Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Mini Reviews - February/March 2019

41464181Title: The Boy from the Snow
Author: Maria Johnson
Rating: 3/5

While I actually enjoyed the characters in this story, I had to put this one down when I was 53% of the way done with it. After four months of consistently picking it up and putting it down, I realized that I just don't have it in me to finish this book. Historical fiction is not my cup of tea in the slightest and regardless of the characters and my general interest in the storyline, I could not picture myself reading another 47% of this book without pitching some kind of fit about having to re-immerse myself in the story and once again learning how to juggle not only the characters but the historical context that I have a rough time grasping. While this wasn't for me, I entirely recommend this to lovers of historical fiction, because the writing itself is quite good.

39320556Title: They Both Die at the End
Author: Adam Silvera
Rating 4/5



For this one, I actually did a full review.





33641244Title: The Power
Author: Naomi Alderman
Rating: 3/5

I have weird feelings on this one. While I appreciate the idea behind it and, in actuality, it has a really good message about toxicity, masculinity, and what power really means in different hands, I just couldn't get past a few things that felt off to me. For starters, I am not big on the religious aspect in The Power and it really took away from the bigger part of the story. This story really shows how power affects people and not for the better. Power in anyone's hands can lead to destruction, but I don't like the idea of how hard it seems to backfire. If anything, I think that women getting so carried away made the world worse and more war-torn which might have been the intended reaction. Essentially, power corrupts. I liked the concept of the skein and all the side effects of it being removed or the situations where it was an anomaly in a male body in particular, since it is so realistic. But the whole Mother Eve plotline felt short and left a sour taste in my mouth.

28345530Title: Mimadamos: The Eden of Choice
Author: Chadi B. Ghaith
Rating: 2/5

**I received an e-copy of this in exchange for an honest review**

Mimadamos is a fantastical story of belief and the power of the divine. Despite my 2 star rating on this, I don't necessarily dislike it. The style of writing that Ghaith uses is something akin to biblical texts or old writings that you have to read in history class. The writing itself isn't bad, I just felt like it was weighted down and I had to really focus on everything to feel part of the story to the point where I knew I was reading, so I never got immersed in the world. It would be best described as historical fiction except that it isn't historical, but that's what it felt like. I also don't know a lot about Gnosticism and that felt like a disadvantage throughout. If I was Gnostic or even if I knew a little background knowledge about it this probably would have been better, but I just couldn't get into this like I hoped.

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