Maha

This book is not really a historical romance in the traditional sense, so I understand why people felt blindsided. I got the feeling the title meant mostly the love Hazel feels towards medicine, peppered lightly with some actual swoony stuff. I enjoyed it, but I would have been disappointed if I was in it for the romance.

This started out SO great. I was invested, in love with the main character, and tremendously enjoyed the setting. Then came the last act, and I felt like I was reading a different book. It felt incredibly rushed and did not fit with the rest of the story at all.
I don't regret reading this, but nothing bothers me more than an unsatisfactory ending.

This book tackles so much in such a short time, it should've been overwhelming, but somehow it all fit together perfectly.

I especially liked the refreshing writing style that somehow really mirrored the way my brain usually works (probably not for everyone though).

Also, so weird. There are Aliens owning a Donut Shop and a cursed Violin. I loved it.

This started out great, with raw and honest personalities and the writing style I loved so much in ‘daisy jones'. I was deeply immersed in family drama and rich peoples problems and then it just ... unravels? The second half is so unintentional and longwinded, sappy and melodramatic that it feels like a different book.

Also hated the way the men got so much more space in a story that supposedly wanted to center the generational trauma of the women. I know way too much about Mick Riva and way too little about June.

I love that she is building up her own little extended universe though, it's fun.

I always had my issues with this series but I loved it regardless. I usually fly through the books and live vicariously through the story but this?
The writing style genuinely does not work for me. We do dialogue, then we have a ridiculously long inner tangent about something that happened prior, then we continue the dialogue and then we think about how horny we are. Then we resume talking and then we think about how five years ago something happened and how it made us feel.

I just can't immerse myself in the story. As a big supporter of Women's (sorry, females) wrongs, I was incredibly excited for Nestas story and I was left mostly disappointed, sadly.

I was hoping the last act would pick up and redeem the slow build up, but it just mostly left me baffled.

The depression hike? The suicide pact?? Nesta losing all her powers and using her last wish to modify her pelvis for childbirth???

The house was the best part.

“The world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.”

This is a very thoughtful analysis of the ways humans can try to cope in a world seemingly irrevocably destroyed by themselves, packaged in an engaging dystopian story.

I loved most of it, even though the style of writing (diary entries) is not my favorite.

It was a very dark read, especially in recent times, so I definitely need to read something fun now to cleanse the palette.

I felt like a lot of people about this book going into it: I did not want to read Snow's hard childhood sob story, designed to have the reader sympathize with the poor misunderstood villain.

Coriolanus Snow, son of a once rich and influential family that was left penniless by the war, is not an awful evil person, but he is also not a nice person turned bad by his circumstances. He is a self-absorbed, selfish boy too focused on his own problems to consider the feelings and lives of the people around him. He has small inklings of guilt but is ultimately too comfortable to do anything about it. This makes him a very realistic and gripping character and I enjoyed witnessing his personality subtly change over the course of the story a lot.

The book is not for everyone though. The actual games (usually my favorite part) were underwhelming to me, watching them from the outside through Snow is just not as gripping.
The book is also paced very oddly, and I had a hard time actually investing myself in the story, the plot mostly just sort of chugs along with very little tension.

I didn't hate it; I think Snow is characterized very well and getting to know more about the origins of the hunger games was cool but didn't enjoy it very much either.