It's not like I'm a preachy crybaby who can't resist giving overemotional speeches about hope all the time.
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Success! Alex Cabe has read 33 of 30 books.
I don't exactly need anyone to tell me Robert E. Lee was a bad guy, but this got great reviews. I'm interested to see how his experience growing up in an earlier era in the South compares to that.
The strengths here were the ethereal, fairy tale feeling of the writing, and the characterization of Ash and Uriel. The characters felt ageless, both old and young, which is a tricky thing to pull off. There were some good explorations of identity and the importance of choosing it for oneself rather than being imposed from the outside.
The Ash-Uriel dynamic was strong and Ash's increasing discomfort with Uriel becoming more human had a lot of depth.
It got more creative toward the end, but for a while it seemed like they were solving their problems by just killing people.
A bit rushed toward the end and Sullivan didn't do much for me as a villain. He was kind of just a goon.
Aza Holmes is a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her …
I thought this book was very effective as an anxiety simulator and did a great job illustrating the thought patterns of a person with anxiety and OCD. It had the hook of a traditional mystery, which was quickly de-emphasized in favor of a character study/coming of age. The reason I rated it three stars instead of four is that it just wasn't very fun or enjoyable to be in the protagonist Aza's head. I know that's not necessarily the book's job, but it's a reason I found it worthwhile but not something I'd like to revisit. It made me think of the movie Uncut Gems, which is a great anxiety simulator, but two hours is a different prospect than seven.
The amount that the characters used texting and the internet felt also true-to-life, but not very fun to read.
There was a lot of dorm-room philosophizing as self-conscious quirk, but …
I thought this book was very effective as an anxiety simulator and did a great job illustrating the thought patterns of a person with anxiety and OCD. It had the hook of a traditional mystery, which was quickly de-emphasized in favor of a character study/coming of age. The reason I rated it three stars instead of four is that it just wasn't very fun or enjoyable to be in the protagonist Aza's head. I know that's not necessarily the book's job, but it's a reason I found it worthwhile but not something I'd like to revisit. It made me think of the movie Uncut Gems, which is a great anxiety simulator, but two hours is a different prospect than seven.
The amount that the characters used texting and the internet felt also true-to-life, but not very fun to read.
There was a lot of dorm-room philosophizing as self-conscious quirk, but it's a John Green book, so I knew that going in.
I liked Daisy, the Aza's best friend, a lot better than Aza herself. Daisy was sometimes immature and insensitive, but I leaned more to her side whenever she was in an argument with Aza. She was an effective device both for readers without anxiety to identify with and to show the effects of anxiety on other people in the anxious person's life. Whenever Daisy wasn't on the page, all the other characters should have been asking "Where's Daisy?"
Note on the Audiobook version: Kate Rudd is great at changing her voice to give the characters individual voices. Only complaint is that she gave Davis kind of a meathead voice.
Aza Holmes is a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her …
Listened to the audiobook in one sitting on a long drive.
Aza Holmes is a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her …
Audiobook for a long car trip, trying to listen to in more or less one sitting.
Book club pick. The first few pages have a fairy tale cadence and a lot of reaching for the dictionary.
This book's biggest strength was that it wasn't afraid to have major character deaths, and otherwise just really put the characters through it. Jane's went to some pretty dark places, which made for a good read.
I thought it was smart to keep this at two with a solid first half/second half structure rather than trying to stretch the series to a trilogy. I'm not ordinarily interested in Westerns, but the zombie and queer elements were enough of a hook.
I never quite figured out what the deal was with the vaccine, I'm unsure if that was intentional ambiguity or just loose writing. The author did a good job of making the characters understandable and likeable, but flawed enough that you could understand how they grated on each other. The ending was Western-tropey, but satisfying.
A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future …
This picked up on a couple of genres that have been fairly well-trod, but was so well written they seemed fresh and propulsive. Helen and Edith were likeable and relatable, and the prose was direct but enjoyable and descriptive. The use of magic was well thought out. I thought the short length benefited the book, it made its points and got in and out.
One nitpick is that a lot of the characters' ages seemed off. Chronologically they were mid-20s, but it feels like Helen was written as older.
The thing that stands out most to be is that it's written so well it leaves you wanting more, but also explains to you why the story's a closed loop, and shouldn't continue beyond what was written.
Even though Helen knew the end, it's not going to stop me from speculating that their story after the book plays out differently. Hey, …
This picked up on a couple of genres that have been fairly well-trod, but was so well written they seemed fresh and propulsive. Helen and Edith were likeable and relatable, and the prose was direct but enjoyable and descriptive. The use of magic was well thought out. I thought the short length benefited the book, it made its points and got in and out.
One nitpick is that a lot of the characters' ages seemed off. Chronologically they were mid-20s, but it feels like Helen was written as older.
The thing that stands out most to be is that it's written so well it leaves you wanting more, but also explains to you why the story's a closed loop, and shouldn't continue beyond what was written.
Even though Helen knew the end, it's not going to stop me from speculating that their story after the book plays out differently. Hey, it's happened before.
A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future …
Good one!
A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future …
Really strong so far.
A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future …
I'm in Chicago for a couple of days, so reading a Chicago story.
Pausing on this one to read a different book while I'm on a trip.
It took me a while to get used to Jane's voice in the first one, it's going to take me a while to get used to Katherine's in the second. Not using contractions feels a bit like reading something written by Commander Data.