Raynie

Of course in my heart it gets all the stars because it's an Oz book, but as far as my “First Fourteen” journey goes, this one has been my least favorite so far.

As is to be expected, there's a lot of imagination here with plenty of weird and whimsical places and creatures to found, but the plot is very loose and doesn't quite hang together as anything beyond a vaguely episodic mash of ideas. There are some moments here and there that set up for later events, but nothing that's super important to the plot in general.

There are some welcome and charming reappearances of characters from previous books, but they don't get too much to do. The ending is quite strange with a court trial that is quite silly with some of the usually warm-hearted characters making some rather mean-spirited actions, but this is thankfully over quickly.

There's some continuity issues here and for the most part it's unclear if this just wasn't a big deal or whether it's deliberate retcon.

Probably what I found most unappealing was the “rehabilitation” of the Wizard's character. I preferred when was kind of a reckless jerk, but here some of his larger sins are rewritten out of continuity, particularly his part in the fate of the royal family of Oz. It seems like Baum was trying to hero him up for future appearances, but I feel that is was a disservice to the grey morality and nuance of his earlier actions. Definitely far less interesting.

Dorothy is also shortchanged and not given much to do. Her mispronunciation of words is incredibly cute and serves to remind us that she is supposed to just be a small girl in spite of the grand adventures she's had, but she isn't given any opportunity to show the plucky pragmatism and agency that we've come to know her for. Here she just comes across as a bit precocious and bland which is disappointing.

With the negatives out of the way, it is still an enjoyable read with some wonderful moments of whimsy and heart.

It was interesting and I really liked the ending. In the first half or so, the world-building felt labored and unclear, and the story started to drag, but then it suddenly picked up and became much more organic and vibrant and exciting.

I'd definitely read more set in this world or from this author, but this one didn't quite stand out from all the other great Tor.com shorts I've been read.

The search for own-voices m/m romance continues, and this one was... okay. I feel like two stars is maybe a bit harsh, but I didn't feel like rounding up to three.* I've yet to rate an own-voices m/m romance more than three stars, and I'm starting to wonder if perhaps they're just not for me. I thought I was a big ol' gummi bear, but perhaps I'm more cynical than I thought I was because I found myself rolling my eyes rather than getting all soft and giggly over them. But I wanna get soft and giggly! My main issues with this one were the pacing of the story and the relationship itself. For example, the only sex scene arrives right at the end, and even though they were together for four months and getting serious before the Conflict That Derails The Relationship™ happens, it's written like they've not had sex before and that seemed weird to me. Side note: referring to someone's butthole as their “opening” during a sex scene is perhaps the most aggressively unsexy thing I ever read on a page, imho. This story employed the use of flashbacks to fill in the narrative, and I'm usually here for non-linear storytelling, but these didn't add much to the story for me. By the time they're brought in, the drama of the relationship had already happened, and I already wasn't buying it, so they were too little too late at that point and just felt repetitive. The flashbacks only cover their meet-cute and first two dates, which did not do enough to convey to me why their four months together were important enough for the conflict of the story to have any weight or stakes. Like, okay, y'all met and it was cute, but it's not that deep, so...?Part of the problem for me was that instead of “show don't tell”, the characters are constantly just telling us how they are feeling during their pov sections instead of allowing us to experience how they feel by the way they act and the things they do. In the absence of any other real character development, this just served to hold the characters at arms' length. For example, Carter is constantly remarking about how scatterbrained he is, but we never really see that in any meaningful sense. He just forgets his phone a couple of times (turns out this was foreshadowing I guess, but even then, it felt more of a conceit of the plot than any real personality trait). Instead, it just comes across as a bit “I'm not like other gays, tee hee giggles.” But, to be fair, we do get to see that Carter is kind and nurturing, if a bit needy, and has some vague family issues, so that's something. On the other hand, Dane is just a workaholic who loves Carter and wears cowboy boots. We're not really given much else to understand why Carter loves Dane except that he saw him get a boner that one time. The denouement went for a comedy of errors kind of situation that was a little too convenient and unbelievable to feel earned, but I did like the epilogue as we finally get to see Dane showing his love instead of just telling us. And, I thought it was a nice touch that it was set in a real restaurant in Greenville. That was cute.It honestly wasn't that bad, but because it was just so beige to me overall, the negatives stood out more prominently in my mind. I wonder if the problem was how short it was; if the story were longer and we could explore their relationship a bit more, maybe it would have felt less forced, and the conflict might've had more stakes. But also, what story was there I found a bit boring, so don't know that having to read more of it would have kept me engaged. The writing itself was very readable, and that was probably why I stuck with it and didn't DNF. I'd be open to reading more from this author if the synopsis piqued my interest. Like I said, maybe I'm trying to make fetch happen, and m/m romance isn't for me? I just couldn't suspend my disbelief or my cynicism enough to let it be what it is and go along with it for some light enjoyment. Maybe this review says more about how dead inside I am than the quality of the story... lolBut! The optimist in me persists; I will keep looking for an only-voices adult m/m romance that gets more than three stars! Recommendations welcome!* I looked at some of the other m/m romances I've read and bumped it back to 2 stars. I had a lot of the same issues with this one as I had with [b:A Heart Back Home 55355363 A Heart Back Home (Heart, Home, Family #1) Andrew Grey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600293298l/55355363.SY75.jpg 86328245], and it wasn't as easy and pleasant as [b:Melting 54341604 Melting (Otter Bay #1) Sean Ashcroft https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593551576l/54341604.SY75.jpg 84798237]. Melting was definitely better than the other two, but not a four-star read. I feel like the five-star scale isn't robust enough to rate things accurately and with nuance, but I don't wanna do half or decimal stars since GoodReads doesn't support it. Idk, the world is ending it doesn't matter. lol

