4.5, maybe I should even round up. This series is heartbreaking and wonderful while simultaneously gruesome and terrifying. Will Henry! Come to my house and I will adopt you! I know you would never leave the doctor, but couldn't you use a hug and some hot cocoa? I look forward to reading more Rick Yancey, who adds so much depth in the smallest things he does. The series is full of moments that, without clubbing you on the head, reveal character naturally and thoroughly. For a series full of monsters, it is the humanity that astounds me.
MissEdithSpeaksOutOfTurn
4.5, maybe I should even round up. This series is heartbreaking and wonderful while simultaneously gruesome and terrifying. Will Henry! Come to my house and I will adopt you! I know you would never leave the doctor, but couldn't you use a hug and some hot cocoa? I look forward to reading more Rick Yancey, who adds so much depth in the smallest things he does. The series is full of moments that, without clubbing you on the head, reveal character naturally and thoroughly. For a series full of monsters, it is the humanity that astounds me.
I almost gave this 4 stars, so I'd say it's a solid 3 and a half. I've had a hard time focusing lately, so I've been rereading old favorites, and picking up and rejecting books one after the other. I wanted something distracting and light, but I also require that it be clever, and well-written. This fit the bill. Sure, somehow it managed to be both predictable and a little confusing in its mythology and story, but I enjoyed every page. Recommended for those times you want to read something like Hex Hall.
It is easy to see why poor Vera defenestrated herself. However, it would have been better for all concerned if she had just killed Wemyss. Good lord.
This book surprised me. For a while I thought it was a solidly 3 star book but was frequently taken aback by unexpected depth and interesting plot movement. Ended up loving it, and look forward to the next one. It's almost as though it was a 3 star book with 5 star moments, so I have hopes the next one will be more consistently awesome. I will warn you though, the audio version has one major issue. It's a narrator I've enjoyed before. She has a nice voice and is a pretty good actor, but poor girl cannot do an accent to save her life. I once tried to listen to a book where she was supposed to be Irish the whole time and couldn't deal, switched to text. This book has a couple of French Canadian accents that one could just grit ones teeth and get through, but there is a major character with a "South African" accent. I wouldn't know that was what that accent was supposed to be if the book hadn't told me.So, overall, give this a read instead of a listen.
More like 3.5 but good enough to round up.
I liked this book, but it all felt a little too neat. The structure was a little too symmetrical, the story a little too easy. No reveal surprised me, because the structure of the plot made everything too clear from the beginning. I would have liked it to dig deeper in pretty much every way. I wanted it to dare more, but found it instead rather formulaic.
3.5 maybe. This series is a little frustrating. Beautifully written, the prose simply drips like honey. It's the world building that is the problem. It's similar to how I felt about Divergent (the first book anyway) in that I get this is how these characters would act, how they would be, in this sort of situation. It's just that I can't buy into the situation. I'm not a scientist, but I know enough to know that the science is really sketchy, and the way the plot about the "virus" resolves didn't feel earned or properly set up. It didn't make sense really at all. However, I meant what I said about the writing. I can forgive A LOT when it is couched in such lush prose. And I must admit that I couldn't put this one down. I may not buy into the world, but I came to really feel the characters. The pacing was much better than in the second one, and I have hopes for Lauren DeStefano's future books.
I Hunt Killers
More like 3.5. Rounded up because I know I want to read the next one.
I think I would have adored this at 16, but as adult, I found it a bit dull.
More like 2.5. The first one was three stars that were really 3.5, and the second one I'm rounding up from 2.5. The writing is still lush and lovely and evocative, but the plot is a little lost and tentative. Maybe it's necessary setup for the third one, but I wasn't that into the story this time around. I'm still going to check out book three. DeStefano is a talented writer, and I think she'll just get better in time.
The epilogue felt kind of cheap and unearned to me, but maybe I'll change my mind about that in time.
This is a book that keeps its secrets. I spent a good chunk of it uncertain as to what was actually happening, but it's written well enough that I was happy to be lost. Anyone who has read Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White will recognize a few themes in common, but other than those few thematic similarities, this is a completely different kind of book.
The first book in this series is mostly setup for the last two books in the series, and it felt a little clunky. The second act has no such problems. The prose and the plot flow easily, no mean feat considering the complications and challenges of this story. One issue I had with the first was a lack of connection to the characters, but I've forgiven it that now that I've read this. This middle part of a trilogy was flawless. The story is intricate and fascinating and the characters flawed, human, often unlikable, but so real. When I read the first book, I liked, but didn't love it. I was fairly sure that I was going to love where it was going though, and The Coldest War exceeded my expectations. It's worth working through the set up to get to this story, and I'm glad I did. Waiting until the end of April for book three is going to be tough.
I had to slow down and take breaks with this book because it made me feel pretty much all the feelings. What a beautiful, heartbreaking, yet uplifting story. It's a story of friendship and adventure, the atrocities and small victories of war. Honestly, I'm tearing up a little bit just trying to write about it.
Never mind what I said before. I think this is my favorite Shirley Jackson book. I may try to write a more coherent review later when I've calmed down. For now, I'll just say that the plot descriptions one reads are not exactly inaccurate, but they are wholly inadequate. The cover on the edition I have is very nice, but the one pictured here is a travesty, and a crime against the text inside it.
I love this series. Having grown up on Agatha Christie, I search and search for mystery books that satisfy me in the same way. There are many "cozy" mystery series, and most of them are not worth reading. This one has everything. I love the characters and the setting, but even more importantly, the mystery itself is well-crafted, and exactly how I like it. You have most of the information you need from the beginning, and you might figure some things out along the way, but the author is a master of misdirection. She gives you the information, but cleverly manipulates you so you don't realize the importance of a detail, or you forget about it, and then when it's important you realize you had this clue all along. Since the book has all that going for it, it doesn't necessarily need more. But oh, it has more! Issues of money, class, power and exploitation run through the story, placed so deftly and effortlessly that the mystery is enhanced rather than bogged down by its examination of complex social issues. The relationship between sisters Laura and Ruby reads true, capturing the seemingly contradictory qualities of simplicity and complexity that define what sisters are to each other. On top of all that, it has fascinating details about the fashion industry and some truly excellent swoon factor. I hate that I will have to wait for the next one, and almost wish I hadn't discovered this series until there were at least 6 of them for me to devour.
