December 2018 books

Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else by Maeve Higgins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Maeve Higgins is almost always the best thing about WWDTM whenever she's on it, so I enjoyed hearing more from her in this memoir/essay collection. I liked the more serious, substantial chapters the most- she has interesting things to say about immigration and aunt-hood. Other chapters weren't really my thing.

View all my reviews

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I gave this book every chance I could - I read more than a quarter of it before DNFing it and I feel so bad about putting it down and not picking it back up. It started out promising but then seemed to turn into every other book I've ever read (a relucant odd couple quest, sudden shared magic visions, enigmatic scraps of prophecy, ill-defined magical powers) but not as well written. There were passages here that I had to read again and again to understand what was happening. In that sense, it reminded me of The Thief. But guess what? Five years later I went and re-read that book and loved it, so maybe that will happen with this book, too!

View all my reviews

An Assassin's Guide to Love and Treason by Virginia Boecker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hmmmmm. I liked everything about this book except...the central plot?!? The main point the plot asks you to buy, I just couldn't. And then when the plot turns that point on its head, I didn't buy that, either!

But all the surrounding stuff - characters, setting, the unusual romance, and the fact that this book is absolutely steeped in Shakespeare - was fabulous.

View all my reviews

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is so, so EXTRA. Everything about this story was overdone. The farewells were long and sob-y and high stakes. The battles were (actually kind of masterfully) strung out over multiple chapters and spun through multiple POV changes. The characters were hungry and tired and injured and always in a rush to get somewhere (usually to fight a battle or say goodbye to someone) but still found time to make out, or at least make plans to make out.

And yet...I mean...what else did I expect from this series and this author?!? Everything I wanted out of these characters, I got. I have no complaints.

So, to summarize the series as a whole: books one and two are necessary as foundation pieces but otherwise unremarkable. Books three and four take things up A NOTCH (I especially love platonic Rowan and Aelin in book three). Book five was my least favorite but perhaps a necessary evil to get from point A to B. I...did not read book six, and it didn't matter. Book seven brought it all home in a satisfying way.

I live for the day when someone puts together a supercut of all the Manon chapters, by the way. THAT would be my favorite book of the series.

View all my reviews