Rating: ⭐.5 Author: Ali Hazelwood Genres: Romance Pub. Date: May 2022
Wow, this was terrible. I strongly suspected it was going to be bad, which is why I didn’t pick it up until now. I’ve been reading Loathe to Love You as my late-night-I-can’t-fall-asleep book and I’m sorry, but this was really trash. Not just smutty trash, but like… garbage.
Apparently there is a point of diminishing returns on Ali Hazelwood’s writing. I still loved TLH for the STEM setting and because it was something new, but Hazelwood just keeps writing the same story over and over again. Apparently this is just her early works fan fiction, re-written and published, and it shows folks! There is absolutely nothing happening in this 112 page story. Mara’s stream of consciousness narration is the stupid kind of girly-quirky that I hate, Liam has the personality of a boiled potato, and together they have zero chemistry. This woman is an engineer? Let’s see some of her engineering world rather than just telling us about sexist male engineers. SHOW ME.
I don’t think Mara leaves the house throughout the entire novella, and since there’s really no slow burn tension, I was hoping Hazelwood would just commit to the smut at the very least (I feel like that’s why this was written?). But then I read the smut scene and OMG you guys! It’s so bad and honestly, kind of non-consensual. It was cringe-inducing, I wish I could erase it from my memory. Also, is Liam ace? is he demi? You can’t just have him say “I don’t like sex” in the middle of sex and then not explore that at all. Like, at the very least, Mara needs to check in with him emotionally. They could both use a reminder about what consent looks like.
Honestly, this was a 1-star red for me, but I save that for truly offensive books, so it can have 1.5 stars. I don’t think I will be reading the other two novellas, but who knows. Ali Hazelwood has some kind of women-in-stem power over me and I keep thinking it will be better.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ Author: Shelby Van Pelt Genres: Fiction Pub. Date: May 2022
This was an impulse audiobook purchase because of the cute cover and good narrator! It has a really high rating on Goodreads and quite a few reviews considering I haven’t heard that much about it. It’s a nice feel good story featuring widow Tova Sullivan, plucky young Cam who can’t seem to keep a job, and Marcellus – an giant Pacific octopus imprisoned at the Sowell Bay aquarium in Puget Sound.
Tova is working as a cleaner at the aquarium while grieving the passing of her husband when Cam rolls into town searching for his father and also winds up working at the aquarium. They form an unlikely bond when Marcellus tries to escape his enclosure one night and in turn, Marcellus learns something about them that he must find a way to communicate.
I can see why a lot of people like this. It’s quirky and fun and Marcellus is a hard character not to love. Personally I found it entertaining and enjoyed the reading experience, though ultimately it is a bit of a forgettable book. I appreciate any book with a senior aged protagonist because they’re not very common and are often forgotten or ignored in our society.
Overall I don’t have a lot to say about the book. Tova and Marcellus are lovable characters and while Cam is a bit whiny and annoying at times, he has a certain charm. It was a good read, but there was one thing that really bothered me that I want to talk about. The problem is that it’s a major spoiler, so if you’re planning to read it (and I do recommend it, it’s a fun book), then please stop reading here.
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Spoilers Below
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The main plot point is that Tova is Cam’s grandmother. It’s the point of the entire story and on its own I have no issue with it, it’s a great premise for the story and ties together all of the key pieces. What I didn’t like was how suddenly having a grandson solved all of Tova’s problems and loneliness. Tova is a sad character – she is a wife and mother, but she loses her son when he’s only a teenager and she is later widowed. Of course she would be lonely and lament the loss of her family.
I loved that she was actually wildly practical about how she would take care of herself moving forward and that she made the decision to check herself into a retirement home. She has lots of friends in Sowell Bay that helped to ward off the loss of her husband, but a lot of them were moving away themselves, either to homes or to move in with their children. So moving into a retirement home seemed like a great choice for Tova as it would likely provide a great sense of community for her. She recognizes that she doesn’t have children to take care of her and while that makes her sad, it is the case for many seniors and that’s okay. My Nan has 8 children and deciding to move into a home was a hard choice for her, but a great decision that helped her social life thrive.
