Shannon
this felt like i was reading a goosebumps book but like...one of the mediocre ones even though i did really like the whole control-a-deadly-spider-with-telepathy-and-a-flute thing and the fact that mr crepsley doesn't give a single hoot about anything. whatta mood
if you don't have full authority to arrest anyone, then by god you at least have the authority to sit on their unconscious body while waiting for the cavalry to arrive
tl;dr adele doesn't watch the crime shows with her grandpa and it shows, the author seems to have gone on without sensitivity readers or a group of teen early readers and it REALLY shows
3.25 - i'm not quite sure i like any of these characters and i've definitely been in some high school crap in my life :/
edit, shortly after writing the first review: after determining that 3.25 was far too generous, this gets a .5, MAYBE a single star - that's Really Not How Mental Illness works, generally speaking if someone goes off their meds for whatever reason the brakes on the brain train stop working and things go off the rails; one of the very first things to go (at least for me) is the inability to distinguish between reality and hallucination or fantasy. i definitely don't feel clearheaded for very long, if at all, and i'm just...incredibly disappointed because the dual plot points of ghost-talker and ghost-who-can't-remember-the-death is interesting enough to build a really good story on.
the characters in general were either unlikable to begin with or flipped back and forth between being somewhat okay and downright terrible to read about and adele herself was...really not a great portrait of someone who's trying to pass as a grieving friend while trying to solve a murder. charlie was just about the best character in the book, and we don't even get to know him terribly well! somehow we're supposed to believe that he just sciences the hell out of things and figures out that adele is telling the truth when he barely even knows her? and then they somehow fall in love at the very end? really? none of the high schoolers are believable as teens even though yeah, okay, teens have parties and get drunk and terrible things sometimes happen, but we're also supposed to believe that every single teen swaps sides so quickly?
i'd sooner reread dodger boy, which i gave something like 2 stars for its bland characters, tokenism, and disjointed and boring narrative, than probably pick up another book by this author...kind of a shame, really, since the writing style itself wasn't terrible; my main issues are with the characters themselves and the portrayal of perceived mental illness
this is super minor and maybe i'm missing something or i don't understand how spy pens work, but.........if charlie had the USB portion of adele's spy pen, how was it still able to record a voice at an indeterminate (i'm assuming large) range?? where was charlie while adele was off gallivanting at the park, the police station, and the cemetery? portland isn't some tiny city and we never find out the distance between the apartment complex and the police station or even where the school is
4.75 - well........now what am i meant to do with my life?? my local libraries only carry so many gay historical romances and i don't have money to purchase ebooks...
i'm gonna be thinking about the gray boy's work for a WHILE now trying to figure it out
did i read this almost entirely because peter cushing (aka Dad Helsing) wrote the foreword? pretty much. did i thoroughly enjoy it despite that? absolutely
there were a couple decent passages, like the ones about dorothy gage and the ewing manor, but on the whole this focused much less on the history of each site (like the introduction and foreword purported it would) and more on the author's psychic impressions in the places which really wasn't what i wanted at all :/ this, uh...really could've used an editor and some more cohesive storytelling, as well as a lot of fact-checking
source: history nerd living in bloomington-normal (who has internet access so can check up on discrepancies found in this book)
interesting concept but honestly? for the repetition of the same phrase (‘formal elegance') and appalling number of times the slur ‘g*psy' was used in a modern context and the switching between adoring and making digs at millennials....gonna have to give this a 2.5 :/
2.5 - this was an interesting concept but something about the way it was written just didn't grab me :/
on the surface this looked interesting but honestly? i was kinda wanting more of the history of fans creating things and less hand-holding re: definitions of terms and ideas that are now pretty mainstream
this...might have unseated the ghost writer as my favorite book, but it's a very VERY close thing
this was a resounding “meh” for me; the potential is there but on the whole i was more interested in the alien society set up than i was about the boys themselves. that and i'd REALLY like to know what was shown in the bedroom that made the narrator's friend act like that
the best fact in this whole book: nick lea? uncertain about how he feels about werewolves or vampires. i have no choice but to stan
this felt a bit like a monster calls, but i just didn't like it quite as much :/ still, a decent little companion if you want a similar-feeling tale
more like 3.75 stars, but only because i wish that there was more information to some entries
a book about spooky stuff in my state written by a history buff?? be still my heart! i'm so used to illinois ghost books having so much erroneous information and hauntings only based on ~vibes~ so this was a lovely read
a poor adaptation but the colorist did an incredible job
the blurb calls this “fast-paced” but it was WAY too quick and i couldn't tell many of the characters apart :/
gorgeously illustrated but i do sorely wish that the “traditional airs” mentioned in the foreword as being the tunes for the ballads were easier to find :( that way i could attempt to find recordings
(this review is for the Illustrated Kairos Mechanism, the 86-page PDF format)
hi and welcome to my review where i just yell about how much i love simon coffrett, it involves a lot of crying and a sincere wish to be transported into this world
the one line that made me lay down emotionally and scream because of who said it: “I'm very proud of you. And it's true, Natalie; you are precious. To me, and to all of Arcane.”
certainly an interesting lens on the titular crime (woman looking back on her reminiscences as a child) but the fact remains that there's...very little that actually goes on and not much at all about the crime aside from it happening and some discussion of the procedure. sometimes that can work but in this case i don't think it did entirely; there's also absolutely no resolution but that in my opinion doesn't hurt it because these cases sometimes don't HAVE a resolution, sad as it is
(also i couldn't stand the audiobook after hearing the narrator lick her lips and swallow like every .5 seconds. as someone with misophonia, no thank you)