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[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Over the Garden Wall Volume 1 by Jim Campbell

 

New Adventures for Wirt and Greg! Unlike the other graphic novel for Over the Garden Wall, this one doesn't take place in between episodes showing what other little adventures those two brothers get up to, but afterward (at least in Greg's storyline). The other half of this graphic novel follows the Woodsman's daughter Anna, before and during the events of the show, and shows what her life was like while he was being tricked by the Beast.

 

I loved both stories. Anna's one gave that extra little bit of darkness and weirdness that I loved so much about the show, while Greg's lighthearted little detective story was all sorts of heartwarming fun.

 

I also bought this at BookCon and got it signed, along with a little doodle of Greg and Beatrice on the title page.

 

5 stars again.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

 

2.5 stars

 

The opening chapter was fantastic. It had everything I wanted. Hints about an interesting world, a well-established rapport between the two main characters, a highway robbery, magic...and....that all stayed in the first chapter. As I continued reading, all the things I loved about the beginning just sorta...stopped happening.

 

Safiya, while I admired her dedication to her best friend Iseult, was just so frustrating. All. The. Goddamn. Time. She never thought her actions through. She prioritized being at Iseult's side over literally everything else, including her own life. I mean, her uncle went out of his way to arrange her escape from the creepy old Emperor's forced marriage, as well as an escape from the Bloodwitch who was hunting her all in one go. And what does Safi do? She ditches her getaway carriage, leaves behind the only thing that will hide her scent from the Bloodwitch, and rushes off trying to find Iseult despite not having the foggiest idea where she is. ????? Does this girl possess any common sense? Apparently not, because that's not even the stupidest thing she does during the book. She violently resists everything Merik tries to tell her to do, despite the fact that he first saved her from the Bloodwitch who found her because she ditched her getaway carriage and magic salamander fiber cloak and then explained to her that he needed to drop her off at a specific place so he could earn a necessary trade agreement for his country. She didn't bother listening to anything he had to say because she was convinced that she always knew what was best for everyone, despite literally doing the exact opposite of the best thing every single time. I think it was maybe the third from last chapter where she finally started to care about other people? And at that point it was so out of left field that it felt out of character for her. She just frustrated me for the entire book, and that's not even taking into account that her Truthwitchery, which people apparently would kill/enslave her for...is actually pretty useless. So she's a human polygraph test. Yay? Except she's fooled by people believing something strongly enough, even if it's a lie, and she's even fooled by her own prejudices. So what honestly is so special about her magic? Nothing, except that as the primary protagonist she has to be special, despite all evidence to the contrary.

 

I found Iseult to be more interesting of the two, though I'll say I also think her witchery is just as useless--if not more so--than Safi's. I don't understand how seeing people's Threads is supposed to be remotely useful in life. She was also rather dull for most of the book. I liked that she actually had some good ideas and common sense, unlike Safi, and the dynamic between her and her family and tribe was interesting. I wish that had been explored more.

 

Merik I felt similarly about. He was more likable and interesting than Safi, but still fairly lackluster as a main character. His anger management problems were really off-putting, but at least his magic was useful and interesting. I also really liked how sincere his dedication to his people was.

 

Now, as for Aeduan, the Bloodwitch hunting Safi....

 

Why couldn't HE have been the protagonist? Why couldn't the whole book have been about him? He was fascinating. I loved how his magic worked, and the hints to his past and his goals with relation to his father's plans were the only thing that kept me turning the pages most of the time. I just wanted to find out what was going on with him. I couldn't have cared less about Safi and Iseult, and I didn't even care about Merik and his country most of the time. I just wanted more Aeduan. There should have been more Aeduan.

 

I was so disappointed by this book, and it wasn't even really because I built up false expectations based on "hype" or any of that. It was because I built up false expectations based on the opening chapter.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

 

5 stars

 

Great conclusion to the series. I loved every minute of it.

 

There were quite a few surprises peppered throughout the book, mostly about a bunch of people all being undercover for the same side and not telling anybody about it? Even though they all should have known that at least one of the other people probably wasn't actually sincere? That was kinda weird, but more in the People are Super Dumb Sometimes kinda way. It made sense for the book itself, because all of those characters have various types of trust issues and recently underwent experiences that made them even less likely to trust other people.

