Mariana

This book is kind of interesting, but honestly, a lot of the facts were common knowledge and I kind of felt like I was reading a children's book. The humor was repetitive and not really funny. I found the writing to be cringey most of the time. It's not a terrible book, but I've read way better “fun fact” books that I would recommend over this one.

This was a fun read. Christie's book are all very similar, but I appreciated this one in particular because of its shortness. I often find her longer works to be somewhat convoluted, and the clues and characters hard to remember. This book was simple and focused on the relevant stuff, which I prefer. It was a nice, entertaining story and, even though I didn't find the reveal to be particularly satisfying,  it was definitely surprising. I truly didn't see it coming. 

This was a very interesting read. I learned a lot about LDS history and was very entertained. If you don't know much about mormonism, its origin and teachings, let me tell you, it's pretty wild. The book was hard to follow at times, since it cuts from one timeline to another quite often, and expects the reader to remember a lot of names, but in general it's well written. After giving you a lot of backstory on the church, it goes pretty deeply into the Lafferty murders. It is very sad to see how far an extremist approach can go, to the point of doing the unimaginable. The author managed to interview one of the culprits, making for an extremely interesting and baffling telling of the crime and what led up to it.

This book was a lot of fun. I definitely didn't see the reveals coming, and I was at the edge of my sit for a lot of it. I am however very confused as to why the US edition is so different to the UK one. I tried to read my physical copy alongside the audiobook, only to find out my US copy was missing full lines that the UK audiobook had. I can (somewhat) understand changing a few names and words, but removing full sentences? These changes might not affect the plot, but they do make the writing seem dry and the characters flat. I can't understand why they would do this. Where they trying to make the book shorter so that it seemed more approachable? Was the editor to lazy to adapt what they saw as unnecessary lines? I don't get it and I wish they would stop. That's my rant, thanks for reading. 

I feel kind of bad giving such a low rating, but this book just wasn't it. It was like everything was happening so fast, but at the same time nothing happened. Idk if that makes sense, but I guess there just wasn't a real plot, and everything was very surface level. I really want to love this series (I mean, I'm 5 books in), but I just haven't really been into any of the installments. This one was, in my opinion, the worst so far. In the other books, I was at least excited to learn about the worlds and the magic systems, but this time we didn't get that, because we we're back in a world we already know. Without that aspect, this book ends up being just a rushed, very disappointing fairytale.

This book is fun, dark and beautifully written. The writing is so clever and a joy to read. I enjoyed every second, and was reminded of why I love Middle Grade so much. I can't wait to pick up the rest of the series, even though I've watched the movies and the Netflix series, I know that reading the source material is going to be a wonderful experience. I strongly recommend you pick up this little book. 

What can I say. This was a magical experience, and spooky in just the perfect way. Neil Gaiman is slowly but surely becoming one of my favorite authors. I loved the mystery, the ghosts, the beautiful writing and characters. I more than anything had a lot of fun. Yes, there is a lot of tragedy at the heart of this story, but there is also so much love and sacrifice that comes from it. Neil Gaiman is the king of middle grade spookiness in my opinion, and I can't wait to read more from him.

This book is magical, terrifying, and heartbreaking. What the main character goes through is extremely dark in a way that I wasn't expecting. The idea of the book is very interesting, and I was intrigued by the world the author created, but it just wasn't as memorable as I wanted it to be. I can barely remember the plot to be honest, nor did I quite understand how the magic worked. I think the main things I did enjoy about the book were the emotions it managed to convey. I was truly disturbed, then terrified, then sad, disturbed again,  and terrified again for the rest of it. The writing is beautiful, which is expected of Neil Gaiman, and you can see his genius in it. It just wasn't my favorite of his works. Still good though.

I thought the first book in the series was just okay, but this continuation was everything that I wanted it to be. I thoroughly enjoyed the clues and reveals and, even though I don't usually enjoy YA because of its simplicity, I couldn't put this book down once the pieces started coming together.  I also now understand that the first book couldn't be all that satisfying, because the whole trilogy should be looked at as a whole, and rating each installment individually is not quite fair.  Overall, a really fun and thrilling reading experience. I'm starting the next book right away because I just need to know more.

This book was not at all what I expected to be. It is not a spooky or mysterious story, as the synopsis paints it out to be. Instead, it is a reflection on life and death, told through beautiful, thought provoking tales. Even though it wasn't the fun ghost story I was expecting, I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and will probably be thinking about it for a while. 

This book is terrifying in a very unusual way. I was expecting to be bored, considering that most of the book happens inside a single room, and knowing that King can sometimes be overly descriptive, but I was somehow very invested throughout the whole thing. It also doesn't suffer from the problem that a lot of King's books do with the endings not making sense. Perhaps because this is not a supernatural book, he had to actually write a good ending instead of going for a deus ex machina or pulling something else out of his ass.
I listened to the audiobook for most of it, and the narrator was amazing. She put so much emotion and nuance into it. Her name is Lindsay Crouse. I was only slightly disappointed with her delivery of a certain line involving a cockadoodie car, but it's not the narrator's fault that Kathy Bates is so iconic. Overall, one of the best Stephen King books I've read. 

The concept of this book intrigued me from the start, and I couldn't wait to dive deeper into the fantasy of it all. However, the plot turned out to be completely different to what I expected. At first I was excited when things started getting dark, but the book ended up being too short for me to truly get into it. It all resolved way too fast and it was kind of predictable in my opinion. I will continue in the series though, because I truly do love the main idea of these worlds.