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Heartless (by Marissa Meyer) Book Review

Heartless is a YA fantasy/romance book by Marissa Meyer, writer of The Lunar Chronicles series and Renegades. It was published in 2016 by Feiwel and Friends.

What made me want to read it:

I had this in my to-read list for The Theme Thieves when the theme of the month was retellings but with the chosen book for the month and the rest of The Lunar Chronicles I had no time to get to it, so I guess now was as good as ever.

What is it about (no spoilers):

Heartless is a story about Wonderland’s Red Queen when she was just a young girl who wanted love.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

For a story set in magical Wonderland this sure looked very much like any other period story in which a pretty rich girl wants to reject her arranged marriage to a powerful rich man in favor of the poor commoner whom she met two days ago. It features disconnected parents who think wealth and security will be the best for their child, a friendly maid who will help her mistress out in achieving her true dreams (whatever they may be), numerous worries about decency and propriety and one’s reputation and “Oh my, what will everyone think of me?”, all topped up with the love interest declaring the protagonist to be unlike all other girls of the court because… what else right?

I found the protagonist to be a bit insipid and the development of her relationship with the Joker is basically non-existent. They go on a walk, they go to a tea party, look at each other and get jealous because of Catherine’s prospective marriage to the king. On something like their second conversation (about a hundred pages in) she gets mad at the Joker because, surprise surprise, he seems to support her marriage? What else would he do? You just met, there’s been no feelings declared, he is employed by the king. There is a justification later on about why he shows support, but either way this moment was so overdone and dramatic.

About her friendship with the maid, I have to say it was kind of forced in the setting more to give Catherine an air of protagonist who does not care about class differences and can mingle well with the common people, because the moment anything goes slightly wrong you can see how much regard she has for her friend. They have a dream of opening a bakery together, in which Catherine will be their genius baker and Marie Ann will handle the business end of things. Of course, Marie Ann has only her maid’s salary and knows their venture is just a dream and how hard it is to work for her own living; Catherine is the one who foolishly believes it will happen, even though her options to get financing to open the bakery include asking her parents for either a loan or permission to sell her dowry, both of which she knows will not happen. Funny enough she never thinks about selling some of her expensive jewelry or dress, or secretly selling some of her confections from her own home, instead choosing to blame Marie Ann for not believing enough in their impossible dream. You can easily see how much she cares for her when she basically starts screaming accusations and ends their friendship because Marie Ann dared to tell her parents what information she knew when her mistress was seemingly kidnapped by a guy who is virtually a stranger in the kingdom. Shame on you Marie Ann, for not knowing this was a romantic escapade and doing your best to save her life when you thought she had been kidnapped and had no information contrary to that. She also basically starts getting blamed for a lot of things that go wrong afterwards and again, I see no logical reason for it.

The story about her supposed descent into a cruel queen is a confusion between a love story, the quest for a bakery, random monster attacks and a weird pumpkin farmer and I didn’t really find it remotely interesting. Her transformation from sweet naive court girl in love to evil queen is instantaneous, unbelievable and ridiculous:

“I am not empty. I am full to the brim with murder and revenge. I am overflowing and I do not think you wish for me to overflow on to you.”

Conclusion:

This was mostly an attempt at a forbidden romance in a period piece with class structure in which the author decided to randomly stamp some characters and phrases from Lewis Carrol’s work and its adaptations, and added in some own nonsensical elements of her own to forcefully maintain the supposed ambiance and tone of the story.

[This review can also be found here.]

#heartless #marissa meyer #review #book reviews #breviews #retelling

booksneedcaffeinetoo

‪one of my favorite things to do is go on amazon and look at the titles people come up with for their reviews.

the classic “ruined by propoganda”:

the “tell it as you see it”:

the “i can’t come up with a title so i’m just going to say its rating instead”:

the sports metaphor:

the unique spin of the Nike classic:

the “i bought the book to hate read but actually???? ended up???? enjoying???? it????????”:

the “i didn’t read the book and somehow was still able to leave a review”:

the classic “idk”:

the “i can’t some up with a title so here is a random dot”:

the “not boring” book given only two stars that seems to contradict itself:

cleo-queen-of-pirates

Micro Review Tag

This round’s prompt: currently reading!

