books, travel, nursing, and all of life's in-betweens
C+ | Oh man this book is pure, entertaining garbage fire. The book is fast-paced and easy to read. I would have finished it in less than a day. But I had things to deal with. This book is ridiculous and over the top, but I adored that! I had fun reading it. But dear lord God. Even though it is a fun read at face value, there are so many issues with this book from plot to worldbuilding to the characters. It never reaches its full potential.
Read moreC+ | This is a hard book for me to review because I am very conflicted. I kept flipping between giving the star rating for Goodreads. Why? This book is a mixed bag of good, bad, and what in the heck is happening? I don’t hate the book. If anything I actually enjoyed this book, even though it is very slow and drawn out. It’s entertaining, has decent worldbuilding, and it certainly got reactions out of me. However, this book is a lot of telling and not enough showing with very awkward pacing. It’s just mediocre. Entertaining, but mediocre nevertheless.
Read moreC+ | Enjoyable as this novel is with characters that will both annoy you and endear themselves to you and set in an interesting time period, it is hampered down by historical inaccuracies and wasted opportunities all for the sake of drama. Aside from Lada, there are no major other female characters. The other female characters that are present are either presented as nothing more than one-dimensional beings. Mehmed’s characterization is, unfortunately, another thing that pulls this story down as it completely erases the more ruthless side of him. I can’t speak about the Muslim representation here because I am not Muslim myself, so for any thoughts on how Islam was presented here, please seek out #ownvoices bloggers to get more.
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C+ | Although Dan Brown’s first two Robert Langdon books are some of my favorite books of all time and what started my love for mystery/thriller books, The Lost Symbol just fell flat. The story was dragged out and pretty predictable. It’s repetitive and honestly, I felt like I could have skipped sections of the book and not missed a thing. While I enjoyed it enough, there was a point I was just bored. I had to force myself to listen to the rest of the audiobook because I was already 70% of the way into the book. And like I said in my GR updates, I totally expected that twist. Plus the ending was a disappointment.
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C+ | Although the premise was interesting and I did enjoy it overall, the book was too fast-paced and incredibly underdeveloped. Concepts were there, just not fleshed out enough, which was quite frustrating because there is a lot of potential. While there is conflict, things were resolved too quickly or simply brushed off rather than explored.
Sydney contacted me via my blog — moon & coffee. — asking if I would be willing to read and review her book in exchange for a copy. Now, I love me some good fantasy, so I said yes. So many thanks to Sydney for this opportunity.
Even though it did take me a few days to get through this book — nursing school takes priority after all & wow is this semester kicking my butt — this is a very fast-paced novel. Quite frankly, it’s too fast-paced. Although I don’t necessarily mind a fast-paced book, too many things happened in a short amount of time, and thus, character development and worldbuilding suffered immensely. It felt like I was on at some speed dating event where I’d be talking with a really cool and awesome guy, only for the buzzer to go off. Then, I’d find myself stuck with someone who isn’t as fantastic but is interesting enough.
It’s such a shame because there’s a lot of potential here. Unfortunately, stones were left unturned, and roads were left unexplored, even for a book that is marketed for young adults (although it reads more like a middle-grade book). I’m a greedy girl, and I want more from this promising book.
Warning — the review posted below will contain spoilers.
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