Emma Goto

DNF at 25%. Couldn't quite get into this one. It was switching between 3 different perspectives but everything felt quite dull, I felt quite detached from all the characters and I didn't really feel like they had much personality.

I accidentally started this book 70% of the way through (I must have accidentally tapped a chapter title from the index at the beginning and my kindle took me to it). I didn't even notice! I finished it, and thought “wow, that was so short”.

I dunno what that says about the book that I could skip most of it and not realise.

I think the ending was a bit too much “wow I'm fully cured now here I go to live happily ever after”. It didn't feel too realistic. The moral of the story is probably “the grass is always greener” and you don't realise what you have until you lose it. Yes, her brother and bestie are alive and well but is she really going to be fulfilled for the rest of her life knowing what she's missed out on?

Linus works as a caseworker for magical children living in orphanages. He's a very boring, by-the-books type of person but this all changes when he spends a month investigating an orphanage with potentially dangerous children who all have highly classified case files.

I went in with high expectations considering its 4.47 rating on Goodreads but was left feeling quite disappointed. It felt very, very cheesy at times, especially the romance subplot which really didn't make much sense at all. Honestly I cringed a bit while reading it.

It goes for a lighthearted, kooky tone (Linus's bosses are literally called Extremely Upper Management). But at the same time they live in a world where magical beings must be registered and monitored, and there is a large amount of discrimination towards them in society. And so the combination of those two things feels weird for the very happy, good vibes ending that we get.

I don't really want to give this a 3, the writing isn't bad. I think I'm just completely the wrong demographic for this book. I could see it being targeted towards YA or even lower.

A YA Knives Out just about sums it up (without the amazing Daniel Craig and his southern accent). Of course throw in a stupid love triangle like you get in any YA novel (girl you're about to be a billionaire, keep it in your pants!)

Beautifully written. Twin sisters run away from their home in the South. Both are black, but one goes on to pass as a white woman while the other eventually returns to her hometown.

To be honest it initially made me question - if no one can tell the difference, why not pretend to be white when it's convenient? The book takes place in the 50s onwards where there is still segregation and a lot of discrimination e.g. can't get certain jobs.

Obviously an ignorant question, and the book does a good job of showing how the white-passing sister struggles to deal with the effects of hiding her true identity from everyone around her.

An entertaining fantasy read. The book ends on a cliffhanger and feels unresolved, so I didn't really feel a sense of satisfaction when I finished reading it, though :(

I guess this book is about becoming a woman? Or wanting to become a mother? Kind of hard to sum up. It also had some slightly surrealist, Murakami vibes - which makes me wonder is that because it is similar, or do Japanese books translated to English generally end up like this?

Also interesting to note is that the original book was written in Kansai-ben (a more rough-sounding Japanese dialect) but the book hasn't made any attempt to translate that and has done it purely in standard English. Which makes me wonder how different the experience would be if you read it in Japanese.

As a fantasy-romance book with under 3000 reviews, I was definitely hesitant to give this one a go (you can't trust Goodreads ratings!!). However I was pleasantly surprised and found it to be quite well-written.

The two main characters (Stephen the paladin and a perfume-maker named Grace) manage to endearingly bumble their way into a relationship. It's quite cute, although I got tired of how many times it had to be mentioned how tall or broad shouldered the male lead was. A comfy read.

A short sci-fi novella. What made it interesting was it was from two POVs, a guy with a lot of technological advancements, plus a girl who has no knowledge of technology and so thought the dude was a sorcerer. Unfortunately it felt quite short!!

A fun read, I devoured it in one sitting. Not sure I'm super keen on the ending though.

It's really good if you don't think about it too hard. But Addie and Henry didn't really have anything in common other than the fact that there was literally no one else they could be in relationships with. But Addie is happy to give that away (and Henry seems fine with it also) and seems fine with being with the devil for the next however many years. I dunno, it feels like it shouldn't have been a happy ending.

Fantasy book with a fairly strong romance side-plot. I think the fantasy bit is pretty solid, and the romance starts off good (with a whole lot of yearning and pining) but I feel like it starts to get pretty sappy and a little old. Less goo-goo eyes over each other and more time focusing on the politics and story, please!

