Emma

This book gives a very honest look into the life of Kristian Nairn; a boy growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, intermixed with the man he becomes in the 2010s: an actor playing a very beloved character in one of the best TV shows ever made (if we ignore the last 2 or 3 seasons).

That alone would be plenty interesting to read. But being a very tall and big boy makes him stand out a lot. He's not like the other boys at all. He's painfully shy, sensitive and insecure. In his teens he also realises he's gay.

With that premise we read about two different periods in his life. One starting when he gets the role of Hodor in Game of Thrones, the other about his childhood up until a few years before getting the role.

This book is very well written. You can pretty much feel Kristians crippling loneliness as a small boy. The massive insecurity and the way he gets into drugs in his (late?) twenties.

In the second story line you read about the fun (and not so fun) parts of being on a set with a lot of famous actors. The crippling self doubt and imposter syndrome Kristian has. But also how he grows as a person to become more self assured. To me, this story felt hopeful.

The last chapter mentions OFMD, which to us crew is a really nice bonus, but ultimately for me not the main reason I decided to buy this book.

As memoirs go, this one's very good! ❤️

OK, could be just me, but this book introduced so many new ways to make Bree even more magicky that it sorta felt a little bit info dumpy. I otherwise liked the book though and hope all this extra stuff is needed for the next part and not just to make the story more convoluted.

Sel better fucking get better and get back in the picture, cause nick and bree's romance is so unexciting in comparison

This book is fairly absurdist and honestly, that's what I liked about it most. But I do think it could've done with some more polishing. While Kitty's character was pretty fleshed out, all other characters in the book were fairly one dimensional. The dialogue suffered a bit because of that. The ending felt kind of rushed and the identity of The Creep was kinda easy to figure out even before the halfway mark.

But! I enjoyed the feminine rage (as far as that can be enjoyable) and in the end this was a fun quick read that I didn't feel I had to slog through at all. I think a lot of women have had the urge to do what Kitty did throughout the book, especially after reading so so so many #metoo stories that haven't stopped bombarding us since we started speaking up.

Tldr: flawed, but nicely indulging revenge fantasy comes to pass in a quick witted story about feminine rage.

3.5* but rounding it up

3.25

This entire book is glued together by clichés and every element seems to be copied from other, sometimes superior, books.

But.

It's written in a way that makes me wanna continue on reading. And I like it when books have that effect on me. Not sure if I'll ever read iron flame though. Spice level was a little underwhelming, but I read a lot of fanfic which might skew my perspective.