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Nightchaser by Amanda Bouchet
Nightchaser by Amanda Bouchet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Space pirates, romance, found families
I’ve been looking forward to his book a lot. I do love stories about outlaws in space, especially with a dose of quality romance, even if it was a bit too instantaneous for my personal preferences.
I wouldn’t say this book is without issues – I feel like there could be a bit more of environment/world building; it felt like the book was too short and covered too little – like an introduction that opened a lot of questions and not much else; it asks you to swallow a lot of ‘…but what about this/but why?’; it leaves a lot of characters and interactions out for no reason; the oppressive tyrant image is a bit too tired. And so on.
Nevertheless, even though there’s plenty of angst, it’s exiting and well-written, and the characters all promise to be interesting. There are books, cats, and handsome rogues. What else needs to be said?
‘Wanting more’ is a good thing, but the fact that this was considered ‘enough’ for this book worries me a little. I hope we’ll get more sustenance in the next one, even though it will have to wait for a year.
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Warsworn by Elizabeth Vaughan
Warsworn by Elizabeth Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Excessively angsty, and so deeply unsatisfying it hurts
I honestly hoped to be able to give this book a higher review. I even thought I could dedicate a full star just for the letters from Simus… but that’s just it. Those letters are literally the only enjoyable thing about this book, and there are very few of them…
This book deals with sickness and death for its entirety. It heavy, it’s full of angst, and negative emotions I didn’t need to experience. There is too much faceless death, and also death that hit too close to home.
I can’t really say anything negative about the writing or world/character building.
It’s just that the decisions that were made regarding the events and directions of this book are so very deeply unsatisfying, unreasonable, and hateful.
And the negativity goes on and on. Just as you think that it’s about to let up, something bad happens again. And then again, but worse. And it continues in that manner all the way to the end. And even when you think something good is finally about to happen, someone prevents it. The characters that used to bring joy are mostly gone in one way or another. And there were many frustrating moments where much reasonable things could be done and said to stop more bad from happening, but they for some reason’t weren’t.
It feels as if the author was in a very dark place of mind, and then took it all out on this book and us, unsuspecting readers who thought we were reading a fantasy romance. Which is understandable, but not appreciated.
While I had already read the first book twice, and am likely to read it again sometime, I really don’t think I will ever want to put myself through torture of reading this volume ever again. (Maybe only Simus’s letters…)
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Changeless by Gail Carriger
Changeless by Gail Carriger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have very mixed emotions on this.
If I could tear away the last few pages of this book and forget they existed, I probably would have given this book 4-4.5 stars.
The angsty hook/cliff hanger in the end deserves big minus points because a) no one likes them tricks that are designed to push you to get the next book; b) it spoils the taste of the whole book; c) it’s just a dirty move and it gave me entirely too many unnecessary negative emotions.
Seriously though, what the point of ending your book on a note that makes the reader feel like shit?
It threw me off so much I’m having hard time remembering anything good about the book itself, which is unfortunate, because I was pretty sure I was enjoying it.
One positive thing I can say is that the writing style seemed to improve, and there was marginally less of ‘head-hopping’ that made me dizzy in the first book.
Another unfortunate point is that I could help but feel like Ivy’s personality underwent a change to worse. Maybe my impression after the first book was erroneous, but in ‘Soulless’, Ivy read as an eccentric but an interesting character, even with some degree of understanding and thought, that would explain them being friends with the MC. In ‘Changless’, however, she was turned into a ‘annoying simpleton with the worst possible timing’.
Also, entirely too many annoying females for one short book, inho.
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One of the worst things about lasting anxiety attacks is that they often lock you into the place/stat you are in, taking away your chances to take a breath and recover.
When you’re already ‘barely hanging on’, you will always instinctively choose the path of least resistance = the path that will bring less new anxiety. Which will also meant sticking to the ‘normal’ or the ‘routine’ that brought you into the place with anxiety in the first place.
For example, if you had your anxiety attack start during the night and last almost all the way till morning, preventing you from sleeping and making you feel like shit when you’re alarm trying to get you up for work, it would be a logical decision to call in sick and rest at home for a day, or at least take first half of the day off. However, the amount of anxiety involved in ‘picking up the phone to call work and tell them that you’re not feeling well and will take a sick day’ involves 2-3 times more anxiety than ‘make yourself get up and go to work as usual (even though there are people there)’. So you get up, no matter how bad you feel. Because, chances are, the worse you feel, the less chances there are to find strength to pick up the phone.
The same happens when you’re already at work and have an attack there. On one hand, you’re clearly not well, and your body tells you that it can’t continue on, and you need to get out. On the other hand, breaking the ‘everyday normal’, getting up to explain to people that you need to go home, bringing attention to yourself by doing all that, too often feels like something that will bring more anxiety than you can already handle. So again you sit there trying to imagine which is worse.
Getting out of your anxiety attack by yourself is very difficult, because it feels like quicksand – as in any kind of struggle you imagine attempting seems like it will only suck you deeper. It feels safer to stay still where you are and save your energy. And it’s really hard to know which of the options is actually the correct one this time around.
Radiance by Grace Draven
Radiance by Grace Draven
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I thought I’ll love this book when I reached the part where human appearance was described from the ‘outside’ eyes in all its ugliness. I liked the touch.
In the end, I did love some things about this concept, but I can’t say I 100% believe that it was executed to its full potential. I feel like there was a big stress on differences between races regarding concepts of beauty, and such things as food, but then we hardly got to see any substantial cultural differences. I feel like there are human cultures that have more behavioral differences than humans and Kai have, and in that respect I feel like the concept was underdeveloped.
Also, in our day and age(of watching all kinds of aliens and fantasy races on tv), I do find this idea difficult to actually believe… Should we have been imagining Kai to look like Uruk-hai so it would be easier to get behind the idea of humans being repulsed by their appearance? Otherwise, I didn’t really find much reasons in the descriptions to understand why were they considered ugly by humans.
And minus points for the bloody ending. I find it’s very unfortunate where the ending makes you not look forward to the sequels.
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Last year, I actually went and printed off my whole ello blog with the intention of re-reading it from the beginning.
At first I thought that it was because it’s a thing I do when it’s Spring, and my birthday (and trip back to Europe) was near and my memory is shit (also because I just did a similar thing with someone else’s blog).
But actually reading it, I understand that it just falls in with the stage of looking back and reconsidering things I did and said with my new understanding of my diagnosis. It’s a little staggering… to see it everywhere now. To see myself describe compulsions, patterns, sensory overload problems, and never examine them, never see them for what they were, until now.
I’m trying to very cautiously consider the real differences between human behaviours of ‘accepting’ and ‘not caring’.
