I’ve laid out my feelings on Sarah J. Maas books. And I feel like – unlike with the Court of Thorns and Roses – the consensus here about Throne of Glass is pretty clear. They nestle comfortably somewhere just below a love/hate. It would take more energy than they’re worth to either love or hate them, but they are the good of bad writing. You don’t want to read them, but you also can’t put them down. And so it is with Tower of Dawn. I’m not going to […]
His mastery of the hard-luck story was of a kind never achieved by persons not wholly concentrated on themselves.
So I don’t have a strong association with this collection of novels outside of the fact that they appear on the MLA’s Top 100 Novels (in English) from about 20 years ago. This list has sort of always been in the back of my mind as I figure out what to read. But, it’s 12 novels, which is a lot to commit to. I decided to use an Audible credit at some point to buy the first three collected as “First Movement” and these are […]
Living in Steinbeck’s World
Save your drafts as you go! I lost a really long double review for these books due to my own negligence. Ugh…. I moved to Monterey a year and a half ago, the home of Steinbeck and the setting for both of these novels. Both take place at real locations in the greater Monterey area, though Tortilla Flat is a fictional neighborhood, which added to my interest. Both novels follow a few main characters who live together and experience the effects of their shenanigans. […]
What was the sense in love if all those you cared for were taken away?
In keeping with my current run of reading historical fiction, The Lost Queen is an engaging read. It’s slow, and it ultimately builds to an abrupt end that fails to satisfy. Languoreth is a fortunate girl born into interesting times. She is a twin, born under good omens to a witch of the Old Ways (the book calls them Wisdom Keepers, you may know them as Druids) and a fair and wise petty king. (Caveat: “fair and wise” according to what that would have meant […]