wowowow this was so good. this is my first of bennett's work and i absolutely loved it. his worldbuilding is great and well-thought but i absolutely /loved/ the main characters. it felt like bennett truly made each character their own and the character voices were great. i loved bennett's attention to detail and how he wove the worldbuilding into the story; it really made the world immersive and it felt full of life. aside from that the mystery was so fun and even though ana was a know-all type of character, she was absolutely my favorite and i need more of her immediately. im excited to get into bennett's other works after this great one! thanks to netgalley for the advanced access :)

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

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4.5

Binary Star by Sarah Gerard

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challenging dark reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

While a lot of the star metaphors unfortunately went over my head (I couldn't for the life of me understand how they related to the novel/characters), I did ultimately enjoy my time with this book. It was one of those that struck me deeply personally and I couldn't stop thinking about and drawing associations towards my own life. The author's prose is raw and real and the spiraling type of poetry the author used to showcase the main character's mental and physical decline really paid off for me. The only other issue I had is that the dialogue and narration were oftentimes confusing to separate for me as the author does not use quotations, however I also find that this fit with the theme of the story and the storytelling method the author uses. Overall, a very raw book that struck me deeply and I still can't stop thinking about.

Content Warnings

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

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fast-paced

4.0

I was really excited about this one since Ward quickly became a favorite author of mine after Sundial. Her writing is concise, quick, and flows easily, but there are great moments of prose that shake you to your core. While the premise of this novel didn't particularly stand out to me, I expected something really great.

And while I definitely wasn't disappointed, I was left feeling... confused. First of all, there are a lot of shifting perspectives and narratives that can be somewhat hard to follow. I went into this novel of course expecting that, because it's Catriona Ward, but I can't say I knew where the book was going at all at any point while reading it. Even having finished it, I'm not entirely sure I know the timeline and what *actually* happened at Whistler Bay. There are a lot of twists thrown to you at the end which make a lot of chapters feel kind of unnecessary and leave you feeling just kind of confused. We're thrown around between timelines, character perspectives, and what is actually the truth or just fiction.

All that to say, I did enjoy my time reading and trying to figure out the different twists and turns thrown at you and trying to suss out what was actually going on. The characters are interesting and definitely draw you in, and Ward's writing never left me feeling bored.

My only real critique is that I felt as if the few final reveals felt very rushed and shoehorned in and didn't quite make sense as the final twist is never really explained? But I did feel as if there was a satisfying end to the story and I was happy with that.

Overall it was a really quick read with some fun twists and great, messy characters and an intriguing mystery.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

3.75

I was initially really excited for this because of the hunger games comparison, but I absolutely didn't expect for greek mythology to play a major role as well. Aside from semi-complicated character and system dynamics, there really isn't that much of a similarity to Game of Thrones aside from a castle or two (and it's not even nearly as lore-or-character-heavy as GoT). There are some really great scenes and surprising moments (though it's slightly disappointing that one of the main twists you can see coming from a mile away and it actually has no real repercussions at all). The characters were unique and likable and I enjoyed seeing the friendships that formed. It was thrilling to see Darrow succeed and grow his army. However, that does lead to my main issues with the book...

The stakes of this book feel much, much lower when Darrow continually succeeds and out-smarting his enemy. Darrow's success also feels completely unrealistic to both his character and the general limitations of the world set up by Brown. Speaking of, I was kind of disappointed that the majority of the book takes place either 1) underground or 2) in a... forest? There are some really great concepts and potential for world-building exploration that is set up in the beginning and then just... abandoned only for the rest of the story to take place in a generic forest :/ I would have loved to see more of the city and the world that Brown establishes.

Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable read, if a bit slow at times. The strengths of this book definitely lie in the character development and war strategy/survival elements, but it wasn't exactly giving hunger games or game of thrones lol

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lukeass's reviews 51 reviews

lukeass's reviews
51 reviews