I played the game a year or two ago and had a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the first story here and thought I was on the way to a 5-star read. But... it ended up a 2.

The stories got a bit too silly and the artwork wasn't my cup of tea for most of the stories. Also, beyond the first story, there was no dating to speak of, which was disappointing.

Conceptually I liked that each story had a different art style, but I was expecting artwork similar to the game, so when they style departed significantly, it took me out of the story and it didn't feel like Dream Daddy anymore. The covers by Kris Anka were gorj though.

Contributing to the very UN-Dream Daddy feel, beyond the first story, none of the characters had any distinct personality except Damien, and that was less about personality and more to do with his dialogue style.


For me, the first story was a 4 but the rest were 2s or 3s, and the artwork ranges from 1 to 4, with a 5 for Kris Anka's covers. Not recommended for fans of the game or new readers.

Overall, this was a confusing, rushed mess. It has some interesting ideas, but ultimately, it's too hard to follow and there's no satisfying payoff.

The characters are very similar in design, and rarely get enough attention to develop distinctive voices or personalities, or are introduced so quickly and vaguely that it's tough to keep track of who's who. Dialogue bubbles don't have tails, so you have to figure out who's talking by who the bubble is nearest to, or the style of the bubble, but when the characters look the same or they're not in the panel, it's super confusing. Also, a lot of sound effects often appear in the same kinds of bubbles as dialogue, and even if they don't they're in panels with no backgrounds to give context or a source for the sound.

There's barely any backgrounds in general, so it's difficult to get a sense of place, or if the setting has changed between pages. Coupled with the rushed pacing, it's a lot of work to piece together what's going on. Some panels just make no sense at all or have so little diegetic information in it that they just seem to be floating outside of the narrative.

There are interesting ideas here, by they are introduced so swiftly and then barely engaged with, and sometimes outright discarded for another one. The plot is so fast, that a great idea will be dropped in but you're straight on to the next thing and you're thinking “hey, wait! That was cool! I want to know more about that!”. There are some genuinely creepy panels - the artist is obviously talented - but everything else is so spare and lacking in personality that they stick out for the wrong reasons.