A Deadly Education follows El (short for Galadriel) who is in her junior year at the magic school Sholomance. The school is a highly hazardous place. There are murderous creatures out to kill El and all her classmates, and even if you make it to graduation, there's an all-out bloodbath waiting for you when you try to leave the school grounds.

In reality this would make for a very depressing book (something like Attack on Titan comes to mind) but the book sidesteps this and it's actually more humorous than anything, because it's so absurd. The school provides spells to students in languages that they are familiar with, so El spends all her time studying different languages to try and get all the spells that she can.

I was originally a bit hesitant to read this since it's considered YA, but El is quite a flawed character and this book doesn't veer too close to the “chosen one” trope so I finished it pleasantly surprised.

The story is a mix of fantasy and politics with a maidservant attempting to reclaim her magical powers who stumbles across a princess imprisoned by her own brother. With some strong female leads plus a lesbian romance this reminds me of The Priory of the Orange Tree. It's hard to put my finger on why but I didn't quite enjoy it as much as that one - it might be that I found it a bit harder to follow along with at the beginning? - hence the 4 stars.

Every decade 6 of the world's top magicians are chosen to join a secret society that has access to the Library of Alexandria. Only 5 will make it through to their second year of study.

The (small) romance portion didn't pan out the way I expected, which was nice. The most annoying part for me was there was a whole lot of plot suddenly vomited out in the last 20% (which I didn't really care about?) and ends on a cliffhanger as a set up for the next book.

Otherwise I enjoyed this one. Although the whole secret society thing as a concept seemed iffy, considering most of them are kind of bad/selfish people, and they'll go on to assume leadership positions across the world with the knowledge and skills they gain.

Random thought that I had while reading - the fact that 3 women and 3 men were chosen is great but doesn't feel realistic when you think about the gender ratios of positions of power in the world today and idk if that needed to be addressed? Or I guess magic causes a true meritocracy (but then again this is a fantasy book so maybe I shouldn't complain about realism when there's magic involved).

Listened to this one (+ its follow-up, “Habits for Happiness at work”) for free through Audible.

There's the usual suspects - getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise. Tim Sharp also recommends creating a vision board for what happiness would look like for you, and then setting SMART goals to work towards achieving them.

One highlight for me was the mention of the “tyranny of when” (which after Googling looks like is a phrase he coined himself). i.e. we shouldn't be falling into the trap of “When X happens I will be happy”. I'm definitely guilty of this one!

Might be worth a listen if you've used up your credits on your Audible account but I wouldn't go out of your way to listen to it otherwise.

Half of the Galvin family's 12 children (incl 10 boys!) have schizophrenia. A riveting read into the Galvin family, the toll schizophrenia takes, and the advances made in the research of schizophrenia over the last 50+ years.

Commendable that the many of the Galvin family came forward to give interviews for this book. They suffered a great deal. I hope this book helps them to heal and/or gives them some consolation that their family ended up being a help to the advancement of schizophrenia research.

The suffragette movement, except instead of just looking for equal rights, women are taking back their long-forgotten witchcraft powers as well.

This felt really empowering to read!

Like all of Murakami's books, there's an uncomfortable level of how young female characters are sexualised and this book is definitely more on the uncomfy end with its plot points, but I guess with its surrealist tone it still sort of works and is an entertaining read.

Not sure I'm starting off 2021 on the right foot by reading some alien abduction / romance with a fair bit of smut but yolo

There was a bit too much cringey “omg I love u” when the two barely know each other and the main character can be a bit of a quirky tryhard at times and wow they're stupid for bringing a dog along to the tournament (as much as I love dogs you can leave it at home alone, geez!) But it was still an entertaining read and it made me laugh at least a few times.

The book wasn't horrific (I finished reading it!), but I've definitely read better sci-fi. 3.5 stars.

I was a huge fan of the Eragon books as a kid so I was interested to see what Paolini had come up with next.

In Eragon, the dude bonds with a dragon (which makes him OP and very unique), runs into some elves and dwarves, and then has to save the world from evil.

Switch genders, replace dragon with magic spacesuit, and have aliens instead of fantasy characters and it's the same sort of thing.


