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mweis's reviews
1249 reviews
The Battle Drum by Saara El-Arifi
3.5
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I think this is a really strong sequel and a really fascinating world that Saara El-Arifi has created. I love that this sequel expands out on the world and the connections that were being made, and the lore is really interesting and makes me want to immediately pick up the finale. I love the addition of the new points of view, and I liked that we got to see more of Hassa. Also, bonus points for having a recap of the first book at the start of this one and for writing it in a way that made sense to the world.
That being said, I struggled through the middle of this book. As a whole, I think the pacing is really uneven. When it’s interesting, it’s really interesting but in the slow periods I struggle to stay focused and take care about what’s happening. I think if you struggled through the first book, this is still worth picking up because of the way it expands the world, but some of the issues I had that first book still exist here.
I think this is a really strong sequel and a really fascinating world that Saara El-Arifi has created. I love that this sequel expands out on the world and the connections that were being made, and the lore is really interesting and makes me want to immediately pick up the finale. I love the addition of the new points of view, and I liked that we got to see more of Hassa. Also, bonus points for having a recap of the first book at the start of this one and for writing it in a way that made sense to the world.
That being said, I struggled through the middle of this book. As a whole, I think the pacing is really uneven. When it’s interesting, it’s really interesting but in the slow periods I struggle to stay focused and take care about what’s happening. I think if you struggled through the first book, this is still worth picking up because of the way it expands the world, but some of the issues I had that first book still exist here.
Till There Was You by Lindsay Hameroff
2.5
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
This book reads like fanfiction, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not what I was expecting. It also very much reads like it was written by a millennial, like there’s multiple references to Twilight and someone thirsting after Justin Bieber. Which again not a bad thing, but not what I was expecting. I also think I have gotten used to romances being dual perspective, so it really threw me off when we were only in Lexi’s head.
Lexi is a culinary student, who has an amazing weekend with Jake, a musician she met at a dive bar. He is getting ready to fly to LA to record a demo and they promise to keep in touch when all of a sudden he blows up and becomes famous and because of romance book miscommunication, they don’t talk to each other again until he comes back to New York over a year later. When they reconnect, Lexi has to decide if giving Jake a second chance is really what she wants.
I think this book does a great job of highlighting the downside of celebrity. We see Jake struggle with being famous and with not being able to be “normal” because of people trying to take his picture or leaking gossip about him, and we see how that impacts Lexi when she’s photographed with him. We also see how challenging Lexi‘s job as a chef makes maintaining a relationship, and some of the negative sides of working in the restaurant industry. That being said the plot was all over the place. I’m still unclear on how much time this book actually took place over because events happened in a blink of an eye. It made the relationship feel very insta love, which then made me question Lexi because she had to have known her life was going to change by being in a public relationship with a celebrity, but it’s like she never actually thought about it and it felt like they’d only known each other a week.
Overall, I can’t say this was a good book but I can say there was potential and that I devoured it in one sitting and am planning on picking up Never Planned on You soon.
This book reads like fanfiction, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not what I was expecting. It also very much reads like it was written by a millennial, like there’s multiple references to Twilight and someone thirsting after Justin Bieber. Which again not a bad thing, but not what I was expecting. I also think I have gotten used to romances being dual perspective, so it really threw me off when we were only in Lexi’s head.
Lexi is a culinary student, who has an amazing weekend with Jake, a musician she met at a dive bar. He is getting ready to fly to LA to record a demo and they promise to keep in touch when all of a sudden he blows up and becomes famous and because of romance book miscommunication, they don’t talk to each other again until he comes back to New York over a year later. When they reconnect, Lexi has to decide if giving Jake a second chance is really what she wants.
I think this book does a great job of highlighting the downside of celebrity. We see Jake struggle with being famous and with not being able to be “normal” because of people trying to take his picture or leaking gossip about him, and we see how that impacts Lexi when she’s photographed with him. We also see how challenging Lexi‘s job as a chef makes maintaining a relationship, and some of the negative sides of working in the restaurant industry. That being said the plot was all over the place. I’m still unclear on how much time this book actually took place over because events happened in a blink of an eye. It made the relationship feel very insta love, which then made me question Lexi because she had to have known her life was going to change by being in a public relationship with a celebrity, but it’s like she never actually thought about it and it felt like they’d only known each other a week.
Overall, I can’t say this was a good book but I can say there was potential and that I devoured it in one sitting and am planning on picking up Never Planned on You soon.
Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang
3.75
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I’d read some of Hao Jingfang’s short stories and really enjoyed them and I’ve had Vagabonds on my shelf for an embarrassingly long amount of time, but when I saw this release marketed as first contact with evidence of alien visitations in the distant past, I knew I had to read it.