If you've not read manga before, I would steer clear of this one, because it's very much jumping in the deep end in terms of reading right to left and the quirks of the medium. If you are a frequent manga reader, then your standards are probably higher and there are plenty of better, creepier titles out there.

So, between this and Demon Copperhead, I've learned something about myself as a reader.

I am not the audience for books with teenage boy protagonists, no matter how well written. In fact, the better written it is, the more I'm probably not into it.

Because here's the thing: I was a teenage boy (allegedly), and I went to an all-boys high school, and I hatedevery moment of it. I have zero interest in reading about cis white male adolescence, no thank you kindly please, I opt out, delete my number, warmest regards henceforth.

I badly wanted to love this one because it's one of mother's favorites, and she's my favorite person, but, I just kinda didn't dislike it?

This was so enjoyable! It seems that the time-displaced original team idea has largely been squandered, and X-men Blue hasn't hit the mark for me so far, but this was delightfully fun. I loved Dennis Hopeless' writing, and while I was a little sad that Victor Ibanez didn't illustrate all six issues, the guest artists were all great, and didn't take me out of the vibe.

Loved the mentor-of-the-week thing, which gave it a nice focus and didn't overload the narrative. The interplay and banter of all the Phoenix hosts was charming too. I surprisingly really enjoyed Quentin Quire here, and I would love to see Colossus and Magik pop up again.

Very keen to read the rest of the series.

I loved this book!

I knew of H. H. Holmes already from documentaries and podcasts, but this couches that horror in a broader context of the Chicago World's Fair and the cultural climate at the time. Be warned that Holmes is not the main focus if that's the hook for you, but rather the Fair is the foundation of this book. Larson unfolds these events with fastidious detail, wry humor and subtle yet affecting expressiveness. I was left at the end with a sense of wonder and sadness which I think is quite the feat.

It's a 3.5 rounded up to a 4. Edit: Moved down to a three after letting it sit for a bit.

I really enjoyed the artwork; but I didn't really connect with the story.

Going into this, I was expecting a romance, and the romance is really an afterthought. The love interest really doesn't feature that much.

The main focus is on Ben meeting culinary challenges to be hired permanently at a restaurant, and his home life with his housemates. I'm not at all interested in food so, to be fair, those sections aren't really my jam. Plus, Ben was a bit of a Mary Sue in the cooking department, making changes to the recipes of experienced, trained chefs and miraculously elevating the dishes. There was never any tension that Ben might not pass the challenges.

The restaurant pig was cute... but was a really weird inclusion the didn't really jibe with the tone of the rest of the book.

I liked how it showed Ben and his housemates' life after college and supporting each other, though the programmer housemate (forget his name) could have been entirely cut without affecting anything at all. But, it was nice, and gave the story some heart.

Ultimately, I was expecting something different and wasn't super into the cooking stuff, which is totally on me picking up a book called “Chef's Kiss”. But in spite of this I still enjoyed it well enough. I think if you like food and the romance isn't your priority, you might dig this.

It's not often that I write especially negative reviews because I feel like I curate my TBR quite well for my tastes and moods, and I'm quick to DNF something that's not my cup of tea, but since this one was for a book club (fitting), I stuck with it, and to be quite honest, I would have DNFed this very quick otherwise.

I read the ebook while listening to the audiobook. Credit to the narrator, the audio definitely helped grease the wheels.

I'm going to stash a bunch of bullet points here to jog my memory for the book club, and maybe I'll expand it into a proper review later.

• I've never read a book that is so unkind and disdainful of its characters; even the ones you think you're supposed to like are described like something the author stood in and scraped off their shoe.

• The writing is really repetitive, and descriptions are reused frequently (eg. face of thunder)

• There is excessive “tell don't show”. Eg. We're frequently told that Barrett is an odd character, but we never actually get to see any of this oddness; we just have to take the author's word for it.

• So. Much. Filler. Huge swathes of the novel seem to be there just to pad out the word count. We spend pages and pages following one character just catching a bus to meet their friend, but none of it amounts to anything at all, and the character is promptly forgotten about shortly after.