 

I found it really amusing that Feyre spent her time at the Spring Court gloating to herself about how sneaky and sly she was being that she completely failed to investigate a really suspicious happening and almost died because of it. That sounds really bad, but when you read it it's actually kind of hilarious. Like if she stopped singing her own praises for five minutes she probably would have noticed what was going on and been able to do something about it, because she's not stupid. She's just got a bad case of arrogance at the moment. Once she got knocked off her pedestal a bit she started to smarten up about things. I also really enjoyed seeing Nesta and Elain's development throughout this book. They both grew a lot, and I liked seeing them learn to live with what happened to them at the end of the second book. Same with Lucien. He finally grew the eff up.

 

I wish Feyre had done more of the actual battling in this book. I understand she didn't really have much experience with battle or combat magic in general and she wouldn't have been particularly helpful on the front lines, but I would have liked more smaller skirmishes where she could have done something important. Here she mostly hung around and bandaged people up afterwards (an important job! But not as exciting to read about) and waited for opportune moments to do one-on-one super specific spellwork. I think the wide variety of her powers would have been interesting to see in combat situations more often.

 

And as for the rest of the characters...I just liked their interactions a lot. I liked learning more about Mor's backstory, and Azriel is just great overall. I liked him a lot in ACOMAF despite him not speaking much and mostly just watching and reacting silently to other people, but he was really enjoyable in this book. He opened up so much more to Feyre, getting more comfortable with her and letting her see more of who he really is. He was still quiet and reactive rather than proactive, but it was really refreshing to see a character who is...just like me in a lot of ways. Uncomfortable in most group settings and hard to open up with, and very very introverted and quiet, and not have that be a source of mockery. Usually super introverted characters are either the source of comedy, because their lack of sociability and discomfort is supposed to be hilarious for some reason, or they're overly romanticized because being a loner with few close friends is SO DEEP and SO MISUNDERSTOOD. It was really, really nice for once to have a character who exhibits these traits to just...be. No one tries to force him to be more talkative or social than he is, and his strengths are appreciated and complimented, and he's never pressured to be anything other than he is. I loved it. I loved him. He was really sweet with Elain, becoming her first friend in the Night Court, and his flying lessons with Feyre were really entertaining to read, especially when he felt comfortable enough with her to get sassy. The characters were the shining strength of this book.

 

And now that I've read the entire trilogy, I can say that I think this is a better overall series than Throne of Glass. I still love TOG, but I think this one is stronger in so many ways. Feyre undergoes far more character growth in three books than Aelin has five, and the storylines of this trilogy are more closely connected than in TOG (where books one and two are almost an entire different feel from the rest), and the world overall feels richer. It's a smaller world, which I think is part of why that is so. Erilea is so large and sprawling, there's only so much development that can go into where the characters are going at any given time, and since they travel so much in the later books, there's a lot of rapid expansion that makes the small settings of the first two feel so different and dwarfed. Whereas Prythian is fairly contained. Plus, the fact that this series was begun later, after Sarah had already grown so much as a writer from working on TOG helped a lot in all these regards.

 

I'm very excited to see where we'll be taken in the second series.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Wires and Nerve Volume 1 by Marissa Meyer and Doug Holgate (illustrator)

 

Loved this! I really liked the simple color scheme of everything being in varying shades of blue. It gave it that sorta futuristic electronic vibe without being overwhelming. The art in general was usually pretty good, though I do have to say that I was disappointed that everyone's faces looked more or less the same. I get that it was a long book to illustrate, but I do feel like there could have been more effort put into at least making the main characters look different from each other. Also, most of the Lunar soldiers didn't look like werewolves/wolf-people. They kinda looked like...yetis? That was weird, and hard to take seriously because I kept thinking of the Abominable Snowman from Monster's Inc whenever they were in frame, but otherwise this book was on point. Iko was just as lovable as she is in the rest of the series, as well as all the other main characters as well. And the pacing/layout of some of the panels was really well done as well. I loved getting to see the crew, as well as some of the hints to events in the epilogue of Stars Above. I can't wait for volume two!