Join in even if you haven’t been tagged (thankyou @bibliophilecats)

Answer as elaborately as you want

Tag friends to make their own micro reviews

Use the #microreview hashtag (optional)

Title and author: A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander 6) by Diana Gabaldon

Total pages: 1390

Page you’re on: 1287 (why am I not reading right now!)

Thoughts so far: This books I’ve tried noticing where all the stories which may seem to be diversions from the main story, actually do link to the main story. Diana Gabaldon is good at doing this. I love her style and she is so good at leading you to forget you are reading. Even though the books are so big, I still like reading the diversions.

This book is set just before/during the start of the war of independence and Jamie is forced to choose a side to join. There are still plenty of ill people for Claire to heal and disasters happening, so they can’t settle down quietly as the want to.

Try your best to guess how it will end: My mum has told me the ending of this book, but I have no idea about the circumstances surrounding events. I think the ending will still be a surprise in the way it happens.

Tell us how you really feel—with a gif!

Tagging @bitofbookishness @bibliobrianna @northernstarowl @bookmac95 @anassarhenisch @brightbeautifulthings @bookwyvrn @thesheepthewolf

shakespeare-and-blue-roses

Caraval - Stephanie Garber

Caraval is about sisters Scarlett and Donatella Dragna, who escape from their brutal father in order to participate in Caraval, a fantastical game in which nothing is as it seems and the winner is awarded one wish.

My first instinct was to praise Caraval, because I did like some things about it. For instance, Scarlett’s constantly changing gown was amazing and I totally want one. The magical nature of Caraval drew me; I love those kinds of brutal games, the ones where the protagonist has to make choices they don’t want to. I went into the book thinking it would be a clever scavenger hunt and an emotional roller coaster.

It was not. Simply put, I found the world building lazy. Sure, Master Caraval Legend is in possession of the most powerful magic in the world (for now), but anyone who’s read fantasy knows that magic comes at a cost. Legend kills people and brings them back to life seemingly on a whim, but that doesn’t make sense to me. According to the book, Legend sacrificed his chance at true love to gain his powers but you still have to pay something in order to make magic work. The whole point of the wish prize was that Legend could help it along, but it was the desire of the wisher that would make it come true. It seemed like the rules of the magic were carelessly thrown together in order to make the story progress.

The other thing I had a problem with was how Scarlett played the game. There were clues to look after, but Scarlett seemed to disregard all of them and follow her own ideas. Her emotional attachment to the game sent her careening off on all kinds of misadventures, only some of which brought her the next clues, and as a reader I couldn’t always tell when a clue had been uncovered, which I found frustrating.

It was easy to get lost in the descriptions of Caraval, which despite its deceptive nature and treacherous players did sound like a truly amazing place to vacation. I even think I would rather enjoy being one of the players, constantly changing identities and surrounded by magic. However, I don’t think that quite made up for the lack of structure in the rest of the story.

hydro-homies

Can confirm this

meckamecha

Modern laundry sauce doesn’t cause color leaching like old laundry sauce did

saralovesherbooks

Just One More Page BPC day 17: wish I read it sooner

my-truest-flinthamilton

has this been done yet?

cukibola-deactivated20200917

I need more context

my-truest-flinthamilton

Watch Black Sails

siderealscribblings

“There are many times when we’re planning a season that you kind of have to avoid giving the audience exactly what they want because things start to become predictable…” Dave Benioff

Honestly fuck this storytelling style.

Fuck this style of storytelling that puts authorial masturbation over a satisfying conclusion to a story. Fuck this obsession with “swerves” and “subverting expectations.”

Fuck this mentality that you have to outsmart the audience in order to make a good product.

Fuck the idea that “predictable” is automatically boring. Fuck the idea that people who have been paying attention to long-running story arcs should be punished for giving a shit and expecting a cohesive conclusion to a long running story.

Fuck this idea that disappointing endings are okay if they’re “unexpected.” Fuck this auteur mentality where writers have to prove that they’re the cleverest boys in the whole wide world.

Tell a goddamned story; nobody tunes in for twists.

theswanhero

Also, check out what George R.R. Martin himself said:

“The fans use to come up with theories; lots of them are just speculative but some of them are in the right way. Before the Internet, one reader could guess the ending you wanna do for your novel, but the other 10.000 wouldn’t know anything and they would be surprised. However, now, those 10.000 people use the Internet and read the right theories. They say: “Oh God, the butler did it!”, to use an example of a mystery novel. Then, you think: “I have to change the ending! The maiden would be the criminal!” To my mind that way is a disaster because if you are doing well you work, the books are full of clues that point to the butler doing it and help you to figure up the butler did it, but if you change the ending to point the maiden, the clues make no sense anymore; they are wrong or are lies, and I am not a liar.”

