Reviews and Comments

I wanted to read this book right after Dumplin' just because I loved Dumplin' so much. Unfortunately, other obligations meant this took longer than I'd hoped. This book took longer to get into than Dumplin' and really enjoy. Callie is really hard to take for about 2/3 of the book. That's the point, but that doesn't make it easier to read. I also felt like things that were very generally described in Dumplin' were made explicit here that sort of contradicted earlier descriptions.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book. It's a great follow-up to Dumplin'.

I was generously offered a e-book copy ahead of release of Incredible Plant-Based Desserts by Anthea Cheng from the publisher for a honest review through Netgalley.

The book starts with some kitchen gadgets that may make your life easier. Then, even though it is called Incredible Plant-Based Desserts, the book starts with some breakfasts. Some of these may be familiar or unfamiliar. I know I'm not a fan of ONOs or smoothies, so I didn't try some of these based upon that. There are some fun recipes, such as popsicles that people with kids would do well with. The snacks section was full of things I would consider desserts and not snacks, but that's probably my age showing.

Many of the recipes are sweetened by dates. Unfortunately, I do not care for dates - at all. Which means that any recipe that required dates would not be one I would try. I learned that even using dates for sweetening is not something I enjoy based on recipes I have made in the past. However, if you are looking for a less refined sweetener, dates is the way to go.

The layout is pretty. There are beautiful, vibrant color images, and little thought bubbles in painted swirls.

I only tried two recipes: the Chocolate Brownie Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies and the Cookie Dough Bars. I initially planned to try about six recipes. However, there are two big drawbacks to the recipes in this book: the ingredients can be expensive and hard to find (I paid $15 for just one ingredient for the cookie dough bars) and the resulting treats taste healthy or like non-vegans expect vegan food to taste. Unfortunately, for my family and I, those are deal breakers. My family asked me not to make any more of the planned recipes after two disappointments.

I found the recipes to be very easy to make and not particularly time consuming. They also were very rich. So if you like rich treats, these will be right up your alley.

I would recommend this book to vegan families and parents who are trying to make healthier treats for the kids. Many of the recipes engage kids to participate with the decorating and are lunchbox ready.

This is a short book compared to the earlier novels in the series. Despite my difficulties with the earlier novels, I am interested in what happens to Nesta and Elaine. This book is somewhat of a disappointment because it only teases about them. There's a lot of dancing going on and sometimes I'm not sure if Maas is truly committed to what she has set up for them. I actually enjoyed the sneak preview of the next book in terms of Nesta more.

The story is centered around Solstice, but Maas crammed too many things happening into the story and didn't finish anything. I've read so many stories that are set around a Solstice as a staple in fantasy. This was not well done.

I also found the treatment of Tamlin to be a bit extreme. I don't even like that character, and readers aren't supposed to. But there might be a case of people feeling a bit righteous and being in the wrong here. Unfortunately, when it's the main protagonists, it's hard to step back.

I'll still pick up the next book, though I'm not sure when it is due out.

I received a copy of The Witchkin Murders by Diana Pharaoh Francis from the publisher through NetGalley for free for a fair and honest review.

I have been seeing Diana Pharaoh Francis books in the stacks and genres I read and had been wanting to pick up a book by her. I was thrilled to get this book. Sadly, I think the story is not meant for me. It took me twelve days to read this book when I have been averaging two similar length books per weeks for this year. It took me four times as long to read this as it should have.

I like urban fantasy, and I'm passing familiar with Portland, so I thought this would be great. I've enjoyed a lot of urban fantasy set in Portland. This book is a mystery/cop story set in urban fantasy. I'm not a fan of mysteries nor cop stories. I'm a little put-off by how many urban fantasy stories require police. In the current political climate, the use of police in stories needs to be done carefully and not with loads of privilege where the issues that surround police in many cities, including Portland, are wholly ignored. This book does not pass that test. I also wondered if police partners being "closer than spouses" contributes to why there's fewer women on police forces. That could end a lot of marriages. Given the large chips on the shoulders of both main protagonists, I had a hard time believing they were ever good partners the way the story says they were.

I also could have done without the toxic masculinity that dripped off every page of this book. There would be no story without it. If it's that necessary to the plot and characters, then it isn't a book I want to read.

There is a lot of predictability in the story, which is good and bad. I mostly kept reading to see if my predictions were accurate. Some of the things that happen come out of left field and completely blind-side the reader because the world building never indicates such things exist until they do and are necessary.