 

5 stars

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Battle for Wondla by Tony DiTerlizzi

 

4.5 stars

 

There wasn't enough Rovender in this book.

 

Also, I was kinda hoping that "The Battle for Wondla" would include...more actual battle? I know full-out battle isn't really Eva's style, but I thought that Loroc ended up being defeated a little too easily. I would have liked more of a sense of genuine danger. Despite being The Big Bad, Loroc wasn't really as threatening as Besteel was in the first book.

 

Though Eva and Rovender's relationship continued to fill me with warmth and happiness from the perfect preciousness of it all, I wish we had gotten to see more of it, the way we did in the first two books. I know Rovee had an important job to do, but I missed him. I wanted to see him work together with Eva more and help her out like the awesome dad he is. Rovee is seriously like the best dad I've ever met in fiction. Best at being a dad, and best in that he's an intriguing character by himself. Like step aside Arthur Weasley, Rovender frickin' Kitt is here to steal your spot as best book dad.

 

I thought the epilogue was really interesting. I haven't seen a happily ever after done quite that way, and while it's not necessarily how I would've done it, I think it did fit for the tone of the series overall.

 

This is definitely one of my all-time favorite series.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Countdown Conspiracy by Katie Slivensky

 

4 stars

 

I've been waiting over two years for this book. The wait was worth it.

This was tons of fun. I loved Miranda's geeky inner monologue, especially her habit of doing mental math whenever she's nervous. It's a really unique way of conveying her emotions and it stuck with me throughout the whole book. Miranda felt like a real kid. A child prodigy, for sure, but not in the way that kid geniuses are usually portrayed. She was intelligent, one of the most intelligent people in the world, but she still felt way out of her league when faced with other kids who were just as smart as she was. The other kids on the Mars Mission team felt just as real. Tomoki and Esteban were exactly as easily excitable (Esteban) and fond of stoking their own ego (Tomoki) as I remember many of my male classmates being in middle school. It was really entertaining, as were the interpersonal conflicts whenever the kids butted heads. As middle- and young highschoolers, they sure as heck knew how to play the petty game well--and yes, that is a compliment.

I really only have two small issues preventing this from being a full five stars--namely that the relationship development could have been a bit better. Miranda's friendship with her robot Ruby is a huge element of her character and of the second half of the story. However, Ruby spends almost the entire first half of the book disassembled while Miranda is upgrading her hardware, and there aren't very many scenes with her in them before the climactic last quarter of the book. For how important Ruby ends up being to solving the plot, I really do think she should have been more present. Similarly, I think Miranda's friendship with Najma could have had a bit more focus. I liked that they bonded quickly, but I felt that overall it was a distant element, and could have benefitted from an additional scene or two that focused on it.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

 

4.5 stars.

 

I definitely enjoyed the first book more than this one, though that by no means made this installment a disappointment. This just might be one of my favorite sequels, actually. I loved seeing more of just how corrupt and f*cked up BeiTech Industries is, as well as seeing more of the world in general. I loved the fast pace of this novel, though I do have to say that it did feel "smaller" overall than the first book. The stakes continued to rise, but due to the compressed timeline and the smaller setting, the scope didn't feel as big and grand as in Illuminae. The fact that most of the casualties were characters who had very little time to develop, if any at all, also made the danger feel less imminent. This didn't have any scenes like Kady and Byron in AIDAN's core, or Jimmy's final video recording in quarantine. And for that, I had to knock off half a star. I loved this book, loved it to death even, but it didn't pull at the heartstrings the same way as the first book did.

 

All the same, I love this series and I am absolutely bursting to know how it all comes to a close.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

 

Romeo and Juliet without the romance, and with a healthy dose of flesh-shredding, blood-sucking, and soul-eating monsters, as I've heard it described. Pretty accurate.

 

Something of an alternate present/20 minutes into the future world, where acts of violence spawn real honest-to-god monsters that then go on to terrorize humanity and become the real bump-in-the-night. The type of violence committed determines the type of monster created, which I thought was really interesting.

