05.02.26
Well written, vivid, exciting, clever and fun, this story throws you straight into the careful worldbuilding, with strong female characters taking charge and the men mostly just afterthoughts. But it did lack a little something emotionally - neither the romantic nor the maternal love were quite convincing enough.
19.01.26
Gosh, but this was boring. Was there even a plot or was it just badly written, pretentious philosophical worldbuilding featuring eight or nine characters with an interchangeable personality?
29.12.25
The author tried hard with the worldbuilding but maybe should have spent more time thinking about plot, pace and clarity.
06.08.25
I'm all for a story set in Norwich but there was too much time spent on (the admittedly intriguing) worldbuilding and not enough on plot, character development and continuity. There were, in fact, so many annoying continuity errors and unnecessary typos that I wondered if anyone, including the author, had actually read the book before (self)publishing it.
57%
05.07.25This was prettily written and started out well but was ultimately disappointing. It didn't seem to know what it was about - a competition? An expedition? A romance? A fantasy adventure? All of those things but never settling on one, with an irritatingly open ending for the next book.
01.05.25
This'll be the last Hignett for a while, promise as I have many, more literary, novels to read. That said, while there's no doubt her books are entertaining, she also sneaks in more serious political or emotional messages, adding a little depth to what could be cliched wish-fulfillment stories. This series starter was better than Susan's and Prue's but still seemed a little transitory - on its way to somewhere else later in the series, where I don't feel very strongly about going.
29.04.25
So this is the book that spawned a thousand romantasies. Why? How, when it's so laughably badly written, poorly paced and dull? (And that hilarious map!) Worse, the romance part, such as it was, promoted that trendy misogynist trope of dominant 'alpha' male power dynamics that rendered all the (unsympathetic) female protagonist's relationships frankly abusive. It's concerning that this is the message that young women are being fed.
27.04.25
The idea was promising but the whole book just read like an introduction to the series rather than anything worth reading by itself.
07.03.25
Yes, I know, but it was free and had a talking cat. Don't judge me.
19.01 25
The best thing about this was its title. If it wasn't based on existing Oz lore, it would be just another, albeit quite well written, chosen-one-teen-girl tries-to-kick-ass-fantasy-that-doesn't-even-end-properly-because-it's-the-first-of-a-trilogy. Even the romance, such as it was, seemed shoehorned in.
25.11.24
This was delightful - in fact, not just full of delight but brimming over with many and varied delights. The worldbuilding, the humorous dialogue, the nods to other fairy tales all just worked, and at no time did phrasing make me cringe, which is unusual, frankly. Was it too saccharine? Maybe. Did it end too abruptly? Certainly. But what fun!
17.07.24
And the last of my holiday reads was also the last in this intriguing trilogy. For a romantasy author, Black doesn't shy away from politics and power and the ways they can be manipulated by those who have power and those who don't (yet). And her main character is, interestingly, both skilled in scheming and clueless in relationships. But it was still a bit 'chuck everything at it and see what sticks', and there were a few elements about the ending that didn't quite work.
06.07.24
That difficult second book in a trilogy, the bridge between the intriguing opening and explosive ending. This particular bridge wasn't particularly well designed - functional but more of a route to somewhere else than a journey in itself.
29.06.24
The ideas were interesting but it felt a little underdeveloped and messy without a clear structure or narrative drive. Its attempts to cover some serious themes seemed forced and worthy rather than naturally integrated into the story. All in all, it read like a promising early draft that needed some more editorial intervention.
(And an accidental second Irish book in a row - very different to the previous one.)
52%
So. Many. Words. So. Much. Angst. And So. Much. Hype for a fantasy novel that uses familiar old tropes gleaned from lots of other fantasy novels. The author had obviously spent a lot of time on the world building, but it was so dense that whatever it was the (tiresome) main character was supposed to be shocked about at the end depended on some detail that was lost in the mix. The dragons were pretty cool. But dragons generally are.
Unusual, intriguing, unflinching, atmospheric, carefully plotted... and totally ruined by the (authorial? editorial?) decision for a British narrator, living in London, to use American English. And it wasn't just the extensive US vocabulary - there were references to graduating high school, to teachers 'failing' a student in a subject and to paying health insurance. Why? Again and again, it jarringly brought me out of the story's world. Surely American readers, brought up on Harry Potter, can cope with British English. Or just set it in America - it wouldn't have mattered much to the story. And the author is actually Australian. It made me so angry that I've deducted 20 points from the score it would otherwise have had. That'll teach 'em!
Since this was on offer, I thought I'd read it before I forgot what happened in the first book. Just as well, as it was even more confusing. Still well written and intelligent, with unusual care and thought given to character development, and not afraid to confront the ugliness of life, but the actual story was still muddled and oddly paced.
Also, the dead rabbit on the cover? Not all that significant.
This was a mess - complicated, confusing and with a timeline that was all over the place. The characters were annoying and didn't communicate like normal people. It assumed that nothing important happened outside the USA. Only one of the various plotlines resolved, and that was in a weird and coincidental way. And yet... and yet, I really enjoyed reading it. Why? Well, because it was well written and also I suppose because it wasn't as worthy and boring as that other hyped "magic college" novel, Babel. This, you just had to take as it came: a wild ride.
04.03.24
On the one hand, this was astonishingly well written, each sentence carefully crafted for the perfect balance of poetry and rhythm. That's what most of my points are for. On the other hand, it was astonishingly badly paced - even the action sequences were interminable and ultimately pointless. Clocking up nearly 700 pages, it was so boring and humour-free that I had to force myself to get past the confusing plot, two-dimensional characters, British people speaking like Americans (again!) and clichéd worldbuilding that's been done many times before.