I liked the writing. I think the premise of magic having existed in the world and major magic users causing a large influx of visible magic, followed by a war between magic users and non-magic users is very interesting. It's just the story that was told was only okay and the characters weren't well-depicted.

Overall, I would recommend this book to people who like urban fantasy and cop stories.

Maas tends to end her books on a cliffhanger. The first three books should be read as one, almost. Although the second and third are quite long.

The books do get better as you go along. This book feels like the end of a trilogy - a planned trilogy. It wraps up nicely and has a good denouement. I was a little surprised that there is another book. Because of the nice wrap-up, and my pile of books to read already, I don't feel the need to read the fourth book right away.

For the first time, I do not feel like this story is the re-telling of another story. There are still the hints of other authors stories. Scenes and characters and arcs hit me with Laurell K. Hamilton vibes and J.R.R. Tolkien vibes and Jacquelyn Carey vibes. Perhaps most authors in a genre will have echoes of other authors, but the ones in Maas still make her work feel not-quite original even when it isn't the re-telling of a fable or myth.

I'm still unsure about recommending these books. It should not take three books to hit your stride in a series, though I've read other series that was true for as well. I'm just not sure about telling people that they need to read hundreds of pages before it gets better. I guess in general, if you like YA fantasy that moves out of YA with stories of fae and maybe don't mind re-tellings and heavy borrowing and read without critique, then these would be good.

Any time I pick up a book of poetry, I think of my Irish grandmother, who loved poetry and gave me several poetry books. She died in 2014 and it has been too long since I picked up a collection of poetry. I was provided a free e-book copy of this book by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Submerge is divided into three parts. It can be easy to fly through a book of poetry. The sections helped me to stop and reflect on the poems I had read. The artwork at each section is beautiful and gives a peak into what to expect in the following poems.

The theme of water flows throughout the book, making the poems well connected. This is the first poetry book I've read that has kept on theme so well.

Several poems resonated with me. I felt like they were a gift. Poetry most seems like the soul of the poet laid bare. I'll admit sometimes I struggle with poetry to know if it is memoir or fiction. Submerge is telling a story. The poems about depression and bipolar disorder are accurate. She illustrates with words exactly how it feels, better than I've ever read in any prose or poetry.

I read this book because one of my reading group members assured me the series gets better after my tepid response to A Court of Thorns and Roses.

The first half of the first book was a re-telling of the story of Beauty and the Beast - perhaps stretched all the way through, but that is kind of thin in the main story of the 2nd half of the book. This book is the story of Persephone, which was started in the 2nd half of the first book. It is not the usual telling of that story, but that mythology is still the basis of this book. I quite like this version of the story.

Another aspect of the story that I like is the attempt to show PDSD and depression from the perspective of the person who cannot get out of bed and does not want to eat. The story spends a lot of time on this. For people unfamiliar with such feelings, it can feel long and dragged out. However, when within the grasp of that sort of bad time, everything feels long and dragged out. There were some things I did not like about the representation, but everybody's situation is different and my dislikes were minor. I liked that it took both those around her either compounding Feyre's difficulties or actively trying to help her - and how that impacts the symptoms of PDSD and depression - and Feyre herself to come out of her depression. It took someone who was willing to meet her where she was and help her plus her own decision made when she could make it to at least try to live and be active.

Maas did better in this book with scene-stealing, which is to say I at least did not recognize any scenes that were clearly from other books, or at least none stuck with me to the end of the book to write in this review. Unfortunately, that is eclipsed by the fact that one her entire races of people seems to be lifted straight from another series - the series I was told this series is like. Even not primed with the similarities, the Illyrians are described nearly exactly the same with the exception of skin tone, and I would have recognized them.

That leads me to the confusion I had about the comparison to the other work in the first book of this series being cleared up. It took at least half of this book, if not more, for me to see the comparison. There is a particular scene where it sort of hit me. I'm not sure if the echoes of the other series are just very strong in that scene or if it was the culmination that led there. It is a pale enough comparison. I don't know how many series show people who had to do bad things to bad people to survive and sometimes bad things to good people, and end up in a court of the people with the strongest power in the land. They may be few and far between. If there are so few, then clearly the series written 20 years ago, and a series written a couple years ago will be compared and rightfully the older series will hold up. I would say it's more like if someone likes this series, they should definitely read the other. I would not necessarily suggest the other way around.

