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coronata's reviews
259 reviews
Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White by Amélie Wen Zhao
3.5
Solid follow-up to the previous book, but I think that this book should have been a bit longer — so much more happened in this book than the previous one, but it's half the length! Or, both books could have been trimmed a bit and the whole duology could have been one, longer book. This book felt very rushed and the characters (especially new ones and especially villains) felt very flat and uninteresting. Still, I'm not the target audience, and I would have liked this book as a teenager, so that's good enough for me.
The Hunting Moon by Susan Dennard
adventurous
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Solid YA — I would have enjoyed this book as a teenager. I’m glad Dennard did less of the “teeth started clicking” thing in this book, since that was pretty annoying in the first. The plot twists and reveals are fairly predictable in this series so far, but that’s fine as it’s YA. Overall, fun! Looking forward to book three whenever that comes out!
Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood
Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.
Decided not to finish this because it's so poorly researched. Just in the first 15% there's a lot of questionable history and weird anachronism — for example, eyeglasses weren't invented until the 1200s, but Mathias' father had one apparently? (It would have been a reading stone, not an eyeglass.) I was willing to shrug off the anachronisms since it's fantasy until this line in chapter nine: "In the myths and legends that [Leto] had grown up on, the girls did not—well, they did not do very much at all besides an awful lot of weaving." I can't take a book seriously when the author admitted to not reading the literature it's based on, but still writes lines like that. Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad would be a better use of my time.
The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
dark
mysterious
sad
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? Yes
4.0