*drops mic*

Black Sails.

BLACK SAILS

Battlestar Galactica had a pretty decent ending

#black sails #atla

Muse of Nightmares (by Laini Taylor) Book Review

Muse of Nightmares is a YA fantasy book by Laini Taylor, writer of Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and the second in the Strange the Dreamer series. It was published in 2018 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

What made me want to read it:

It’s the sequel to Strange the Dreamer, a fantasy book I mostly enjoyed.

What is it about (no spoilers):

After the events of Strange the Dreamer, Lazlo and Sarai now have to find a way to save both the godspawn children and the city below them from destroying each other.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

I have to start by saying there was a huge drop in quality from Strange the Dreamer to Muse of Nightmares. On the one hand, I feel bad saying this, because of how the story evolved, and because I don’t think the writing was actually bad, but then I remember how hard it was to get through and how I feel about at least half of the book. To get to it: it was dreadfully boring. If you have in mind how Strange the Dreamer ended, it shouldn't have been, because that book ended right where things started to pick up (in my opinion, the wrong place to end a book) and there’s so much to resolve and move through, right? Apparently not, because any action stops right before it starts and a solid half of the book is dedicated to: either a confrontation of wills that is only ultimately resolved through external circumstances and that never had any real effort put into resolving it, the characters were just skirting around it and avoiding it; or the eternal love between the two teenagers that met a week or two ago (?) and now are trying to have sex but the universe seems to be against them – what a wonderful topic to keep my interest on a fantasy book. The sudden and all consuming relationship between Lazlo and Sarai by the end of the first book was one of the main things that made me not rate it 5 stars, because after all the build up of the world and its mysteries, the sudden focus on it and the way it eclipses every other aspect of story and characters was a real disappointment (if I had read the whole of Daughter of Smoke and Bone before hand I would have been more prepared, I guess). To now have it take up space when I desperately want things to move forward was even worse. I also have an issue with character deaths having little consequence – this comes from something that happens here and something that comes from the previous book. If the death is there for the simple impact of it and afterwards the consequences of it being minimal or just slight inconveniences, then it shouldn’t have happened at all.

Moving on. After all the dragging the story did move forward quite quickly. I should mention that parallel to the main story we also (slowly and sparsely) follow another story that ultimately ties into it and that got my attention. However, although some main points of the story were more or less wrapped up, it seems as this is tied up to the writer’s other series, being set in the same universe, and with the “that is for another story” warnings, it’s obvious there are going to be more books and I’m not sure if I’m very happy about that, because I was hoping for a conclusion this time. As it happens in her other series, all of the elements of the larger universe are mostly thrown in the last book instead of gently presented from the beginning.

Conclusion:

I might eventually read whatever the writer publishes next, if only because I feel robbed of a proper ending and hopefully it will be a definite conclusion to her two series. Assuming I can survive two main couples with infinite love and all their gestures, sacrifices and declarations that need two whole books for that subject only, probably.

[Review of Strange the Dreamer and Daughter of Smoke and Bone Series]

[This review can also be found here.]

#muse of nightmares #strange the dreamer #laini taylor #dosab #reviews #book reviews #breviews #daughter of smoke and bone

The Lunar Chronicles (by Marissa Meyer) Series Review

The Lunar Chronicles is a YA fantasy/science-fiction series by Marissa Meyer, published between 2012 and 2015 by Feiwel & Friends. The main books are Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter. There is a middle book, Fairest, and a collection of short stories, Stars Above. Marissa Meyer also wrote Heartless, a re-telling of Alice in Wonderland, Renegades and graphic novel Wire and Nerves.

What made me want to read it:

This is one of those series that comes highly recommended from all sides on GoodReads, and it fit last month’s group read, so I guessed why not.