Another complaint is the use of the word "males" and "females." In a 20-year old book, it grates, but you can dismiss it due to age. In a book written within the past 5 years, it is pretty awful. There are groups who call people males and females as a way to demean rather than build up. It also reinforces the gender binary. Maybe "males" and "females" is common in romance fiction? I don't read enough romance to know. But in fantasy, it isn't used the way it is here, which again harkens back to another series written 20 years ago.

Maas wrote good sex scenes in this book. I can see why her fan base praises that aspect of these books. And the writing itself was engaging. I read it fairly fast in that even though Kindle predicted it was a 10 hour read for me (actual read time unknown), I spent the time over only 3 days reading it. I did have some long bus commutes though.

One more issue I had with this book is that the plot is a little thin. The goal seems to be "get Feyre better so she can so some things to the big bad." That's not a very complicated plot, and it leads to a lot of story-telling that is character-based rather than plot based.

Finally, in this book, I felt like we moved out of the YA genre fully into romantic fantasy. Just because your main character is 17/18 (I think? I may be mis-remembering how old she started as) does not make this inherently YA. Definitely the first book in the series fell strongly within the YA boundaries, but this one did not seem so much. But I'm often confused about the YA classification.

Overall, I liked the book. It's an improvement over the "meh" I felt on the first book, so indeed the series does get better. I will read the remaining books in the series. I'm still not sure if I would recommend these if I weren't asked for a re-telling of common mythology with some good sex thrown in.

This is a good tide-you-over between Red Queen and the next book. It contains two short story "prequels" to Red Queen. You need to read Red Queen before you read these books. Spoilers for Red Queen and Cruel Crown stories follow.

I'll say that it is hard to write stories you already know the endings to. The story about Corianne was told decently well, but since you already know the ending, the stakes are just not there and it is hard to read. Unfortunately, because of the way it was written, it now opens up a lot of questions about Red Queen that weren't there before, like how much of the King's actions are his? Cal's? Maven's? Mare's? How much does Elara control the people around her?

The story about Farley was better. I found the messages going back and forth a little hard to read. They weren't always consistent in formatting and info. Sometimes I wondered if these were being read by Scarlett Guard or Silvers, despite the story being told by Farley. The uppercase/lowercase was odd and why would you REDACT parts of your own communication unless the intended person wasn't the person reading these? While the effort to be cool was attempted, it made no sense. I think the Colonel and Captain's relationship was supposed to be a surprise, but it was obvious from the first couple paragraphs. Who was narrating the story actually took longer to figure out than that relationship. However, I enjoyed learning more about the Scarlett Guard, where they were formed and how they ended up in the places they were for Mare to interact with them.

I loved this book! There's not going to be much in the line of analysis in this review. It's a well written book that flows and has a great story. I wish this book had been available when I was a teen. Despite being a teen more than 20 years before this was written, it has a lot of relatability.

My only complaint about this book is that sometimes the characters seem a bit more grown up than high school in their self-analysis and the crap they are willing to take from their peers.

I read this in about 4 days, which would be slightly faster than average, if it included 4 days of commuting on public transit where I read and not a 3-day weekend where I have so many projects going on that I usually don't get much time to read. While I probably should have been doing other projects, I could not quite tear myself away from this book.

Normally I reserve 5 stars for my favorites. I have to really, really, really like a book, downright love a book to give 5 stars. In that respect, this book is a 4.5-star, maybe a 4.75-star book. It's growing on me.

This poor book had the bad luck of following another YA fantasy that I found to be 'meh' and a YA sci-fi that I despised. Coming off two poor reads to a book I picked up purely on the recommendation of people who I think give good recommendations, but also know their taste varies from mine just enough that I'm not always in agreement with them and them with me, left me not very optimistic about this story. I kind of hate the name "Mare." As a nickname for Mary, it's okay. But naming a person after a type of animal is a little confusing to me.

The story does start with some YA fantasy tropes. And I was tired of those after the prior two books. But the tropes only go so far, and then Ms. Aveyard turns them on their head. Or doesn't quite delve into them. After this, spoilers ahead. Major plot-points are given away.

By mid-book, it occurred to me that the title was either a misnomer or, at least, mis-leading. I used to have the bad habit of skipping to the end of a book and reading it backwards when I saw things like that happening. Because I wasn't sure which it was and I was itching to know. I'm still not sure which. At a certain point, it was readily apparent that Mare could not become queen by the end of the book, and it also occurred to me, who gives away the ending like that? Even for a cookie cutter YA fantasy. Well done, Ms. Aveyard.

