Winter by Marissa Meyer

The only way I can review this mammoth book is to pick it apart and put it back together again. Here we go. 

In six days, I flew through the last installment of the Lunar Chronicles series. I started reading these books in 9th grade, and I'm now on 11th. Time has flown--I still love these books, but my issues with them are the same as before. 

Marissa Meyer's writing is just SO BLAND. I mean no offense to her, though obviously it sounds like I do, but it's true. Her writing bears little embellishment, her chapters are all structured similarly, she reiterates things a thousand times until they seem true, as if saying them more will make me believe them. She is a strong proponent of telling instead of showing, which isn't necessarily bad, it's just not what I prefer. 

Because of this, Meyer writes in incredible detail to compensate. 

About halfway through the book, I realized the same things kept happening over and over again. A portion of the crew would devise a plan, something would go wrong, and someone would get taken. Along the same time frame, a missing member would be rescued, brought back to the main focus of the Rampion's crew, and they'd devise another strategy to get said person back. It started to feel very repetitive after couples kept getting split up over and over again. 

The book could have been renamed how-many-combinations-of-the-main-cast-can-we-have-together-at-once, or how-many-of-the-four-couples-are-actually-together-at-this-point-in-the-plot.

The entire story was this huge build up to a showdown between Levana and Cinder. But I felt like parts of the buildup were much more exciting than the climax--which was still very exciting on its own accord. I just think Meyer could have done more between that last exchange. 

But it must have been good throughout because it kept me glued till the end (which exhibited a very nice wrap up, showing the plans of all the different characters). I enjoyed the world building, I liked the terror (which was super disturbing) of being controlled by the Lunars and used as a weapon against people you love and even yourself. 

All in all, it was an incredible finale. My main problems were problems I had with the entire series. At times, the plot seemed a little implausible, and I had a few yeah, right moments. 

But not many authors manage to create such an action packed last book to what I would call a gripping series. 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Book Review

I don't normally write reviews, but I also don't normally have such confusing feelings about a book.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs took me two days to complete. So I must have enjoyed it. I must have been entertained. Indeed, I feel that I was. But each time I picked it up, my head hurt a little bit. 

The story starts off normal enough with plenty of room to grow. Since it's the beginning of the book, and every book is different, I expect the plot to pick up as I got further in. In my opinion, I don't believe it did much. The middle was faster and more exciting, but I felt the beginning and even the end really dragged. 

*Spoiler,* but I didn't know this was going to be a time travel book. Which I didn't have an issue with, it just surprised me. I also didn't know this would be a book with magical birds, named an unpronounceable name. AGH. 

There were times where I waited for more information to be shared or revealed. I found this quite confusing, like pieces of important information were being left out of the story. Confusing things would happen, and Miss Peregrine would go on to explain something else entirely to Jacob, so I had trouble keeping up with the story. 

I didn't find many of the characters to be particularly likable. We didn't get the chance to know many of the peculiar uses very well. I don't like Miss Peregrine at all. Emma annoys me, Jacob's father's an ass, and Jacob is boring and sort of one dimensional. 

I enjoyed the book, though it was more plot driven than I tend to read, so hopefully there's character growth to be seen in Hollow City and Library of Souls. I like the premise a lot, but unfortunately the plot is kind of boring to me. 

I'm struggling to understand how I gave this a four star rating. Why did I read it so fast? Did I actually enjoy it? Am I just talking about the bad things right now?, leaving out all I liked about the book? 

I'd definitely give this book more of a three-and-a-half star rating. Again, I'm confused why it amused me so. 

A Court of Thorns and Roses

Last night, I finished A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, My Queen. I adore her Throne of Glass series, so my expectations for the long anticipated ACOTAR were set high.

I was not disappointed with the world building and new set of characters! I noticed a lot of similarities and differences between Feyre and Celaena, which impressed me. Feyre was genuine and likable, even when she made dumb choices. Tamlin is also a beautifully constructed character, but he was quite absent from the second half of the book, so I lost a lot of my emotion for him. Lucien is my favorite (Oh, how I love the tragic back stories!). His life was cruel before we met him, and it just goes downhill from there.

The villains in this book are powerful and scary from the beginning. While Throne of Glass takes some time to build up terror towards the King, ACOTAR jumped right into making them real. Amarantha was horrifying, but I'm curious where SJM will go from there, since it was already so intense. Rhysand is more complicated, and I still haven't sorted out my thoughts for him. I like his character, but I'm not sure that I like him/admire him since he makes such poor decisions? I don't know--it's just something a lot of fans have been talking about. (This is me trying/failing to avoid spoiling.)

All in all, I really did enjoy the book. The plot was so interesting, and the build up to the climax was probably my favorite part (especially the second trial). I gave the book a 5-star rating on Goodreads, but my opinion might change in a week or two, as it usually does.

A disclaimer: I hate writing book reviews. My hope will always be to briefly share my thoughts while not spoiling and not boring myself.

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