What is it about (no spoilers):

The lives of four girls in planet Earth and the Moon intertwine in an effort to save both from the evil Queen of Luna. Cinder is a cyborg in New Beijing who works as a mechanic and is despised and mistreated by her evil stepmother – one day, her shop gets a visit from the prince, and her whole life changes. Scarlet lives in a farm in rural France with her grandmother, an ex-pilot who went to Luna on a diplomatic mission and who has important secrets to hide. Cress is a shell – a Lunar without abilities - who despite that fact is a genius hacker kept secret and a prisoner used by the evil queen of Luna. Winter is the stepdaughter of the Queen, said to be the most beautiful person in Luna, even though she does not use her abilities and that is making her insane.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

The first thing I have to say is that the whole concept of this series is amazing and, to my opinion, very original. The second thing, however, is that I don’t feel it was used to its full potential and ended up falling into very average territory.

So yes, we have four fairy tale re-tellings (Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White) set in a futuristic world, where our planet’s moon (Luna- yeah, ok, that one wasn’t original at all) has been populated but it’s population has somehow mutated and is not even referred as human anymore, with the Moon being its whole different nation – ruled by an evil queen who wants to conquer Earth. There are Lunars, who are gifted beings (though it is passed off as science and evolution, rather than magic), there are androids, and cyborgs, and spaceships. Still, this managed to be a collection of clichés, including lost princesses and four stories of basically love at first sight. Like, all the main characters – specially Cinder, who is very, very… boring – are made up of two or three superficial traits, with no development beyond that. Cinder is determined to do the right thing and save the world, but feels insecure about herself, Scarlet is headstrong and brave and loves her grandmother, Cress is timid and a day-dreamer and a hacker genius, Winter is the lovable, kind but mad princess. Each one has her love interest, which, apart from a couple who are friends from childhood, is just someone they met like an hour ago, but still they would all die for each other because everyone knows these are fairy tales, so true love is instant and forever, and what are re-tellings for, if not to keep love stories exactly as bland as that?

The villain is basically also directly ripped from fairy tales, as there is not much substance to her, even though there’s a book dedicated to her backstory that’s just… I don’t know, but not interesting at all.

Conclusion:

The general plot of the story sort of kept me entertained but it is really just very basic and average, specially considering all the good reviews and the concept that it spans from. There’s nothing special about any of the characters or their relationships, and I feel like so much more could have been done here.

[This review can also be found here.]

#the lunar chronicles #tlc #marissa meyer #cress #scarlet #cinder #winter #reviews #book reviews #series reviews #breviews

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (by Laini Taylor) Series Review

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a YA fantasy trilogy by Laini Taylor, published between 2011 and 2014 Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. The first book is Daughter of Smoke and Bone, the second is Days of Blood and Starlight and the third and final is Dreams of Gods and Monsters. There is also a short story, Night of Cake and Puppets. Laini Taylor is also the author of the Strange the Dreamer series.

What made me want to read it:

I had been curious to read this series after a recommendation from a friend years ago, and after Strange the Dreamer I decided t would be worth it.

What is it about (no spoilers):

Karou is mysterious orphan with a magic inhuman family and magic secrets. However, her secret world, of which she doesn’t know that much of after all, starts getting attacked and a mysterious angel appears.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

When I started with the first book, I thought that the premise and the world building of this urban fantasy were amazing and like nothing I’ve seen before. You have these parallel worlds, the two species at war – the seraphs and the chimera and somehow the heroine is involved in all of this. However as the series progresses, so do its faults.

First of all, and this is a strong deterrent for me, is the heavy focus on romance. The attraction and eternal love between the main couple is instantaneous – the initial attraction we see could have a possible explanation further on, but then we find out it was like that from the very start. Obviously the best friend of each of the main couple also quickly finds their soulmate, so everyone can be happily paired up. More obvious still, is the fact that, no matter the circumstances, the heroine is absolutely beautiful and flawless, from body shape, to skin and hair, and the same goes for the love interest – because angels are hot, right? This is a matter of personal opinion, obviously, but the constant focus on physical beauty and romance in a fantasy book kind of annoys me and takes some of the enjoyment away from me. Like yes, I know your love interest is the absolutely most beautiful creature in the universe; yes, of course you as the main character are also tied in the first place for most beautiful; yes, of course, your love is eternal, and true, and transcends universes and is mythical and legendary and forbidden and will change the world; and of course you constantly want to kiss and touch and stare lovingly at your soulmate. Now, do I need to be reminded once every three chapters? No.