About mid-way through I had so many theories about what was going on, and some where directly conflicting with each other. Aveyard did a very good job planting what was going on, but she gave so much truth and lies filtered through the narrator, who did not know which was which that even though I knew Mavin was playing Mare, I became convinced that Mavin was on her side because she was convinced. And Mavin did a good job convincing her and me, even though she was regulary warned about him. Again, another well done aspect of the book.

I couldn't expect Mare to figure out Elara had killed Corinne, the previous queen, even though it was the point of the first arena scene and alluded to a dozen different ways. She was much too wrapped up in her own survival. It's a case of a main character behaving stupidly, which usually irritates me but was, again, so well done because Mare needed to survive that figuring out who was pulling what strings was too much, even when many signs pointed one way. The thing is, many signs pointed other ways, some at each other and some in different directions. It's one of those plots that the reader can figure out because they've read so many stories. Mare comments that they didn't even have time for bedtime fairy tales, let along plays with actors. Without stories, how do you learn? Stories are how we give lessons that aren't given in school necessarily. I'm very impressed with this part of the story. At no point was I irritated with Mare because she tried to be smart and she didn't act brashly or only on her feelings, but she was also trying to survive and could not tell who was telling her the truth and who was lying.

Another very strong aspect of this book is that it is different. There are some YA fantasy tropes that are involved, but nothing that is too much. And while reading, I didn't think, oh it's this story or that story. There are echoes of Hunger Games, but it isn't really like Hunger Games at all either.

My reading group who recommended this book forwarned me when I told them I was reading it, that I'd want to just continue in the series. Even though I have 3 books that I've promised to people through bookcrossing (and is the reason this one got bumped up on my reading pile), and I have 4 additional books that I need to have read prior to some unknown time in the future when they need to go to someone else, I really really want to keep reading these. I'm number 111 on 2 e-book copies or some nonsense through my library. I got this book from the used bookstore. I'm very tempted to drive to the store and see if they have the next book or purchase the ebook.

Overall, I highly recommend this book.

This is just a beautiful book. So much so that I am looking for one to add to our collection. We have a cute little orange cat, so when reading it to the kids, we substituted his name "Jam" for some of it. The 4 year old thought that was funny, although it changed the story a bit.

That's not how this works! That's not how any of this works! - My response to nearly everything in this book.

I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. This is almost a DNF. Several times I kept reading to see what new absolutely wrong thing would be described. I got to page 192 and just could not take it anymore. I skimmed the remainder of the book.

My first clue that there is something amiss is that this is a self-published book. Not all self-published books are bad and there are a ton of Publisher books that are trash, but in general, I'm finding self-published books are not a good fit for me.

I played with the suggested app. It wasn't working in conjunction with the paperback novel. Initially I thought I'd just suggest reading the book through the free app. I don't think I'd even suggest that. Like another reviewer, I received a letter with my book saying the author wished she'd had a book series similar to one I'd never heard of. This book does have similarities to The Expanse with the descriptions of some of the races of people - and how this doesn't work in this book I'll get to. It has echoes of Ender's Game, which has some major issues and this book only compounds some of those issues.

The writing is not very good. There are a number of reviews on Goodreads that outline exactly how the writing is done poorly. I was bothered by the POV issues. For the most part, the story is told through the main character, Emi. Every once in awhile we slip off to another character, but that's so rarely done, it's confusing. The book also feels like it is a series of scenes rather than a story. The scenes are all very short, and feel almost like the author is writing with a move in mind.

I had a very hard time suspending my disbelief of the CEO of Tusk Enterprises would contact all the hires she wants to sign contracts. What CEO has time for that? If I were reading this book in the 1960s or 80s and was under 12 years old, I might be able to swallow that, but many of the interactions Tusk has with other characters are just not in any way believable. Furthermore, the timeframe is not believable. I'm supposed to believe there will be colonies and babies born in space in 40 years and that Earth will have reduced its population so drastically and humans would have evolved into different statures in 140 years? That's not how this works! That's not how any of this works!

The author indicated she wanted to encourage young girls to take an interest in STEM. Did she at any point talk to a working scientist? Every single aspect of how to get science done is presented wrong in this book. I am a working scientist who's job it is to support other working scientists. I nearly threw the book off the bus when I read

And so Emi's mother planted the seed in Emi's heart that great scientists are solo heroes who toil away at tough technical problems, only to emerge through independent thought and resilient intellectual exertion with a brilliant insight that pushes the boundaries of what is possible.

That's not how this works! That's not how any of this works!
Her mother did Emi a huge disservice because that's not how science works in the 21st century and it isn't likely to work that way going forward.