 

This story was really engrossing. I flew through it; could hardly put it down. The very concept is fascinating and not something I've ever seen before. And Kate and August were both great characters, captivating in their own ways, and I loved reading about them forging a friendship. I just wish we'd seen more of that. Most of the story was them being chased by their enemies, and shoving a friendship together from the half-formed pieces of their awkward antisocial personalities and sheer necessity. Which, while interesting to see, was rushed a bit. I wish there'd been more scenes of them interacting before Kate found out August's secret, and before they'd had to run away together to figure out what was going on and come up with an idea of how to fix it. I also wish there'd been a bit more resolution at the end of the book. This felt more like the first half of a very long book rather than the first installment of a duology.

 

4 stars

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW

 

 

Big Hero 6, Volume 2 by Haruki Ueno

 

Just as much of a disappointment as volume 1 was. It lacked the heart that the movie had, and the characters all seemed flat compared to their movie counterparts. The plot progression was stilted at best, and rushed at its worst.

 

1 star

[SweeneyxxTodd]

So I am currently both really behind on my reviews and really behind on my reading challenge as well. And I was doing so well! ;(

 

I'm five books behind, who frickin' knows how many reviews, and in a major reading slump. I've been reading Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas for over a month now and am only three quarters through it. I like it, certainly--I like all her books--but I certainly don't love it like I've loved her others. I think I'll probably land it in the three-star range. It feels more on par with her first two books, rather than the later installments of the series, despite being number 6. Nesryn is a really fascinating character, and so is Chaol, and so is Yrene, but something just feels really off about the dynamic between the three of them, and the new romance introduced is super predictable and honestly it's just not doing anything for me. I find myself rolling my eyes all the time at it. There's hints of another romance between two other characters that I'm way more invested in, but they're busy with plot more than Chaol and Yrene are, so there isn't as much development on that front.

 

I decided to temporarily put it aside and try focusing on another book or two, in hopes of restarting my motivation and getting caught up on my challenge. I started the audiobook for The Girl with All the Gifts today and am absolutely loving it already. I'm super excited to finish and see what happens. I also went to the launch event/book signing for Marissa Meyer's new book Renegades last night, and I'm super stoked about starting that soon. I also have Maggie Stiefvater's new book All the Crooked Saints on my shelf and managed to snag a ticket for her signing in Wellesley in two weeks since the previously-sold-out event got expanded. So many things all at once. Hopefully this will help me get back on track and finish my challenge for the year.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Big Hero 6, vol 1 by Haruki Ueno

 

Apparently I shared my review for volume 2 but not for volume 1.

 

At least I have something to share here?

 

 

 

There was a change to the storyline that was really unnecessary, and despite being one half of a duology, none of the characters besides Hiro and Tadashi have gotten any development whatsoever. On top of that, Hiro acts more like a ten year old than the fourteen year old he's supposed to be, and neither he nor Tadashi are particularly likable. Really a big disappointment after the movie.

 

1 star

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

 

Also somehow managed to never post my review of this book??? How did I forget two reviews from like six months ago???

 

Anyway, here 'tis:

 

We finally got to see Percy again! And Tyson (eventually)! Both of these things made me very happy. I love Percy and I especially love Tyson. Tyson will always hold a special place in my heart, that sweet, loyal, brave little cyclops baby bro. Love him. I want Tyson to be my brother. He's just so precious.

And as for the new characters, I definitely liked Hazel and Frank a lot more than Jason and Piper. I found both of their personalities more engaging and their backstories more interesting. Hazel avoided Piper's dance with "love interest personality" and Frank was just as big a sweetheart as Tyson is, so of course I loved him. Also I ship Frank/Hazel forever. And so does Percy, apparently (lol). I loved how supportive he was of the idea of his two new BFFLs crushing on each other and how he subtly encouraged it, and at the end when he wondered to himself if they'd finally gotten together and thought "I sure hope so." Shipper on Deck is one of my favorite tropes and it was really entertaining for Percy to be doing it.

Kinda wish that the ending wasn't as abrupt, though. I was hoping for a Percy/Annabeth reunion scene. Hopefully we'll get a good one in The Mark of Athena.

 

5 stars

[SweeneyxxTodd]

Only managed to read 58 books out of 60 so close!