitely not read again.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This was an intriguing premise for any book lover and had a lot of really good content. I found one big plot hole, some inconsistencies in the writing and a lack of real ‘action’ frustrating.

Plot hole:

I understand there is a spell that can track Esther specifically. I understand that Nicholas is hidden away. But why is Esther such a risk to the wards of her home being breached and Nicholas isn’t to his home? And even if someone could use Esther to find the house, they’d still be sick as anything if they tried to cross the wards. For something that was so essential to the plot of splitting up the sisters and giving Esther a nomadic existence, it didn’t really feel like the system was very well thought through. I have too many questions about how it would work to accept it at face value.

There was a section where one person was smiling reassuringly and another one pacing and three pages in they had swapped actions but were still referring to the same memory. It showed sloppy writing, which was driven home by the missing words and grammatical structures that I also identified - unusual for a popular, published book.

So what redeemed this book for me? The cover is stunning. One star alone to the artist who has done a beautiful job. The premise was intriguing and the book did grip me enough to keep me reading. I liked the small connections, even the obvious ‘twist’

as to who Esther’s birth mother is

. I enjoyed the blended family and the naturalness that came with. And found the idea of the books made and activated by blood both repelling and intriguing at the same time.

I thought the romance

between Esther and Pearl added to the quality of the story telling, whereas between Jo and Collins it felt really unnecessary and a little exploitive

. Overall, more negative than positive feelings. I would be intrigued to see what the author produces next - so long as it’s not a sequel!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Murder

Murder on Lake Garda by Tom Hindle

mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I may read too many books but I worked out who the culprit was the first time we met them. It seemed very obvious to me, but I do like my whodunnits and detective shows so maybe it wasn’t so obvious to everyone.

That said, this was still a really excellent read. Whilst the culprit was obvious, the motive took its time to be revealed and the journey to working it out was enjoyable.

The characters were a little two dimensional - this novel was very much driven by the plot and so the characterisation was secondary to the whodunnit. There wasn’t much depth or many surprises when it came to each character and their motivations.

Overall this was a fairly standard whodunnit with good but shallow characters and a satisfying conclusion.

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

This book had two parallel storylines, a book within a book and a frustratingly simplistic narrative. I picked it up at the library after reading and being disappointed by The Story Collector to see if Woods’ debut was any better than her second novel - it was not.

It did have the biological connections that were missing from The Story Collector. The ‘big reveal’ was obvious but it was satisfying to see all the threads tie up nicely. The ending was happier, I think, in its own way.

But that’s where my appreciation ends. Domestic Abuse is used as a plot furthering device. Whilst some of the experiences Martha had following her separation felt realistic and the fear and stress were there, it kind of disappeared

once Shane was murdered

but that’s not really the way trauma works. I was disappointed.

Henry was an incredibly frustrating character, really two dimensional. I didn’t find any depth in him.

Opaline had the best story line, really traumatic and challenging.

Her happy ending was a but out of left field and not really in keeping with her character. It took away from the independent woman and normalised the abuse she had experienced. The asylum storyline was once again just a plot device to get her daughter adopted. It was unnecessary and quite lightly handled considering the very serious subject matter of non-consensual incarceration.

overall, none of the themes were really very well handled for Opaline.

This book tried to do too much at once and ended up doing nothing well. It was disappointing. 

At least this time the title had some relation to the main character - the lost bookshop. Similarly to The Story Collector, though, it was a light touch fantastical element that really only serviced to complicate matters. I would have enjoyed the entire book from the shop’s perspective more than I did the intertwining narratives. The magic of the bookshop was so underused - unsubtle when it was used and ignored the rest of the time. So much potential, not quite reached.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Kidnapping

Minor: War

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

emotional funny informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

I picked this book up having read Rundell’s popular children’s fantasy story, ‘Impossible Creatures’ and was intrigued to read what she produced for adults. I was pleasantly surprised that her immense intelligence and passion for Donne was really well represented in her writing style which made this biography almost as enjoyable to read as her fantasy.

Rundell’s love for Donne as a man, a poet and a pastor brings him to life as she explores his life in the context of all his writing. She is not afraid to bring future poetry to the past to help show his feelings, nor does she shy away from what makes him human. She intertwines his writings with her own words, showing an affinity to a long dead man that was unexpected and bringing humour and emotion to a long dead history.

Donne himself was both a complex and simple man. His poetry and letter writing are full of flattery that he later condescends in a sermon. His desire to be part of courtly life seems to be his priority until suddenly it is not and he single mindedly pursued the church, refusing jobs that previously would have satisfied him. For a man who writes such sensual and visual love poems, he seems dedicated to his wife and her alone, but not afraid to flirt with and flatter other women. I learned much more about him than I expected and enjoyed the process very much.

An excellent biography and should Rundell deign to write another I would read it enthusiastically.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

Moderate: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, and Death of parent

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense medium-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? No

4.75

Firstly, boy does Yarros know how to write a cliff hanger ending. Seriously, how we’re supposed to survive the next year or so while she writes the sequel is beyond me.

I am heartbroken, shaken, lost, mildly confused (but definitely not as much as those who did not do a re-read prior to the book’s release) but most of all I am relieved. The book holds up. There are elements that I found frustrating thus it didn’t quite reach 5* status. There were a lot of places and people and events. Some could have taken longer

like meeting Xaden’s mum or the other Irids

and potentially some could have been shorter

such as the entertaining, sex filled conversations between Xaden and Violet when he’s her professor. Which, by the way, I said he should be when I reviews Iron Flame!

 

I’m inside how many times things need to desiccate before we get it, how many fingers can be speared through hair or how much heat Violet s body can take, either from the sexual tension or the wielding. But those are minor issues in an otherwise flawlessly written , beautifully characterised and deeply moving book.

Who is Xaden’s new brother?
How did Violet get married and then let Imogen take the memory?
Who survived the battle?
Can Xaden be saved?

The next year is going to be a long one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Death of parent, and War

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-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

5.0

There’s something about this series. It’s not because it’s booktok or bookstagram famous, although that does play into why I chose to read Fourth Wing. It’s because it’s a damned good book.

One of the things that gives this second novel the edge

is the departure from Basgiath. The characters have to really find their strengths, which for some is very underplayed (for example, Xaden could be teaching hand to hand combat, Rhiannon should be promoted etc.) but once they’re released from their limited schooling they are able to create something new. Perhaps too much of it is based on Basgiath, but gentler teachers, the introduction of the fliers and the space to grow is there and gives it so much potential.

I buddy read this one and one of the things my friend said was that Violet is just so NICE. And she’s right. Violet is the moral scale against which everything else should be weighed. Yes, the

on again, off again relationship with Xaden is a tad annoying,

but her growth as a character, her determination to do things differently and her dedication to true justice is outweighs those frustrations. 

I won’t say much except Andarna 😍😍 I think it was quite obvious what was coming for her but it was beautifully written in the end.

The end. How did we survive waiting a year for the next book? That ending hurts. So I’m off to read the newly published Onyx Storm.