Moreover, Emi is a horrible person and takes on the worst traits of many famous but unethical scientists. She constantly has her drone eavesdrop on conversations. That's how Emi learns quite a few things. Emi uses insider trading to get her friend money, which is unethical. Emi steals Han's ideas and work for the masks and presents it as hers. She stands on the shoulders of Celeste Tusk and Volta but does not realize it and that she could have done none of her work without them. She constantly has to do things by herself it seems, except when she wants help from Jack/Jilli or her other "friends." It seems very hot/cold and like she is using them rather than it being a true friendship.

I also have a big problem with a book supposedly engaging kids in STEM when they get the science wrong. Again, talk to a chemist or a biochemist about your plague/cure plot-point. Because none of that made sense. Also, I find it very hard to believe there was a plague of this type and there weren't biochemists by the lab-fulls working to figure out that problem. There is a lot of outright incorrect science in this book. I tried hard to believe that these young high school were very advanced in their studies. Have you ever seen the teens in the Google science fair or the students who do the Chemistry Olympiad? These are amazing students with advanced knowledge. However, when Florin goes over the chemistry lesson, I realized that the coursework was middle school level, not even high school level.

I was also irritated by Emi's "focus" causing her to not sleep sometimes but being overcome by sleep others as well as her lack of eating. I wondered if the author read "Lab Girl," which presents science and focused scientists in the same way yet later reveals she has bipolar disorder. Extreme focus like that tends to be more a mental disorder than a trait of scientists. I don't like when mental health issues get conflated with the best way to science.

Overall, I cannot recommend this book. People seem to like the app. Maybe play with the app if you have any interest.

I picked up this book since it was recommended as similar to another story I enjoyed. To start with, it wasn't similar.

What this is for the first 50% of the book: a re-telling of the story of The Beauty and the Beast, which has inherent issues. Because there is no telling of Beauty and the Beast that doesn't have some sort of weird Stockhom Syndrome thing going on. It's highly problematic.

This may be my unfamiliarity with the current young adult genre, but there seemed to be stolen themes and characterizations from other stories. Feyre gives a strong Katniss vibe. Possibly that's unfair, and maybe YA themes and tropes make that a routine characterization. Then there are the two male characters that could be borrowed from the story that I was told this was a "vanilla" version of. I guess, if someone wrote poorly contrived fan-fiction and didn't really understand those characters. Maybe the third male character that was introduced was supposed to be some version of them. I'm not sure.

And while the middle 40% or so is supposed to be the falling-in-love part, it is so slow. So slow. There are several DNF reviews because of how slow it is. And it isn't really convincing. Why did Tamlin and Feyre fall in love with each other? How did they build a connection so strong to withstand the trials in the last quarter of the book? I actually doubted Feyre truly loved Tamlin once Rhysand was introduced.

And then we get the story of Feyre and Rhysand. That's even more Stockholm Syndrome-y than the Feyre-Tamlin relationship. Because of the way the Tamlin Feyre relationship is built, it only makes sense that Feyre is going to fall in love with Rhysand. It doesn't happen in this book, but it seems set up for future books.

And then there is the scene that is outright stolen a Jacquelyn Carey novel, the scene of Phedre taken to a party in a see-through diamond gown. It is a scene that is well-known to Carey fans. Oh, look. The names of the main characters are incredibly similar. Sure, it's hard to find new names, but Maas has many many names (nearly all the places and characters) that I've read before in other novels.

The story and the type of Fae involved and some of the themes of the Fae seemed very like Seanan McGuire's October Daye Fae. The Fae in A Court of Thorn and Roses aren't really well characterized. When the similarities arose, I simply used McGuire's Fae to fill in the holes. And the ending puts Feyre in Toby's conundrum, only less well done and without stakes and effect McGuire has built.

If I'm seeing all those similarities from books I'm familiar with, I wonder what similarities I miss from books I haven't read.

My final complaint is the world-building. It isn't very good, as seen by the fact that I used characterizations from someone else that were similar. Unless it's historical fantasy or urban fantasy (which this is neither) using maps based on current Earth continents is really lazy. There's no reason for that. And without the maps, how the world is divided is not truly well planned.

If I give it 2-stars, what is okay? Well, even with the slow middle, it is a fairly fast read. The writing is fine. I've read much worse writing. Since it does use tropes and is a re-telling and borrows from other stories, it is a fairly brainless and easy read. The "it's okay" rating from Goodreads just really pegs exactly how I feel about this book.