Julia

This book is beautifully written, made me laugh out loud and sob like a baby, kept me engaged the whole way through and had me entirely fall in love with the world and the characters, especially the protagonist.
Like, seriously, I'd die for Locke. What a lovable a-hole.
From now on The Lies of Locke Lamora is definitely up there as one of my favorite books of all time!

3,5 ☆
I was briefly thinking about giving this four stars because the last few pages genuinely brought tears to my eyes with their sadness and beauty.
This whole book is beautiful, really. The way it is written, it feels almost like a 230-page poem.
Though I have to say, this book isn't what I expected. It is very ambiguous in its plot, in what is going on, in what happened to Leah both at the bottom of the sea and once she resurfaced.
By the end you have even more questions than at the beginning.
And at first I wasn't sure if I liked that, but the more it's sitting with me, the more I appreciate this story for what it is.
It is, at the same time, horror and a queer love story.
I got insanely invested in Miri and Leah together, from Miri's reminiscing on their first dates, the early stages of their relationship, how she managed to find joy in intimacy through a patient, loving partner (honestly, felt). I wanted nothing more than for them to be happy. Which made the horror of this book all the more heartbreaking.
There's body horror of course, but the main focus I think is on the horror of the Unknown, on the things the mind cannot or refuses to comprehend, and even more so the horror of loss and grief. Not only originating from someone's death, but also from losing someone in a different way. The horror of someone you love irreparably changing, being different from what they used to be, not just physically but as a person, yearning for the old them because now you don't recognize them anymore, and the incredible loneliness that derives from that. The horror of having to work through all that to finally find peace and let them go, to be able to continue on with your life.
I feel like this book is going to stay with me for a while, that I will keep thinking back to it and the things it's trying to say.

If Bloodborne and The Last of Us had a dark, gruesome, bloody page-turner of a baby!
EASILY among my top 3 favorite books now, I had such a blast reading this, and even though this is a thicc boi, it never got boring because there was always something happening!
Gonna immediately jump into the sequel now. UvU

First manga in like 10 years I think?? I just picked this up at my local bookstore because the cover looked ridiculous and bloody. And that's exactly what this is tbh. Ridiculous and bloody.
Pretty excited to see what happens next!

Merged review:

First manga in like 10 years I think?? I just picked this up at my local bookstore because the cover looked ridiculous and bloody. And that's exactly what this is tbh. Ridiculous and bloody.
Pretty excited to see what happens next!

DNF'd it like 50 pages in.
I wanted to like this. The premise is hella cool and I love me a good mecha.
But oh lord, the writing. I struggle with first person perspective at the best of times, but the characters put me off on multiple occasions, I just couldn't do it. I don't wanna be in these kids' heads if they just post cringe all the time.
Again, I wanted to like this. A shame, really.

This was the first audiobook I've ever listened to/read and I had a really good time with it!
The performances were outstanding, the sound design beautiful and sometimes horrifying, and it very much felt like a comic book come to life (which is a good thing, I love comics).
That being said, if you expect this to be one big overarching story, you will be disappointed. I didn't mind, but I was a bit surprised when this audiobook went from Dream being captured, then escaping and getting his stuff back to fix the Dreamworld for like the first half to more of an anthology style story collection centered more or less around Morpheus or the other Endless. Again, I didn't mind, but I can see how this can be a bit of a letdown for some, especially since even I didn't find every later chapter all that interesting.
But I still very much enjoyed this experience, I loved Morpheus to bits, and I would definitely recommend The Sandman, especially to fans of DC comics.
Overall, 4 out of 5 stars (maybe 4.2 if goodreads would let me). ★

Not quite 4 stars for me, but definitely a solid 3.5!
Anyways, I am really glad that I gave this book a second chance after dnf'ing it like 20 pages in in 2020 after thinking it ‘too dry' (pun intended).
Having seen the movies (and riding the hype train, ngl) really elevated the reading experience for me.
Reading the novel gave depth to the lore, the world and characters I had experienced on the big screen, while having seen the movies granted a sort of epicness and visual brilliance to the words on the page.
Sounds fucking pretentious, I know, but I really am in awe at how well the source material and the movie adaptation complement and complete each other in a way. Especially when in 90% of the cases I catch myself saying “the book was better”.
Can't wait to read Dune Messiah with this new-found appreciation for Herbert's work (and to bridge the waiting time for the next movie).

2☆
Imma be real, I liked Dune more than Dune Messiah.
Messiah starts 12 years after the end of Dune, and I feel like all the truly interesting stuff happened within that 12 year gap and we only get glimpses at that. Do I wanna know how Paul managed to bring hundreds of worlds under his control and kill billions and basically become The Worst Guy EverTM? Yes. Did the book tell me? No, not really. You can't tell me that all it took was prescience and a couple of tough desert guys.
Messiah is a lot more heavy on the political intrigue, but there were also long stretches where nothing really seemed to happen and move forward.
On top of that, while women weren't portrayed all that great in Dune, it's somehow worse in Dune Messiah, aka 14 year old Alia is horny for a much older man and Chani gets to die in childbirth for no real reason (truly the Padme blueprint). Irulan basically stops existing halfway through the book, after only being bitchy and whiney about wanting to get pregnant.
There were still some cool moments that I'm very excited to see on screen though. I just hope that Denis manages to turn the rest of this book into an interesting movie, too.
Because Dune Messiah ain't really it for me.

Man I just really enjoyed the hell out of this book series and all of its asshole characters! Glokta especially, he's probably the most lovable evil bastard I ever got to follow in a book. His chapters and paragraphs definitely were my favorites and I'm a bit sad that that's over now. TwT
But oh well, at least I have a good reason to reread The First Law trilogy at some point ehehehe.

4,5 ☆!
I enjoyed this read so much! There's loads of action, swearing, interesting magic, cool worldbuilding, there's lovable characters and so much gay shit! Hell yeah!!!
I will definitely be continuing this series, mostly for the characters that have stolen my heart, ahaaa. TwT

If you're into fast paced stories that compromise neither characters nor worldbuilding for the plot moving forward as rapidly as it does, with a sprinkle of LGBTQIA+ goodness on top, definitely check out The Last Sun!



Trigger warnings tho: mentions of abuse, rape and suicide; also mild-ish gore