lenorayoder's reviews
154 reviews

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

I loved this! Great mystery and well-written. I was having such a good time I stayed up until 5am to finish it. 

I really enjoyed Jo as a character. The point-of-view changes kept things interesting and were always handled really well. Excited to read the next book in the series! I would love to see
Jo put Tony, her ex, in his place somehow. That slime-ball needs to be knocked down all the pegs
Diverse cast of characters: No

I liked it. Easy read. Got a little ridiculous with the adjectives and adverbs sometimes, but mostly competently written. Decent sex scenes, decent plot, decent mystery. More than I can say for most published erotica, unfortunately. 

This is a romance set during regency-ish times but it isn’t an adaptation of or play on Pride and Prejudice at all, the title is misleading. 

I liked this one. I think sticking to the Jane Eyre format might have hurt more than it helped though. This is definitely the case for the first third of the book, but even the rest of the book had a plot that I think would have been served better with a different kind of framing. The narrator mentioning Jane Eyre and being an autobiographer worked for me, especially in the second half, but the constant comparisons just made me wish I was reading Jane Eyre in the first half. Some really nice writing. I found the resolution of the chest frustrating. The pacing during the climax and denouement feel a little off. I liked seeing Jane’s relationships, and seeing her perspective change throughout the book. Agatha was done dirty. The context of the autobiography’s existence is a bit confusing once you know everything. 
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No

This only gets that half star because I liked some of the worldbuilding and some of the adult characters. But my god. These teenagers were infuriating. So many of my pet peeves in one book. People were being stupid left and right. Worse, they were being stupid in a way that actively got people killed. I wanted to scream so much of the time. I did scream about the pocket, just because I was at the end of my fucking rope. Christ. 
emotional
Diverse cast of characters: No

When it’s good, it’s really good. I sighed, I cried. But when it misses… oof. How I yearn for some of these classics to have had good editors. 

I love how much you can read between the lines with what Jane does and does not narrate. I love how much she blossoms once she’s finally in a place that feels like home. Jane and Rochester are both interesting characters, and a lot of their interactions are dynamite. I love the idea that their romance stems from a deep affinity, but we don’t get to see enough of that affinity. I wish we got more from Rochester after the revelation - he’s actually in surprisingly little of this book. Weirdly, I feel like I didn’t really get to know him as much as I should have. 

St. John drove me nuts, and I’m so mad that
he claims the closing of the book
. Like, Charlotte. What the fuck. Why did I have to
listen to that man one last time
?!?!?

The constant god-talk wore on me, and some of the language and descriptions were repetitive. Parts of the book really drag, and just feel like unnecessary filler. Also Bronte’s racism… really showed. It was rough. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

Bloodlines

Richelle Mead

DID NOT FINISH: 4%

DNF audio book at 4%. Didn’t like the narration or the writing. Book starts with a boring info dump. 
Diverse cast of characters: No

Easy, enjoyable read. I expect this kind of book to be a little formulaic and predictable, but this one was pretty far in that direction. Several obvious shortcuts were taken that the author should have figured out a way around, like the MC only experiencing three of the cliques, and spending very little time with some of them. I think this could have been significantly better and more interesting with some pretty minor changes, so it's disappointing that it's not.
dark mysterious
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No

This book probably deserves a higher rating but my ratings are subjectively about how much I like a book and this one was tough to enjoy. 

The perspective character is so unpleasant that this book is hard to read, especially the first 50% or 70% in which not a lot is happening. Once we get towards the end and everything really starts to move the book gets a lot more enjoyable. The main character is still deeply unpleasant, but it becomes more interesting and because more is happening I wasn’t just marinating in that awful personality with nothing else to think about. 

It was an easy read, but it just felt so generic. Nothing about the setting or characters really drew me in, and there’s a big chunk of the book where barely anything happens. A lot of stuff threatens to happen, and the main character is afraid of stuff happening, but not much actually does. Or, I should say not much happens to the main character - everyone else seems to be living in a more interesting book that we don't get to read. 

I also didn’t really believe the love between the main character and her love interest. Probably because neither felt like enough of a real person to me, and there were so many time skips. We're told their relationship and feelings develop, but we're rarely shown. 

Just very meh, won’t be reading the next book.