This was a really thought-provoking read but I would hesitate to recommend it widely. I think you would get a lot more out of it if you knew or were familiar with Chinese history and mythology and ways of thinking. A lot of this book is just the philosophical discussions and I found it very fascinating, but it also made it dense and a little slow to read. I question this book being marketed as a thriller, because while there are spy elements and action sequences, that’s not the focus. In fact, I think those fast paced scenes made the philosophical discussions feel even slower, and making the pace of the book feel a bit uneven.
The world is really interesting. It’s futuristic where the Earth is dominated by two powers: the Pacific League and the Atlantic Alliance. There’s AI and space travel and an alien that is just trying to do their job. There’s also an unnecessary love triangle and a couple other tropes that I found common in Chinese writing that I don’t necessarily love. That being said, I love the concept of aliens visiting ancient civilizations and I like the philosophical discussion, and I will always be excited about translated speculative fiction.
I’d read some of Hao Jingfang’s short stories and really enjoyed them and I’ve had Vagabonds on my shelf for an embarrassingly long amount of time, but when I saw this release marketed as first contact with evidence of alien visitations in the distant past, I knew I had to read it.
This was a really thought-provoking read but I would hesitate to recommend it widely. I think you would get a lot more out of it if you knew or were familiar with Chinese history and mythology and ways of thinking. A lot of this book is just the philosophical discussions and I found it very fascinating, but it also made it dense and a little slow to read. I question this book being marketed as a thriller, because while there are spy elements and action sequences, that’s not the focus. In fact, I think those fast paced scenes made the philosophical discussions feel even slower, and making the pace of the book feel a bit uneven.
The world is really interesting. It’s futuristic where the Earth is dominated by two powers: the Pacific League and the Atlantic Alliance. There’s AI and space travel and an alien that is just trying to do their job. There’s also an unnecessary love triangle and a couple other tropes that I found common in Chinese writing that I don’t necessarily love. That being said, I love the concept of aliens visiting ancient civilizations and I like the philosophical discussion, and I will always be excited about translated speculative fiction.
Christmas Is All Around by Martha Waters
3.0
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I’d heard a lot of good things about Waters’ The Regency Vows series, so I was excited to get invited to read this Christmas romance from her and I think this was delightful.
Charlotte is an artist in a family of Artists who as a child starred in what became a cult classic Christmas movie and became a bit of a Grinch about it. After an article is released blaming her for a sequel/reboot not happening and an incident with a fan, she escapes to London to spend the holidays with her sister. While there, she runs into Graham, whose family owns the historic house where part of the movie was filmed but they’re struggling to keep up with the expenses of maintaining the house.
I think because it’s a Christmas romance and I was feeling festive, I was able to ignore some of the super contrived plot elements and glaring plot holes in a way I probably wouldn’t in a standard contemporary romance. That being said, I really liked the banter between Charlotte and Graham and the dialogue in general. I also liked the trips to various filming locations and discussions of fictional holiday rom-coms. While not my favorite, it did entertain me throughout the reading experience and it made me look forward to getting to her Regency series.
I’d heard a lot of good things about Waters’ The Regency Vows series, so I was excited to get invited to read this Christmas romance from her and I think this was delightful.
Charlotte is an artist in a family of Artists who as a child starred in what became a cult classic Christmas movie and became a bit of a Grinch about it. After an article is released blaming her for a sequel/reboot not happening and an incident with a fan, she escapes to London to spend the holidays with her sister. While there, she runs into Graham, whose family owns the historic house where part of the movie was filmed but they’re struggling to keep up with the expenses of maintaining the house.
I think because it’s a Christmas romance and I was feeling festive, I was able to ignore some of the super contrived plot elements and glaring plot holes in a way I probably wouldn’t in a standard contemporary romance. That being said, I really liked the banter between Charlotte and Graham and the dialogue in general. I also liked the trips to various filming locations and discussions of fictional holiday rom-coms. While not my favorite, it did entertain me throughout the reading experience and it made me look forward to getting to her Regency series.
Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline
2.75
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I read Empire of Wild a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it and I think I’ve been chasing that high with Dimaline’s books ever since. Funeral Somgs for Dying Girls is hard to place because genre wise it’s a bit fantasy, a bit contemporary and there’s a con element to it and a protagonist coming of age, but then tonally its about grief with some spooky scenes and some lighter moments. I had a hard time getting into this book and then I finished it and it immediately left my brain other than lingering confusion over what exactly this book was meant to be. I do like the way Dimaline crafts sentences but I think I need to be a bit pickier about which of her works I pick up in the future.
