Sean
This is probably my favorite book of the year so far. It's another one that involves realistic characters discovering a magical world hidden around them. The author uses a really unique story-telling method where the entire story is told through journal entries, transcripts, emails, and excerpts from in-world novels. Reminded me a little bit of The Magicians series by Lev Grossman (probably because they both involve in-world fantasy novels that end up being somewhat true).
I really enjoyed this book. It gave me very similar vibes to the novel The Midnight Children by Dan Gemeinhart. Not so much in the story, but definitely in the underlying theme regarding the importance of family and having a sense of belonging.
This is book 2 of The Midsolar Murders series. It's a fun cross between sci-fi and murder mystery, and I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first novel.
I read this one back to back with Fourth Wing, so it was a pretty seamless transition. Still had to skip over the really heavy “romance” sections, but I'm still really enjoying the story. Looking forward to the next one.
This one took me a while to get into. I had a few false starts, but then finally committed to finishing it after hearing from some friends who enjoyed it. While I don't typically like romance novels, this one had a strong enough story that it kept my interest. I will admit to skimming/skipping certain parts when it got a little too hot and heavy.
This one is tricky because the first 40-50% of the book was a solid four stars. Things took a hard turn just before the halfway point, and it essentially became an entirely different book. I won't say much more to avoid spoilers. The second part of the book was ok, just not the same vibe I really enjoyed during the first half. I'm reading the second book now, and it's a planned trilogy, so we'll see where things go from here.
I really love this series of novellas. They're relatively short, and they do a great job of weaving an interconnected story arc across the series with an independent mini story for each book. This is book nine in the series.
This is an earlier book by Dan Frey (author of Dreambound). I read it after loving Dreambound as much as I did. It uses the same unique story-telling method, but it's pretty clear that he got better at that narrative style by the time he wrote Dreambound. This one started to drag on about halfway through, and I found myself getting bored reading all of the different text messages and email exchanges only to have the plot barely move forward at all. The story was still interesting though, so I'm not mad I read it.
This is another novella by the same author as the author of the Wayward Children series (Seanan McGuire), but she used the pen name Deborah A. Baker. I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as I love the Wayward Children books, but it wasn't horrible. I may eventually read the rest in the series, but probably not until I get through my already long list of “to-read” books.
I toyed between whether to give this one 1 star or 2. I decided on 2 because I technically didn't finish the book, and I felt bad giving it only 1 star without having read the whole thing. If you're someone who is really into the whole Fortnite and/or PUBG fad that's going on right now, then you'll probably love this book. For someone like me who is somewhat sick of it all (blame it on the fact that I teach junior high and am therefore constantly bombarded by it from my students), I just couldn't get into the story/theme of the book. The sense of humor and language was also a little immature/vulgar for my tastes. Don't get me wrong, I love a good fart joke as much as the next guy, but the stuff in this book was a little overboard for me.
I feel like I gave the book a real chance since I'm a big fan of the genre and the author's other works. In the end, however, I had to move on to the next book on my list of “want to reads”.
Great book! Read it along with one of my cross country athletes, and I just hope she gains even half as much out of it as I did.
I'll be honest, my interest in this series is fading fast and has been for the past few books. I'm really only reading them at this point because I've invested so much time in the story. The books are probably twice as long as they need to be, and it's definitely gotten pretty formulatic when it comes to the stories for each book.
I had really high hopes for this one based on how much I enjoyed The Midnight Library. I'm not sure if it was just that I wasn't in the right mood for this kind of book, but it felt like it really dragged on. The idea of the story was interesting, but I just kept feeling like the story itself wasn't really going anywhere. I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as I did The Midnight Library.
I really enjoyed this book. I really love fantasy books that involve characters in a normal, realistic world discovering a magical world that exists right under their nose. I feel like is a sub-genre of fantasy, but I'm not sure what to call it. Either way, this is a good book. It gave me the same vibes as The Midnight Library and The Cartographers.
This was a fun and unique take on the time loop story. My only real criticism is I kind of felt the ending was a bit rushed (or at least a little unsatisfying). I'd definitely still recommend it to anyone who enjoys lighter sci-fi.
Holmes-and-Watson style story meets epic fantasy universe. I really enjoyed this book, and I'm hoping it ends up being the first in a long series.
This one was recommended to me by a student. It's definitely a YA Romantasy novel, but it held my interest. There are some unique narration style choices, and the narrator uses a lot of hyperbolic (and other figurative) language. It's the first in a series, and I plan on reading the rest soon.