There’s a lot of emphasis placed on how sad everyone is for her to leave her home and all her friends try to convince her not to. Then conveniently, the one thing she’s longing for – family – turns up just in the nick of time and she cancels all her plans. I’m glad she found that family, but it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Lots of people don’t have children or lose children and find themselves alone in the final years of their lives. This is a reality and there’s nothing wrong with that. To me, I thought this narrative would have been so much stronger to focus on the agency Tova has over her own life and her decision to continue to move forward.
Ultimately the author wants that fairytale ending and it’s what the entire story revolves around, so I get it, that’s the feel good story most people want. Personally I just didn’t want it. And that’s fine too. Not every book has to think critically about social commentary. It’s still a great story, the ending just didn’t speak to me the way it spoke to a lot of people. Oh well, better luck next time!
I spent months trying to read this book and it’s time to move on. I’ve been sitting on it since February and as much as I’d like to finish it, I can’t stand to read another 250 pages. I’m still rating it because I made it past 50%. There is honestly a lot to like about this book, it’s smartly written and includes a lot of interesting social commentary about language and colonialism.
The reason I’m moving on? It’s incredibly dull. No shade if you loved it – but even after 300 pages I found it slow moving and it didn’t capture my attention. While the ideas presented are great, they are repetitive. It’s a brilliant concept, but I wanted to see Kuang push the boundaries with it instead of just beating us over the head about the injustice of England growing rich and strong by stealing from other countries. It’s accurate, but not that insightful beyond its initial premise.
I liked her newest book, Yellowface, but it suffers from some of the same shortfalls in that it says the same thing in many different ways. The difference is that Yellowface is short and doesn’t take itself too seriously, making for a fast and engaging read. I do admire Kuang for what she does in this book, but the plot could definitely be tightened up to make this a shorter and easier read. It doesn’t turn me off her writing though. I would definitely recommend Yellowface and I also liked her debut, The Poppy War.
On a side note, I hated the footnotes. First of all, the little asterisk in the text was so small I literally always missed it, but it didn’t matter because the footnotes were boring as hell anyways.
People Person has been on my TBR pretty much since it was announced. I loved Queenie, so I was really excited to read this one, but it’s been getting mixed reviews and I was afraid to pick it up. Eventually the audiobook became available at my library, so I finally read it.
A lot of reviewers are saying not to compare this to Queenie and I definitely agree with that assessment. It’s an entirely different book and if you loved Queenie, it’s best not to equate the two. People Person is about 5 half siblings that are linked by a shared (absent) father, Cyril Pennington, but it primarily focuses on one of the siblings, Dimple.
The siblings are first introduced when Dimple is a teenager and Cyril randomly picks them all up for ice cream. Dimple is caught completely off guard by the existence of these people and resolves to never contact them again. That is until she finds herself in need of help in a very awkward situation. She reaches out for help and suddenly they all find themselves entwined in each other’s lives in both good and bad ways.
The beginning of this book caught me completely off guard. It’s literary fiction, but it almost reads like a mystery/thriller at the start and it was so unexpected, but in a good way. I thought the premise was entirely batshit crazy, but I couldn’t deny I was intrigued. But after the initial action, the plot settles down and it becomes much more of an examination of characters and relationships. It had a really great premise and I loved that these characters are all flawed, but I wish it had been executed a little differently.
What I liked is that none of these characters are entirely likeable. I sympathized with Dimple, but overall found her to be incredibly annoying despite being the main character. I say this with the utmost respect though because she is unlikable in an entirely believable way. Nikeesha, Danny, and Prince (sorry if I got any spelling wrong, I did audiobook) grow up poor, while Dimple and Lizzy are afforded more opportunities. Dimple is annoying because despite that fact that she is indeed a victim, it’s hard to view her as such because of her commitment to playing the victim in every possible scenario. She’s a pitiful character and I wanted to shake her and tell her to pull herself together and start making smart and proactive choices about her life.
