Emma Goto

As a poor cousin sent to live amongst her more privileged relations, Fanny Price is a fairly meek and boring leading character, as far as Jane Austen books go. She's content to be a wallflower, and her poor self-esteem isn't helped by comments from her aunts like “remember, wherever you are, you must be the lowest and the last”. Yikes.

Even the dude she is pining for says “she is the only woman in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife” - and he's not talking about her! Ouch.

The romance all gets summarised in a “at some point in the future, this and this happens” which is fairly unsatisfying as an ending.

About a teacher grooming his student. It was actually quite explicit which made it really hard to read. It made my skin crawl. It felt disturbingly realistic as well - apparently it's based on the author's past experiences. The ending did feel quite abrupt though.

Wow this was a wild ride.

Props to the author for killing off a bunch of characters at the beginning (I honestly thought they were going to get resurrected, since there was a decent amount of time dedicated to them).

Then there's the usual “wow this guy is scary and bad but this quirky girl doesn't care!” And then they fall in love etc.

Tbh felt like the plot twist where Hunt was caught buying drugs came out of nowhere and it all went downhill fast from there. Not sure why Bryce was like “I'm going to do something smart” and then proceeds to try and beg to exchange his life for hers (how is that in any way smart, that is SO DUMB).

And then the final battle, it was like everyone was sitting around watching on a Zoom call as she fought Micah by herself? Like what? The battle was actually kind of cool but that really ruined it.

And then the classic “wow she actually had powers and is like the most powerful person ever!! The chosen one!!”. The end.

Really dumb, but I guess Sarah J Maas is kind of like a trashy guilty pleasure at this point lol.

Giving this a one star since I gave up 150 pages in.

The author introduces a lot of characters' POVs very quickly and it felt a bit all over the place. The multiple sex scenes were just cringy to read too. The sci-fi concepts itself were cool but once the author started a sex scene with the woman “flipping back into a handstand” I was done.

A short novel about a coffee shop that lets you time travel if you sit in a specific seat. Has 4 self-contained stories about the patrons of the shop and their reason for using the seat. A tiny little bit sad but mostly uplifting vibes overall.

The main character has a year of rest and relaxation - by bingeing on pills that let her sleep for days at a time, only waking up to eat and watch TV.

Looking at the reviews, it seems like this book is one you either love or hate, depending on whether you have sympathy for the main character or not. She's kind of a terrible person but at the same time I enjoyed her as a character. I'm not about to binge on pills but I can sort of relate - sometimes I just want to play videos games alone all day and not have to think about doing anything else (definitely not for an entire year though!).

From the title I thought it was going to be a quirky story about housewives banding together to kill off a vampire (or something like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) but honestly this was straight up a horror book.

Giving it a 4/5 because although it made my skin crawl and I never want to read it again, it wasn't poorly written and if you're a horror fan you might enjoy it (definitely not me!!)

The first half was quite boring, I was considering giving up on the book but it did get better in the second half.

I enjoyed the plot in the second half, as the Kira's powers and alien heritage are revealed and there's a little bit of politics sprinkled between the different alien races / alliances, etc. However I'm getting a bit tired of reading about yet another sassy/witty/reckless main character with a dark past.

I'll give props that the although there is the potential of a romance (with an overbearing dude that wont take no for an answer but that's ok because he's super attractive) Kira is staying away from it because she knows it's a bad idea. I took a look at the second book's reviews and it looks like the romance ends up progressing though, so bleh.

3.5 stars - enjoyable to read, but not enjoyable enough to read the second book, or to recommend it to anyone else.

About a group of scientists that hop between planets on multiyear research missions, looking for signs of life, before finally returning back home to earth at their end of their expedition. It's a novella so it kind of felt like the climax/plot twist came near the end and then was just sort of resolved but not quite as satisfyingly as you would get from a proper novel.

Women in the 17th century did not live a good life! Kind of depressing to read how weak the main character is.

From the title and cover I actually thought this was some sort of YA-ish romance book (oops, probably getting confused with “the space between us”) but it's actually a decent soft sci-fi novel.