Talking about the story now: I loved this interesting new world and the war between the two species and how Karou, the main character, was involved in all of it and thought t was like nothing I had seen before. As we got more revelations at the end of the first book I was increasingly convinced this was going to be one of the best fantasy series I had read lately and was looking forward to the rest of it. And then the second book happened. And the third. So the second book just felt like a huge waste of time. It dragged on and on and on and it felt like there were too many words for the actual content. And then there was the third book. I felt like too much new information was introduced in this book, concerning a new whole dimension of mythology and world building that was never even hinted at before, and new characters on top of it. At this point what do I care about the evil scientist that is jealous of his colleague? And then the third book also felt never ending. Because every time it felt like we were about to reach a conclusion, there was another problem, and another obstacle, and there’s another character’s journey to follow, and it felt like it was just dragging on to have a higher page count.

Conclusion:

I enjoyed the first book, but from then on this was a chore to get through, with books too long for the story I wanted. And, as in Strange the Dreamer, from a point onwards there was too much focus on romance, although it didn’t detract from the goal of the story.

[This review can also be found here.]

#dosab #laini taylor #daughter of smoke and bone #days of blood and starlight #dreams of gods and monsters #reviews #book reviews #breviews

Geekerella (by Ashley Poston) Book Review

Geekerella is a YA contemporary book by Ashley Poston, published in 2017 by Quirk Books. It is advertised as a Cinderella retelling, and part of the Once Upon a Con series - the second book is a Prince and the Pauper retelling, The Princess and the Fangirl and is scheduled to be released in 2019.

What made me want to read it:

It’s the main read for my book group this month – the theme is Reborn tales, and I’m trying to be good at following them. I have some others planned out for the theme, but I’ll see if I can finish them and review them.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

As far as retellings go, this one was pretty straightforward and there was absolutely no deviation when following the Cinderella tale. Evil stepmother and stepsisters, the endless chores, the magic pumpkin, the fairy godmother, the ball, the glass slipper, the prince – everything is there – just transposed in to a modern setting in a media/fandom context.

Danielle is obsessed with Starfield, which from my limited knowledge of it, is sort of like a fictional mashup of Star Trek and Star Wars, which is strange as these two franchises also exist in this book universe, so it would seem a bit derivative to have such a cult following. Also, I understand her obsession derives from her need to connect with her late parents, and is a form of escapism from her own life, but it is a bit too much. Apparently she has no friends because this makes her “weird” - which would happen if she has absolutely no other topic of conversation (it feels like it), because otherwise it is pretty normal to be in fandom. To make it worse, what I got from this is that she doesn’t even have the close online friends that usually come from living your life in the internet, and that her father was also obsessed to the point where her stepmother feels that he neglected his family. So this doesn’t feel as magical as it is supposed to be. There’s also some things that I found unclear or unbelievable, such as her stepmother being able to sell the house that belongs to Elle – if she can do that, she would be doing a transaction in Danielle’s name and the money would go to her, but well, I don’t know USA laws – and then Elle’s phone is described as a “brick” but it has a touch screen with unlock feature which sounds like a modern smartphone, and she obviously has a phone plan or she wouldn’t be texting a stranger all the time.

The mandatory romance story with the prince, Darien, is fairly basic: they connect trough their shared love of Starfield and his story is mainly the generic famous misunderstood people and their hardships, in this case also connected to fandom, and how he is a “true” fan but can’t show it. His insured abs are just ridiculous.

The “true fan” complex Elle and Darien seem to have also didn’t ring well with me. People don’t need to have started something as soon as it started, or before it was popular to enjoy it. People can get into a movie/show reboot because of an actor, or a director, or because someone in particular wrote the soundtrack. There’s various degrees of enjoyment and the way the two main characters judge it it feels like you need an unhealthy obsession to be considered entitled to enjoy it.

Other than that I can’t say much. There’s an instant two-day romance between two supporting characters, but it’s just mentioned towards the ending and I can’t say many characters are anything other than their stereotype/assigned fairy tale character.

Conclusion:

I was not very impressed with this book, but then I wasn’t expecting to like it so it wasn’t a disappointment. It’s a light read and can be enjoyable if you’re a fan of contemporary romance and don’t expect some sort of twist on your fairy tale retellings. I found it very average (finished reading it last night and this morning to write the review I couldn’t even remember the name of the fictional show the main character was obsessed with).

[This review can also be found here.]