I really liked the examination of each of the characters as they get to know one another. A lot of them were victims of circumstance and bad decisions, but I felt they were all searching for something and that these new siblings might have the ability to fill that void. They were all complex and each had a unique background and story. They really had no business developing relationships with one another, so it was interesting to see how they were pulled together by this one common thread between them.
That said, there were things I didn’t like about the book. My primary complaint is that I didn’t believe anyone would be willing to take such risks for someone they barely new, half sibling or not. Most of the characters had a weird loyalty to one another that I just didn’t believe would exist. Yes, such a shocking event might serve to develop a strong sense of loyalty, but there’s no reason for it to be there initially. None of them knew Dimple and I struggled to believe their willingness to expose themselves for her. A joint fear of the police didn’t seem like a good enough reason to me.
Honestly, I felt like this book barely even need Kiran. After the initial surprise at the beginning, the book was primarily a character driven novel, which I loved, but I didn’t think it needed such a high stakes plot to grow those relationships. Instead of focusing solely on Dimple, I would have loved to get perspective from each of the 5 siblings; to learn their stories and grow with each of them individually and as a family. But that would be a pretty different stylistic choice, so I’ve been trying to appreciate what the author does with Dimple’s character instead. I did think Dimple experiences some growth, but not necessarily as much as I expected and I wanted to see more from the other siblings too.
So overall not a bad book, but not a favourite either. Though it’s a lot different than Queenie, given the choice between the two, I would definitely recommend Queenie over this one, but I’ll be back for more from Candice Carty-Williams!
I really loved this book! I’ve been hearing a lot of really good things about it and after reading and loving Daughter of the Moon Goddess, I decided to pick this one up. It’s a short standalone fantasy and I really wish there were more books like this out there. You rarely find standalone fantasy books and I think it’s really special when you find a beautifully written one like this.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is about a 16 year old girl who sacrifices herself to be the Sea God’s bride. Her village has been at the mercy of the sea for 100 years and every year they sacrifice a young and beautiful bride to try and please the Sea God and stop the storms. This year’s bride, Shim Cheong, is in love with Mina’s brother, so Mina jumps into the sea in her place and enters the Spirit Realm. There she discovers that things aren’t quite as they seem on the surface and she starts searching for a way to free the Sea God from a deep slumber and save her village.
The writing is definitely the first thing I want to comment on because it is really beautiful. The story of Mina’s journey through the Spirit Realm is interspersed with stories that her grandmother shared with her as a child. The author connects myth to reality and uses the medium of stories to uncover the truth of the spirit realm. The story is filled with magic and the beautiful prose used by the author only elevates the setting.
It’s hard for me to say whether it’s a character or plot driven novel because I think it is such a good blend of both. The story starts off with a bang and we’re quickly introduced to a whole new world. There is lots of action throughout the book and the world building is very well realized without being confusing. We’re introduced to lots of new characters, but it’s never overwhelming. The book has a lot of depth and Mina’s character not only grows throughout the story, but her storytelling also inspires growth in others.
Overall it’s just a really smart book. There are a few twists within the story, some of them are easy to see coming, while others surprised me. I loved the inclusion of the ancestors in the story and even though I saw the main twist coming, the how and why were still a mystery to me until the very end. It’s a smart book and together all of the elements add together to build something truly magical.
With a 16 year old protagonist, it sounds like YA, but it didn’t read that way to me. There are definitely books out there that feature children or teenagers that are still written for adults. I don’t necessarily think this is one of them, but the magic and prose combined made this not your typical YA novel. It’s my first 5 star read of 2023 and I’d definitely recommend it. I’m strongly debating whether I might be ready to make a soft launch back into the world of fantasy – for me I think it’s more about being intentional about what fantasy books I read and picking up ones that interest me and not just because they’re hyped up on social media (looking at you SJM and JLA). That said, this one deserves the hype.
The Paperback Princess 