pinkmalady's reviews
98 reviews

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-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

4.5

"You don’t know what it really means to crawl into someone else’s life and stay there. You can’t see all the ways you’re going to get tangled, how you’re going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten—in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems."

"Georgie hadn't known back then how much she was going to come to need Neal, how he was going to become like air to her.
Was that codependence? Or was it just marriage?"

i think i hauve covid.

Specter of the Past by Timothy Zahn

adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

while still certainly enjoyable, this entry in zahn's thrawn series fell a little flat in comparison to his previous outings. the drama often felt trite and forced. plus, it was a bit too short for the amount of plots and characters it wanted to have. most of it seems like it'll be tied up in the next book, but it left me wanting more from the anticlimactic finish of this one.

that being said, all of the usual zahn-y goodness is present. great fights and intrigue. i love how thrawn was brought-back-but-not-really. his absence left a hole that moff disra and co. just aren't really filling for me, but i do like what zahn did with thrawn here.

Death Star by Steve Perry, Michael Reaves

adventurous sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

this book is so frustrating. prefacing that i am incredibly biased towards the new Disney canon, but i've enjoyed all of Legends that i have read with my own two eyes, up until this.

the good:

- darth vader's internal monologue is pretty in-character and it's interesting to get an idea of what he was thinking while a new hope was going on, even if i disagree with some of the character decisions they made due to obvious misinterpretation.

- my enjoyment and the over-all quality of the book began to rise as soon as this novel's story began intersecting more and more with a new hope, because it's kinda hard to fuck up a retelling of arguably  one of the most narratively perfect films of all time.

- on paper, i really like daala and tarkin's relationship, but they barely dive into it here.

the bad:

- this book DOES NOT incorporate new details into preexisting canon well. it is hindered by preexisting canon's story beats and preexisting characters' plot armors. it cannot to save its life add or commit AT ALL to anything not totally stupid and irrelevant (like the exhaust port being a total accident! at least rogue one tried to make it meaningful.) new to the lore of the death star or a new hope as a film, or else it'd fuck up canon.

- the misogyny. straight-up the way every single female character in this book is written (besides leia, who is barely present and once again, they kinda can't fuck up thanks to preexisting canon) is misogynistic. they are all there to be bland eye-candy (two of the three main female characters have scenes in which they undress in front of bystanders, the first of which was unnecessary and uncalled for in the story and the character who saw her strip acted uncomfortable about it. like that was just wank for the writers because star wars is allergic to not oversexualizing its alien women, especially twi'leks.) and love interests to the bland dime-a-dozen straight guys that make up the majority of the cast.

Spoiler

the only female character (daala, who didn't get a canonical first name until even later after this book, which says it all, really,) in the cast who does anything of note is totally robbed of all her character agency the second they can because it would interfere too much with preexisting canon, is almost fridged but wait they can't do that either because of preexisting Legends canon about her post-original trilogy, and then immediately sent away to never truly be touched on again as a legitimate character. she is purely there to boost up her male love interest, tarkin, and they don't even do a good job at that, either.

- this book has a disdain for tarkin, whom i am obviously biased towards, when they need to be treating him like they would treat every other character who matters in this book. it just doesn't care about him outside of his relationship with daala,

Spoiler

and once again, they get rid of her as soon as possible so she doesn't interfere too much with the preexisting plot of a new hope!

i am so sorry to break it to these authors, who obviously project their dislike of tarkin onto vader, whom they obviously really really really like, but tarkin and vader are, if not canonically friends (which they are, even before clone wars came out,) then they are, at the very least, more interesting as friends. i hate when people write tarkin and vader's relationship as this middling, they-both-find-the-other-one-silly-but-don't-say-anything-about-it-to-save-face, barely-there-at-all co-existence. if you're going to make them not like each other, at least TRY to make it interesting.

- speaking of bland disinterest, none of the characters the book is trying to get you to like are likeable, and there are far too many to keep up with, especially early on. i could not get emotionally invested in any of these people. i don't care. maybe if this book was one or two hundred pages longer, it could've handled such a large ensemble cast, but at its current page length, it couldn't take its time with anyone.

- once again, all the painfully forced cishet relationships, which are seemingly only there to tie the characters together more closely so they can all be there for the finale.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

The Last Command by Timothy Zahn

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

4.5

might just be my favorite piece of legends canon that i've read :)

one of my only complaints is that while zahn is stellar with describing physical/space combat, his character descriptions and dialogue tags are repetitive. this has been a consistent peeve of my mine throughout this trilogy. we get it. thrawn raised a blue-black eyebrow and spoke icily, coolly; coldly, even. you have said it five times each book.

there was a twist in this book that i wasn't expecting, and while it was clever and fitting and all that, it paled in comparison to what i was imagining.

Spoiler

i can't believe the imperial leak wasn't winter. i felt like it was leading up to her making a big betrayal during the imperial raid of the palace but then it just. didn't go there.

Spoiler

it would've tied in perfectly with rukh betraying the empire at the end!! deception on both sides. it would've been a fascinating parallel is all!!

i love the conclusion to mara's character arc (in this trilogy, at least.) it stuck the landing emotionally. it was powerful and liberating but didn't overstate itself. i love her.

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-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

4.5

still one of my favorite books ever, and i still constantly quote it. it rearranged my brain chemistry when i was 14, what else can i say? erik is still one of my favorite characters ever. he is everything, he is the moment, he is just like me, fr.

The Magic Order, Vol. 1 by Mark Millar

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-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

i cried 👍 beautiful art.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Vol. 1: BFF by Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted fast-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

3.0

Sailor Moon, Vol. 1 by Naoko Takeuchi

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious fast-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

4.5

the art here is gorgeous. pretty guardians, indeed. 

i loved how this dived more into the mystery/spiritual aspect than the show has (so far, i'm still on season one, and have now read past my point in the show, so this might change!!) and the way it discusses/touches on reincarnation is fascinating; i can't wait to read more of that going forward.

bonus, it was gayer than i expected, this early on. i now understand why people ship rei/usagi, lol.

The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide by Chris Colfer

adventurous emotional inspiring lighthearted mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

I genuinely really like this series, still, and it was absolutely formative for me as tween. But honestly from book 3 (A Grimm Warning) onward I felt like the writing for Alex started falling flat.

I feel like Colfer, despite basing both of the twins at least partially on himself, really plays favorites with Connor (and I really can't blame him because Connor is one of his best characters,) and Alex gets the blunt end of the stick. And it's more of a thing in the two previous books, but I am not a fan of either (there were two, right?) of her romances (then again I don't like Bree, either, so take that as you will.) The differences between the twins are vital to the plot here (and have been present since book one) but once again, Alex gets sidelined when I think there could've been some better stuff there!!