Basically they've invented travelling between parallel worlds, but the catch is you can only travel there if your counterpart in the other world is dead. Since rich people tend to be alive in most of their worlds, this means the job of travelling falls on the poor underclass.

Our main character, Cara is one such traveller. The travelling is actually for quite mundane reasons - to gather data on parallel worlds for statistical analysis and to try and make money off of it. The book isn't too heavy on sci-fi, as it more ends up being about the people that Cara meets between the different worlds, and all the ways they are different (or the same). So don't expect the author to really explain the travelling thing.

The first quarter felt really slow as the author established the character's backstory and all the supporting characters and I was half-considering giving up on it. It did pick up the pace midway for an relatively satisfying conclusion. The villain and the way the ending played out definitely had room for improvement, but just don't read too closely into it lol.

Letters between two time-traveling agents on opposite sides of a war. It started out really slow and I didn't really see the point of it but everything came together towards the end. I preferred the parts of the book that weren't letters and were proper descriptions of what was happening.

Giving this a sort-of 4, I wouldn't necessarily recommend buying this one though.

Alex is a girl with an edgy dark past who can see ghosts. So she ends up at Yale with the job of watching over a bunch of rich kids in secret societies perform very unethical magic (e.g. operating on some random dude to tell the future).

For the short period of time Alex's mentor, Darlington, was around he came off as super pretentious mansplainer. As soon as he disappears though I kept reading hoping for him to come back. The book doesn't feel as exciting when Alex has to fumble through solving a murder mystery by herself.

I do enjoy how the story jumps between different periods of time as we build up to finally learning how Darlington disappeared.I also liked how it turns out that Daisy was right there all along, but the concept of Alex and other murdered girls being a “wheel” kind of comes out of nowhere and just feels like the setup for book #2.

A fun YA sci-fi book with some good world-building.

To me it felt a bit stupid that Spensa would go to her enemy's space school, proceed to show off her skills as a pilot (these aliens have seen her skills in combat, couldn't that blow her cover?) and teach them the best way to train their pilots.. so that they could come and kill some humans. Of course through the power of friendship it all works out in the end. She didn't really try and blend in and try to pretend to be a different alien race either - she was her usual loud/angry self, with a lot of human mannerisms.Feels like throughout the book there wasn't really many consequences for her actions. Maybe I've read too many depressing adult sci-fi/fantasy books lately (looking at you, The Fifth Season) and this is just how YA is.

A housekeeper picks up a sword, which turns out to contain a swordsman who is obliged to protect its wielder.

The ending was a bit cheesy but otherwise a wholesome fantasy-romance book.

The book starts off quite abstract as we are introduced to the concept of New York being “born” into a human body. Once we are introduced to the five boroughs of NY, also in human form, it becomes a lot easier to follow. Basically there's a big bad enemy trying to kill off New York (the city and the person) and the boroughs have to team up to try and stop them.

Overall this was an alright read. Since there was a lot of character introducing to do, and the book is fairly short, it feels like this one did a lot of setup for book #2. Might give it a read if it turns out good or I might not.

In this space fantasy novel, people belong to one of the nine Houses, which are spread out across nine different planets. The Emperor alone resides in the First House, and orders the Second through Ninth houses to send their necromancer and cavalier (the necromancer's bodyguard/swordsman) to his planet.

The Ninth House sends Harrowhark and Gideon, life-long enemies, who must work together to bring glory to the Ninth House and receive the power of immortality.

The book starts off quite slow as the author introduces Gideon and Harrow and do a bit of world-building. It's all a bit hard to get your head around what's happening but the book picks up pace once all the necromancers and their cavaliers land on the Emperor's planet.

Necromancy is spooky in general but the Ninth House takes it to the next level with skull face paint and a reputation for being super-religious. It's amusing to watch them try and interact with the more “normal” necromancers of the other Houses in comparison.

It's disappointing that Harrow and Gideon build up relationships with all the other Houses, and then they all die. Even the relationship between Gideon and Harrow, too. It makes me less interested in reading the second book. Also their deaths didn't really feel that emotionally impactful either. Maybe there wasn't enough time to properly build up that relationship between the characters.