I read Empire of Wild a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it and I think I’ve been chasing that high with Dimaline’s books ever since. Funeral Somgs for Dying Girls is hard to place because genre wise it’s a bit fantasy, a bit contemporary and there’s a con element to it and a protagonist coming of age, but then tonally its about grief with some spooky scenes and some lighter moments. I had a hard time getting into this book and then I finished it and it immediately left my brain other than lingering confusion over what exactly this book was meant to be. I do like the way Dimaline crafts sentences but I think I need to be a bit pickier about which of her works I pick up in the future.
The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields
1.5
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I started this book at least 3 times before I finally finished and I kept giving up between the 10-20% mark and I kept trying again because I had hope it would get better and it just didn’t and I’m so sad about it.
The Honey Witch is cottagecore sapphic fantasy which on paper should totally work for me, but I struggled with the writing. It felt very stilted, especially in the dialogue, and prevented me from getting immersed in the story, which then gave me time to pick holes in the world building and pacing that I might have been able to overlook if I had been more immersed. I have seen some people love this, and I truly think it was the writing that made me struggle so much, so I would recommend sampling the first couple chapters to see if it works for you.
I started this book at least 3 times before I finally finished and I kept giving up between the 10-20% mark and I kept trying again because I had hope it would get better and it just didn’t and I’m so sad about it.
The Honey Witch is cottagecore sapphic fantasy which on paper should totally work for me, but I struggled with the writing. It felt very stilted, especially in the dialogue, and prevented me from getting immersed in the story, which then gave me time to pick holes in the world building and pacing that I might have been able to overlook if I had been more immersed. I have seen some people love this, and I truly think it was the writing that made me struggle so much, so I would recommend sampling the first couple chapters to see if it works for you.
Legend of the White Snake by Sher Lee
2.75
*I received an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*
The cover of this got me and then I saw queer retelling of Chinese myth and I knew I had to read it. Unfortunately I found most of the book to be really bland. The relationship was very insta-soulmates, which is a hard sell for me, and I found a lot of the plot and characterization lacked any sort of depth. While I love that this is a standalone fantasy, I would have loved to see this be a bit longer so that depth could be built up because as it is I read this two weeks ago and am already struggling to remember any details about this.
The cover of this got me and then I saw queer retelling of Chinese myth and I knew I had to read it. Unfortunately I found most of the book to be really bland. The relationship was very insta-soulmates, which is a hard sell for me, and I found a lot of the plot and characterization lacked any sort of depth. While I love that this is a standalone fantasy, I would have loved to see this be a bit longer so that depth could be built up because as it is I read this two weeks ago and am already struggling to remember any details about this.
The Whitewashed Tombs by Kwei Quartey
4.75
*I received both an eARC and an audio review copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I received an audio review copy of the previous book in this series, Last Seen in Lapaz, and it blew me away so I was excited to get an advanced copy of this year’s release. Shamefully, I still have not gone back to read the first two, but hopefully I will get to them before a new book is released, because reading this reminded me of how much I love this series.
Quartey continues to tackle tough topics with such care. The way he crafts a story has me immediately immersed in the situation and he keeps the tension high throughout making the reading experience compulsive. There are a number of potential triggers throughout and moments where I struggled reading about these hate crimes, especially in today’s political climate, but I appreciated that he tackled the hypocrisy of the situation. The story emphasizes that it’s white American far-right Christians forcing anti-LGBTQ laws through governments in West Africa ignoring that queerness existed there long before Christian colonizers brought their phobias.
Adjoa Andoh’s narration was excellent as always, though listeners to the first books might be thrown off as Robin Miles narrates the first three.
I received an audio review copy of the previous book in this series, Last Seen in Lapaz, and it blew me away so I was excited to get an advanced copy of this year’s release. Shamefully, I still have not gone back to read the first two, but hopefully I will get to them before a new book is released, because reading this reminded me of how much I love this series.
Quartey continues to tackle tough topics with such care. The way he crafts a story has me immediately immersed in the situation and he keeps the tension high throughout making the reading experience compulsive. There are a number of potential triggers throughout and moments where I struggled reading about these hate crimes, especially in today’s political climate, but I appreciated that he tackled the hypocrisy of the situation. The story emphasizes that it’s white American far-right Christians forcing anti-LGBTQ laws through governments in West Africa ignoring that queerness existed there long before Christian colonizers brought their phobias.
Adjoa Andoh’s narration was excellent as always, though listeners to the first books might be thrown off as Robin Miles narrates the first three.