#geekerella #ashley poston #once upon a con #book reviews #reviews #breviews

expatesque

S’s Guide to London

⇢ Daunt Books - the best bookstore in London (and maybe the world), Marylebone – W1U 4QW

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (by Mackenzi Lee) Book Review

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy is a YA historical fiction book by Mackenzi Lee, published in 2018 by Harry N. Abrams. It is the second book in the Montague Siblings series.

What made me want to read it:

It’s the sequel to The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, so of course I wanted to read it, specially since it focuses on a different character, Felicity. It’s also part of my Group read challenge.

What is it about (no spoilers):

Felicity Montague is trying to realize her aspirations to become a doctor, which seems apparently impossible due to her sex. However the perfect opportunity seems to present herself as her idol is going to marry one of her childhood friends.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

Although this wasn’t quite as fun to read as the first book, it was still fairly entertaining. I have to point out that, same as in the last book, although there’s a lot of traveling around, not much is said about the places they visit – yes, we are kept out of the basic showing of famous attractions but we are also not really made to feel as if the characters are in a completely different place. In this same line of criticism that transcends the series, the fantasy mixed in with the reality bothers me a bit, but I guess it’s treated as science more or less and it doesn’t take much of the spotlight.

I liked Felicity’s journey and seeing her learn how to repel some of her thoughts that force a distance between her and other girls, and liked seeing her look a how small her place in the world actually is. The two more important characters besides her also had their own goals and story. It is also (unfortunately) refreshing to see a YA book with a female main character without a secondary romantic subplot attached at the hip.

I do feel, however, that I was being preached at with some of the sentences in this book. Yes, we all know that no one really is “not like other girls”, we know you can like “feminine things” and “intelligent things” at the same time, we are all aware that empowerment for women has to come from a source other than how they are seen by men, etc, etc. Which is why if you want to get that message across, maybe try to show it more through actions and how the characters change instead of pushing it in my face every other chapter.

Conclusion:

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the first one, hence the lower rating, but I still enjoy it and recommend it. I am however confused as to whether this is supposed to be the end of the series or not, since there’s a lot left in the open.

[This review can also be found here.]

#mackenzi lee #the lady's guide to petticoats and piracy #the gentleman's guide to vice and virtue #montague siblings #book reviews #reviews #breviews

Bygone Badass Broads: 52 Forgotten Women Who Changed the World (by Mackenzi Lee) Book Review

Bygone Badass Broads: 52 Forgotten Women Who Changed the World is a non fiction historical book by Mackenzi Lee, illustrated by Petra Eriksson and published in 2018 by Harry N. Abrams. Mackenzi Lee is the author of the Montague Siblings series and This Monstrous Thing and participates in two anthologies: All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages and The Radical Element.

What made me want to read it:

I just joined a Group on Goodreads (The Theme Thieves), for which I am very excited! And it’s the first time I want to actually comply with the themes. I’m also enjoying Mackenzi Lee’s ongoing fiction series, so I thought why not?

What is it about (no spoilers):

This is an illustrated compilation of short biographies of 52 women from history, taken out from the author’s Twitter feed.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

I have to confess I'm not a fan of books written like a blog post, but in which that is clearly not the intent. I get the same feeling from it that I got from reading Pirate Women by Laura Sook Duncombe: the good intentions are there, the goal is clear, but the execution fails for me. Maybe it's all the modern language/slang, which to me reads like someone is trying too hard to make the stories attractive to young readers. Or maybe it's all the embellishments. The writer admits that for some of the stories there were almost no primary sources, and many were leaning more into myth material than actual historical records, but still their way of putting it down for this book feels fake, too stylized and unappealing to me.

Conclusion:

Overall, I find it a good compilation of names from history and legend for me to familiarize myself with and to do more research on my own, but it fails as an interesting theoretically non-fiction book. I'm sure many people will enjoy it, and as it is such a short read, I would still recommend it.

[This review can also be found here.]

#mackenzi lee #bygone badass broads #book reviews #reviews #breviews

welcometotheravenclawcommonroom

Rita Skeeter: Hi- I’m doing a special tenth anniversary report on the battle of Hogwarts. Tell me, what do you think Harry Potter’s greatest achievement is- defeating he-who-must-not-be-named the first time, the second time, winning the triwizard tournament, slaying the basilisk?

Literally all of Harry’s classmates: There’s no need to call me sir, Professor.

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