This book was definitely a mindfuck. Docking a star because the sex scenes were super cringey (the dude has possessive vibes, sort of reminiscent of Edward from Twilight or the main guy in Fifty Shades which I guess is what people want).

Especially when Lowen tries to get pregnant, like you barely know the guy and his comatose wife is in the house! Please stop!

However it all redeems itself by the end.

I didn't see that twist coming! What I don't get is that Jeremy knew about the manuscript from the beginning, but had to go and re-read it when Lowen gave it to him. Feels a bit random.In a way the book gave me Rebecca vibes. New wife lives in house, feels haunted by old wife.

It reminds me a lot of The Way of Kings in that the main character is an underdog from a lower “class”, who strives to become as strong as the warrior nobles (a feat considered impossible).

However, unlike TWOK it only follows one character's perspective, and he spends all his time surrounded by dudes as they train together and fight against each other. Even though their society is supposed to be matriarchal, the only evidence of that is that people take their mother's surname. Beyond that I'm not really seeing anything different and would've liked the author to explore that aspect a bit more.

I think I did feel a bit disappointed that although the women have strength (they can summon dragons) they still need to be protected by the men, and the main female characters only seem to exist as potential love interests. I've probably been spoiled by the Priory of the Orange Tree!

Nonetheless it was still an enjoyable read though, would recommend for fantasy lovers.

An east asian-inspired fantasy book, where each race has the ability to control an element - in the case of the Kaigenese (based off of the Japanese), it's the ability to wield water/ice.

The technology in the world is on par with ours (satellites, mobile phones) but for some reason the Kaigenese are very traditional and don't use any technology at all, so the book is essentially transporting you back in time a couple of hundred years.

One of the main characters, Misaki, is a housewife, with no real say in how things are run, even in her own home. Initially this sexism kind of sucks but through the course of the book you learn that Misaki is actually a badass so it's not too bad.

Overall it was a great book with a lot of character development.

My one nitpick would be I'm not a big fan of foreign words inserted into the text e.g random words like “mother” or “damnit” are translated into Japanese. Right at the end, there's a serious conversation in a formal setting, and there are full sentences written in Japanese where they're talking with slang/very casually which felt very very out of place. Just stick to English!

3.5 stars rounded up to a 4

Fairly lighthearted read, and a fair bit cringe as you would expect from most romance novels. Just ignore how unrealistic it is (son of the president and the Prince of England running around without security guards) and it's ok.

A very melancholy “will they or won't they” book about two people dipping in and out of each other's lives. It could have been very frustrating, since a lot of their issues boil down to miscommunication but I think the author pulled off the reasons for their breakups really well.

I do like that the ending is ambiguous, I don't think I could have been satisfied if they did end up together with a fairytale happy ending. If anything I would have been fine with an ending where they don't end up staying together at all (seems more realistic).

The author has had a very, very impressive career helping to champion the art of hostage negotiation within the FBI.

It goes into detail on both Ruby Ridge and Waco, which has coincidentally been mentioned in a couple of other books I have recently read (like Educated) so it's been good to get that additional context on American history.

Obviously Gary Noesner's done a lot of great things and has saved a lot of people but I felt at times he was patting himself on the back a bit too much. There was a lot of “I'm right and you're wrong” which I wanted to take seriously but at the same time felt like I had to take with a grain of salt due to the heavy bias throughout the book.

A very short and sweet read. It's the second book (novella?) in a series about a robot travelling together with a tea monk. For the first half it felt like it wasn't going anywhere (and I'll admit I kind of already forgot what happened in the first book) but I found the last section very heartwarming.

Yet another comfy read from Becky Chambers. Pity it is only a novella - is it quite short. This was my first time reading solarpunk and I want to read more of it! Robots don't want to work in factories anymore because they've developed consciousness? No problems, just shut down your factories, send them on their way and work around it. It's a very utopian-seeming future, unlike steampunk/sci-fi which is usually quite gritty and dark. I guess it's almost like a fantasy in how unrealistic it is lol.