• Similar to the fluff filler, there were far too many characters. Few of them are distinguishable from each other, and many neither serve any purpose nor progress the plot. Several of them could be combined into one character or entirely written out without affecting anything. They're so forgettable that even the author will introduce a character as if it were their first appearance, even though we just met them a few chapters earlier.

• The mystery is so wispy it could blow away on the wind. We see the police kind of sort of do police work which rarely turns up anything substantial, only for them to make a discovery “off-camera” and then reveal it like magic when it's convenient, and even if there were any threads to follow, the characters are either so aggressively beige or unlikeable that you don't really care anyway.

• The dialogue was often very clunky and unnatural,which was especially highlighted by the audiobook. Though the narrator put in a valiant effort, it still sounded super cringe.

• The wrap-up was very twee and unearned.

That's a lot of negatives, and I don't have much positive to say, and to be fair, whodunnits and murder mysteries are not my cup of tea generally. Perhaps the shortcomings of this book would pale or be more easily forgiven if this were a genre you enjoyed.

The writing is very simple, which makes it easy to read, even if it isn't very engaging. It's not aggressively bad, it's just kind of messy and forgettable, which to me, is almost worse.

Of all the Oz books I've read, this is the one I remembered the most clearly, aside from The Wizard of Oz, and it was a delight to re-read it again.

Growing up, I was obsessed with the 1985 film Return to Oz, which drew heavily from this book (and the next one, I believe), and it was fun to recognize all the bits and pieces that made it into the film.

Maybe it shouldn't be that surprising since this was written during the Women's Suffrage movement, but it's quite a remarkable book to read in 2020 with several of its key plot points revolving around gender politics which surprisingly subvert the expectations that we might have of a novel written for children in 1904. There were a few moments that started making me cringe only for it it take a positive turn. In the end, the women are the heroes and the villains, and the men are kind of just along for the ride and happy to be there, so, honestly, I was living for it.

As a side note, it's actually incredible depressing to see how the women in Land of Oz are so compelling and given so much agency, only to remember how that awful, soulless dumpster fire of a movie from a few years ago – Oz the Great & Powerful – completely shortchanges the women in favor of Franco's insufferable, punchable-faced bro-dude of a Wizard... I'm still bitter... but I digress...

Also, Tip is also a wonderfully surprising character to find in a children's book that is over a century old, and I won't tell you why, but I've always found it incredibly fascinating and wonderful.

The book continues the quirky and whimsical yet darker tone of the books, which may surprise those only familiar with the Garland film (which I also love, but it's definitely its own thing). The returning characters' personalities and mannerisms continue to develop, and the new characters are charming and imaginative.

I've read a few others of the First Fourteen, but I don't remember them as well as the first two, so I'm excited to work my way through the rest.

I'd never heard of the Edge Chronicles before, but I found this in a secondhand bookstore while on vacation and I was so taken with the illustrations that I bought it.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the thought and care that's gone into the world building of the Deepwoods is rich and clever. The illustrations are as detailed as the print quality will allow, and are expressive and exciting. The writing is very descriptive and lively, and it's a real treat to read something so imaginative, and then also have en equally engaging depiction right next to it. It makes for a very fun reading experience, and kind of made me wish that more adult genre fiction had rich illustrations as well. I love using my imagination on my own steam, but it's quite delightful sometimes to have that immersive visual experience as well.

The story has a meandering, episodic kind of vibe to it, similar I would say to Alice in Wonderland, where you're constantly meeting new characters and exploring new places. It meant that we never really spent enough time with anyone other than Twig long enough to become attached to them, but there's never a dull moment, and the pace keeps everything moving forward at a clip. I can definitely understand how that would appeal to middle-grade readers — and adults looking for a fun and imaginative read.

The story is obviously intended as one part of a larger story, but it ends very satisfyingly. It sets up a good foundation for more adventures without making you feel like you've read a teaser rather than a complete book. I don't feel pressure to immediately launch myself into the next one, which is nice since I'm not much of a series-reader. That said, I would quite happily continue the series if I happen to pick them up.