Things I didn't like:
* I love sci-fi because it feels realistic - like humans are going to get there in 100 or 500 years. Unfortunately I didn't really get those vibes from this book. It felt a bit too fantastical. In a way the suit the main character obtains just feels like magic powers that help propel the plot by getting her out of sticky situations
* The above-mentioned suit makes the main character seem like an invincible Mary Sue who can get out of any situation. She suddenly gets strong like halfway through the book and turns into a killing machine
* Her main personality trait is that she's a xenobiologist. Paolini loves to bring up every two seconds how she's so interested in studying the foreign environment around her but can't stop because she's saving the world
* Main character's original boyfriend's only purpose is to die immediately and then she spends the rest of the book thinking about him. Felt very shallow. You could also see the second romance coming from a mile away, and it felt pretty cringe, like he was the only option on board and she just went with it
* There was a character very similar to Angela from Eragon (the eccentric / mysterious cat lady) who I think was originally based off of Paolini's sister. I guess it's supposed to be a nice nod to previous fans but it did feel out of place and overall unnecessary to the plot.
* So much travelling back and forth between locations. Honestly the characters spend sooo much time on the ship, it really doesn't help to bring out that sci-fi feel i.e. exploring different societies and cultures in depth (we do get to see a bit of it among the aliens but I would've loved to see more, even among the humans)

I will admit the one thing I didn't see coming was how she suddenly turned into Mother Earth at the end of the book, which conveniently does away with the second cringey romance which was nice. Again though it's kind of just making the character super OP (like she just builds a space station out of magic basically) and doesn't really feel sci-fi.

Basically the premise is, “imagine that the first Emperor of the Ming dynasty was actually a woman” and go from there. In saying that it skips over a lot of the possible issues that come with a woman pretending to be a man and more focuses on the “attempting to become Emperor” bit.

I really enjoyed how the main character, Zhu, wasn't shy or quiet like someone you would expect to be who is hiding their gender to be. They're talkative, witty, and willing to do whatever it takes to get to the top. This lack of a moral compass towards the end kind of sucks, but I guess that's what it takes to become Emperor.

Lee and her girlfriend Mal are investigating an alleged monster sighting when Mal suddenly disappears in a blizzard. Mal's mysterious return 4 years later is of interest to MI5 agent Julian Sabreur. He's investigating a crime committed by a group of people who don't quite look human, and Mal is somehow involved.

Then the sci-fi aspect of this novel kicks in as it's revealed there are worlds parallel to our own Earth. Evolution has diverged at a different point in each world and created a different dominant species. As cracks form between worlds and monsters slip through, humanity may lose its position at the top of the food chain.

I would have preferred to see more of Lee and Mal, and less of the MI5 agent Julian. He's less of a suave James Bond type and more of a grumpy everyday man with a struggling marriage. How much you like him probably depends on how well you can relate to him.

The parts of the other parallel worlds that we did get to see were excellent, and I would have loved to read more about that. For me the best part of sci-fi is reading about a completely different setting - whether that's the future or somewhere in space. So the bits set in “present day” Earth weren't as interesting to me.

A story about a farming colony that receives a spaceship every 15 years that comes and picks up their produce. Due to the effects of space travel, those on the ship don't see that much time pass in comparison, so each time they return to the planet the people there have aged significantly, which I thought was a pretty neat plot point. Overall it has quite a bittersweet tone but I really enjoyed it! Could be my new favourite sci-fi book.

12-year old Edward is the sole survivor of a plane crash that kills his parents and his brother.

The book starts off in the hours before the plane takes off, as we are introduced to Edward and his family, as well as other people who boarded the same plane. At first it feels a little bit pointless, getting to know all these people who are going to die. It gets more interesting once the book starts switching back and forth between Edward's life in the years after the crash, and the moments leading up to the crash itself.

Ultimately it's a book about survivor's guilt and surviving the loss of your entire family. I felt it reached a quite satisfying conclusion, as well.

A solid sequel, although unfortunately since there was a big gap between me reading the first and the second book, I was quite confused at what was happening for a while. I'm not too sure if reading the books back to back would have helped or if it would have been confusing either way.