I had a set of these Lisbeth Zwerger books when I was a kid, and remember being both delighted and frightened by the exquisite illustrations. Of course, I was a small child who didn't think to remember the illustrator, so it took me a long time and lots of googling to track them down again, and have managed to re-acquire all the ones I had and a few others over the last few years.

Hansel and Gretel is certainly one of my favorite fairy tales, thanks in large part to the influence this book had on my imagination as a kid. The text and translation is amusing and quirky, but the real star here is Lisbeth Zwerger's soft, expressive, and at times quite creepy artwork.

I remember having nightmares about Zwerger's witch of the candy cottage. I doubt I'll have nightmares now, but even as an adult there's something unsettling about her glowing red eyes, broad and bony face, and amorphous body. The pluckiness of the children in this tale always appealed to me, and this remains true here.

My favorite thing about Zwerger's style is the way she paints clothes and faces, and especially in this one I loved Gretel's clothes - the patterns on her scarf and skirt, and the movement of the skirt – I can almost feel the fabric and hear the swish and flutter of them.

The only thing that really jumped out at me as an adult that never occurred to me as child was some – in my opinion – rather swift and undeserved forgiveness at the end, which only added to the amusement and quirkiness for me, and made for a genuinely sweet illustration.

I can't pretend that this is a terribly objective review, but I truly believe this to be real treasure of children's literature and illustration. It's worth it alone just to look at the pictures. I think that the way it captivated my wee sprouting imagination as a child is part of the magic, rather than something to disregarded with adult retrospection.

If you ever find this, or any of the Zwerger's other books, when poking around a charity shop or 2nd hand bookstore, do yourself a favor and snap it up; I'd be shocked if you regret it.

Mmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this one.

It was a bit of a labor to read, but I feel like that added to the psychologic tone for the most part, though occasionally it did take me out of the story. It helped to read along with the audiobook because it was narrated by Emma Thompson, so, I mean... c'mon. Emma Thompson.

I also thought it was weird that it started with a framing narrative that was entirely dropped after the beginning. It felt very unnecessary. Mostly, I just felt that it was all just a bit too slight. The hauntings were too mild to hang the story on, and the rest of the characters except the narrating governess were too underdeveloped for me. My interest was definitely caught, but I wanted to know more so it wasn't ultimately that satisfying. It was very “Oh, okay.”

Maybe it'll grow on me; I might update my rating and review once I've let it sit with me for a bit.

This was going to be a 5-star read for me all the way through until the epilogue. But overall, it was still fab!

A Dowry of Blood is a thoughtfully written examination of toxic love and emotional control and abuse, with some exquisite crafting of mood and atmosphere.

Constanta's observations and difficult struggles with her own emotions and needs were compelling and moving, and the threads of gothic horror were made all the more suspenseful and visceral for Gibson's restraint in doling them out only as often as needed.

While the story spans centuries, it stays very contained and hews tightly to the main characters. This was incredibly effective in raising the stakes of the drama and building the tension and mental claustrophobia of the relationships.

But, the epilogue seemed tacked on and unnecessary. This undermined the vibe of the rest of the book for me, with the previous chapter feeling much more like the true ending. It provided emotional closure, while being just open-ended enough to leave me wanting more while still satisfied. The epilogue, on the other hand, felt rushed and out of place, like it was transplanted from another book entirely.

There were two things about A Dowry of Blood that I loved in particular that I wanted to mention.

The first is the mention of the story of Judith and Holofernes, which is a favorite of mine, and beautifully mirrored the relationship between Constanta and Magdalena, and provided some deliciously clever foreshadowing.

The other thing I found interesting was how this book used the vampire genre as way to examine toxic and abusive relationships in a post-Twilight age, which I thought was a nice counterpoint and refreshing to see.

While the epilogue was a bit disappointing for me personally, it mightn't bother you. It was still a thrilling read, and I definitely recommend it.